– CHAPTER SEVEN –
Gellert Grindelwald
The first few weeks at Hogwarts passed quickly for Tom.
They were a blur of reading, writing, learning and practicing spells, as well as exploring the castle, which Tom soon found out was much larger than he'd originally thought. There were seven floors, excluding the Dungeons, and more towers and turrets than could be counted. Navigating his way through the castle between classes was proving challenging, partly because the castle was so large and partly because the staircases moved around without warning.
He had never been so engrossed in anything else the same way he was with magic. He learned a great many things on the first day of classes alone, and he very quickly realized that the amount of theory and practice that seemed to go into even the simplest spells was staggering. Yet despite this, Tom thrived in his classes, excelling in every way. As a first-year, Tom had seven different lessons: Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, Astronomy and Defense Against the Dark Arts.
In Herbology, he learned about the many magical plants and their properties from Professor Beery, Head of Hufflepuff House. He was a kindly, very talkative man, with a stout frame and a bald patch atop his head. During their first lesson, they learned about a thorny plant that had a tendency of strangling you if you weren't paying close attention, called Devil's Snare. It was so named because if you gave it the chance it would wrap you up and constrict you to death. Professor Beery told them about the plants origins, who had discovered it, and most importantly, how to combat it. He had them practice fighting off the Devil's Snare using a combination of sunlight and fire, both of which caused the plant to screech and shrivel up back into it's pot.
Charms was taught by the tiny Professor Flitwick, the new Head of Ravenclaw House. He typically taught the class from behind a small desk, he himself being propped up on various texts, teaching them the principles of enchanting objects, and of course the levitation spell, Wingardium Leviosa. Tom had easily made the feather that Professor Flitwick set on his desk soar around the room, to Professor Flitwick's delight. Bored, he'd tried levitating other, heavier things, even succeeding in moving Professor Flitwick's desk across the room (with Flitwick still sitting at it). The Professor had laughed.
Professor Merrythought, a very old, feeble looking witch who had been teaching nearly fifty years, taught Defense Against the Dark Arts. She had wild, curly grey hair and sunken eyes. Despite her appearance, however, she remained very animated in classroom discussions and had vast amounts of knowledge on the subject of the Dark Arts and how to fight them. Tom was less interested in how to combat them than he was on the Dark Arts themselves. Professor Merrythought had talked about them in her first lesson, detailing the sorts of things Dark Wizards have been known for in the past, from summoning vast amounts of Inferi (which Druella had been correct in saying were animated corpses), to summoning and controlling dark creatures to do their bidding. The combative techniques for fighting the Dark Arts were far less interesting than the Dark Arts themselves, in Tom's opinion.
History of Magic was a very dull affair. It was taught by the Ghost teacher Tom had noticed during the Sorting Ceremony, Professor Binns. According to some of the older Slytherins, Professor Binns had fallen asleep in the staff room one day and died, but rather than moving on as most people did, he simply got up as a Ghost and continued teaching, if you could even call it that. At the beginning of every lesson, Professor Binns drifted through the blackboard at the front of the room and immediately began lecturing. He stood at the front of the class and read magical history from a textbook in a very monotone sort of voice right up until the bell released them. Tom had spent most of these classes reading other, more interesting volumes on magical history he'd gotten out of the library that taught him more in the span of five minutes than he thought he would ever learn from Professor Binns.
Astronomy proved to be as uninteresting to Tom as his History of Magic lessons. Every Wednesday evening at midnight, the first-years would head up to the Astronomy Tower, which was the tallest in the castle, and take notes on the positions and movements of the planets and stars. Tom failed to see how knowing Mar's position in relation to Jupiter's would increase his magical power and he considered the subject to be very wooly.
Potions had soon become one of the more interesting classes, largely due to how Professor Slughorn had begun their first lesson. He'd arranged five very different potions on a table at the front of the class, and had the class guess at the sorts of things they could do. Even Tom couldn't have guessed them all, and some of the effects had been so fantastical that it was hard to believe they were real. One was the world's deadliest poison. It had no known antidote and bubbled a sickly green colour. The second looked like liquid gold, and Slughorn said that it would make the drinker extraordinarily lucky. The third was clear as water, and would make the drinker invisible, ('Though,' Slughorn had said, 'you must always remember to take it sparingly, lest you disappear for good.'), the fourth allowed you to take the form of someone else, and was a horrible smelling potion that was the colour of mud and was just as thick, while the fifth was a purple potion that simmered lightly within its cauldron, which Slughorn said would provide the drinker with dreamless sleep – or horrible, debilitating nightmares, if you brewed it wrong.
It also became clear very quickly that Slughorn favoured Tom and a select few other students above everyone else. Most of the favourites had famous parents or grandparents and were not limited to those of Slytherin house. One of their Gryffindor classmates was the son of some famous Potioneer, though it became apparent very quickly that the necessary skills of a Potionmaker were not hereditary.
Tom was favoured, according to Slughorn, for his sheer brilliance. In their second lesson, he had produced a perfect cure for boils in half the usual time by enchanting his silver knife to cut the ingredients for him (a trick learned from one of his library textbooks), while Tom set to stirring the potion himself. Slughorn had declared his use of wandwork 'extraordinary', which pleased Tom and seemed to annoy Druella, sitting opposite him.
But easily his least favourite subject was Transfiguration. The subject itself was fascinating, and involved turning objects into other things, and at the more advanced levels, could even be used to change human beings, vanish objects from thin air, or conjure things seemingly from nothing. No, the issue with Transfiguration was that it was exclusively taught by Professor Dumbledore, and if Tom had thought that he'd forgotten what had happened at the orphanage, he was very wrong.
Dumbledore was a very able teacher, that much had to be said. His lessons were a perfect blend of theory and note taking, coupled with practical demonstrations by Dumbledore himself. There was a certain amount of wandwork required for Transfiguration, and it was Dumbledore's assurance that precise, steady hands were required to be successful in Transfiguration. Waving the wand the wrong way, he had said, could be the difference between a canary and a crocodile.
On the whole, Dumbledore seemed to treat Tom as if he were any other student. Though he excelled at Transfiguration as much, if not more so, as his other classes, Dumbledore was unlike Slughorn and the rest, and did not praise him or offer him special treatment, but merely eyed him from beneath his half-moon spectacles with a piercing look that gave Tom the impression that Dumbledore could see through him.
'Welcome to Transfiguration,' Dumbledore had said on the first day in his singularly quiet voice. He stood in front of the class in his lilac robes with his auburn beard tucked into his belt as usual. On a small table at the front of the class was a very small, brown sparrow chirping merrily. 'Transfiguration, simply put, is the art of transformation. Turning one thing,' he had said, flicking his wand in a very precise movement, 'into another.' And in a great gust of flame, the sparrow almost seemed to explode outward and take flight. Only, it was different now. It was much larger, and bright red and orange feathers shimmered as it flew, looking as much like a live fire as it was possible to be. It flew around the classroom twice, its long tailfeathers brushing the heads of the students, and came to rest very gently upon Dumbledore's shoulders. 'This is Fawkes,' said Dumbledore to the very impressed crowd. 'Fawkes is a phoenix and very rare and fascinating creatures, they are.'
From there, Dumbledore had launched into the basic theories of Transfiguration. They'd taken notes on the different schools of Transfiguration, of which there were four: Transformation, Vanishment, Conjuration and Untransfiguration, though Professor Dumbledore said that the last three wouldn't be covered until much later. Wandwork, they learned, was paramount to successful Transfiguration, and the process of turning one thing into another required very precise wand movements depending on what you were actually trying to achieve.
They practiced a wand movement for a few minutes (it looked almost like drawing a circle in mid-air, moving clockwise, with a little flick of the wrist close to the end), and Dumbledore walked around the class correcting the movements people made, or how they were holding their wands. Once he was satisfied, he waved his wand once and from a box on the front desk flew several dozen matches, which hovered over to each individual student and dropped down in front of them.
He asked that each student attempt to turn the simple match into a needle using the wand movement they'd practiced and the incantation they'd recorded earlier in the lesson. By the end, only Tom had succeeded, although Alphard swore his had gone from brown to a silver colour.
When Professor Dumbledore dismissed them, Tom began packing up his things alongside his classmates until Professor Dumbledore approached his desk and picked up what used to be Tom's match. Dumbledore looked at it for a moment and then raised the point to his finger, pricking himself and drawing a small amount blood. There was a pause, until Dumbledore said, 'Very good, Tom.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Tom stiffly.
'I wonder… Do you think yourself capable of Transfiguring it back into a match?'
Tom hesitated only a moment. Truthfully, he wasn't sure how to do it, but he would never tell Dumbledore that. Alphard was standing beside him watching expectantly, and a few of his other classmates had stopped packing up to watch as well.
Tom shrugged his bag off of his shoulder and took out his wand again. He'd turned the match into a needle, surely the reverse was no more difficult? Yet Dumbledore had never told him how to reverse Transfigurations. In fact, he'd said that was advanced magic, not to be learnt until later. Was he trying to humble him?
Tom pointed his wand at the needle that Dumbledore had placed back on the desk and concentrated. He was reverting an object back to its original form, doing the opposite of what he had just done, so Tom, pushed by some unknown instinct, performed the same wand movement with which he had succeeded in turning the match into a needle, but in reverse.
He waved his wand in a counter-clockwise circle and spoke the incantation, flicking his wand just as Dumbledore had taught them. There was a faint shimmer that went through the air, almost like a heat wave that you saw on a very hot summer day, and Tom watched as the needle went from silver to brown, from sharp at the end to bulbous and red, like the match it had been before.
Wordlessly, Dumbledore reached down and picked up the match, holding it up in front of his face for inspection. Then, in a movement so quick Tom almost couldn't follow it, Dumbledore dragged the head of the match across the tabletop, igniting it. Everyone watched as Dumbledore held it up in front of his face again, eyeing it very intently as the flames licked down the wood until they were almost at Dumbledore's fingers. Then he blew it out.
'You have good instincts, Tom,' said Dumbledore after a moment. 'Reversing the movement of the wand will work with simple Transfigurations such as these, though it can be more difficult for the undisciplined. I am impressed.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Tom, nodding. 'I thought doing the opposite would put it back.'
'You were quite right. We will be covering the reversal of this type of Transfiguration in next weeks' class.' He looked out at the rest of the students who had remained and said, 'That will be everything. No homework today, I would imagine you've received quite enough already.'
As Transfiguration had been the last class of the first day, Professor Dumbledore could not have been more right. Professor Beery had assigned them a foot and a half for Herbology, Professor Binns had asked for a foot on one of the Goblin wars, and Professor Merrythought had them begin researching the origins of defensive magic, with the assurance that practical demonstrations would be in the next lesson.
Tom had breezed through his essays and practical lessons and begun taking up more difficult challenges in his spare time. Through use of vacant classrooms, Tom had been able to practice more advanced magic than was being taught in his lessons. He'd removed as many spellbooks from the library as the Librarian, Ms Smythe, allowed. Ms Smythe was strict and very protective of her books and Tom had been reminded of Mrs Cole with the way she had scrutinized him when he'd asked for spellbooks beyond his level. She'd complied, of course, but when he'd wandered too close to the Restricted Section, which was kept locked at all times, she had saw fit to move him to the other end of the library.
But Tom wasn't only interested in spellbooks. He'd asked Ms Smythe if there were any books detailing wizarding families, hoping to trace his own ancestry through his father's line. Though Ms Smythe had fetched the books for him, Tom could find no mention of his father Tom Riddle within them. It was infuriating. He knew what he was to be looking for, but not where to look. He could not be certain what kind of wizard his father had been, and so did not know where to begin.
Perhaps he ought to search through records of old Potions awards? Yet that seemed unlikely, as Professor Slughorn did not remember teaching a Riddle, he had said as much in Diagon Alley. Perhaps he could check publications, old essays catalogued in the depths of the library? One thing Tom was certain of however, was that if he was ever going to find out about his father, it was going to take a long time.
However, that wasn't Tom's only problem. He also had to contend with Alphard and Druella's constant presence, who seemed intent on following him around and sitting beside him in classes. No doubt they were hoping to pick up tips to impress the teachers, latching onto to Tom like parasites, but Tom soon found that they had their uses. Alphard was quite knowledgeable when you got him talking, although he was very timid when asked questions by teachers. Since he'd grown up in the wizarding world, he had a lot of knowledge that Tom was interested in. They spent a few hours in the Slytherin common room each night where Tom asked him all manner of questions. Alphard was more than happy to talk without end.
Druella came from a wizarding family as well, and shared in Alphard's pure-blood views. She was clever and shrewd, and very suspicious. Her family, the Rosiers, was almost as large as the Blacks, and Druella had several cousins who were in higher years, all who shared her pure-blood views. In fact, most of Slytherin House seemed to share the idea of pure-blood supremacy, which Tom learned was a distinguishing factor of the House. Apparently the founder, Salazar Slytherin, had always held the belief that only pure-bloods ought to be taught at Hogwarts, for fear that Muggle-borns and Half-Bloods would deteriorate the wizarding lines.
Tom maintained that he was a pure-blooded orphan, though he couldn't be certain that was true. It was likely that his mother had been a Muggle since she'd died giving birth to him, which was a very mundane thing. Surely a witch could have prevented such? Tom's father had to have been the magical parent, Tom was sure of it, but no mention of him appeared in the books in the library. Perhaps the Riddle line was simply less distinguished than that of Black or Rosier. The thought of it angered him.
And then of course there was Roy, who was still holding a grudge for what had happened that very first night in Slytherin common room. Tom sensed that very soon it would come to a confrontation between the two of them, and he was determined to come out on top.
Roy kept a gang of thugs with him at all times. Most were in fifth-year, like him, though a few were younger. Tom had taken particular notice of two second-years who hung around Roy and his gang – Avery and Lestrange. Avery was tall, pale and blonde with sharp features and a sneering smile. He was almost always laughing or smiling, as though he were part of some secret joke that the rest of the world wasn't privy to. The Lestrange boy was quieter, and much larger. Though only a year older, he was taller even than Tom, with thick arms and a broad chest, he struck an imposing figure even at twelve.
Tom would watch them in the common room from afar, looking for weak links in the chain that made up Roy's gang. Avery and Lestrange, though part of the gang for a certainty, were often left out, likely due to their age. At fifteen, most of the boys in Roy's gang had little enough in common with them, and Avery and Lestrange only seemed to gravitate towards Roy for lack of a better leader. Tom was determined to be that leader very soon.
As it was now, Tom sat in an armchair by the fire, reading a spare textbook out of the library that was typically used in fifth year Defense Against the Dark Arts. Tom was reading about the Unforgivable Curses when Alphard sat down beside him, leaning over to see what he was reading.
'Whoa,' he said half impressed and half disgusted. 'Look at those pictures!'
'That one's the Cruciatus Cruse,' said Tom, pointing at the image which Alphard was looking at. It showed a wizard lying on his back, clearly screaming in agony as another wizard pointed their wand at him. 'Inflicts pain. There's also Imperio, which offers control of a person, and Avada Kedavra, the killing curse.'
Alphard looked a bit uncomfortable. 'Where did you get that?'
'The library. I'm reading it for Defense Against the Dark Arts. These are some of the darkest spells out there.'
Tom snapped the book shut before Alphard could say anything else and stowed it away in his bag beside the armchair. The Avery boy had strode over with Lestrange and sat down in the armchairs opposite Tom.
'I've been meaning to talk to you,' said Avery, smiling and offering Tom his hand, which he took. 'Hell of a thing you did to Roy first day.'
Lestrange nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. His hair was dark and long, falling into his eyes, while Avery's blonde locks were kept short and swept to one side. Avery had a casual air about him, whilst Lestrange was stiff.
'Roy's pretty angry,' continued Avery. 'He keeps talking about getting back at you.'
'He is welcome to try,' sneered Tom. 'There are plenty more lamps.'
'You'll need more than lamps, I'd say. Roy's big and dumb, and no great shakes at magic, but I've seen him do some things pretty scary things with his fists.'
Tom said nothing and merely stared into the fire. He wasn't afraid of Roy. This was Hogwarts, a school of magic, and it was here that magic ruled, not who was biggest or toughest. Sure, Roy was much larger than him, older even, but Tom was confident that despite his age, he was the better at magic. He had watched from afar as Roy struggled when practicing magic in the common room, and Tom was certain that his boasting about how impressive he was with magic was just for the benefit of the gaggle of girls who seemed to follow his gang around.
'Why do you hang around him, then?' Alphard asked.
But Avery merely shrugged. 'The other boys in our year are idiots,' he said. 'And that's saying something, since Lestrange can scarcely spell his own name.'
Lestrange turned red at this and bristled, flexing his arms.
'Roy's big and he's dumb, but he's got Slytherin House in his pocket for now,' said Avery. 'It's better to be in the gang than outside of it.' Avery turned from Alphard and looked at Tom, who was still staring intently at the fire. 'Just ask Tom here, he's got a target on his back already, and he's not even out of first-year.'
But finally, Tom had heard enough. He rounded on Avery, his face contorted in anger and said, 'I am not afraid of Roy, and very soon, you'll see why.'
Avery only sniggered in response but Alphard looked shocked. 'Tom!' he said nervously. 'You can't really think to – I mean, Roy's in fifth year.'
Tom glanced across the common room where Roy was sitting, surrounded by his gang and a few girls. Tom had taken an interest in a few of the gang members in addition to Avery and Lestrange. There was Walter Rosier, a distant cousin of Druella's, whom Tom took to be Roy's best friend of the group. Then there was an Albert Crabbe, a fifth-year as large as he was stupid (and he was very large), and Abraxas Malfoy, a very smug and pompous sixth-year who lorded over any of the younger Slytherins.
It was through observation that Tom saw the benefits of Roy's position. As a leader, he had much influence over others, and despite his stupidity, his gang thought of him as smart and clever, obeying his orders without question, whether they were to bully, scare or trick someone mattered not – they obeyed. It was also much more difficult to be implicated in anything wrong when half the house was in your gang and the other half afraid of it. Who would dare say something had gone wrong?
Tom was determined to usurp Roy's position as gang leader, and he was confident that he could do it, but it needed to be public. The whole of Slytherin house would need to be witness to it, or else Tom would be left with an embarrassed and defeated Roy and a bunch of angry fifteen year olds. If they witnessed Roy's fall, there would be no question of coming over to Tom. The weak, the stupid and the cowardly had their uses, but they always gravitated towards the strong.
At that moment, Druella appeared from behind Tom and sat in the armchair opposite him, The Daily Prophet clutched in her hands. She was reading an article from the middle, so that the front-page news was all Tom could see.
'GRINDELWALD ON THE MOVE' read the title, showing a map of Europe with a dotted red line across it, moving from east to west, stopping somewhere in Germany. Upon closer inspection, Tom saw that the dotted line was labeled 'Grindelwald'.
'Are you done with that?' asked Tom, reaching a hand out to take hold of the newspaper.
Druella sighed, folding it up again. 'Yes, I suppose so. Nothing interesting, anyway.'
Tom disagreed once he scanned the article.
GRINDELWALD ON THE MOVE
Gellert Grindelwald, self-proclaimed Dark Wizard, has left a trail of devastation and horror in the East that encompasses several different counrtries. Reports of hoards of Inferi, werewolves and even Giants amongst Grindelwald's growing army have become increasingly more common, and Grindelwald himself now appears to be moving westward.
Minister for Magic, Hector Fawley, has in the past declared Grindelwald a "disgruntled and maddened outcast", who would "easily be apprehended should he ever appear in Britain again". Now, however, Minister Fawley has changed his tune (many speculate this sudden change in view a final bid to retain his position, as many are calling for his resignation), denouncing Grindelwald as a threat to the security of the wizarding community at large. The Minister has called for the wizarding community to remain vigilant in their stance against the Dark Arts.
"The Ministry of Magic is working closely with eastern Ministries to control the Grindelwald situation," Fawley said Monday, addressing reporters within the Ministry of Magic. "In the meantime, we urge the magical community to report any suspicious activity to the Ministry at once."
While Grindelwald remains in eastern Europe for now, experts agree that this is likely only temporary while he gathers himself followers in the east (who have always had an affinity for the darker aspects of magic through magical institutions such as Durmstrang Institute), and that his true goal of toppling European Ministries will not be complete until he returns to Britain.
For an excerpt from Elsabeth Vulchanov's upcoming book How Gellert Grindelwald Rose to Power (A Study from Birth to the Beginnings of Revolution).
Tom, eager to hear more about the wizard who had inspired such fear and hysteria throughout Britain, turned to page 4 to continue reading. There was a picture at the top of Elsabeth Vulchanov, who appeared to be no older than twenty and very dark-haired and pretty, smiling. Tom skipped the part that talked about the author and skimmed the article until he found the excerpt he'd been promised.
GRINDELWALD AT DURMSTRANG
Grindelwald's education at Durmstrang Institute began very much like any other boy's, although it soon became clear to both his peers and his teachers that he was extraordinary. Blessed with good looks and uncommon magical ability, Grindelwald soon distinguished himself amongst his classmates at Durmstrang, which has turned out any number of great witches and wizards. Grindelwald collected several awards and prizes over the course of his years at the school, and his teachers were very pleased with him. He showed exuberance and a great thirst for knowledge.
"Eager," one of his teachers said of him when I visited the castle (though I cannot remember where it is – visitors must comply with memory charms in order to keep the school location a secret). "Hungry for knowledge, and aye, for power. That too, but none of us were so different when we were young. Gellert Grindelwald was no different than any other young Durmstrang boy – intelligent, confident, exceptionally skilled, and full of ideas of what it meant to be a wizard. Everyone expected great things of him."
But Grindelwald's ideas of what it meant to be a wizard seemed to grow more and more sinister as he grew up. Whilst at school, Grindelwald talked of the subjugation of Muggles and the rights of Wizards. Indeed, he was so vocal about his views on this matter that one of his teachers grew profoundly uncomfortable.
"Durmstrang has always strived to maintain it's pure-blooded roots," said the instructor, who refused to offer her name for interview, "and as such we have never allowed Muggle-born wizards admittance into our halls. Grindelwald, however, talked of taking things further. He spoke openly about revolution – bringing the Muggles to heel, forcefully if need be, and ruling them as their superiors. He said it was the right of wizards to rule the Muggles, who he deemed to be lesser humans. When I asked him what he proposed to do with those who resisted, the European Ministries of Magic, for example, he said that those who did not share his views could snap their wand in half and join the subjugated Muggles."
These views are not new, however. Britain's focus on blood purity can be documented well into the 1600's following the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy, where wizards left the lives of Muggles for good. Histories documenting this time vary, but all agree that the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy was a period of high anti-Muggle sentiment, and most experts agree that the idea of blood-purity became widely popular. Wizards wanted to distance themselves from Muggles in more ways than one – safety, certainly, but it very soon became a matter of great pride to have been born solely of a wizarding line, or pure-blooded. Such prejudices have persisted well into this new century, culminating in the recent publication of the Pureblood Directory by an unknown author, detailing the "Sacred Twenty-Eight" – a list of the twenty-eight true pure-blood families left in Britain.
Grindelwald's views on Muggle subjugation were considered extreme measures by some students and staff, but a necessity in order to preserve the purity of wizarding blood, and that everything he would do would be done "for the greater good". In fact, "for the greater good" has since become Grindelwald's rallying cry, serving as his justification for what he has wrought across Eastern Europe.
Despite his occasionally radical ideas, Grindelwald certainly continued to impress his peers and instructors throughout his years at Durmstrang. However, he soon began building a different sort of reputation amongst the students. Respected and feared, Grindelwald delved deep into his studies of the Dark Arts whilst at school, which, it is important to note, is not so unusual for a Durmstrang student. What was unusual was the lengthy experimentations within the depths of the castle that Grindelwald would eventually be accused of.
It is assumed (based on inspecting the remains of Grindelwald's experiments following his expulsion) that Grindelwald began researching methods for immortality. He likely would have been able to study such mysteries without interruption (Durmstrang students are often left to their own devices outside of class time). However, over the course of his education, a number of nasty incidents occurred that a few whispered Grindelwald had had a hand in, including the release of several dangerous creatures that, it was rumoured, Grindelwald had been experimenting on in the depths of the castle.
One such incident involved what Grindelwald's teacher described as a "clear violation of magical nature", when a hoard of fire-breathing pixies were released on the school, injuring several people and incinerating several ancient tapestries of great historical value. As pixies, by nature, do not possess the ability to breathe fire, it was determined that an enterprising student had been running experiments on them, possibly breeding them with other creatures.
The school's repute as a place more forgiving of the Dark Arts than other institutions is perhaps most telling as to the type of wizard young Grindelwald would grow to become. However, eventually even Durmstrang Institute could not turn a blind eye. After an incident involving the serious harm and near death of a fellow student, Grindelwald was expelled. There are few who can testify as to what became of him after that, for he disappears for nearly ten years, finally emerging again in the East, preaching the subjugation of Muggles.
During the last Muggle war (which enveloped most of Muggle Europe) there were several nasty, unexplained instances which required the services of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. These instances were attributed to the early and very grisly work of Grindelwald, who, in the commotion of a Muggle war, sought to twist the warring Muggle powers against one another, and, by effect, extend the length of the war and thus increase Muggle casualties.
I spoke with an employee of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes who had been present at one such instance, and who did not wish to be named.
"It was awful," she said, his eyes glistening with tears. "Muggles from both sides had been battling for days, and Grindelwald swept down with giants – tore them all to pieces. One Muggle had survived the attack. He was just a boy and he'd hidden. When we'd got there, he described it all to us. We wiped his memory and sent him off, but I remember the look of terror on his face when he started telling us what Grindelwald had done."
Several other incidents throughout the Muggle war required the services of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, though they could never be satisfactorily linked to Grindelwald (one Muggle eye-witness, I was told, was not likely to convince many).
Tom folded the paper in half, thinking. Grindelwald was fascinating. His search for immortality certainly interested Tom the most. He hadn't been aware such things existed, even in the magical world. Had Grindelwald been successful? Had he achieved immortality? Certainly, Grindelwald had carved himself out a large piece of history, whether he was successful in overthrowing the Ministry of Magic or not. Was that true immortality, though? To be remembered is one thing, but to live forever, to stave off death for eternity, to have beaten it… Yes, that was true immortality. Had Grindelwald achieved that?
Tom smirked to himself. That Grindelwald was a great wizard, Tom had no doubt. A powerful wizard, determined to be the greatest the world had ever seen.
And Tom was determined to beat him.
Notes from the Author: Firstly, I apologize that this Chapter took so long to get out. I got caught up in a couple things, and every time I sat down to write this, I just wasn't sure what to write. You know how it is. Anyway, it's done now, and there are a few things to point out - firstly, I have been having difficulty writing about Tom's early years at Hogwarts and making them interesting. I mean, there are only so many classes I can write before it all gets rather... boring. Events like those in the early years of Harry Potter aren't exactly possible, since anything as eventful as, you know, Harry's adventures in the Philosopher's Stone or the Chamber of Secrets, you know, I feel like Dumbledore would've mentioned something? As a result, a few weeks, perhaps even months, may go by between Chapters, but I will always make sure to say so, if that is the case. Currently, we're in the beginning of October, I'd say, 1938. Also, did you guys pick up on Draco Malfoy's grandfather, Abraxas Malfoy? No birthday given, so I can't be certain he was at Hogwarts at this time, but I like to keep things interesting. Once again, Grindelwald has made an appearance in the Chapter (by name, if not in person) and his influence is growing. Over the course of the novel, he will get more so, but the goal right now is to slowly introduce the idea to Tom of a Dark Wizard who strikes fear into the hearts of Britain, chasing after immortality (though he won't know that he is after the Deathly Hallows, as Dumbledore himself says it is unlikely he'd ever heard of them), boasting of the purity of blood and subjugating Muggles. Basically, Voldemort in Beta mode. As always, I would love to hear your guys' thoughts. Leave a review, and I'll get back to you!