02, (Gellert)

It had been raining for hours and it was due to continue for days. The wind whistled through the narrow window of his closely confined world. Gellert regarded the view - the clouds were getting darker by the minute as the sun set behind the majestic peaks. The temperature was dropping rapidly. There was another storm about to start. Not that he really minded – he would only witness it – the storm could not touch him, like the rest of the outside world to which it belonged.

He turned away from the window, thinking better of watching the clouds approach. Why would he torment himself by looking out onto a world he would never return to? To choose whether to stand in a storm – that was a freedom that he would never regain – like so many other freedoms. He settled on the bed. It was hard, but still the most comfortable spot he had access to. Maybe he would be dreaming of Quidditch again. He had continued to see brooms over the past few days.

The first bright flash of lightning, the first distant roar of thunder. He rose and returned to the window, because the parade of bolts was a spectacle. There were dark clouds now everywhere, the last hues of the sunset only visible in little spots. Another thunderbolt, this one so much closer, and so bright that he was seeing dark spots even after the crack had ceased to echo in his ears.

Odd - those dark spots were not disappearing, they were even growing in size. In the same spot, surrounded by lightning, the two of them levitated as if they were some odd phenomenon... or... this couldn't be... They were broom riders approaching!

Two dark caped wizards, with odd tools tied to the hind parts of their brooms. From what he could make out, they were both white and no older than twenty, they were definitely coming in Nurmengard's direction, their dark rain-repelling capes billowing in the wind. Illuminated by the next flash for a second, one seemed to be carrying some sort of a cannonball.

The two broom riders circled twice around the lonely tower, then gestured to one other before taking symmetrical positions not thirty meters from the window. Maybe the thunder and the wind suppressed their voices, but the prisoner got the impression they weren't even trying to talk.

Considering that there might be eavesdropping spells on his cell, so that everything would be overheard in some vigilant auror's office, this wasn't a stupid precaution. Still, he hoped to catch a few words, if only to figure out what part of the world these two might have come from.

Then there was a huge bang as the first broom rider released the cannonball, and it crashed harmlessly against the wards on his tiny window. The ball ricocheted, now flying towards the other rider...

From the tiny window, Gellert couldn't tell what happened next, but a few moments later there was a groundshaking bang on the opposite side of his cell, in the solid wall that wasn't as strongly warded as the tiny window. In half a minute, the bang was repeated.

About the same time, the rain started, the wind blowing the cold drops of water through his window, and since he didn't want to step back and lose sight on the mysterious wizards, the front of his old grey robe was soaked almost immediately.

Gellert heard another bang, this time at the other side of the cell, then at the window again a few seconds later. An even louder bang followed, and the cold night wind came in through some cracks around the presumed point of impact. With the next loud crash, he had a new window right next to the cell door, and judging by the amount of rainwater getting in, this new opening was growing with each impact.

Still no word was spoken, no wand was drawn. But the cannonball returned again and again, hammering the wall until his entire small cell was filled with debris mixed with rainwater.

He wouldn't have believed it possible, but half of a wall had been knocked down in a matter of maybe five minutes. Impressive. Whoever these broom riders were, they knew what they were doing... Too bad that he understood nothing of their motives. He could think of nobody who would want him to be free, and nobody who would dare face the entire world's rage for a mercy killing, either. Perhaps now that they had destroyed his cell, they would simply leave. If anybody wanted to torment him, the forlorn promise of a rescue would work better than any form of torture. His supporters were long gone, the last of them having rallied to the side of some new dark lord or another. And not even his Sight had warned him... what could these broom riders want?

Soon the new hole in the wall was large enough that perhaps he could have crawled through – even if that would have meant falling to his death. Gellert considered whether this was an appealing thought or not. He thought of the third brother, who greeted Death as an old friend.

But the next bang against his cell wall broke off this train of thought. Falling to his death was something to consider later. He was too curious about what these unlooked-for visitors would do next. After a few more hits, the hole had become quite large, and he knew that whatever else might befall him, this self-made cell wouldn't hold him anymore. He would be leaving, one way or another, and he was ready.

The cannonball's repeated crashing into the wall continued, and finally he could make out the two broom riders against the dark, cloudy sky through the hole. They both were holding clubs or batons of some sort, and both sported armour not unlike that of a beater.

Oh, now it made sense to him! Every reasonable wizard would guard his windows against loose bludgers, especially if they had raised a Quidditch enthusiast or two. Of course, it never occurred to him not to ward the prison in that manner. But who would have thought about applying the same, simple but very specific spells to the rest of the structure? Thank everything sacred, he had not!

Once the bludger that had brought down this once-glorious fortress had been bound, the other rider flew close enough to, presumably, take a closer look at him.

Gellert Grindelwald would have listed many attributes of himself before his vanity, but standing barefoot in a rain-flooded cell in nothing but a grimy, torn robe that had faded into colourlessness decades prior, weak and without a wand… he would have called himself a laughingstock rather than a wizard aspiring to lead Wizardkind and master the greatest power in the world.

The two riders had yet to say a word, but the closer one gave a dismissive hand signal to the other, who soon vanished from his field of vision, probably to circle the tower that held his tiny cell. Then he spotted something he'd missed before: a third broom that had been following that rider from a safe distance. Now the closer wizard was holding on to its twigs. As the other beater flew, the free broom was turning around. Presumably when the out of sight wizard reached his position on the opposite side, this one released the spare broom – and immediately, it darted off from its former holder, with the handle pointed straight at the large hole in the wreckage of the cell. All the prisoner had to do was to grab it and take a seat on the comfortably thick, magically cushioned handle.

If he had had any delusions about the beaters' intention, those were gone the moment his two palms made contact with the glue on the handle. Even worse, the broomstick seemed to completely ignore his will, only following the other rider's movements from a fixed distance. But any chance was more than nothing, and no magic could have ever kept him for eternity! The broom slowly circled around the cell, then it flew out into the stormy summer night, the dark wizard sitting firmly on the sturdy handle.

How he had longed to fly again! How he had missed the wind enveloping his body, the change of (barely visible) scenery when they picked up speed! The rain, well, not so much. Neither did he care for having the other rider behind him, following them on a much more agile broom, ensuring that he didn't break formation. And he had no idea where they were headed.

They were flying more or less north, that much was certain. Where to? Durmstrang? Would he be used as a demonstration subject to the younger generation? At least he would be familiar with his new surroundings, a key element to a successful escape.

A tingle on his skin sometime later marked that they had crossed a border. Either it was a ridiculously weak one, or his sense of magic had diminished in captivity. He'd seen distant glowing under the clouds – those had to be cities of some sort.

They crossed another, just as weak border and soon took a left turn. If they had been going north until now, they'd turned north-west. Clearly, if his abductors had wished to keep him informed, they would have done so by now. Initiating a chat was impossible at this speed, especially as the leader was several meters in front of him, and the agile broom's rider was keeping watch. Even if they were talkative people on a normal day, he hadn't heard a sound from them tonight.

They left the storm behind them and were now flying under thinner clouds and the scant silvery light of the waning crescent moon. He was surprised at how bright and large the (mostly muggle) settlements were, and at the tiny moving white and red lights of the numerous vehicles. During the war these would have presented a number of wonderful targets, but as he had spent so many decades in isolation, he couldn't even tell which place was which.

The moonlight was too pale for him to make out the letters on the broom handle, but by the lack of Cyrillic characters, his previous guess at flying partially westwards seemed to be correct. He noticed that the layer of clouds was so thin here he could make out some of the constellations above – how long it had been since his lessons in navigation! There was Cygnus, bright Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor with Polaris.

He savoured the long flight. He was outside! Outside! Yes, he was also cold, in nothing but a wet threadbare robe, over a hundred years old, and probably headed to a prison worse than the one in which he had spent the past five decades, give or take, but all of those things were laughable in the face of having left the cell he had once intended for his worst enemies.

They reached the Nordic Sea, crossing yet another weak border, continuing in the same direction. A part of him had been secretly hoping for Durmstrang as their destination, but almost as soon as they flew above international waters, they changed direction again, now clearly towards the Atlantic Ocean. The pale moonlight finally allowed him to read the inscription on the broom handle. 'Cleansweep'.

As far as he remembered, it was a British company, and had a reputation for lasting quality products.

Britain, then.

He was still barefoot and without a single heating charm, and they appeared to be heading straight into another thick storm cloud. Instead of rainwater this time, he got splashes of brine foam in his face. It might be the middle of the summer, but that didn't mean the water was warm. And the stickiness of the salt adhered to his face and his clothing. With his hands still glued to the broom handle, he couldn't wipe the salty water from his forehead and eyelashes – the best he could do to keep the water from his eyes was to rub them with the salt-water soaked sleeve of his worn robe.

Either the waves were becoming larger, or they were flying lower - not that one possibility would have excluded the other. At first, Gellert's toes only reached the peaks of the waves, but a few minutes later he was in knee-deep. So was the rider whose broom he was following. The one on the agile broom was now circling above them, keeping watch for sea monsters, possibly.

The two brooms reached sea level, and both slowed down, but they kept moving forward. The rider in front of him turned back and cast a bubblehead charm on him. Then all three of them dove under.

Cold would be an understatement. Cold and dark. All he could see was darkness. His robe was likely to give out any time now, held together as it was mostly by his sweat and grime, and the dust that had gotten stuck in the folds over all these decades. At least the accumulated grime on his body was effectively washed away, even if this was not exactly the bath he'd been longing for. At some point in his life he'd have laughed at this extreme level of overdone soaking – as if he were making up for years of missed baths all at once. At least he wouldn't have his decades-old stench when they arrived. If only he could have cast a heating charm... His teeth would have clattered if he still had any.

A sudden feeling of being unwelcome rushed through him, followed by the urge to turn around and leave. It was a strong repellent charm, one that might have taken a lot of willpower to ignore. Now, however, he wasn't in control of where he was going, so the spell caused him a passing discomfort but nothing more. As it didn't seem to affect the other two, he once again concluded that they either had to be British or they enjoyed political protection here.

The brooms continued their underwater 'flight'. The bubblehead charm held - he could breathe like normal, but the rest of his body was directly exposed to the unwelcoming seawater. It was little comfort that his abductors might be suffering in the same way. Whoever had paid for them to fetch him, he wondered how long it had taken to convince them. Perhaps not long. These two seemed to be professional troublemakers, and quite good at their jobs.

The brooms broke the surface when they were maybe a hundred meters from the dry land. He saw a dark mass in front of him, unbroken by the many lights he'd seen earlier. There were scarce, distant lights on his right, but that was all. Neither of the two wizards bothered to end the bubble on his head or to dry either him or themselves.

Once in the air again, the wind didn't quite feel summery warm. It was hard to say how much of that was due to the water still clinging to his skin and his hair, and permeating his robe. The agile rider rose high above him and the one his broom followed, perhaps to check the perimeter. That broom of his was quite a fast one, even compared to the Cleansweep he was stuck to. How much had the broom making industry evolved since the war?

They took a sharp turn right. Judging by the shimmers here and there, they seemed to be following a river running through a forest. They reached a lake, passed a small village, then they finally landed on an island in a swamp.

"We did it!" the one he had been unwillingly following suddenly yelled as he dismounted. Taking that as a cue, the aged wizard did the same. The mud was soft under his feet.

"Yes, we're awesome!" the agile broom's rider replied. "Finite."

"Tergeo."

"Tergeo."

Their use of verbal spells, even for these easy incantations, indicated that they were just as young as they both sounded. At least he was dried and could breathe fresh air again.

"This Firebolt is every twig as awesome as it seems."

"I wouldn't trade with Harry, you know. Not being able to fly all summer is just horrible."

"Huge shame."

Their voices sounded identical, he noticed. They stood at the same height as well.

The one who'd been leading him turned around, examining their catch for a moment. What could they make out in the shadows? An old wreck of a wizard in a torn and faded (although now quite clean) robe, standing barefoot in the mud, holding a broom with both hands because he was still glued to it.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Gellert tried. His voice sounded weak even to himself, the first words without the echo on the plain stone walls.

"Aye, good evening," the one with the slower broom replied, then grabbed him by the elbow and apparated them away.

They landed in a dimly lit street. The air was full of magic, so it had to either be a purely wizarding village or the famous Diagon Alley in London. By the distant noise, he guessed the latter.

The other rider appeared next to them, and he was guided to one of the shops – no distinguishing feature could be made out in the darkness, although it didn't appear to be small or humble by any means.

Inside it was warm and welcoming, not a trace of dark magic around.

"Lumos Interios," the one with the fast broom cast, producing light that was dim, but plenty bright enough to illuminate the entire hall.

It was a shop indeed, although their goods couldn't be easily defined. One side held foodstuffs, in a corner there were clothes, he recognized Peruvian instant darkness powder on a shelf and a cageful of miscoloured puffskeins near a window. Nothing that wouldn't need at least some tinkering before it could be made into a weapon.

The two wizards took off their capes. They were either identical twins, or the result of really well performed self-transfiguration. They had the red hair he'd seen in his visions and a healthy shade of white skin. Both of them were dressed in beater's uniforms, and one of them was still carrying the bound bludger. They rushed up the stairs. Gellert couldn't help but go after them, as his broom was still following one of the young men. The other cast a Scourgify at his feet so that he wouldn't soil the floor with swamp mud.

The flat above the shop wasn't nearly as fancy as the shop below: one bedroom, one small kitchen, a well-warded workshop and a large cupboard of supplies. If there were any other rooms, they could only be reached by way of another. The accommodations weren't exactly to his taste, but then he remembered that, by contrast, his cell had been his own design.

"All right, Your Great-goodness, it's time to get that glue off," one of them said, after securing the bludger in a wooden box and carefully laying the brooms and the beating clubs in another.

Great-goodness. Gellert sneered. He might be at their mercy now, but he would remember every insult, not least this mocking title.

The Cleansweep in his hands pulled him after the young redhead until they arrived in the bedroom. It was spacious, resembling a dormitory with its three beds and a chaos of books and sheets of parchment and at least five quills lying around. He found no paintings on the walls, only a map of Magical Britain and the printed photographs of witches on brooms. There was one wardrobe, which was unusual for a place inhabited by three.

Two, he immediately corrected himself as he stepped over the line of ward runes etched in the floor. Tricky. Anyone could walk over it in one direction, but only the flat's owners could pass it in the other. So, he was going to share a room with his abductors. Escape would not be easy – they had already brought down a prison's security, and so likely had taken a great many precautions. He didn't have time to examine the wards more closely, but they seemed to be blocking magic in a way similar to them blocking passage.

The bathroom was on his side of the three-person dormitory. It was equipped with a double washbasin, one shower, there was space left for (presumably) a more dignified bathtub. There was a muggle-style flushable toilet, although, just like the washbasin's two taps, its tank was based around an Aguamenti spell.

He would have continued examining his surroundings, but an attenuated variation on the jelly-legs jinx hit him from behind. He remained standing, but it took quite an effort. Two similar spells hit his upper arms, not paralyzing them entirely, but preventing any sophisticated movement.

The one Gellert had been unwillingly following around now pulled him over to one of the basins. The young man started pouring a pale yellow liquid on the glued broom handle with one hand, while using the other hand to rub the liquid against Gellert's glued fingers. It was silky, like oil. Finally, the glue gave, and the young wizard dried his now free hands with another Tergeo. He cast the spell with an ochre wand with a slight bend near the handle; a very brief vision showed this wand exploding in its master's hand.

"I'm George, by the way. The almost as good-looking one is Fred. Fred and George Weasley, proud owners of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."

"And you will be our next great project," the other one, Fred, continued. "Somebody you know was getting depressed over your absence, so we decided to go and fetch you."

"Too bad, you look like crap."

He wholeheartedly agreed with that. From what he'd seen of himself in the mirror, he was a wrinkled old man now, still tall but nowhere near as intimidating. His bodyweight might have equaled that of the broom that had brought him here. He knew better than to try wandless magic right under his abductors' noses, but he didn't suppose he would have much success. Trying to fight against the effects of the mild jinxes had been taxing enough.

Now that Gellert's hands were free of the Cleansweep, Fred pulled a chair from the kitchen and sat him down in it. George went to place the broom next to the two others, and perhaps to change out of the beater's uniform.

"Just what colour are your eyes?!" The remaining twin... Weasley stared into his face.

"Clashing," he grinned. Clearly, there wasn't a no-talking policy in place, but he didn't want to press his luck with questions.

"Really cool. Now sit still. This won't feel too good."

Horrible pain cut into his mouth as soon as Fred Weasley raised his wand. It felt like a localized version of the Cruciatus, bone-burning. He could hardly fight back a scream. The spell was lifted for only a moment before the pain returned, this time in his jaw. He suppressed a moan and attempted to focus on figuring out what the spell could be. The incantation was unlike anything he'd heard before - the wand movement reminded him of a transfiguration spell, but the yellow flash of spell-fire looked a bit like Obliviation, though the effects couldn't have been more different.

After yet another brief pause, the torture continued, spreading towards his throat, and no matter how he tried not to give away his pain, tears were welling up in his eyes. It was undignified.

"I know. Almost done," the wizard said in a quiet tone. "There, ready. You took it really well."

His whole mouth hurt, like he'd been trying to swallow a firedrake, but at least the curse had indeed been lifted – if it was a curse at all. The most distinctive trait of a curse seemed to be missing: there didn't seem to be any malicious intent. Perhaps it was some sort of a security spell yet unknown to him, something to prevent him from turning against the boy. If so, he'd better prepare himself for a second round from the other twin.

He stumbled to the nearer of the two washbasins, touched the blue disk embedded above the tap, and hastily washed his face and flushed his mouth as much as he could. Neither of the twins moved to stop him, but that didn't do much good against the residual pain in his gingiva.

"Your pain tolerance is really high," the one named George mused aloud.

"You took it so much better than I did in second year," Fred admitted. He tried not to frown at this. Either Hogwarts had some really strange policies, or he could drop the security spell theory. And they said Durmstrang students were taught dark magic?

"Fred only lost four of his molars after Leo Fudge crashed into him, and he was still whining like a baby."

"What my brother wants to say is that Leo Fudge whined. I loudly demanded pain potions and a numbing spell."

"But Madame Pomfrey, the school matron, said those would obstruct the regrowing spell and the new teeth would have grown in positioned randomly."

He blinked twice. Had that been a disproportionately painful tooth regrowing spell, one these young men had randomly picked up from some caretaker? What was the great Albus Dumbledore, a transfiguration expert even back when he'd been roughly their age, now teaching to the modern-day young wizards?

He checked with his tongue. No teeth were growing back yet, but the still lingering pain could very well be a herald of those. If so, his first night out of Nurmengard wasn't going to end on a high note. "Has it ever occurred to you that she wouldn't have wanted you to risk your dental integrity ever again?" He suppressed a malicious glee at the flash of recognition on their identical faces.

"Well, we were already in our second year..." George admitted, chastened. But he shed his shame all too quickly. "Now, your Great-goodness, we need the bathroom too. Unless you have any business here, your bed is that way. Pyjamas are under the blanket."

That was rude on multiple levels, but a snappy comeback would have helped little. Out of the three wizards, he was the only one without a wand, behind on several decades of news, and unable to cross the runic line on the floor.

He found the pyjamas, and though he was more than ready to shed his robe (a garment that was more than twice as old as his captors) he hesitated. After Nurmengard, he had thought that he had been prepared to face any indignity if it meant escape – surely nothing could be worse than the tedium of living in the same small squalid room for so many years. But these pyjamas - a hand-me-down set with a childish embroidered lion cub prancing on the shirt, not even his size… he had his standards! Not that his faded, torn rag met those either, but to put on such a garment willingly…

With the heavy sigh of a defeated man, he changed into the lion cub pyjamas. His legs, still shaky with the jinx, would only support his weight for so long.

At least the bed was comfortable. It felt almost alien to him after the pallet he had been sleeping on for so many years... There was a real bedsheet, and it was clean, even if it clearly wasn't new. And when was the last time he'd seen a pillow this close? Now, if only he could sleep without his gums still aching with the growing set of teeth.

As he settled in for the night, his gaze fell on the line of etched runes and on the corner of a magazine that just covered the writing. He had to fight with his limbs to carry out his will, but he eventually managed to get out of bed. The wards stung his hand as he reached for the magazine, but he managed to grab it. Not feeling up to more wandering, he crawled back into bed with the copy of Seeker Weekly.

Lying comfortably at last, Gellert checked the publication date of what couldn't even be the last issue. 3rd of May, 1996.

His captivity had lasted fifty-one years, then. He had wondered once or twice if he had miscounted. Now he knew: he'd been wrong by one year.

He fell asleep with the magazine still in his hands.