- March 1945 -
Albus awoke on a bail of hay. It was lumpy under his back and scratched at his neck. An owl hooted in the rafters. It carried no letter, only a dead mouse, the carcase bloody and picked over. Through the open window tucked under the peak of the roof, the cosmic lamplighter appeared to begin his nightly voyage. As the sky darkened, light burst from the stars and they morphed into diamonds. In the center of the riches a single, bright light remained spherical. It was tinted red, bathed in fury and violence. Did the Romans name the plant for the God or the God for the Planet? Albus didn't know. Maybe it was simply fated to be.
He walked east through the farmer's field until the town sunk into the black relief before cutting back to the railroad tracks. He flew over the boarder checkpoint without trouble. The soldiers never looked up beyond eye level. The tracks climbed gradually into the mountains and the water droplets in the air froze and cut into his skin like razor blades. He flew one handed, tucking the other into his jacket to warm until his fingers threatened to freeze around the wooden handle and then he switched. After an hour the tracks descended into a village. It slept silently as he flew through. The next village was larger and they continued to grow until he flew through a city. Zurich. He moved higher. The streetlights were lit below. Buildings stood in rows upon rows, not alone amongst the rubble. Switzerland was a haven untouched by the war. How long would that last?
The towns grew smaller again and the mountains rose like great guard towers, keeping the enemy at bay. He crossed into Austria. The eastern boarder had ten soldiers for every one on the west. The Alps stretched east with him and the sun struggled to rise above their peaks. He reached Innsbruck as the suns' rays became blinding, reflecting up off the snow.
Albus set down outside of the town. There was a vibration in the ground. He looked up and down the tracks but there was no train. It was magic. Dark magic. And it spilt from the town like radiation, like the spring melt that ran down from one of the three surrounding peaks. He was close.
Albus stayed on the outskirts of town along the tree line. He moved quietly and slowly, looking for signs. The streets were still but not empty. Men stood in the road, one every hundred meters. They wore dark clothes, black boots, black pants, black coats, black gloves. They weren't the Wehrmacht troops that were stationed along the border. They weren't SS. Albus looked up. None of the buildings flew swastikas. But they did not fly American or Soviet flags either. No muggle army, axis or ally, had hold of Innsbruck. Grindelwald did.
A twig snapped beneath his foot. He ducked behind a tree. After a moment of quiet, he peaked through the branches. The watchman nearest to him scanned the tree line. In his hand, he held a wand, unconcealed, ready to strike. Albus waited until the watchman lowered his wand and redirected his attention.
At the far end of the town there was a road that led into the forest. Three watchmen stood in front of a reflective yellow barrier that stretched across the road from a small wooden booth. It was an old muggle checkpoint. It was too simple. Albus walked closer. The watchmen spoke in German. Albus didn't understand. There was something on the ground up a head, small and black. As he got closer he noticed another and another. They were birds, dead, lying as if they had just fallen from the sky. The birds were not strewn randomly on the forest floor. They lay in a pattern, a straight line that ran parallel with the checkpoint. They had flown into a shield charm.
Albus followed the trail of birds away from the checkpoint. He walked until he could no longer see the watchmen or hear their voices. He pointed his wand at the invisible wall and twisted it counterclockwise. A stream of blue light grew from his wand until it reached the shield. Blue sparks shot across the shield and back towards him. He stumbled back and the spell broke. He tried again, twisting his wrist slower this time until the blue stream pierced the shield through to the other side. He moved his hand slightly down and to the right. The light stream followed until he had cut all the way to the ground. He repeated the motion in the other direction to create an arch. He picked up a pinecone and tossed it. It travelled through the arch unhindered. Albus followed.
He walked back along the shield so he could follow that road. It wound towards the mountain and then began to zigzag up the incline. The climb was steep, like a staircase that never ended, the rise was too high and run to short. His breath became heavy. He was acutely aware of how loud each inhale and exhale was in the quiet forest, the chirping birds long dead in a line at the base of the shield. He slowed his pace.
The footing was uneven and rock was slippery. He had to watch his steps. He didn't see the watchman until he stood but a foot away. The watchman raised his wand but Albus stunned him before he could cast a spell. He added a jagged M to the tail of his wand flick to slow the watchman's fall so that he landed without sound.
Albus crouched at the base of a tree and looked up the slope face. He scanned left to right. There were three more figures dressed in black. A fourth stood beneath him further to the right. Somehow he had managed to pass without detection. There were undoubtedly others. The stunned watchman began to stir. Albus conjured rope and bound him to the tree. He muffled his speech. He pulled the wand from his hand and bent it over his knee. It snapped in half. The sound was louder than he anticipated. The watchman below him on the slope turned his head upwards. Albus stunned him. He fell out of his sight line. He couldn't tie him up or disarm him. He would wake momentarily. Albus had to move.
He stunned the three others above him and restrained them like the first. He began to climb again and managed to reach the first of the three before someone shouted and red light shot past him. He threw up a shield as the spell hit a tree in front of him and the trunk exploded and sent wood splinters flying in all directions. Shouts rang down the mountain and figures in black quickly populated the forest above. Spells flew around him.
"Incendio." Albus sparked a fire in the hollow trunk of the destroyed tree. It spread to the splinters strewn across the forest floor. He ran parallel to the wall of fire, lighting more trees as he went. He aimed at trees higher and higher on the slope to turn the wall and he began to ascend again. Water trickled down over his hands as he used them to crawl up the rough terrain. He followed the small stream to a patch of white crystals that gleamed in the light of the fire. Snow. He was getting close.
The fire roared beside him and drowned any other noise. He couldn't keep up. It spread on its own, swallowing the trees in front of him. He turned and cut across the mountain side again. His feet sank further and further into the deepening snow with each step. The heat of the fire on his back and the burn of the smoke in his lungs pushed him forward. There was a break in the trees and he ran into the clearing.
The clearing was wide and long, stretching up over the next ridge. A chairlift was strung along the clearing. It was a ski hill. The chairs were stationary apart from the light swing and bounce in the wind. There were no skiers. The mountain had been repurposed.
The snow was deeper on the run without the cover of the tree canopy. He trudged from lift tower to lift tower. A spell reached the fourth tower just before he did. They started to come in quick succession. He couldn't see the casters. They were hidden in the tree line on the other side of the run and over the top ridge. A red streak flew towards him. He blocked the spell and it ricochet up and hit the lift cable over his head. The cable snapped and the chairs fell out of the sky. They crashed into the snow and then began to slide down the mountain towards him like a train that had derailed. He could create new tracks.
Albus pointed his wand at the oncoming avalanche and redirected it. The chairs swooped by him and spread out across the hill before charging back up. He grabbed on to the back of the final chair. A wall of snow spewed from the ground in front of him. Its rumble was just as deep as the fire and it climbed just as high. He couldn't see anything beyond the wall and in turn couldn't be seen. The chair next to his jumped and wobbled. A black figure tumbled out from beneath it, leaving a red trail in the white snow. Albus tightened his grip.
The chairs crested over a final slope and came to a stop as the mountain terrain leveled out. It was only a plateau. The true peak stood across the icy plain. At its base stood a stone fortress. It appeared unguarded apart from the black figures in ragged cloaks that circled the sky above the building, like crows circling a mouse carcass. Albus stepped out from behind the chair lift and walked towards the fortress. His feet sunk deeper and deeper into the snow with each step until it reached his knees.
As he grew closer, figures appeared. They looked like men but frail. They limped and stumbled forwards, converging on him through the snow. Infiri. Behind the advancing force stood a several men, dressed in black, like those in the town and the forest. They did not move, unbothered by his presence.
"Incendio." Albus cast another wall of fire to keep the inferi at bay. They shrieked and cawed and recoiled from the heat and orange flame. Albus drew his wand around him and the wall whipped into phoenix. The bird's wings spanned ten feet and circled Albus leaving a fiery tail in its wake. He walked forward, into the infiri mob, shielded from their advance.
The men stationed outside the fortress still did not move. The fire melted the snow beneath his feet but his pace was hindered again by a growing wind that pushed against him. Snow and ice fell from the high peak above and gave chase to his phoenix. The flames lurched inwards, away from the storm, and licked at him. The bird slowed and skeletal arms grabbed at him though the melting feathers. Albus was jerked back. The shoulder strap of his satchel cut across his neck. It choked him. An infiri had hold of the bag. He grabbed the bag and wretched it forward. The creature's arm was ripped from its body. Albus pried the severed limb off the bag. The skin was grey, like the salty broth Mr. Flamel had served for dinner. It had simmered on this earth for too long. It slipped over the boney structure underneath and Albus recoiled at the sensation of a body so mutilated. He cast it into the dying flame. His shield was failing. He was surrounded.
Albus shot a spell at one of the men. It was stopped by a shield charm. Blue light scattered radially from the impact point in a dome that raised up over the fortress. He wouldn't be able to break through undetected and unresisted. He didn't have time. The roar of the phoenix fire had given way to the howl of the storm. A voice carried though the snow and ice. Grindelwald. He was wielding the storm. He was here. He was watching.
A part of Albus had hoped this hunt would last forever. It was the same part of him that had allowed others to lead the resistance while he graded transfiguration essays. It was the same part of him that had snapped at Elphias and left him in Paris. Everyone had secrets. Everyone had dark crevasses where they could hide.
Albus pulled a silky, metallic cloth from the satchel and an ornate canister with marble green octagonal sides and a silver base and cap. The cloth caught on the wind and fanned out. It reflected the fiery whisps of the bird, like an ancient Roman shield, brilliant copper, iridescent, unmistakable. Albus grabbed at the cloth and pulled it over his head and around himself. He pushed down the slider on the side of the canister and the lid flicked open to reveal the mechanisms of a lighter – a spark wheel and stone and a cavern to hold the flame. The wind swirled in front of him. It trapped the phoenix and drove it into the ground where it was swallowed by snow. The infiri screeched and stumbled towards him, into the new void. The men behind the protective shield took several steps forwards and looked back and forth between themselves and the place Albus stood. They couldn't see him. Now it was Albus who stood still. His eyes focused on the object in his hand. He waited.
The voice was clear. There was no radio static or whistle from the wind carrying it through the storm. It was slow and smooth. The speaker's tongue relished in each syllable. "Albus Dumbledore."
Albus clicked the lighter. A small, tear drop shaped flame ignited. It burned yellow at first but the green core spread outwards until the flame scorched blue. It was soft in colour but hotter than the phoenix or the forest below. The blue flame flickered and the tip ballooned into a ball and broke away from the base. The ball of light floated towards him and pierced the center of his chest with a soothing burn that flooded his body. He held his breath and disapparated.
He was swept up off the ground and the world spun furiously around him. Everything was white. The ground and the sky and everything in between were indistinguishable as if he were caught in the center of the blizzard raged against him. His grip tightened on the deluminator.
As quickly as he had been picked up, he was set down and the world stilled. It was quiet, no blizzard, no infiri. His feet stood on wooden floorboards in the corner of a room. A map of the continent hung on the wall opposite him, dotted with black and red coloured pins, an angry swarm concentrated in Austria. A candle lit chandelier hung in the center of the room above a ten-foot-long table. Six chairs ran along either side. One chair stood at the head, framed by the floor to ceiling window that looked out on the blizzard and the infiri hoard and the defences that he had just breached.
A man stood at the window, silhouetted by the winter storm, his back to the room and where Albus stood in the corner. A faint glow crept through the greasy white, silver hair that crowned his dark figure. His arms were outstretched, the tip of his fingers nestled between the round ridges of a long wand that seemed to balance of its own volition. The wand.
The man whipped around and his eyes quickly narrowed on the corner where Albus stood but they could not settle. They bounced, flicks of blue catching in light from the window, like the small glowing ball from the deluminator. They strained to find him.
Albus flicked his wand to disarm him but Grindelwald blocked the spell. He laughed. "So you managed to destroy it. Took you forty-six years. Why so long? Don't be shy now. You don't need to say it aloud. I can hear your thoughts, Albus. You never were able to keep them from me." Grindelwald's fist closed tightly around the wand. He pointed it at the corner but it tremored in his grasp betraying the sure, goading tone of his words. A tight grin spread across his face and he began to laugh, sharp and cutting. "You think I'm scared of you? I'm not the coward hiding in the corner. The cloak was the fool's choice."
It wasn't. It was bait to get Grindelwald's attention, to take him back to that summer. Albus now stood within his defences, face to face with him. It had worked.
"What's your plan now?"
Albus pointed his wand at the long wooden table and hurled it across the room towards Grindelwald. Grindelwald grunted, choaking on his laugh as the table slammed into his chest and pinned him back against the window that rattled low and loud in its frame.
It was silent for a moment and then there was a crack. The table fractured down the center, jagged, like lightning. The two halves were split apart and slammed into opposite walls. "What else do you have?"
Spells sparked from the tips of both of their wands, lighting up the room in flashes of red and green. Curses crashed into each other and sizzled against defensive charms. They ricocheted off the walls and the ceiling and filled the room with dust and plaster debris. Amongst the clatter, heavy footsteps rushed through the hall on the other side of the wall behind Albus. One set. Two sets. Three. Four. Albus was about to be outnumbered. He pointed his wand at one half of the broken table and swiped it across the room. The table scraped across the floor and lodged against the door. The brass handle rattled but the door was jammed shut.
"Reducto." Grindelwald cast a destruction spell at the table.
"Protego." Albus shot a shield charm in front of the table. The red light of the curse hit the translucent blue wall and bounced back towards its curser.
Grindelwald side stepped the curse and it hit the window behind him. Glass shattered, fracturing into thousands of lethal shards. Before they could fall, Grindelwald flicked his wand and the shards shot from their frame, towards Albus.
Albus swiped his wand in front of the deadly onslaught. The glass shards transfigured into millions and sand grains.
Grindelwald seethed and the white clouds greyed and darkened. The storm outside blew in the through the broken window. Sand and snow swirled. The war map rippled and the red and black pins flew off and were swooped up in the tornado. The wind snuffed out the candles in the chandelier. It swung wildly and the candles toppled out. The cloak caught the wind and lifted from his body. Albus grabbed it before it could fly away and shoved it back in his bag.
Grindelwald's eyes finally settled and narrowed on his. "Did you kill them for it?"
The walls began to crumble. Grindelwald's henchman were breaking through. A curse shot past Albus from behind, narrowly missing him, cast by one of the henchmen through a hole in the wall. It hit the chandelier, ripping it from the ceiling. It crashed to the floor followed by a cascade of yellow sparks – muggle electricity. An exposed wire hung from the hole, its copper end frayed and charged. This had been a muggle building, a ski lodge. Grindelwald had usurped it and tried to conceal the foundation. But now that the building was being torn apart, its secrets were revealed.
Albus focused his wand on the exposed wire. It grew in width and the frayed copper pinkened and formed into a two-pronged fork, a serpent tongue. The wiry snake slithered from its nest in the rafters. It launched at one of the henchmen through the hole in the wall. The man's yelp was severed by a sharp, zapping buzz. A flashing blue light glowed from the hall into the room. The snake bite did not poison, it electrocuted. The buzz stopped and a body thudded to the floor. More wire wound from the ceiling and the next man yelped.
Grindelwald sent a curse at him and knocked Albus off his feet. His nose pressed to the floor, he followed the grain of the floorboards as it weaved across the room to Grindelwald's feet. He flicked his wand and the boards transfigured into roots of old growth trees, strong and unyielding. The roots shot up from the floor and clawed around Grindelwald's ankles and up his calf.
"Relashio. Relashio." Grindelwald struggled against their grip. He kicked and trashed. He could not keep up. The roots pulled him down to his knees and twisted up his arm, stilling it and the wand. Grindelwald laughed. "Glass to sand. Wood floorboards to old roots. I am sensing a pattern, no?"
Albus stood. Grindelwald shifted. His neck strained and followed Albus. His blue eyes and up turned lips slipped in and out of view, obscured by the wooden cage bars.
"Rewinding time? Their electric wires back to their original sin, meddling in things they shouldn't. They never did learn."
Grindelwald couldn't fire a curse. Words were his only weapon. He was good with words. He built them up slowly, each a careful step towards the most vulnerable part of his prey. Each sentence unnerved until the listener was paralyzed and he was close enough to pounce.
"You destroyed the blood pact. That pact created a pretty mess... but that mess cannot be rewound."
Albus' stomach knotted. His fingers flexed over his wand.
"You stand there proud? As if you have some moral higher calling. That's a lie. You're not here for them. If you were, you would have come with an army. You're here for yourself. You're here for revenge."
Albus shook his head. "I have no interest in revenge."
Grindelwald tilted his head up so Albus could only see the smile that pulled across his pale, cracked lips through the cage. "Of course you don't. Because it's not me you would need to kill. I didn't kill her, Albus. You did."
A chill ran up his spine. His body went limp.
Then the room exploded in a flash of white light. Albus was thrown back. He did not hit the back wall of the room. He tumbled through the snowstorm and slammed into an icy bank. The wind was knocked out of him. He choked and gasped. He blinked his eyes to get his bearings. A wall of snow came rapidly into focus as it fell from the sky. He closed his eyes tightly, gripped his wand, and braced for the impact. The avalanche threw and buried him at the same time. His body was pushed down and down. The snow felt like rock, heavy and ridged. But it was colder and formed tightly around him body, creeping under his collar and chilling his bare skin.
Albus thought of his father then. Or what was left of him in the end, when the dementors gave him the final kiss. What did his soul still cling to? What was that final piece ripped from him before his lifeless body was tossed into the icy waters of the North Sea and the waves chopped at his flesh and dragged him down to the uncharted depths?