Advice gratefully accepted


"Injuries must happen, what with you working so closely with the muggle army." While he was slinging stinging hexes through the bars, a guard had mentioned the injury that landed him in this prison.

"Bullets tear through magical flesh as easily as muggle, but I have since ordered every man to ward his clothes against non-magical bullets.

({.})

For a week she asked him riddles instead. He thinks he prefers the change, although he resents that his top war leaders cannot always solve the riddles, unlike this teenage girl.

({.})

She has been waiting for him to lose a battle for two years. When it comes it is not as sweet as she imagined it would be.

He had lost skirmishes before, losing men in the accidents that so often befall an army. Especially a wizarding army in such close contact with a muggle army. Wizards can easily destroy guns and tanks, but they have to see them before they stop them. Often when weapons misfire wizards do not know what to do. Soon those who work with muggles learn to respect their destructive powers.

This battle took place on the summer solstice while his men were preparing for the rituals of Belfast. Grindelwald's men celebrate the Old Ways, thus were not expecting for their opponents to attack on a holy day.

Hermione always knew, theoretically, that her enemy was human too, but that was often in the abstract.

Grindelwald sits outside her cell for hours, staring at the wall.

({.})

"The man down the hall cheated on his wife with her brother, last week the brother said that he slept with his sister."

"And every day you regret that you do not have a brother or husband that loves you so fondly."

"Grindelwald, if I had a brother that slept with my husband after raping me, well he wouldn't be my living brother much longer."

By now the daily torture sessions bore her.

({.})

"Muggle Germany may be a good place to begin a war, but they are hardly the strongest allies you could have found."

"Before you The Goat was in charge?" Today he avoids what she said in order to begin a discussion he has wanted for a long time.

"You know this, there would be no other reason for you to target him yourself in the battle where he was injured."

"A simple spell meant to put him in a coma for a few months."

"You would content yourself with a simple spell? I do not believe this. Unless by simple you mean a spell that requires months of practice for a normal magical, or something esoteric, but still in more than one book."

"Of course I would stoop to learn the basic spells, my dear all know that the more complex spells are flashier, but not best for dueling." His voice is light and playful, in contrast to her serious tone.

"This I do not believe, Grindelwald must be above all men in all he does, this does not fit your image at all sir." While her words are teasing, her voice is a monotone.

"Ah, but you forget that I am a common man elevated only by a respect for the gifts I was given. My humility"

At this she snorts, but he continues.

"does not prevent me from acknowledging that I have more power and intelligence than most, but I do not seek to raise my self above the masses. Rather I seek to be a great teacher, one who guides the masses towards their glorious future."

This shuts her up for three minutes or so, so he takes that as permission to use it in a speech he is preparing.

({.})

"Did you know one of your guards was raised as a girl for the first six years of his life?"

"Darling that is neither a riddle or a comment on the war. Are you alright? Did you forget the introduction to History Beauxbaton."

"One of his peers brought in a photo. I think the shock of him in a small pink dress drove the middle of The Death of Ivan Ilyich"

({.})

"You should wait to invade England before you have a treaty with the Americas."

He knows that the Americas magical community is weak, displaced and not ready for the upcoming war, but he is not sure about the muggle side of America.

Hermione does not know either, but she knows that the English magical community needs more time to prepare for war, and that if Grindelwald moves forward before the English have time to acknowledge his power than the English will fall.

"Afraid for the Goat still my darling"

"I always wondered if you knew that he was not from France originally, so how much of his life were you able to ferret out?" She muses, not confirming anything he did not know, nor surprised that he is from England.

"If I watch him die then I could write the autobiography."


Sorry about the shorter chapters, I decided to try and break them down into smaller sections so they would be easier for me to edit.