As the fifth of November rolled around, the Vipers were spending the night out in the garden enjoying the tradition of Bonfire Night.
Instead of burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes, they had decided to burn one of Voldemort, though it had been reduced to ash some time ago already. If someone a year beforeA year before if you had suggested to Harry that he would be sitting with Gellert Grindelwald peacefully enjoying a quiet day together with his friends, he would have called them mad.
Johnathan Michaels, the journalist for the Daily Prophet who had challenged Voldemort, had been killed by a few Death Eaters, though not before taking a few of them with him, and in his honour the British wizarding world had set off fireworks, conveniently aligning them with the Mmuggle celebration that was happening.
"I find it difficult to believe that this reporter has unified the nation as a mMartyr,." Grindelwald had said upon hearing their plan for the day. "He should have known better than to challenge someone so far above his station."
"He knew he would die, the public nature of his death revealed what he was trying to explain for quite a while, that Voldemort isn't all -powerful and doesn't respect the traditions of the wizarding world,." Dudley explained to the older man.
"He did what he did to buy me time,." Harry told them, his voice barely above a whisper. "I received a letter from him explaining that he didn't have long left anyway as his body was beginning to fail on him."
"He was dying and, instead of living the rest of his life somewhere quiet, he decided to paint a massive target on his back and bait Voldemort into killing him, only to be killed by the Death Eaters?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Yet people claim this Voldemort is the greatest Dark Lord alive? He is disgracing the title of Dark Lord, I will ensure this mistake is corrected before we kill him."
Nobody knew what to say after Grindelwald's declaration so they just continued to watch the fireworks and enjoy the quiet night.
/_^_^_/
"What if we don't have to fight a war?, Gellert said it himself, people are losing respect for Voldemort and the number of people in his army right now is below under forty. If we can successfully erode the foundations of his support then we can make him vulnerable.," Theo suggested to the group, though his suggestion was met with looks of disbelief and confusion.
"You forget that Voldemort holds vast amounts of power," Neville responded with a grimace. i"If he cannot win with political maneuveringmanoeuvring and fear tactics, then he will settle for terrorism and brute force to reach his goal." Neville responded with a grimace.
"Actually, Theo might be onto something there," Harry cut across everyone. "I if we can remove his following then we can bait him into a direct confrontation, at which point Marvolo will be able to absorb his soul, rendering his body empty and hollow, reducing the importance of locating Voldemort's Horcruxes, though they will still be located." Harry cut across everyoneHis, shocking his friends, whoHis friends were shocked and tried and failed to point out a flaw with his idea.
"Elementals and soul-eaters? You seriously expect me to believe that another fable is true?." Gellert exclaimed, annoyed by the apparent lack of respect for him.
"Not quite, Voldemort and I are one and the same, at least in terms of our souls."
"You're a Horcrux?" Grindelwald asked in disbelief, subtly aiming his wand at Marvolo.
"I have the largest portion of our soul within myself, he resembles a Horcrux much more than I do."
"As long as you can sday for sure definite that you are in control of yourself and not under the control of that lunatic then I have no issue with your origin."
"I'm so glad that the almighty Gellert Grindelwald doesn't disapprove of my existence,." Marvolo responded, becoming more and more frustrated with the former Dark Lord's holier-than-thou personality.
"If you wish to duel me to attempt to regain some level of leadership among your group then feel free to. However, I should let you know that if you go that route you will lose."
"Neither you nor I are the leader here, that responsibility falls to Harry, who has already beaten you in a duel. How about you lose the bravado and learn to cooperate with your allies. This isn't going to be the second rise of Grindelwald, the sooner you accept that the better."
"My apologies, of course I do not wish to cause friction between the group members." Grindelwald conceded, rising to his feet and heading out to continue training his wolf.
Excusing himself, Harry rose to follow him.
Gellert stopped by the door to his wolf's room, waiting for Harry to catch up to him.
"Have you come to meet Fenrir? I will tell you now, he does bite."
"I assume that you have trained him to respond to you by now, I should have nothing to fear."
"Even the strongest leash can break if stressed out enough, never assume that you are safe with someone you trust."
When the two entered the room Harry became struck with how beautiful the wolf was, its pale yellow eyes immediately drew his eyes to them.
"Fenrir, sit." Gellert commanded after the wolf began to growl at Harry. Fenrir hesitated for a moment before sitting down, his growling never ceasing.
"He doesn't seem to like me." Harry observed sarcastically.
"I am only allowed to be in his presence because I've spent the last few decades communicating with him and his family." Grindelwald explained, howling as loud as he could, with Fenrir answering with a howl of his own.
"Can you understand him, and have him understand you?"
"You mean like a Parselmouth with a snake? I don't have that level of understanding with him, I can only communicate emotions, he is scared that you are here to attack him."
"Interesting…" Harry muttered, trailing off for a moment. "I have an idea, though I don't know how well it will work."
Harry then conjured a snake and a dog, hissing to the snake and hoping that their status as magical constructs brought into existence by his will would be enough to allow them to communicate with each other.
"I would like you to attempt to communicate with this dog, specifically to pass on the message that I mean no harm to the wolf,." Harry instructed the snake, who hissed his comment to the dog, which remarkably barked at the wolf. The end result was a Fenrir that was no longer growling at Harry, though he was sniffing the air around him and the other intruders.
Harry was about to dispell the magical constructs, not thinking he would get much more of a conversation out of the wolf, when suddenly Fenrir began to bark back, his message getting passed along the chain back to Harry.
"I will not attack my Master's puppy, you need not fear me either." Was the wolf's message, which caused Grindelwald to burst out laughing, a sound that Harry hadn't heard from the man.
"I can honestly say I never expected a comment from a wolf to make me laugh, thank you for that Harry." Gellert said to the embarrassed boy, who responded meekly.
"I'm an adult, and I'm not related to you. I don't know why he would assume that I'm a child."
That set Gellert off with another wave of laughter, eventually showing Harry how he was training the wolf and even letting him try.