Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to JK Rowling. If you don't recognize it and it's quite weird – blame me.
A/N: Here's the fight you've all been waiting for. Hope I didn't disappoint.
Chapter 22 – Battle
Albus determined that the best course of action was to get out of there. He couldn't be sure who was coming and he definitely didn't want the magic lantern found. George had risked everything to keep it from Grindelwald's hands, and Albus had no intention of delivering it back to the enemy. He rendered himself invisible and shifted to phoenix form. But when he tried to use the phoenix method of apparition, he received an unhappy surprise; the magic lantern was keeping him grounded.
Suddenly Albus understood many things about George's last day on Earth. George had found two things in the warehouse, the altar and the lantern. Neither could be moved easily, and whatever the lantern was, George knew it would derail Grindelwald's plans in some way if it disappeared. He had probably asked Albus and Nicholas to come to the warehouse in the hope that they would be able to help him break the spells that bound it to the location. The night George was killed, something had drawn him into that warehouse, but while his killer found George, the killer did not find the lantern.
Those thoughts flashed through his mind in the way that so many thoughts do – moving faster than the speed of light. He transfigured the magic lantern back into a spider and returned it to its hiding place. Then, knowing he was invisible and that he could still disapparate using the phoenix method, Albus hovered, waiting to see who had come.
Two young wizards, familiar to Albus, crept cautiously into the room. Darren Carpenter and Gregory Smith must not have been aware of the enchantment the ministry had set to notify them of wizard entry into the warehouse.
"No one is here, Greg," Darren said fearfully. His voice was barely more than a whisper.
"I feel it. Something has changed," Gregory responded. He was turning in a broad circle, looking at every surface, but staring right through Albus. His invisibility was working perfectly. "I should have searched better the night I caught that auror here. In all this time the lantern has never turned up. This is about the only place we haven't returned to look."
"Well, here and Hogwarts," Darren corrected.
"If Dumbledore took the thing, it would have been given to the ministry by now, and then we'd know," Gregory countered, as he moved cautiously into the room, still looking in every direction.
Albus stared at the two sorrowfully. Some part of him had hoped the two were under mind control. He did not have to use legilimency to know the answer. It was apparent by their exchange; they had followed Grindelwald of their own free will.
"I told you that you should have let Lord Grindelwald interrogate the auror first," Darren retorted sharply. It seemed like it must be a well-practiced argument. This further confirmed who had killed George, and though Albus had guessed it was Gregory Smith, he had wanted to be wrong.
Beneath them, they heard sounds of more arrivals. It seemed logical that this would be ministry officials, answering the magical summons sent by the arrival of Gregory and Darren. Albus did not want to capture the two in this room. He wanted nothing to pull Grindelwald back to this location, until he figured out how to remove the lantern. But Albus was torn, because he also did not want the two to attack the ministry officials. It seemed inevitable that someone would die from such a confrontation. No deaths could be acceptable to Albus; he had been teacher to both boys and still felt a need to protect them, despite the fact that he knew what they had done and that they deserved punishment for their choices. But he could not, in good conscience, leave them the opportunity to kill again.
He waited until the two turned to creep silently back down the stairs before he used a capturing spell to pin them to the wall in the corridor outside the altar room. It could hardly be called a battle; it was over so quickly.
Albus returned to the altar room, reverting to himself to try to remove the magic lantern, though it still looked like a spider. It could be summoned, but could not leave the room in any manner. While he worked, he kept expecting the ministry officials to call out or ascend the staircase. It was his hope to get the lantern before they came up so that it could be examined at the ministry.
It took several long moments that seemed more like hours before he finally found the right combination of spells. His own brief stint as a curse breaker in his early twenties provided a wealth of knowledge toward that end. Despite his focus on his task, he kept listening for the ministry officials, who seemed not to have discovered Gregory and Darren yet. With the disguised lantern at last in his hand, Albus finally decided to approach those below and hopefully not scare the life out of them. He stepped out of the room and met a blast of yellow light from a wand that he barely ducked in time.
To Albus' horror, no aurors had yet been summoned to the warehouse. Instead, it was Wilhelm Grindelwald himself. He had brought with him three loyal followers, and had also released Gregory and Darren from their bonds. Albus didn't know why he hadn't heard them ascend the stairs but it hardly mattered. He was now a single man facing six dark wizards, and should he die there, he might not be found for days since no one had known he was returning to the warehouse.
Albus shifted smoothly to phoenix form, intending to get the spider/lantern out and save his fighting skills for a less one-sided battle. However, Grindelwald seemed to have expected this and used an image locking hex combined with a summoning charm to keep him from exiting. Performing magic without a hand to hold his wand and without the focus of his own human form was difficult, but Albus managed to shift back to himself and duck the blood curse that was aimed at him.
Grindelwald laughed mirthlessly. "You're not actually a phoenix, Dumbledore. If I kill you there will be no rebirth. If I maim you, your tears cannot heal." A purple shot of light grazed the edge of his robes and Albus turned to see who of the five others had sent that spell. Gregory Smith followed it up with a second, but Albus turned the spell around on him – not taking the time to think about just what the spell was. Gregory took the blast fully in the chest and collapsed, just as three more spells flew at Albus. He dropped, barely in time, and one of the spells that had missed him instead hit one of Grindelwald's men, who was very suddenly engulfed in flames.
Above him, Grindelwald started shouting orders, trying to keep his men from killing each other. Albus used the distraction to cast an exploding stun spell. Two more of the supporters were hit and knocked out, but the whole group felt the concussive blast, and the building groaned with the impact, while dust and pieces of plaster showered them from the ceiling.
Encouraged by the fact that the tables had been so suddenly turned, Albus transfigured the stair railing into a python. It slithered off the brass supports and crawled toward the fray, unnoticed by the two men firing spell after spell at him. Albus continued to block each hex, wondering exactly when one of them might notice the snake and whether they'd find it bothersome or not. Albus also transfigured several knutes into hornets that flew angrily at Grindelwald, stinging him mercilessly on his face and arms.
It was then that one of Grindelwald's spells finally reached Albus. He felt a warm sensation and his mind went blank. It was a wonderful feeling and very soothing. "Drop your wand," a voice said. His fingers automatically loosened on his wand and it slid slightly toward the floor.
"But why?" his own mind asked. "I don't want to," he thought, as if from a distance.
"Drop your wand!" the order was powerful, more forceful than before.
"I don't want to!" his own thoughts shouted loudly. Deep within himself, Albus realized that this was a control spell and that if he didn't either convince them he was compliant or else attack them, Grindelwald and Darren Carpenter would kill him.
He let the wand slide to the floor and hung there limply, pretending to be in control.
"That's it Dumbledore, you're not so tough are you?" Grindelwald said smugly. "Now, bring me my lantern. I know that you know where it is."
Albus turned and walked toward the altar, leaving his wand behind him. He heard Darren gasp a sigh of relief. Albus reached the altar and focused his mind as completely as he could, ordering his wand to return to him. It soared into his outstretched hand, just as Darren let out a scream. Whirling, Albus realized that the python had reached the younger man and had wrapped itself around both his legs. It appeared that Darren was extremely fearful of snakes, which was to Albus' advantage.
Grindelwald had been momentarily distracted by his friend's scream, but suddenly became aware that Albus was fighting back. The powerful hex Grinedelwald threw next broke through Albus' attempts at deflection, and only his quick reflexes saved him. He threw himself flat to the floor and the spell flew over his head. When the spell struck the altar it shattered as if it had been glass, propelling shards of wood and brass in all directions. Both Albus and Grindelwald were struck painfully by shrapnel, while Darren continued to struggle against the snake.
Another twist of Albus' wand turned the snake into ropes that subdued Darren Carpenter, wrapping around him tightly and pulling him off balance to tumble to the floor. In the time it took to complete that spell work, Grindelwald had again aimed another hex like the one that had just destroyed the altar. Albus used a switching spell to reverse the hex's direction and it hit Grindelwald in the stomach. He cried out as though in pain only briefly, before his skeleton burst inside him. He sagged to the ground, a sack of flesh with no support, his organs crushed from gravity as he fell.
Albus stood shakily, staring at the remains of the man who had killed the woman he loved and his only child – Grindelwald hardly resembled a human now and he was quite dead. The full impact of the battle struck Albus just as he finally heard voices that were unmistakably the ministry officials he'd been expecting all along. The fools declared themselves as they entered the warehouse. Had Albus not just destroyed their would-be attackers, the ministry men would surely have been killed before they knew what hit them.
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