In the dead of night, Gellert opened his eyes and lay still in bed. Turning his head, he cast his eyes straight to the wand where it lay on the bedside table, aglow in a wash of moonlight. As he focused on it, he heard it whispering to him softly in the gloom, felt the answering darkness within him stirring, deep and strong, the power rising and flowing inside his blood, seeking a way out. Although it was past midnight, he didn't feel sleepy at all. As a matter of fact, he felt wider awake than ever.
He slipped out of bed, padded softly over to the table and picked up the wand. As he gripped its familiar, comforting length in his hand, feeling the warm wood shift beneath his grip like a living thing, he thought he felt it quiver with excitement. There was something different about it today. It seemed more volatile, more alive than usual, and he thought he knew why.
"It is the Dumbledore boy, yes?" he whispered in the dark. "You felt it too. He was powerful, more powerful than anyone we have met before." At the mention of Dumbledore's name, the wand fairly leaped beneath Gellert's fingers. "What is this? This is the first time anyone but me has had such an effect on you. If you are not careful now, I will be jealous." He squeezed the wand firmly, to remind it who was in charge.
"So this confirms what I suspected. The boy is as powerful as I am. But there is something strange about him. He does not behave like a powerful person. He is so withdrawn, inside himself, like someone who is scared and hiding. But perhaps that is for the best. It will be easier for me to control him, make use of him."
The wand shivered slightly.
"What is that? He is powerful? Yes, but so are you, and I am your master now, am I not?"
The wand stiffened for a moment, then went limp and lay unresisting in his hand.
"Gut," he said. "And I will break Dumbledore the same way."
He was restless now, the magic still ebbing and flowing inside him, making him claustrophobic. He needed to get out of the wooden walls of this house, go for a walk in the wide open spaces where there was room for his power to release itself, giving him the peace of mind he needed to think.
Like a ghost, he drifted silently through the wooden door of the room, descended the stairs and moved through the darkened interior of the hallway. As he reached the front door, he sensed a faint, newly cast enchantment woven around the house's perimeter in addition to the usual protective charms. As the realisation came to him he almost felt like laughing: his great-aunt, worried that he might leave the house in his anger, had cast a sensory spell to alert her if he crossed the boundaries. She had put some effort into concealing the spell, and most fully trained wizards would have trouble detecting it, but to Gellert it was child's play. For a moment he considered tripping the spell just to bring his great-aunt out of bed and let her know that he didn't care, but he eventually decided against it. He slipped through the charms and the front door with ease and found himself outside in the cool darkness.
The waning moon was high in the sky and almost full, shedding a pale glow over the landscape. The chirping of crickets and the gentle rustling of wind through tree boughs were the only sounds in the night.
Gellert strode swiftly over the grass, moving far quicker than any Muggle could have, until he left the house far behind and came to a grassy field. The silent turf spread out around him in every direction, while above him the midnight expanse of the sky opened, sprinkled with brilliant white stars. Gellert's eyes were drawn to Draco, the Heavenly Dragon, and then to Heracles, the greatest hero of all, who had performed twelve miraculous tasks and become a god. It was an auspicious sign, indicating that the time was ripe for new beginnings, although Gellert was not inclined to superstition and had no faith in omens and portents.
He walked slowly across the field, feeling the grass tickling his bare feet, inhaling the sweet scent of the breeze. He fell into a trance, a dream-like state halfway between sleeping and waking, and felt the magic expanding to fill the space around him, uncoiling from his body, spreading across the fields like a living thing, a web of power winding across the ground, burrowing down into the earth, climbing high into the sky. In a flash, the universe opened around him. He felt the twitching of every blade of grass, the fluttering of each moth's tiny wings, the worms and blind things crawling deep under the ground, the bats and silent owls winging through the sky, the trees rooted deep in the earth, dreaming their slow arboreal dreams. He felt the earth moving around him as it turned below the vault of heaven, and he felt the diamond-bright stars tumbling from the stream of the Milky Way as it flowed through the oblivion of space.
He stood for a while - it might have been a minute, it might have been eternity, he did not know - savouring the wholeness, the feeling of being connected to everything. For an instant he was old as the mountains, free as the wind, solid as the earth, insubstantial as a cloud, empty as the sky. His flesh and blood faded away, leaving nothing but his essence, raw magic, pure and unfettered. He, Gellert Grindelwald, disappeared, and he became a raw force of nature, a current of energy, a fundamental particle borne on the elemental currents of the universe. He was complete. He was content.
Afterwards the magic retreated into his body and Gellert returned to himself, but he was not quite the same as before. His thoughts were clearer now, his mind more peaceful. The darkness inside him had taken its fill, drinking deeply from the energy of the universe, and its appetite for power was satiated for the moment. It drowsed within him, coiled up and growing in strength, and when it next awoke it would be hungrier still...
Gellert began to walk again, idly, with no particular direction in mind. He noticed small, dark shapes moving slowly over the grassy turf, and when he drew close to one he saw that it was a hare. The creature paused when it saw him, rising up on its hind legs, its long floppy ears twisting this way and that, its little nose twitching as it watched him for any hint of danger. Gellert was drawn to its beauty and innocence, as it stared at him nervously from the corners of its large, dark eyes. Its long legs were so perfectly designed. He had seen hares running across the fields in his homeland with such power and grace. What a delicate, gentle little creature it was.
As Gellert raised his wand, the hare turned and raced away across the grass.
"Avada Kedavra."
Fast as the little creature ran, it could not outrun the shadow of death, flying on the wings of Gellert's spell. Unfortunately the hare was too far away for Gellert to see its desperation, but he imagined the terror in its eyes, and the thought excited him. At last the green jet of light struck its target and the hare fell to the ground, dead.
He moved close to the body and stared at it hungrily, intently. The hare was stretched out in an unnatural position, its limbs twisted together in its death throes. It was a pathetic sight. He was aroused by it, by the sight of life becoming death, the delicate innocence become broken and corrupt, the eyes that once shone with timid energy now empty and blank. The whole corpse was a mockery, cold and twisted, a cruel parody of the warm, living breathing life that had once inhabited it. Alive, the hare had been the embodiment of speed, grace and life. Yet in a matter of seconds it had become an ugly, grim, offensive thing. What a difference a small spark of life made!
He was fascinated, as always, by the sight of Death. Death was the twin brother of Life. Death walked beside every living thing each day of its existence. Death was the one certainty, the one constant companion, yet everyone fled from Death's embrace. But Death would come for them all in the end. Wouldn't it?
Absentmindedly, his hand went to his chest, where on the skin above his heart he had engraved the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. The Peverells had been buried here in Godric's Hollow with their Hallows. Would he find them and become Master of Death?
His eyes returned to the hare. He was regretting killing it now. He should have hurt it first, trapped it and tortured it and seen the pain in its eyes. That would have been more... satisfying, but it was too late for that. He waved his wand, and the hare's body crumbled into dust and blew away in the wind, as though it had never been. He was bored with hares now, and he wanted more interesting prey.
His eyes drifted over to the eastern side of the village, where the houses of the Muggles would have been visible if it were daytime. Perhaps he could find some more entertainment over there. After all, Muggles were hardly more than animals. He would have to be careful, though, because he wanted to stay in Godric's Hollow for as long as it took to research the Hallows and work on the Dumbledore boy, and he couldn't afford to bring suspicion on himself.
In Germany, the Muggle villagers had become suspicious when several of their more attractive daughters, and a few of their sons and babies, had disappeared without a trace. That had caused problems for Gellert. He had reasoned that since the Muggles were breeding like rats and taking over the world, he was doing them a favour by taking some of their children off their hands and helping them control their population. It wasn't as though they could afford to feed all those kids anyway. After all, the Muggle villages were so poor. Gellert could solve any problems the Muggles caused for him, but not without attracting unwanted attention from wizards, who were more difficult to deal with.
He was feeling excited and tense, both in mind and body. The magic surged within him, pumping through his veins, beating an insistent rhythm in his head. The darkness flowing through him and around him, the sight of the hare falling in a blaze of green light, its little form consumed with death, the power of life and destruction pulsing in the wand in his hand, all of these aroused feelings of lust and desire deep within him. He wanted, needed a way to release his urges. The urge to destroy, corrupt, break, and wield power over someone filled him.
His feet flew over the grass as he headed for the Muggle houses.