A silhouette of a man stood atop a mountain from which a large black flag bearing the symbol of the deathly hallows fluttered anxiously in the darkened sky. Gellert Grindelwald placed an elegant hand against his head in concentrated thought as he looked down upon the scattered corpses which littered the barren mountainside below him.
Somewhere behind him he could hear the loud, clunky steps of one of his soldiers approaching. "Herr Grindelwald, Sir." He continued to look down the mountain while the soldier briefed him on their current gains in the battlefield. There was a loud rumbling in the sky and a flash of lightning struck the woods behind them as the heavens opened and heavy rain began to fall. Pulling the heavy hood of his dark green and gold military robes over his golden locks of hair, Gellert flicked his wrist without turning his gaze away from the mountainside. With a prompt nod of the head, the soldier returned to his comrades. Gellert waited for his footsteps to fade before he too spun on his heeled boots and with a flash of green and gold made his way steadily and silently through the woods behind him towards camp.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"…was what Gilderoy Lockhart wanted to scream as he fell towards the ground of a dark wood in the middle of a torrential downpour. Instead his voice froze in terror. From inside the pocket of his exquisite purple robes the elm wood wand performed a spell on its own accord, softening the landing for both itself and its owner. There were a few moments in which Gilderoy lay face down on the muddy floor of the woods wondering if he was about to enter heaven. After the realisation of his continued existence gradually came to him, Gilderoy pushed himself up onto his knees and squinted in the darkness around him, wiping mud out of his face. In a panic he fumbled around his pockets in search of his wand, praying it hadn't been damaged by the impact. Finally finding it he pulled it out from his robes with baited breath. There wasn't even a scratch on its smooth wooden exterior.
"Lumos."
The light from the wand lit up the trees near him, casting strange and twisted shadows along the now heavily mudded ground. Hastily Gilderoy spun around, unsure of how or why he had ended up in such a place. He could see a faint glowing light in the distance and could hear what sounded like faint singing. Terrible, out-of-tune singing. Cautiously he took a step in the direction of the light, but before he could take another step there was a flash of green and gold. A hooded figure stood in front of him, elegant black and gold wand pointed directly at his chest.
"What do we have here?" A soft, honeyed, yet commanding voice drizzled down Gilderoy's ears.
"Gilderoy Lockhart" Gilderoy replied tartly, tightening the grip on his wand. "Who…who are you?"
Even with the hood up Gilderoy could make out a smile forming on the stranger.
Gellert gave it a second, enjoying the fear building up in Gilderoy before pulling back his hood with his free hand, golden hair glowing under the light of the elm wand.
It didn't take Gilderoy a second to recognise the infamous wizard standing in front of him, but at the same time he wasn't sure he could believe it, after all, Grindelwald had been locked up in prison for decades. And, unless he had found a perfect anti-aging potion, the man standing in front of Gilderoy was far too young to be Gellert Grindelwald.
Realising that Gilderoy wasn't about to say anything soon, Gellert continued in his soft, honey voice. "Gellert Grindelwald. Now, why don't you tell me why you are within the perimeters of my protective enchantments?"
"Uh. Am I?" Gilderoy responded, glancing around in the dark. "Are you really the Grindelwald?"
Gellert raised an eyebrow. "I suppose I am, unless you know of another Grindelwald who is fighting a war at the moment?"
War? There was no war where Gilderoy had just come from. The egg in his pocket was suddenly weighing him down. In all the confusion he had completely forgotten about it, but now he was beginning to remember. The egg was a time travelling device. He hadn't, however, expected it to take him back to this time, with this dangerous wizard.
Thinking quickly on his feet, Gilderoy had always been able to talk his way out of trouble. This wasn't going to be an exception.
"Mr Grindelwald." He drew himself up, making himself stand taller than the wizard in front of him. "I am here to help you fulfil your destiny."
Gellert laughed softly.
Gilderoy cleared his throat. "If you will let me show you your current future, without my help." He turned the elm wand to the side and created a screen out of smoke. One thing Gilderoy prided himself in was his ability to perform memory charms, another was to display and produce said memories. The smoke turned a light purple in colour, it curled and filtered into a scene. Gellert, wand still firmly pointed at Gilderoy, watched as a vision of him was displayed. He was fighting a tall, slender figure with sweeping, long red hair whose smoky robes were an alluring shade of sky blue. Albus.
A split second later and the scene changed. The Gellert in the vision had aged, by several decades it would appear, he was sat in a stone cold room; a cell. There was a sweeping dark figure, a flash of green and the Gellert in the vision fell lifeless to the floor of the cell.
The smoke faded. Gilderoy turned to look back at Grindelwald. The most dangerous wizard of all-time lowered his wand slowly and looked at Gilderoy with heart-stopping dark eyes.
"You don't want to be double crossing me, Mr…"
"Lockhart." Gilderoy flashed a bright smile full of perfectly white teeth. "But I think you can call me Gilderoy."
There was something about Gilderoy Lockhart; a certain type of charm, which even the Gellert Grindelwald couldn't resist.
