* Sorry, I have been extremely busy recently. However, for the next few weeks I'm almost completely free so I should have much more time to update this story. This update is rather short, and I hope it doesn't end too abruptly. It's part one of chapter two.

Also, just a reminder...I do try and remain consistent with cannon as far as basic factualities in the world are concerned. Grindelwald's first wand, for example, was made from strips of bark.

Anyway... I wrote this tonight and just wanted to let everyone know the story is indeed being continued.*

Part One Chapter Two

Eight years later...

Two torch embers were doused by the Summer drizzle of July. As the smoke dispersed into the air and mingled with the midnight fog, a ray of moonlight escaped the overcast and pierced through the haze. The sudden sliver of light descending from the sky illuminated the stone tablet above the drawbridge of a towering and deteriorated penitentiary. It read, "For the Greater Good."

As the writing was concealed once again by the shifting clouds, an owl swooped past the extinguished torches marking the entrance way and soared upwards, beating its wings at a rapid pace. Shooting towards the sky, the predator captured the fleeting sights of abandoned prison cells and crumbling stone, searching for its prey through the open windows once lined by iron rods. Twenty stories later it reached the top of the tower and perched itself on the ledge of the last remaining window still ceiled by bars, titling its head to a ninety degree angle and peering in at the sole inmate of Nurmengard.

The balding wizard adorned patched rags and was huddled in the corner of his cell. Mangled locks from his grey beard flowed past his frail chest and towards his navel; sunken hazel eyes swept from left to right as his scarred fingers turned a page of the most recent text he had received from an old nemesis. While the candlelight flickered from a gust of wind, bitter laughter echoed within the chamber as he tossed the book into a pile among many others - his lingering smile revealing yellow teeth tarnished by several blackened crevices.

"Blithering imbecile," he quipped under his breath as he shook his head, "Never changes."

As anticipated, he heard approaching footsteps reverberating off the stone stairwell from below. Oddly enough, his two meals of the day came at twelve noon and twelve a.m sharp.

"Grindelwald," he heard the guard whisper, hearing his voice along with his name for the first time in a year.

Turning to face the familiar guard behind the barred entrance for the first time in nearly a year, he jumped a half step backwards as his silver brows rose to his forehead - his pleasant expression fading into a suspicious glare.

The guard was not the plump old man that he had come to expect after hearing his name, but instead a tall handsome young gentleman with parted dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His right hand was tattooed with a triangular rune of the deathly hallows.

"We don't have much time. We must hurry," he continued to whisper as he shoved a plate of rice and beans under the rusted bars of his cell.

Only wasting a few seconds more as he gazed at the gentleman behind his bars, Grindelwald picked the plate up and flung its contents against the wall. Beneath the slop of his measly dinner he found a thin sheet of hornbeam bark with an adhesive film on its backside.

Turning back and pulling out his rough-hewn bed, he reached towards the back corner where its wobbly leg post had strips of layered bark pinned against the wall. The wood was shaped into an eight inch rod, which encapsulated a long strand of Thestral hair.

As Grindelwald sat down on his bed, he started to extend the makeshift wand by rolling the bark against his leg and around the rod's rough exterior.

"My very first wand..." Grindelwald began to reminisce while he continued to fashion the wand with his feeble hands. His voice was hoarse yet still lively, only affected by a faint german accent. "You know, I was about half your age when I received it, maybe less. Much like this one really, only difference being that it was fashioned from elmwood bark. Of course...it was constructed with far more finesse, proper tools, oils, everything one might need. This one here," he paused as he eyed the wand as if it were made by an infant, "may not even function properly."

The guard peered down the corridor and then back again, tilting his head towards the ground and tightening his lips.

"I understand," he continued in a whisper. "I would have brought you a wand myself, except that everyone is searched before entering the tower. Even the food from downstairs, sir... it is usually inspected before being delivered to you. That is why it has taken so many years. My duty here is only to maintain whats left of the tower, cook, run errands for the others... those sorts of things. They only ask me to take your dinner when they're busy recasting the wards or drunk and playing cards - as they are now."

Pausing as he stole a glance at Grindelwald's new wand, the gentleman narrowed his eyes in concern and let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry, sir, but that will have to do. My polyjuice is now depleted...I had to take your dinner straight to you this time. They'll be looking for me at any moment. I'm afraid its now or never."

Grindelwald allowed a quick smile to curl his chapped lips.

"So thats why the food has become so deplorable..."

"Yes sir," the young man replied with a grin of his own, allowing a chuckle to linger on his breath.

"Well... its good to know I still have a few followers left out there," Grindelwald remarked while he ran his fingers down towards the tip of his wand - a now finished product. Closing his eyes, he let out a deep breath as he clutched its handle and widened his blemished smile. He appeared as if here an exiled king grasping his scepter for the first time in many years, relishing in memories of his lost power and fortitude.

"You have many, sir," the gentleman contradicted, "both young and old. Your ideas... they have lived on over the years. I myself have risked almost everything to get where we are now...my family, my life, already my career."

Staring at the elderly prisoner, he could see that he wanted to speak. Yet, Grindelwald remained silent for several seconds until he walked over towards the bars that separated them. Every feature of the decrepit figure became more discerning as he neared the gentleman; his sunken eyes no longer appearing dead and hopeless, but alive and impassioned. Even his uneven hobble no longer seemed to represent that of a defeated and tired old man, but somehow marked by an air of nobility and purpose.

"I wish I could extend a hand of comfort to you my friend," he said, "but sacrifice, and yours in particular, is the father of progress - change. There is no room for sympathy in our struggle for the greater good...I am ready to leave here when you are."

Staring back into his eyes, the young man only replied with a nod of his head as he took out a piece of folded parchment and slipped it to Grindelwald through the bars.

"This tower..." he began under his breath before swallowing a knot in his throat, "it has six guards. Two guarding the drawbridge on the ground floor and four on the level below us. Just outside this cell is a stairwell that will lead you to the drawbridge on the bottom floor, the two guards outside of it are the only ones you will have to concern yourself with. I can only give you so much time though, so you will have to be as quick. There is no way I can hold off the others indefinitely."

Pursing his lips, Grindelwald nodded and held up the parchment that he was given. "And this?"

"Its where you will be going, sir," the gentleman was now speaking with more and more haste. "He is an old friend of yours. You should be safe there. Just make sure to exit through the drawbridge, from there you will be free to fly out of here... only effected by the apparation wards, which extend for at least a mile. On the seventh floor you will find the broom I left for you, its in a closet right next to the doorway. You can't miss it."

"Thank you," Grindelwald spoke in an equally hushed manner, raising his wand and pointing it at the bars in front of him.

"No!" the gentleman stopped him. "You save your energy, you'll need all you can get. Please...allow me."

Grindelwald nodded again while they both took a few steps back. As the gentleman raised his wand he paused for another moment and looked inside the cell.

"My name is also written on the parchment. If I fall, you tell my family what I died for, Grindelwald...please. For the greater good."

Without waiting for a response, he pointed his wand at the cell door.

"Bombarda!"

As the bars flew off the hinges, sirens rang throughout the tower while Grindelwald waved his wand over himself. A slight frown would have been detectable on his face if it weren't for his invisibility charm - one that only rendered him as a shadowy figure instead of the crystal clear outline he was accustomed to before his incarceration.

Taking a deep breath, Grindelwald managed a light jog as he followed the man that had broke him free down the corridor and towards the winding stairwell that would soon lead him to his freedom.