Gellert had tried to argue that it wasn't yet safe for them to leave Hermione's homestead and return to school, but his mother had insisted that they'd missed enough their education already and assured him that precautions had been taken.

And they certainly had, both by the school and by the coven. The boy's personal elves accompanied them, supervising the preparation of and serving every meal. The warding around the school had been intensified too so that it was almost impossible to find without access through the portal or the floo in the headmaster's office, both of which were now guarded by traditionally inclined aurors.

None-the-less, Gellert and Berg has followed through with their own plans, checking every meal with the spell that Hermione had taught them and quickly supplementing that with three additional ones that Berg had found as soon as he had access to a library that wasn't written in ancient runes. They'd also snuck into the potion's store and stolen a whole handful of bezoars.

They'd only been back for a day when a terrified looking first year had knocked on the door to the fourth year classroom and passed on a note. Herr Hachov paused in his introduction of their new topic; Magic and Muggles, to unfold the short missive. A moment later he nodded sharply and dropped it into the bin beside his desk.

'Grindelwald, Tunninger, Hawdon, Hawdon and Dünhaupt. You're to meet with the Headmaster in the staff dungeons, room 4.'

There was a moment of surprised inaction, then Berg and Gellert shared a significant look. It didn't escape their notice that every coven child had been called out. They packed up their belongings quickly and followed the first year from the room. The first year bowed as they passed and Gellert noted the lovingly polished family ring on his finger, paired it with the messy blond hair and decided that the boy must be a Finnis. The family had fallen on hard times recently, but had once been very influential beast breeders that had leased large swathes of land from his family. Unfortunately as more and more wixen stopped bothering with wandless magic and began to use apparition, there'd been a sharp decline in the use of beasts. The breeding empire had quickly collapsed in favour of smaller operations.

'Herr Finnis.' Gellert nodded his head respectfully in return and the boy's face went from pale with fear to flushed with delight at being recognised.

Without thinking much further on the issue, Gellert headed off towards the teacher's wing, Berg falling into step beside him as the other three followed. He could hear them muttering.

'It's can't be anything bad.' Berg pointed out under his breath as the climbed the stairs - any fitness that he'd lost over summer had been pounded back into him by Gorlois' merciless morning fitness regime.

'They would have summoned us to the office otherwise.' Gellert agreed.

'Or to the courtyard.'

The castle was arranged almost like a lopsided circle. Each year group had their own dormitory tower, with a common dining room on the ground floor and a dungeon below that held their indoor classes. Built into the curtain walls were the other rooms; libraries, offices, store rooms and spare classrooms. The teacher's wing consisted of two towers, the curtain wall between them and the rather extensive dungeons below them.

The fourth years, being the furthest from that wing, were the last group to arrive.

All the coven children were present, as were a significant number of teachers. There was a potions master, the duelling instructor, the headmaster and one that he didn't recognise but suspected taught some form of martial spell casting if his very practical battle robes were anything to go by.

'Ah. That's the last of you. Take a seat please.' The headmaster instructed as they filed in. Immediately, Mareike and the Hawdons headed over to the desks with Yannik and Neele. The two younger students made room for them at the desk. Gellert and Berg hovered awkwardly for a moment, then Mareike seemed to realise that they needed space too and hastily shuffled sideways again to make room.

'Excellent, excellent.' The headmaster joined his hands together in front of him and bounced on his heels. 'It's been bought to our attention that the group of you are in positions of increased danger.'

'Just now?' Berg demanded sharply, drawing every eye in the room. He flushed, but in the gloomy light of the dungeon classroom it was almost imperceptible. Gellert wondered when the previously non-confrontational boy had taken a leaf out of Hermione's book.

'He's right.' Yannik agreed surprising the Grindelwald heir. He'd remembered Yannik to be a very quiet boy with a rigid regard for the rules. He never would have expected him to speak up against a teacher.

'We've been repeatedly injured, kidnapped and threatened, and you're only now noticing the "position of increased risk"?'

'We... ah...' The headmaster stumbled slightly, his eyes darting over to Gellert nervously. Gellert raised an eyebrow for him to continue and the wizards eyes darted around the assembled staff.

'The school cannot offer additional tuition to a certain faction in this war without losing it's status as neutral, however, after careful consideration and consultation with stakeholders, we have concluded that as there is a justified and present threat against you as our students and that it would be in our best interest to tutor you.' The headmaster folded his arms, assuming the generously smiling mask of a politician.

'In other words, the coven threatened to withdraw their funding.' Berg muttered, leaning close enough to Gellert's ear to net be overheard. Gellert snorted, agreeing that that was likely the case.

'As such...' The headmaster continued, talking over Berg loudly, 'you shall be attending classes here, during this period, every day. Herr Hor will be looking at specialised defensive techniques, Herr Strang will be teaching you warding and Herr Laude will be showing you how to brew antidotes and test for poisons.'

As the name of each instructor was mentioned, they stepped forwards and nodded their head respectfully.

'We'll be missing every ethics class.' Berg muttered under his breath, counting off on his fingers beneath the cover of the table. 'And I'll be missing one of my foreign magic, and you'll be missing one of your divination classes.'

'That will be all.' The headmaster pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at the time. 'You have ten minutes left of this lesson. Please remain here and depart when the bell rings.'

Then the headmaster left, the teachers trailing after him. For a moment the room was silent, then the other coven children burst into chatter. Gellert quickly surmised from their discussion that they were nowhere near as well informed on events before Halloween as his siblings were.

'It must have been really serious.' Neele pressed, knotting pale fingers together in her brown uniform skirt.

'Dad's cast anti-elf wards all over the house, so none of the elves can apparate anymore.' One of the Hawdons revealed. 'And Mum didn't want us to come back to school.'

'Mine wanted to send me to stay with the Grindelwalds, but she wouldn't tell her where they were.' Neele glanced over at the two boys and Gellert had to wonder if she somehow thought that they couldn't hear her.

'England.' Yannik announced and Gellert blinked in shock. 'My mother told me that... Lord Grindelwald... has a sister in England.'

He shared a mystified look with Berg; he was vaguely aware of an aunt in England, but he'd never met her and wasn't even certain of her name. He'd been very young when it happened, but he could vaguely remember attending a funeral where they'd all worn black and stood around a muddy hole in the rain for hours.

No, his mother would never send him to her; his aunt was clearly not traditional.

'Lady Grindelwald wasn't trying to refuse you safety.' Berg interrupted quietly, drawing the attention of the other children.

'What?' Mareike asked warily. Gellert found himself feeling like he was talking to a complete stranger rather than someone he'd grown up with. It really was like there was a barrier between them; one of experience and maturity. Where Gellert and Berg had been deeply involved in the fighting and the politics of every conflict, the others had lived relatively normal childhoods. The brutal reality of war and death, the weight of responsibility and stress had forced the Grindelwald children into adulthood far sooner than the others. He felt like he was a decade older than them, rather than days.

'Lady Grindelwald sent us away with the poison, to guard the evidence. We were somewhere safe, but we would have been targeted instantly if anyone knew where we were.'

'Wait, what?' Yannik sat up straight, turning fully in his seat to face them. 'They trusted you to look after the poison?'

'I assume everyone else was occupied by more important matters than watching over a stasis charm in the middle of nowhere.' Berg replied mildly.

'But why you? You're just children, like us.' Neele's face had twisted into an almost ugly scowl, which was as out of place on her elfin features as the extroverted discussion was on Yannik's personality.

'Hermione is better at warding than most adults.' Gellert pointed out reproachfully.

'It's because they favour you.' one of the Hawdons decided, tilting his chin up defiantly. 'You guys are always getting to do everything. You got to fight in Russia, whilst we were stuck here. You got to fight during the Blau Berg siege and now you get to help solve the poisoning.'

'You think I wanted to fight in Russia?' Gellert demanded incredulously. 'You think I wanted to spend a term knee deep in mud and blood, knowing that with every minute that passed, my witch could die?'

He found himself standing, hands slamming into the table with enough fury that his magic rattled the torches in their brackets.

'Do you think I wanted my witch to be challenged to a duel by Alice? Do you think I enjoyed being captured by Livius Lucan and dragged through his cave of rancid, fetid undead? This war is not some glorious adventure, some Iliad, where you can earn honour and glory. This is the real world, where there are real consequences. You could die, you could end your family line forever, and all that it would take is one little mistake.'

The other coven children were cowering away from him and Berg laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

'You are lucky, to be kept safe by ranks of aurors and the walls of this castle. You don't have nightmares of death and destruction, of your home burning around you and the smell of your mother's charred flesh-'

'Gellert-' Berg cautioned.

'No! I will not stand for this.' Gellert hissed, shoving his brother away. 'This war is foul, cruel and you are lucky to have been isolated from it behind those that would sacrifice themselves to keep you safe. Do not belittle that sacrifice.' Breathing like a bull, Gellert finally fell silent and allowed Berg to pull him back from where he'd been bellowing into the Hawdon's faces. He shrugged the hand off, spinning on his heel and storming from the room before he could try to demonstrate exactly how lucky they all were.