Hermione didn't stay the night. She dissolved silently just before midnight, but it was a close enough thing that Gellert still felt like he'd sullied her in some way.
It was a ridiculous thought. They'd sat on his conjured bed and studied the plans, and the closest they'd come to anything inappropriate was Hermione's hair escaping it's braids. It was logical - there was only one fire and it was far below freezing outside and it was hardly the most intimate or romantic setting. Two beasts snorting and snuffing to one another at the other end of the room and the constant need to get up and stir dinner made it far too agricultural and the
Perhaps it was because the closest wixen that could possibly supervise them was several hours ride away. Or perhaps it was because they were both older. Hermione had filled out - with the velvet winter cloak floating near the fire to dry, the hourglass shape of her dress was suddenly very obvious. He couldn't decide whether that was because of the cut of this particular dress; devoid of the lace and petticoats of a child or whether it was his own sudden maturity that made it more noticeable.
Either way, the plans of Nurmengard seemed rather drab.
So drab, in fact, that he almost failed to notice when Hermione added a window seat to the highest window in the tower. She explained that she thought it would make a nice reading nook, which made no sense, because she'd already built in an entire library full of reading nooks. She was adamant that it would get used though, and he didn't want to make a fuss when they'd so recently stopped arguing. Their diverging political views already sat like an erumpent in the room, awkward and impossible to miss, currently harmless but ready to explode if either of them misstepped.
When he woke up the next morning, it was only a moment after he'd gotten up that Hermione shimmered into existence in his bed, just like she'd done before she got a room of her own. He almost reheated some of the leftover stew from the night before, then in a sudden fit of spontaneity, decided to take her down to the muggle village for breakfast instead.
It took a bit of doing to disguise Katana - his hide was resistant to magic, but it was the kind of innocent challenge neither of them had enjoyed since before the war. It ended up requiring a combination of runes and glamours, but by the time the sun had risen, Katana was a wingless, tailless horse… admittedly an unrealistically fine horse - taller, skinner and and with finer hair than mundanely possible, but Gellert doubted the muggles in the village had any real experience with the kind of horses that nobility rode, and there was no way Hermione could be mistaken for anything but. Particularly once she'd donned her shimmering velvet cloak again.
The ride down to the village was stunning - it was like Hermione's presence had scrubbed a film of grime away from the world. The snow sparkled freshly, bringing out the rich emerald greens of the evergreen trees and the stormy grays of the stones that made up the ground. Chocolate soil, shimmering with a crust of crunchy ice which crackled as their beasts made their way down the hill.
Their magic danced together, swirling around them and bringing curious creatures out to investigate as they passed. Golden snidgets, bright and fluffy in their winter feathers, whizzed past close enough to catch, lured in by the pure harmony of their combined magic. It had been noted several times that their magics were so perfectly contradictory that together they created a near perfect imitation of nature's own magic. As they grew, it was like their magics continued to grow even more complimentary; Hermione's continuous use of wandless magic stoked the wild flames of her magic, and the ancient unruly wind of her family magic twirled and eddied among the bright power until it reached out and influenced the environment without conscious prompting from her, warming the air around them, weaving strands of her hair back into her braids and stirring her cloak around her ankles. Mounted astride Katana, swathed in shimmering velvet with her Grindelwald combs sparkling in her hair and family rings adorning her fingers, virtually glowing the the bright power of her magic, Hermione could never be mistaken for anyone normal.
In contrast, Gellert's own magic grew ever stiller and cooler as he matured. Like a lake, growing deeper and darker, stiller and colder, yet just as potent as Hermione's. It rippled out around them, dark intent searching ruthlessly for ill intent, turning away a pack of hungry Fenrir with a spike of icy fury. He wondered whether his mother had a touch of the sight; whether she'd known what image in would present to have him mounted on a savage, carnivorous black stallion.
It felt like they'd only ridden for minutes, rather than hours, when they passed through the overgrown gates and entered the village.
They could never have hoped to be inconspicuous. Katana gleamed like a fresh cut diamond among the dull colours of the muggle world and Hermione somehow stood out even more than that. He couldn't imagine how she'd possibly originated from such plain squalor.
They'd gathered quite a grown by the time they dismounted at the bakery. It was nothing like the bakeries they'd visited in Paris, but the bread was hot and sweet smelling.
'Who's this, Master Grindelwald?' Brunald, the muggle who'd first seen Gellert outside the tavern, was the first to step forwards as Gellert helped Hermione dismount. Katana was tall; far too tall to dismount without the usual assistance of his crocked wing to use as a step.
'This is my betrothed, Lady Hermione Granger of Gorlois. Hermione this is, Brunald, and the villagers of Bergdorf.' Brunald bowed deeply but inelegantly and Hermione smiled benevolently, inquiring after his profession. He was a carpenter, who primarily made and repaired furniture and tools for those who lived in the village, but he had a passion for carving animals. Brunald seemed both flustered and delighted by Hermione's attention, and only moments later he was hurrying away to fetch a small sample of his carvings. She'd turned to a seamstress a moment later, complimenting the embroidery around the buttons on her coat. Then a farmer, who seemed embarrassed and annoyed by the tangled mane of the plough horse he must have ridden into town when Hermione commented, then quickly shifted to awe and delight as Hermione promptly pulled out one of Katana's combs from her saddle bags, along with the gunmetal pearl athame he'd gifted her for their betrothal and started demonstrating how to properly comb and pull the horse's mane, getting hair all over her dress.
The muggles loved her so much that they had no chance of getting away with just a couple of rolls and some butter or jam. Instead, they found themselves admiring a set of carvings that Gellert could hardly imagine had been made without magic whilst the inn keeper's wife made a proper warming porridge for breakfast whilst the blacksmith personally checked their horse's shoes incase they'd come loose during the long rides they'd supposedly made the night before. He ended up waxing poetic about the fineness of her mount as he tightened a couple of the cinches and then, upon noticing that Kelpie's were worn, created an entire new set with nothing more than a fire, a hammer and an anvil with proficiency, speed and attention to the particulars of his beast's hooves that put the wixen farrier to shame.
By the time Hermione had gently talked the carpenter into letting her pay for the incredibly detailed carving of a little bird, by giving his wife an embroidered cloak from the seamstress, who received new shears from the farrier, who received a healthy handful of golden galleons in exchange for the shears and his services on Kelpie and Katana, but who wouldn't accept the money until Hermione spotted a circlet of black forged iron leaves, so delicate that each wire stem could be bent. The blushing blacksmith had dismissed the piece as a folly, but finally accepted the money when Hermione had tried to give it back.
As they rode out of the town, several children rushed after them, darting in close before giggling and running away, until Hermione plucked some of Katana's hairs and discretely conjured a loose thread, twisting it into a childish little bracelet, passing it down to the smallest of the boys and pointing him in the direction of a girl in a pretty white dress, clearly hastily worn just for the occasion of Gellert and Hermione's visit, considering it's impracticality in the grubby town.
As they rode through the overgrown gates to the grounds, muggles waving and shouting goodbyes, Gellert realised that he had no hope of ever matching Hermione's way with the people.
Perhaps, he mused, it was because she had been born one of them but had been raised with all the tact and intelligence of a high born wixen. She could relate, but at the same time knew how to be better, and they could recognise it… she was like the embodiment of a rags to riches fairy tail. He almost laughed at he thought; Hermione didn't need to be a like a fairytail, when she was already a high priestess. She was a living fairytail.
They rode up to the Nurmengard site instead of going back to the caves, tethering their beasts under the shelter of the trees and climbing the rest of the way to the rocky outcrop on foot. He hadn't noticed before just how much the work had affected the environment around the area. It reminded him somewhat of the muggle world. The dust from cutting the stones had mixed with the snow - not enough to discolour it, but just enough to steal the brightness and light from it's sparkling reflections. Deep trenches were dug between mounds of raw stone, winding across the outcrop like raw scars, ready to take the foundations of the first tower. It bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the nightmarish muggle wars in his visions, and he forced himself to shake the though from his mind and help Hermione lay out the ritual with conjured string and wooden pegs.
It was complex, because Gellert couldn't use any magical construction. Instead, they had to magically recreate muggle methods using a whole host of charms and spells, all of which had to work perfectly and in the correct order, without getting ahead of themselves. Each row of bricks needed to be hovered into the correct positions, then plastered together with lime mortar mixed whilst the row of bricks were laying themselves, then magically dried before the next layer of bricks could lay itself. Built into the enchantment needed to be exactly where each brick would lay itself, to allow for doors and windows, staircases and rooms.
Once Hermione had gone for a quick aerial check of the layout, they began replacing the string and pegs with the channel that Hermione had chosen - soil, for growth, grounding and stability, which the added advantage of being plentiful and cheap, selected from the northern end of the mountains where it was rich in iron for it's protective properties, and it's ability to nullify any foreign magic which might still linger around the stones of the destroyed wixen castle.
The sun had begun to brush the western hills by the time they finished. The two young wixen stood in the centre of a complex spiderweb of soil, fingers grubby and faces red from physical exertion.
'Ready?' Gellert checked, as they grasped each other's hand. It felt intimate in an innocent, childish way; standing and facing one another, each looking somewhat uncertain, fingers loosely hung between them and wands clenched in their other hands.
Hermione's firm nod was his confirmation, and he closed his eyes, delving into the frigid pool of his magic. He felt the flare of Hermione's magic as she did the same, linking it through their joined hands. He welcomed it, letting it swirl through his own magical core, marvelling at the way they mingled, Hermione's cooling and smoothing whilst his own moved a little faster. Her family magic was harder, awoken by the promise of ritual magic - he could feel it building in her magic; ancient power and understanding, unyielding. A rush of power strong enough to tear his soul to pieces if he tried to contain it.
She squeezed his hand - she was ready.
The first words left his lips - Latin, a verbally simple chant to activate the runic designations that Hermione had given each wall, mathematically calculated to the correct angles and positions. Their combined magic flowed easily, in a pure stream of near-natural magic, lighting up the lines around them, rippling down into the trenches and etching the floor plan of the tower into the gathering dusk.
Then, another simple spell. It took more power, so Hermione let her sect lift the bricks, two of her bonded members channeling the magic through her hands in a smooth stream of power. The grating of stone against stone sounded the success of the second factor.
Gellert changed to the second chant, allowing the runic diagram to maintain the first. Rocks grated again, a deep bass of stone hitting earth and the staccato of bricks hitting one another the music to his chanted song. He could feel the progress with his magic; tugs and ripples in the still pond that let him know that the wording was working. Bricks shuffled and spun, lining up neatly.
A second surge of power from Hermione barely distracted him. She'd tethered off the levitation spell to a circle around the brick pile and left one of her sect members to oversee the channelling of her magic to maintain it. She'd moved onto the mortar, lifting and mixing lime, sand and water with swirls of her wand that barely altered the natural form of her family magic, allowing the wind to lift each ingredient and blow it into the other.
Carefully, because this step involved the linking of two separate processes, Gellert reached out his own smooth and obedient power, twining a new enchantment that siphoned mixed mortar towards the bricks that were shuffling into position.
A foreign presence darted through his mind - one of the sect hijacking the physical link. Gellert's fear and anger turned quickly to relief as the unknown being caught a wild strand of magic that had begun sneaking away down a ritual line, threatening to wreak havoc by plastering mortar in the wrong places.
A near miss.
He steadied himself, then finished coaxing his magic through the ritual lines, connecting the mortar to the building. The roar of the ignition of the soil as he released the magic was followed barely a moment later by the slap of mortar hitting bricks.
Again, one of Hermione's sect darted forwards, this time whipping out a strand of magic that snared between the ritual lines and piggybacked of Gellert's own enchantment. There was a terrible moment were the two connections at either end flickered under the additional strain - the lines weren't wide enough to accommodate two enchantments, then the flow of magic stabilised again.
Mordred, Gellert realised, recognising the dark, oily fire that traced through the addition. They'd forgotten to spread the mortar, and the dark knight had caught the mistake and created the addition without disturbing the rest of the enchantment. Gellert's father had been able to do that, he knew; adapt rituals on the fly when something began to go wrong, but Gellert was already struggling to maintain the separate flows of magic, let alone add one that was unsupported by lines and runes.
He didn't have more time to think, however, because Hermione's hot fire flared through his fingers. It was the best of their magics for the drying spell, but it took both of them to wrest it's wild flames into following the rows of soil, running parallel to the walls. It kept wanting to jump into the next door trail, or spill out into tangential lines.
Then, the complex bit.
Gellert was already sweating when Hermione's feminine voice wove through his own. She sung in the melodic tones of the ancient Picts, a lost language, weaving Gellert's obedient magic through the delicate lines of protective enchantments, building them into the very foundations of the tower. Whilst she worked, Gellert fought to maintain the rest of the ritual, powered by Hermione's sect and her fire.
Then the first pile of bricks ran out and Gellert suddenly had to juggle the links to the existing parts, whilst drawing on Hermione's ancient family magic to link the old pile to a new one. It went reluctantly, recognising that he was not a Gorlois.
Then Mordred was there again, rounding up errant wisps of magic and herding it through to tether it to the next circle. Gellert refocused on the other elements, maintaining each with a quick ripple of magic.
Behind his closed eyes, magic glowed brightly, layered and swirling with each different flavour in a mirror image of the ritual diagram drawn on the earth. The big, bold lines that dictated the stones were solid bars of power, next to the stream of the mortar and the pulsating ferocity of the heating enchantment. Hermione's wards gleamed like dark ink, woven in his own magic like a delicate lace between the other magic.
A deep calm settled upon him, like a density in his chest that settled the flows of complex magical exchange between them, stabilising the flow of Hermione's power through him and to the tethered enchantments, and the return flow of his own being drawn into the wards by her wand and words. It was like occulumency, when one went so deep into one's own mind that it felt like even his body had ceased to exist. He could no longer hear the words of the enchantment, but he could feel the way it directed the magic and how the wand in her hand knotted the magic to the stone as she worked, how Mordred directed the ancient family magic, himself only extant in the flows of power, incorporeal.
He realised why his father had loved sorcery so much, why he'd written page after page on the purity, on the power, on the peace.
But his father had never managed something like this. It would take an experienced coven, or a high priestess and her betrothed, with the experience of her sect to catch them.
Hermione squeezed his hand, bringing him back to his body. He breathed in the sharp tang of magic and the rich damp of earth and stone, then exhaled and took over Hermione's control of the magic. His voice was a deeper timbre, taking over from her melody in the rolling latin wards, tracing a circular ring of runes - ancient enchantments to protect the stones from age and weather, used on every building. Hermione took back control of her own magic, and he could feel her observing him, imbuing her own fire into certain runes and symbols, burying in a deep punch of volatile power.
She couldn't control it as well as he could. Her power bucked without the soothing calm of his own, flaring and sparking along the lines as she rapidly called upon her sect to stabilise the flow.
They alternated as the sound of scraping rocks grew more distant with the height of the tower, chanting the same chorus of spells in their ancient languages as the light and temperature dropped around them. But neither child heeded it, warmed by magic and eyes closed to the physical plane.
It came as a surprise when Hermione suddenly severed the flow of magic to the bricks, dropping them with a crunch. Gellert scrambled to catch the flailing ends of the magical web, weaving it back into itself as Hermione did the same to the mortar. He hurried behind her, smoothing her work with practiced caresses, developed by tidying up his peer's work in school sorcery lessons.
Slowly, incrementally, they finished the enchantment, anchoring the wards and letting the drying charms peter out on their own.
Gellert's eyes blinked open… once, twice… then he realised that it was dark - so dark that he could hardly make out Hermione's form opposite him. A moment later he noticed how cold it was and the painful numbness of his toes.
Hermione echoed his sentiments, groaning as she crouched and curled forwards, stretching her fingers out and waggling them. He mirrored her, surprised by the efficacy of the stretch and relishing in the bend of his back and knees.
Then he glanced up at the tower.
It wasn't as large as Blau Berg had once been. It would be foolish to build anything bigger right at the edge of the cliff, where it might destabilise the rock. It was far more ominous too - without the high polish of the Blau Berg walls, the stone was dark and the smaller blocks looked less luxurious and more businesslike. Combined with the sharp corners and the overhanging crenellations, it looked far darker. But it was strong - he forced his creaky knees to move, carrying him through the gaping doorway, yet to be filled with a door, and into the entrance hall.
Everything was as it should be - concealed medieval muggle traps, doorways, staircases and narrow windows. He continue up the crisp, angular staircase, marvelling at the lack of dip in the centre of each step. He'd never lived somewhere new enough to not have treads worn into the staircases.
Echoing footsteps let him know that Hermione was following him, her heeled boots clicking along to the whisper of her skirts.
He made his way all the way up to the top, right up into the pinnacle shaped roof where Hermione's reading nook had been build into the window. He heard her breath catch behind him, then she pushed into the room so that she stood at the window.
'The view is spectacular.' Gellert commented, coming up beside her.
The view was spectacular, but with no shutters or glass in the window, it was bitterly cold. The winter wind swirled in, the taste of snow and pine tangling with the tang of recent magic.
'What's wrong?' He asked after a moment, when Hermione didn't reply. He glanced over, noticing the damp sparkle to her eyes.
'I never thought I'd stand here.' She admitted. Gellert shrugged in vague agreement; whilst he hadn't expected it to be so soon, he'd always known that they'd rebuild Blau Berg… or Nurmengard.
'It's better than I imagined.' Gellert commented, climbing up on the seat so that he could peer down at the distant floor. 'It'd be almost impossible for anyone to get in here.'
'Or out…' Hermione added solemnly, running a finger over the faint impression of the wards they had woven into the stone during the construction. They weren't the primary defensive wards, which would be far mightier and linked to a ward stone, but they the strength of their combined magic and the sect, they were still strong enough to be tangible as a slight buzz.
'Or out?' Gellert agreed doubtfully, although he didn't know why anyone would ever want to get out… unless she was planning to take a flying leap straight from reading and onto Katana's back?
With a shudder, Hermione pulled herself back together, whatever had been troubling her swiftly occluded behind thick shields. Gellert considered asking, then decided that it probably had something to do with her long imprisonment in the dark Russian castle and was therefore a topic best left alone. Instead, he offered her his hand to escort her back down the staircase to the gate. She allowed him to, but unsurprisingly, considering the late hour, faded away before they could reach the beasts.