I think I am enjoying writing jailbird Grindelwald a bit too much to do my other fic ideas after watching the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Ah well, best get it out of my system.
Grindelwald has about 15 years of trying to insult and generally annoy Dumbledore before Albus has more pressing matters to attend to. Not sure how far I can push the pair along.
1947
15 February 1947
Dear Gellert
After speaking with some folks in high places, you have been granted some leeway in magic use for hygiene purposes. Once more, do not misuse it. Your request to the warden for an ensuite bathing facilities have been denied for the obvious reason that we cannot install an extension charm and not expect you to extend it further to include an escape route. However, you will be allowed a charmed bucket, so you and the guards do not have to lug it out when full. The contents go directly to the underground cesspit, so it will be no use trying to use it to communicate with your diehard followers, unless they do not mind waiting in the cesspool of all the castle's filth.
Since your little flood last summer has rendered the recreation room inoperable to date, we will allow you daily walks in the courtyard with a spot of gardening should you be inclined. Tools will be entirely Muggle, and do not even try using the shovel for purposes other than gardening. Apologies but we are unable to accede to your more outlandish requests like a well-stocked library of dark arts grimoires and visits to the Vienna opera house followed by a high class restaurant dinner. Opera is so yesterday and has been after jazz came on in the 1920s.
It appears that I have been remiss in not reaching out to you sooner to congratulate you on your marriage, not that I was invited. Understand MACUSA has just unearthed a copy of your wedding certificate in New Orleans. I do not wish to pry, but isn't she a little young for you? Given that the lady in question has been your constant companion all this while, may I enquire if there are little Grindelwalds running about? I do hope that you and your wife might consider Hogwarts for their education. We do have a solid magic and Muggle studies curriculum I assure you is one of the best. I am not doing this because the headmaster tasked me with improving our dismal overseas recruitment rate, seriously.
Still your friend
Albus
P.S. We also have a decent Defence Against the Dark Arts course once we can find someone to teach it.
Spring 1947
Dear Albus
Do I sense a little bit of jealousy on your part with regards to my marital status?
About those two weeks… we annulled the entire thing once we reached New York. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my personal life. You are the largest one. I would have obliviated myself had I not wanted to retain the memory to avoid committing the same mistake again. We both blame it on the billywigs that are so prevalent in that part of the world. Somehow, someone thought it would improve my standing if I were to present myself as a family man. That idiot. Since we were both giddy with billywig fever, we went down to the townhall, followed by dinner by the bayou. Nothing happened between us that night or ever. She went out to the jazz clubs to dance the night away while I slept off the fever in our suite. She was a great second-in-command but ill-suited as my wife. I was lucky the whole thing was settled amiably. I would hate to lose such a capable acolyte. That idiot who popped the idea? Not so much.
Too bad for you, no little Grindelwalds to tear through the hallowed halls of your darling alma mater and raise hell literally in your Great Hall.
You are one to point out the age of my not-quite-bride. We both know you like them young, as in still in the schoolroom or barely out of it. Is that why you have been holed up in Hogwarts all this time? I cannot for one picture anything worthwhile as a schoolteacher in those blasted Highlands. At least in Durmstrang the faculty had the motivation of seeing who lives to make tenure. How many favourite students do you have, old man? That saucy Lestrange girl? That meddlesome redhead? I recall with a certain fondness lazy summer nights in Godric's Hollow. I guess some things never change. At least when I let myself get talked into that farce in New Orleans, we were both of age. I am surprised no parents have lodged complaints all this time, or do you obliviate them at affair's end? Do they know what happens in your rooms up there when you call their youngsters up for a little private chat?
Grindelwald
P.S. I do fancy a spot of gardening as a hobby to while the time. May I request some mandrake and venomous tentacula seedlings, please?
15 May 1947
Dear Gellert
Why is it every time we try to allow you some freedoms, you misuse them in such a way the warden is obligated to lock you in solitary confinement for a week on bread and water? May we check if this is a response to boredom or a protest over your food and board? You are not doing yourself any favours before the parole board (if they ever get round to the review). The Austrians are writing in about the loan of a Dementor for a special guest at Nurmengard, again.
In lieu of a shovel, you will now have a hand trowel after you tried to dig a tunnel under the walls. The Austrians also instilled a charm under the castle to warn of any unsanctioned tunnelling attempts in or out. About those mandrakes and tentaculas, N.O. No. You might find a vegetable garden with cabbages and tomatoes more therapeutic. You have been complaining about the lack of fresh vegetables in your meals. How fresher can they get than growing your own?
About my students and my calling as a teacher – get your mind out of the gutter. I doubt you can understand even if I try to tell of the joys of guiding these young ones to be the best wizards and witches they can be? Have you even tried to teach someone and then watch them grow slowly into their magic? Watch them fly out into the wider world and achieve dreams far bigger than they thought possible? Even your masters at Durmstrang might be able to attest to this simple pleasure, if they are still around. Or perhaps they consider you their biggest disappointment.
Everything is purely platonic between me and my students. I do have private chats with my students over a cup of hot cocoa and a friendly word or two where it is needed. The children can get homesick at times or need a grownup they can talk to as a friend. There is nothing like what you insinuate.
About that summer, the less said about it the better for everyone. We were both seventeen, give or take a year or so. We did not know any better. You are straying into dangerous waters. I will seriously be displeased if you choose to proceed on this course.
You are sorely trying my patience
Albus Dumbledore
Summer 1947
Dear Albus
Now that you mention it, I do think back with a certain fondness of a shy boy with the saddest eyes ever, and the palest skin that bruised so easily. Such an eager and promising student. So much potential locked up inside just waiting for someone to unlock it, which I did. Such a natural. Just hand him a wand and he got the swing of it almost immediately. He just needed a bit of rigorous magical discipline to toughen him up. All that whining and whinging whenever I gave him orders to assist some sorry waste of space in crossing into the Other Side was tiresome at first, but thankfully he got over it. You cannot train a good duellist by having them hold back, so my dearly departed duelling master always said.
Five years was all it took for us to hone him from the ignoramus he was to the wizard he became. I doubt any student your school ever turned out through its history came even close to his ability. He was so obedient and willing to please. He did give a good account of himself in Berlin, did he not?
If he were not already halfway dead as an Obscurial, I might even have grown fond enough of him. Then he had to pull that foolish stunt in Bhutan. Such a waste. Maybe you have had such students as well.
Well, I read from the old books that they can be temperamental creatures.
Grindelwald
8 August 1947
Grindelwald
Leave Aurelius out of this.
You ruined him. Hadn't he suffered enough in his young life? You used him as a tool to get at me. You led him down a dark path and had him carry out your dirty work, knowing all the while how much it pained his soul to cause hurt or kill. The lad looked up to you, respected you, until Bhutan. You were the father whose approval he sought, despite everything. You? You were ready to kill him without a second thought. Don't you feel anything in your heart for the poor boy? If you still have a heart left.
Dumbledore
Author's Notes:
I am playing up the ambiguity in the film on the pair's relationship in the letters. Grindelwald is really pushing Dumbledore's buttons here. I think it suddenly went from comic to angst when I introduced poor Aurelius/ Credence into the mix. Was considering making the last one a Howler but that is too not Dumbledore's style.