Chapter 64: When I'm 64

Harry knew where Nurmengard was; he'd taken prisoners there, gone there to interrogate prisoners, and he even gone once in person just to let a prisoner go. Nurmengard was the prison Grindelwald built for his war prisoners, but now it was just for any magical lawbreakers. It was not guarded by dementors, as Azkaban was, but by trolls and wizards.

Even though Harry wasn't at the top of his power, he could still get into even the highest security cells due to his phoenix teleportation. The wizarding world really did underestimate things it didn't understand; Harry suspected even a house elf would be able to get into Nurmengard.

Harry teleported himself and Albus into the hallway directly outside of Grindelwald's cell. He knew where the cell was from when he witnessed, through the connection in their mind, Voldemort break in and interrogate Grindelwald about the Elder Wand.

They were in a hallway lined with steel doors. Each door had a little rectangular window with thick bars.

Harry was nervous. He regretted bringing Albus there a little; what if it went wrong? It would be Harry's fault. Albus looked calm, but Harry noticed a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead that said differently.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Harry asked quietly.

Albus gave Harry a half-hearted reassuring smile. "Will you take me in?"

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"Thank you, Harry, but I need to do this alone. I'll knock when I'm ready to leave."

Harry nodded.

He grabbed Albus around the middle and teleported into the cell, and Harry teleported back out before he materialized fully.

Then he leaned against the wall and waited.

Harry couldn't hear anything from within the cell, so it seemed like an age to wait. Harry paced up and down the hall, having to turn invisible for a brief moment while a troll guard passed. Though it seemed long, it was, in fact, only ten or fifteen minutes before there came a light knock on the door and Harry went back in to get Albus.

Harry materialized in the cell.

"Gellert, this is Harry."

Gellert Grindelwald was sitting on a dirty, unmade cot with his elbows on his knees, and Albus was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. Gellert had not aged nearly as well as Albus; his hair was long, gray, and tangled and he was wrinkled and flabby. Despite that, Harry could still see the Sandy Haired Thief in his eyes.

"Hello, Harry," said Grindelwald softly. "He's young," he said to Albus. "Watch out, boy, or you'll end up in a prison cell too."

Harry frowned at Grindelwald. He was fighting the urge to curse him. He only didn't because he knew the conflict between Grindelwald and Albus was none of his business.

"Thank you for the talk," said Albus pleasantly to Grindelwald, as if Grindelwald had had a choice to talk rather than been visited in his prison cell by the man who put him there.

"You're welcome," Gellert smiled, standing.

"I doubt we will meet again, Gellert, so this is goodbye."

Albus strode over to the cot and proffered his hand to shake. Gellert took it, and stole a kiss before Albus could move away.

Harry had no idea how he'd gotten over to the cot, but before he knew it, his fist had made contact with Gellert's face.

"Harry, please don't," sighed Albus, moving away and wiping his mouth off on a handkerchief.

"Sorry." Harry backed off.

Gellert got up off the floor, and as soon as he was upright, Albus punched him square in the face sending him back onto the floor.

Harry gaped in surprise. Perhaps he'd misunderstood the nature of their conflict.

"Are you ready to go?" asked Albus over Grindelwald's moans of pain.

"Ah…yes," said Harry, tearing his eyes away from Grindelwald.

Albus offered Harry his arm, and they vanished in a whirl of flame, but not before he thought he heard Grindelwald whisper, "I'm sorry."

When they were back in Harry's tower, Harry wanted to ask, "how did it go?" but he didn't have to.

"It was what I needed," said Albus, and he didn't elaborate.

Harry's eyes fell on the Resurrection Stone, still sitting on his bedside table. Albus, clearly, had also spotted it.

"What are you going to do about the stone?" Harry asked Albus.

Albus looked guilty. "If I'm honest, I…don't know. I want to tell you I won't use it, but…"

"What would you get out of using it? You can't undo what was done."

"Forgiveness," he said simply.

Harry had a hard time arguing with that. He chose to clean his glasses rather than arguing.

"But I don't trust myself to let it go at that. Using the stone would set me at the edge of a slippery slope, and it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

Harry exhaled slowly, trying to cover his relief, and put his glasses back on.

"We should destroy it," Albus said.

"Er, what?…We can't," said Harry. If they destroyed it, Harry would never see his parents and Sirius and Lupin and would never work up the courage to meet Voldemort in the forest when he needed to.

"Harry, this object causes misery, misguided hope. I don't trust myself not to use it if it remains."

"You're going to have to trust me on this one. We can't destroy it."

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I cannot sit by and let others fall prey to the same agony that I felt searching for this for so long."

"Fine," said Harry. "I needed it. There was a time…when I had to do something, and the stone was the only thing that got me through it. We can't destroy it because I need it in the future. Afterwards, I lost it and nobody will ever find it again. Keep it safe, and nobody will ever have the false hope that you had."

"And you? How could it possibly have helped you?"

"I…wouldn't say it gave me hope. It gave me comfort. Trust me; I needed it."

"I will agree to this on one condition."

"What's that?"

"That we look inside the vault before deciding."

"The…the vault?" Harry was confused by the sudden change in topic. "The Peverell vault that gets opened by the stone? I don't see why not." Besides, Harry knew there was no way to change the future. No matter what, the stone would survive. Harry had a sneaking suspicion that Albus just wanted to see what was in the vault, regardless of the decision.

Harry shrugged.

"Good. Do you have the cloak?" asked Albus.

"We should tell Minerva that you're alright before we leave. She's had…a really bad day, and I don't think she'd like it if we went off without telling her."

Albus nodded.

"You could have tried a little harder to warn her about Tom Riddle being 'Elijah'," said Harry.

"I underestimated him," said Albus. "I thought he was a normal caliber of dark wizard. I didn't anticipate the level of darkness he has descended to, and so young. A Horcrux, Harry…Did you know?"

Harry nodded.

"Fortunately, he doesn't have the ambition that Gellert did or we'd have another war on our hands soon," said Albus. Harry grimaced. Albus saw his face. "Tom Riddle will be—?"

"Way worse," said Harry. "There's a war. Two, actually. The first one will start in about…ten years. You can try all you want to prevent it, but you can't change time. The best thing you can do is teach your students how to protect themselves."

"I have you for that," said Albus, sincerely gazing at Harry.

Harry was both flattered and a little horrified; he felt he was the only thing between Lord Voldemort and the entire wizarding world. At least the feeling wasn't new.

"You're right. We should ask Minerva to accompany us to the vault," said Albus.

"What? I didn't say—"

"I would like to have her there," said Albus.

Harry was surprised. He thought this would be some kind of emotional, cathartic moment for Albus. Maybe he wanted Minerva there to keep it academic. Maybe it was for Minerva's sake. Either way, Harry didn't have any objections.

Through some miracle of timing, that was the exact moment when Fawkes reappeared in Harry's tower, signaling that Minerva was most likely in her room.

"Be right back."

Harry disappeared and reappeared outside Minerva's room and knocked.

She answered the door a second later.

"Hello, Crockett."

"Hey, Minerva. Albus is fine, just so you know."

"Good," said Minerva. She stood in the door way with her arms folded.

"Er. Did you and Nicolas…store the venom?"

"Yes," said Minerva. She pulled a little silver box with many latches out of her robes and handed it to Harry. She crossed her arms again.

"Thanks. So…er…that stone thing that cursed Albus? It's the key to the third vault…"

"That's nice," said Minerva, uninterested.

"And we thought you might…want to come to open it with us."

The look on Minerva's face showed Harry that she had to go back and remember what he'd said because she'd been too busy acting uninterested to listen.

"You…that ring's the…Resurrection Stone?"

Harry nodded.

"You want me to come with you?"

"Yeah," said Harry.

"Well," said Minerva. She pulled off her glasses and began absentmindedly cleaning them on her robes. It took her a while before she looked back at Harry.

"I suppose…I could." Clearly, she was trying to act like she was still angry at somebody. Harry wondered if it was at Riddle, or at Albus for not warning her sufficiently, or if she'd gone back to being passive aggressive at Harry and Albus for being together.

"Great!" Harry smiled. "We're going now. Ready?"

Minerva grabbed Harry's arm, and they teleported back to Harry's room. Harry grabbed his cloak from a drawer, and Albus grabbed his ring and wand from the bedside table.

The three of them crouched under the cloak and waddled awkwardly to Harry's vanishing cabinet. Harry was reminded for a moment of his two best friends Ron and Hermione under this cloak and the many adventures they'd had. Here he was, going on another adventure with his two best friends. They climbed inside the cabinet and a second later, they were tumbling out into Ignotus Peverell's vault.

The three of them exited the vault, into the antechamber.

And there, in front of them, was a giant circle on the wall marking the vault of Cadmus Peverell and the Resurrection Stone.