Clementia

1998, Nurmengard

Some would say he had suffered enough after being imprisoned for decades in a cell that he had once built himself with nothing to keep himself occupied other than his thoughts and only some brown mass that didn't deserve being called food to eat. Gellert didn't even have a bed, which was a discomfort he could thank himself for as he had deliberately hadn't added such accommodation to the cells all these years ago. Well, technically he did have a bed back when he was first imprisoned, an act of mercy from Albus, but he had destroyed it in a fit of rage only a short time later. The scraps had been taken out of his cell by the guards a short time later, probably to stop him from using them in some escape attempt –hah, as if it would be possible to escape in the first place- or, more likely, to stop him from killing himself with them. The bed hadn't been replaced ever since.

Some people would say he had suffered enough, but most would disagree.

Gellert himself was part of the latter group.

After so many years with nothing else to do than to think, to remember the atrocities he had committed both directly and through the hands of his followers, he didn't think he deserved mercy. No, this cell, this hellhole of his own creation, was a fitting resting place for him to live out the rest of his life.

It was the perfect place for a false messiah like him.

He would go into the annals of history as a failure, a tyrannic Dark Lord that tried and failed to enslave the world only to be beaten and imprisoned when he was at the height of his power.

That almost made him chuckle. How amusing to be called such a thing when he had never considered himself a Dark Lord himself, had even scoffed at the notion and burned every newspaper that dared to call him that. As far as he was concerned, he had been a revolutionary, a person that did what needed to be done by all means necessary.

All for the Greater Good, of course.

Let them call me what they want, he had told Vinda shortly after his escape from MACUSA. They will see reason once we have won, for how could they not? Our people will be free, we will be great, and they will have no choice but to accept that they were wrong all along while we were right.

Oh, how these words came back to haunt him now!

To this day, Gellert maintained that he had only the best interest of everyone in mind, that he did what he did not for himself but for all the wizarding world. It shamed him that, looking back on his life, he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment he started to walk get lost in his own ideals. Maybe it was when he started to kill those that opposed him rather than trying to convince them of his point of view, maybe it after his duel with Albus and Aberforth, or maybe it was when he convinced his fellow students to let him experiment on them.

Maybe it was when he first heard the story of the Deathly Hallows.

He couldn't even remember when that was, but he knew that the story had stayed with him all his life. The words kept repeating themselves in his mind, the visions of himself holding the Elder Wand never quite leaving his eyes until he actually held it in his hands, and the urge to find the other two always just one thought away.

Even now, decades after he lost the one Hallow he had been able to find, he could still feel its power run through his veins, feel all the energy that promised endless possibilities at his very fingertips. As much as he would like to claim otherwise, he didn't think he could reject it if it were offered to him again.

Not that that would ever happen anyway.

During the first few years of his captivity, Gellert had desperately hoped for Albus to visit him in the hopes of somehow overwhelming him and using his wand to escape, for even Nurmengard would be forced to yield before its power. Later, he hoped for him to come just to have someone to talk with. During the last few years, he only wanted the chance to apologise. Gellert had long since recognized that such a visit would probably never happen, however, and as he was told by one of the newer, young guards that seemed to actually pity him that he wasn't allowed to write letters either, there was no way for him to do so.

All he could do now was to hope that he would get his chance to do so in the afterlife.

At least he wouldn't need to wait for too long anymore to find out whether this would happen or not. Albus was dead, and even though nobody would tell him who had done the deed, he could make a reasonable guess. He had heard enough whispers from the guards to have an idea of what happened in Britain during the last few decades and the occasional vision helped filling him in on the rest.

If the screams he could hear from the distance were any indication, he too would soon enough follow Albus.

If Death was truly fair, Gellert would surely get his chance to speak with Albus one more time. He didn't care if he ended in hell afterwards, for as long as he could tell his oldest friend that he was sorry, he could deal with any pain the afterlife had to offer.

Another scream in the distance made Gellert feel a sudden surge of pity for the poor souls that died in defence of an old man they were supposed to guard. Most of them were still so very young, transferred to this place as some rookie job that didn't require much skill. It wasn't as if he was much of a threat to anyone these days anymore, after all, so there was no need to put seasoned veterans on boring guard duty.

And now all these young spurts were being slaughtered because of this sentiment, their light extinguished before it had the chance to truly shine.

The face of one of them came to his mind; a young, blonde woman who couldn't be out of school for more than a year or two and was one of the few who actually bothered to talk to him on occasion. Several guards held some amount of pity for him, but it was only her who actually talked with him. Never for long, of course, for others would stop her when they noticed, but the few minutes every other week were the only human interaction Gellert had had in decades, and he was thankful for them.

He thought he recognized her voice the next time a scream could be heard, much closer to his cell than the last one.

Gellert didn't need to wait much longer for the intruder to arrive after that as a shadowy figure blasting his door open with enough force to throw it out of its angles before stepping in with the grace of a predator stalking towards its helpless prey.

So this is Voldemort, he thought grimly. The last time he had seen a glimpse of him in his visions had been years ago, back before his eventual fall at the hands of a toddler, and the time hadn't done him any favours. Where the marks of the dark arts had been obvious even then, he now looked barely human at all with his pale skin, snake-like features, nose-less face, and burning red eyes. It was apparent for everyone with even the slightest amount of knowledge about dark magic that this man had delved deep into the forbidden arts, just as it was apparent for every user of those that he had pushed the limit of what was considered too much further than it was healthy. In fact, he couldn't help but wonder how he was even still alive.

Whatever rituals he had used, whatever magic he had cast, it should have ripped his body apart by now, he could feel that much clearly. Gellert would know after having spent decades looking into such magic as well. It was a balancing act to determine how much your body could handle, to decide which rituals were the most beneficial and which ones shouldn't be used in combination which certain others. Maybe a few decades ago it would have hurt his pride to see that this new Dark Lord had seemingly managed to ignore those rules when he had done so much to adjust countless rituals to be less harmful, to be less corruptive, but now he found he didn't care. And besides, he thought no advantage was worth it giving up his humanity anyway.

"So you have come. I thought you would… one day. But your journey was pointless. I never had it."

He knew what he was here for, of course. There was only one thing he could want that would make him come all the way to his little cell; the Elder Wand. It was almost comedic how the Dark Lord who came after him now obsessed over the same thing as he once did, ignoring everything else in favour of this very objective. No doubt there was much in his mind that this Voldemort could find a use for, ranging from powerful magic to ancient artefacts, but all he was interested in was an old fabled wand.

"You lie."

He smiled at the man, amused that even his voice had a hissing element to it similar to that of a real snake.

"Kill me, then!" he roared with all his remaining power, deciding that if he couldn't die standing he could at the very least show that he wasn't cowered. "Voldemort, I welcome death! But my death will not bring you what you seek... There is so much you do not understand."

The anger that was emitted from the Dark Lord was so intense that it was almost palpable, his power tingling on Gellert's skin and making his hairs stand up. Voldemort didn't reply other than with a snarl before pointing his wand at his head and calling "Legilimency!"

A sharp pain shot through his head when the mental attack crashed into his barriers, trying to tear his defences down and pull the information he was looking for out of his mind by force, but Gellert prevailed. Occlumency had been the only form of magic he had been able to use in his captivity and he had spent this time well. As powerful as Voldemort was in the mind arts, he couldn't breach his shields, and that was something he seemed to realize as well.

Gellert knew what would happen a second before it did, satisfaction swelling in his chest. He could have been taken as prisoner, exchanging one cell for another, and then be interrogated for who-knows how long. There was no guarantee that he would have been able to hold to his secrets under prolonged torture, he knew.

This way, on the other hand, he could take his secrets into his grave.

Nobody would disturb Albus' grave under his watch.

Instead, Voldemort's fury broke. A burst of green light filled the prison room and his frail old body was lifted from the ground as his soul was ripped from his body.

Gellert didn't feel any pain, didn't feel his head smashing to the ground, didn't feel the pain in his back he had become used to over the years finally easing. The time for him to worry about bodily concerns was over.

All he felt was relief, maybe even happiness, and he welcomed Death with open arms.

„I'm not done with you yet, Gellert Grindelwald."

[{-}]

1991, Hogwarts

Albus Dumbledore was always looking forward to the beginning of the school year, but it would be a lie to claim that he didn't anticipate this one even more than usual. Not that anyone could blame him for it as most people thought just the same. It wasn't every year that Harry Potter became a student at this fine institute, after all.

It had been almost ten years since he had last laid eyes on the boy and he couldn't wait to see what had become of him. If he had heard correctly, there was currently even a bet going on between Minerva and Filius about whether he would be more like his father or his mother, so he knew he wasn't alone with his curiosity.

Most of all, however, he hoped the boy was happy. Albus had no doubt that Petunia had cared for him –he fondly remembered the time the sweet girl had wrote him a letter about how she wanted to please be invited to Hogwarts as well- but there was a small amount of doubt at the back of his mind, especially when he remembered Minervas words. While he still hoped that Petunia had cared about him as if he was her own, he thought it was just as likely that she had simply kept to her role as an aunt. Still, an aunt, even if somewhat distant, was better than him growing up with the weight of all the expectations of the wizarding world on his shoulders. At least this way he would be allowed to be just a normal child, growing up with a cousin that could become a brother and an uncle that, if the man's love for his son that Albus had observed was anything to go by, could take over a fatherly role for him.

Besides, while he knew that Lilly and her sister had been somewhat distant in their later years, he also remembered her saying that she wished to reconcile with her.

Yes, he probably just worried too much. Surely Petunia would feel the same and take care of her sister's son in her stead.

His thoughts were interrupted by Minerva storming into the room, the unusual behaviour instantly letting him know that something big must have happened.

„Albus," she said slightly out of breath. „You must see this."

And when she slammed the letter down on the table with more force than strictly necessary, the all too familiar name boldly staring back at him and nearly making his heart pass out, he knew why she was so distressed.

It seemed that they would this year play host not only to 'The Boy Who Lived', but to Gellert Grindelwald as well.

[{-}]

This was initially part of a multichapter fic I'm currently writing, but as I recently rewrote my prologue from scratch, I decided to upload this as a one-shot. Feel free to use this for your own story, though make sure to send me a link so that I can read it :P