Meeting their match, chapter 29:
"But why did Albus Dumbledore get the credit for taking you down," Sabra asked, tone as shocked as her expression.
"You shall have to ask him that, I am afraid," Gellert replied.
"It was his brother Aberforth who was instrumental due to his powers of necromancy. Did anyone mention that?"
Though his tone was casual enough and mildly curious, the look in his blue eyes was venomous.
Sabra shook her head. "No. Not at all. Not a single word."
Gellert's blonde brows drew together in a perplexed frown. "I wonder why?"
"Perhaps we should ask Albus Dumbledore that question as well," Sabra said. "We should see him at dinner and I would truly like to know. That's a large part of wizarding history and politics a lot of someone's in power obviously wanted covered up and apparently with lies."
"I don't like the government lying to me," Geo complained. "I mean I lie to them, but I'm just one man, not an entire government who is supposed to be here to serve and protect which should be relatively legal or something. This just sounds screwy."
"The truth is, the governments always had their intrigues. Each one, of the ones I had to deal with, believed they were protecting their national security. But it was what they saw as a threat to security. Which was really a threat to their unquestioned dominion over the public. The slogans they used though, it was as if my own inspired them," Gellert chuckled at the memory.
"I am not one to judge. I have done what I saw as best too. But when they deal with criminal elements they are supposed to oppose, or encourage the deaths of civilians it is their duty to protect, for the sake of protecting the secrets of the people in power, it began to look to me like my own idea of greater good was largely preferable to theirs. It wasn't like I wanted to delve into their dirty secrets truly, I would have rather avoided the cesspool, but knowledge always led me to power. And I needed to know more about them than they knew about me. Which worked well most of the time," Grindelwald explained, indirectly answering the questions he would have been curious about if he were either of the Zabinis.
"So you're saying that whatever they used to take you down wasn't something they wanted known. It was a secret they wanted to protect," Sabra asked thoughtfully.
"Exactly," Gellert slightly inclined his head in agreement, his unruly long hair spilling over both sides of his face. Blaise's attention was captivated by the spill of wavy gold and he felt his breath catch in a way it never had. No one got to him like that or at all really. He wanted to reach out and let the silken tresses flow through his fingers, to draw Gellert close and lose himself in the other wizard, but his parents were present so he had to focus on the conversation instead and this took far more effort than it should have.
"There was some sinister project that Madame Picquery mentioned to Graves," Gellert said. "Since I was in possession of the man at the time, I had to feign my awareness of it and was not able to ask any questions. But it seemed like an international secret of sorts. A Hungarian wizard I read about in newspapers and even some high level Austro Hungarian arch duke, both took part in this conference which I technically had the clearance to attend but was not sure how to enact the proper password with my wand to unlock the door.
Had I known how dire it was, of course I would have pursued the secret further, but alas, I deemed it beneath my notice at the time. I still do not know what it was, only that some wizards were blackmailed to keep it secret, others were forcefully stopped from revealing it. One big sordid affair, whatever it was," Gellert thoughtfully concluded, only the passage of time removing the once present bitterness at his failure to uncover the secret that eventually toppled his regime.
"Now that's interesting," Geo said, leaning forward in his chair, mostly empty plate now ignored on the table in front of him. "What could be that big of a secret?"
"Some sort of method to take Gellert down that was darker or more dangerous than whatever they were after Gellert for," Blaise speculated. He was often quiet, listening to those around him, observing and mostly staying in his own head about it. He only spoke when he felt he had something to say that would ad to the conversation be it through amusing wit or an actual idea of value.
"And Dumbledore is just going to willingly spill the beans on such a thing simply because we will ask him at dinner,"Geo asked doubtfully.
"If he was even told,"Sabra said.
"Well I think he'd better considering what we're up against right now," Blaise said, tone as grim as he was feeling on the matter. Kereston was right. The ministries were all corrupt in the worst of ways. Worst because it never helped the wizarding world they were set to protect in times of danger. Voldemort was at large, and somehow none of the inadequate ministries could seem to do a bloody thing about it.
"Well hopefully we will discover something at dinner either way. For now we'll leave you two to get some work done," Sabra said, standing to go. Blaise nodded, and when his parents had departed the Great Hall he turned to Gellert, finally able to ask a question that had plagued his mind all day.
"How did you get Mum to be all nice to you! You've got to tell me," he insisted eagerly. "I don't care I just need to know what you said to charm her. It's bloody impressive!"
Gellert shrugged. "I said nothing truly. Is that not the way she usually behaves?"
Blaise grinned, then laughed. "NO! She hasn't tried my shoes on for me since I was 5."