Just a reminder that these are all unproof-read chapters as I just want to get it off my computer as I write. Please feel free to let me know of any glaring mistakes.
'I had the elf make chocolate fudge for you,' Gellert told her, taking a seat at the desk. She pulled up a chair opposite him as he rolled out a blank parchment sheet. He grabbed a quill and began sketching out the ritual, like most ancient and complex enchantments, it used a diagram rather than an incantation.
He spent several minutes drawing, then opened a pot of green ink and began annotating the runes he knew. Hermione pulled an encyclopedia of greek runes towards her and started searching for those that he didn't know.
It wasn't too bad, when you looked at all the aspects separately, she discovered. The runes individually weren't inherently evil, it was only when they were connected that the true intent of the spell became known. As it was, she ended up enjoying herself. She'd never had the good fortune to work with someone that equalled her in intelligence. They worked in near silence, pausing only to add more logs to the fire or send for food from the elf. Hermione's own writing scrawled across the diagram, as between them they decoded the exact process of the spell.
Once they had worked out the meanings of the runes, they began on the connectives. This was more gruelling work but Hermione discovered that if she focused solely on small areas, it was still not so bad. It was fascinating work on a much larger scale than the simple spells that they had worked on at school and Gellert was happy to explain his thought processes and how he picked out what connected to each other and the overall effect of the magic.
When Harry joined them later – just after Gellert had replace the candles for the second time, his eyes bugged as he took in the two of them, surrounded by opened books, piles of parchment and dirty dishes.
Hermione waved to him and he walked over, surveying the symbols surrounded by lines of miniscule writing. He wiped some ink off her chin and looked at the book over her shoulder. She was working on a very tricky aspect now; the differential between two halves of the soul. It was essential to the modifications they would eventually make to the ritual so she had to make sure she got the relation between them in the correct order so that they could isolate each rune.
They had a brief pause where Gellert left to fetch an old intelligence file which he claimed contained details on the magic defences of every great magical house in Britain. He confessed that although it was probably out of date, it would cover the majority of the older, more powerful warding.
'How are we warded here?' Hermione asked curiously, she hadn't seen him cast any protective spells, but she had been asleep for several hours.
'The ward room downstairs powers the protections. It requires blood or bone to keep them operating, you saw me repower them earlier.'
'That is the warding system?' Hermione asked, intrigued.
'Yes, the enchantments far more powerful with a symbol and the usual protective enchantments are much more potent when powered by human sacrifice. Of course, the ancient houses are similarly protected, usually with several hundred muggles sacrificed to power the protections. They don't need recharging for years, which is fortunate because human sacrifice is now illegal.'
'So how do you break them?' Harry asked curiously, pulling a chair up to the desk and cautiously moving some parchments to make space for him to sit. Grindelwald leaned back in his chair.
'Albus and the aurors brought mine down by continuous bombardment. They exhausted the charge after I had already been captured. These wards are not keyed to a specific family though – the wards belong to whomever casts them. For genetic inheritance of ward control, there must be an element of the family blood, so the easiest way to break the blood wards would be blood of the family.'
'So we need to capture a Malfoy.' Harry concluded. Grindelwald shook his head.
'No, we just need their blood. All we need is to make one of them bleed during a battle, even soiled clothes.' He opened the file, which was split into different sections, each headed by the name of one of the old wizarding families. He flicked through the alphabetical file, pausing on Macmillan and carefully leafing through until he reached Malfoy.
The Malfoy section was split into several different properties, one in France, one in Greece and a bolt-hole hunting lodge in Scotland. The largest section was on the Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire, he handed Hermione a detailed, hand written list of wards. Harry was given a set of sketched blue prints and a diagram of the grounds.
'There will always be a focal point for the wards, usually inside the building. We need to access it to bring down the wards.'
'But if the focal point is inside the wards, how to we get to it?' Harry asked, causing Grindelwald to pause in his planning.
'Maybe we do need a Malfoy.' He conceded.
They paused to consider this problem, Harry pull over a piece of parchment, flipped it over and began to scratch out a list of places the Malfoy family might visit. He considered the list, crossed out the Ministry, circled Diagon Alley and Knockturn alley, then tapped his quill a couple of times next to Hogwarts.
'We could wait in the alley, they'd have to visit eventually but it could take a while...' He paused dramatically, 'or we could wait at the gates of Hogwarts. It's riskier, we'd be closer to You-Know-Who but if he's using it as a base and the wards are up, the Malfoys would have to apparate outside the gates to report to their master.' Hermione looked at him appreciatively as he explained his reasoning. Grindelwald was nodding in agreement. 'We could use my dad's invisibility cloak!' He added excitedly and Hermione winced, she didn't miss how Grindelwald suddenly looked at Harry with renewed interest.
'Yes.' Hermione gritted out, forcing herself not to show her displeasure to Harry. She would need to have stern words with the dark wizard.
'I want the snake too.' Gellert announced suddenly. 'I want to make sure the transfer works before we try it on Harry.' He explained when both younger wizards looked at him as if he'd gone crazy.