A/N: Originally posted on ao3 under the pen name youngjusticewriter. Part five of the "The advantages of foreknowledge and the disadvantages" series.
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
"Come in," Harry tells - no, orders Grindelwald with a smile. It's as false as the little crocodile's.
Grindelwald makes no sign, nor says anything, about suspecting it to be false. That doesn't surprise Harry at all. There's two reasons for that. "You and I can share a cuppa while Albus and Aberforth are out."
First reason is that Harry learnt early on how to give a believable smile even when he was anything but happy. He had to living with the Dursleys; with Uncle Vernon who already thought he was ungrateful child.
Uncle Vernon who thought he could beat the ungratefulness out of him just like Harry's freakness. (Neither worked in the end.)
Second reason is that people often see what they want to see. Especially arrogant people. Gellert Grindelwald is just as arrogant as he is charming. He's just like Tom Riddle - like Voldemort in his youth- and that makes the hair on the back of Harry's stand up even further than it was from just knowing who he is and what he will become.
Harry isn't scared of Grindelwald though (not much scares Harry these days). Maybe because Grindelwald is nothing compared to Voldemort. Grindelwald only went as far as the Hallows. He was never willing to rip his souls in pieces like Voldemort was for immortality. Harry wonders briefly what that tells him about the foreign wizard as said wizard sits down in the chair in front of him.
"How are you?" Harry asks Grindelwald despite the fact he doesn't care. He feels like his Aunt Petunia and his stomach twists in disgust.
"Vell you?" Grindelwald answers politely. Charmingly even to some but Harry isn't some. Once burnt shy is the saying. He trusted a strange charming, handsome wizard once and it got Hermione petrified and Hagrid in Azkaban. Harry learns from his mistakes (he had to, not for himself but the ones he loved).
"Wary," he confesses honestly. "I once knew a wizard like you. He was gifted, charming but dark. Because of him several people I love are dead." Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Dobby, Dumbledore and Fred to name a few. He never got a chance to love his parents because of Voldemort. He still bitterly wonders if things could have been different despite the time that's gone past; despite death and time travel.
Grindelwald eyes are wide from Harry's candor and Harry tiredly raises an eyebrow at the young man before sipping his earl grey.
It's bitter but Harry didn't make the tea for the purpose of enjoyment.
"Before you open your mouth and try to charmingly defend yourself I would like you tell you something else. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this. I was a Gryffindor when I was in Hogwarts," Harry informed Albus' whatever this time term was for boyfriend with a soft smile whilst his tone and eyes were anything but
"And we're known for being brash and candor. Now here's something I've only told my two best friends. The Sorting Hat wanted to place me in Slytherin - actually it said I would be great in the Hogwart's house for resourcefulness and cunning. Now being in house doesn't mean you have the traits of the house," Harry admitted, the memory of Pettigrew coming to the forefront of Harry's mind.
"But I do admit I have a habit of trouble finding me then luck and being resourceful getting me out of it mostly unscathed-" Mostly being the key word. Memories of his sight of Chamber of Secrets, fading into black because of the burning Basilisk venom, the Dementors almost delivering their kiss to him and his friends, Sirius' death, and so much more came to Harry's mind; looming over his thoughts like a dark storm cloud."-though if you asked it was mostly luck despite what my friends would tell you." If they had been born yet, Harry mentally amended his statement.
"The reason why I'm telling you all this is because I'm warning you. If you hurt one of the Dumbledores I swear to you I will kill you," Harry simply says. One would expect the discussion to be about weather not a promise of grim revenge at how Harry simply tells his guest this.
"It may not be that day or that year but one day you will die by my hand. And you should pray you never are stupid enough to kill one of them." In Harry's mind he remembers walking into his flat and first stumbling on the slumped corpse of Kreacher, who like James, had no marking on his cold body.
Harry closes his eyes for a several seconds because he will not cry in front of Grindelwald.
Once upon a time threatening to murder someone would have horrified Harry but that has long since past. He's watched to many people he loved die. Their blood is on his hands; his son is dead only because James was his son.
Harry doesn't want to imagine Ariana having the same fate that his son had (the fate Harry should have had) even though he must think about it. Should he interfere and play God? Ariana was a child, just recently became fourteen, she shouldn't have died. But wasn't Harry fourteen when his name was entered into the Goblet of Fire and he watched helplessly as Credic - another person who was dead because of him- was murdered right before him? Wands out, d'you reckon?, had been his last words Harry recalled.
Ariana, a child, an innocent was murdered in the crossfire of a wizarding duel between her brothers and Grindelwald. Which would turn the kindling love between Albus and Grindelwald into bad blood and turn Albus from the path he had going down.
If Ariana didn't die Albus might just follow his love down the path of wizard supremacy. How many could potentially die if that did happen? What was one life compared to hundreds if not thousands?
The very thought made Harry sick. Ariana was a child, an innocent, and despite being like Luna in personality she reminded him of himself. But, instead of being the boy who lived she was the girl who should die.
But Harry isn't Albus.
He's done his job. He's done the greater good for the wizarding world. And he's lost too many of the people he's loved and would have loved if the choice hadn't snatched from his hands. He's going to prevent the duel and if it does happen despite everything Harry will save Ariana.
Greater good can kiss his buttock.