The Climb to Grindelwald

As Harry Potter stared up at the dark, looming cliff faces beneath the impenetrable black walls of Nurmengard Castle, something told him that reaching Grindelwald would be no simple task. There were no stairs, no ladders, not even a rope to haul himself up the slippery black rocks, and as he stood staring up at the castle, the conditions were only getting worse. Rain battered down, hammering into the cliff faces and soaking Harry to the bone. Wind pummeled him from every direction, and lightning forked in bright blue flashes, providing the only points of illumination against the pitch black sky. Harry staggered forward and placed a hand against the rock face, and worked his way along the entire foot of the cliff from left to right, fumbling, and feeling for any gap, any secret handle or trap door in the rock that would lead him up to the castle, but after a lengthy search, he had to concede that there was nothing that would aid him in reaching the top.

I must be mad, Harry thought as he stared directly upwards at the black, jagged cliff face that gradually became smooth black stone, why should I even consider going to Grindelwald anyway? He was one of the most dangerous wizards of all time.

And one of the most powerful said a whispery voice that seemed as though it had leaned in from behind him and spoke directly into his ear. Harry turned sharply, flattening his back against the cliff face, his breathing becoming shallow as panic set in. There was no-one out there in the darkness, but Harry could have sworn the voice was right behind him. Trying to calm himself, Harry began another desperate search for a secret opening in the rock, but once again the search proved fruitless. Gingerly, Harry gripped the rock and hauled himself about a foot off the ground. The cliff face was wet and a little slippery, but the rock was solid and had plenty of deep ridges to grip onto. He hauled himself up another foot and was buffeted by the fierce winds that whipped around him. Looking up, Harry could see that the climb to the foot of the castle would be at least fifty to sixty metres, and without ropes and a harness, or his wand, he would die instantly if he fell. On the other hand, the only way the terrifying new Headmaster would return him to his own time was if he learned from Grindelwald, and doing that meant climbing the cliff face.

Gingerly, Harry climbed higher and higher, clinging desperately to each ridge, and only moving further when he was sure that he had a solid hold. Several times his heart stopped dead as a foot slipped from the cliff face, or the skin of his hands were cut on a piece of jagged rock. All the while, the rain seemed to come down harder and harder, as though willing him to let go and plummet to the ground. After almost two hours, Harry hauled himself over the top of the cliff and lay panting on the ground, unable to move or even think for several minutes. As the rain began to slowly recede, Harry opened his eyes and tried to take in his surroundings. He lay on sticky, black mud that clung to his clothes like tar. His glasses were askew on his face, and his usually unruly hair was slicked to his forehead from all the rain. A few meters from where Harry lay, a dark stone wall rose out of the cliff casting even more shadows across the dark and foreboding landscape. A small sliver of light emanated from a tiny window, no more than a slit in the wall that no human being could hope to pass through. This, Harry was sure, was Grindelwald's cell.

'Harry Potter'. The voice seemed to whisper to him once again. Grindelwald had no wand, and was surely deprived of any other means to do magic, could he really be observing Harry now, whispering to him, reading his thoughts?

'You know who I am?' Harry called out into the dark.

'I have been waiting patiently for you. The professor has told me of your achievements.'

Gingerly, Harry continued towards the window until he could see through the narrow gap in the stone to the man who lay, relaxed, warm, and dry inside his cell. Harry had seen photographs of Grindelwald as a handsome young man, and once, inside Voldemort's mind as he killed the dark wizard, where he was as old and withered as Dumbledore had been in his final year. The man before him fit neither description. His face was no longer young and handsome, but there was still plenty of strength left in him, and a mane of blonde hair that was losing its battle with the grey streaks that were slowly permeating through.

'You have a desire to learn the ancient art of wandless magic?' Grindelwald asked, as though he were simply a Charms teacher conversing with a student about what he wanted to gain from the upcoming term.

'I haven't got a choice.' Harry said bitterly.

'You always have a choice,' Grindelwald replied, 'You could simply refuse to learn from me, turn around and walk into the forest behind you and never be seen again, let the rest of the world deal with Morgana. As a matter of-'

'Morgana?' Harry asked incredulously, 'from the Merlin stories?'

'Didn't he tell you? Surely by now you must realize the tales of Morgana Le Fay are not just made up stories from a children's book. They are no less real than the Deathly Hallows. When she returns, and she will return, it will be hell on earth.'

'What do you care?' Harry spat, 'You're in here, safe. Besides, I'm pretty sure you brought a little bit of hell everywhere you went.' Before Harry had even finished speaking, he knew he had made a grave error. In an instant, Grindelwald was outside of the prison wall. Appearing as though he had simply walked through it. Harry stumbled backwards, almost tripping over himself in his haste to back away from the dark wizard.

'Hah!' Grindelwald spat, 'remembered who you are talking to have you? Realized you are completely vulnerable without your wand?' Grindelwald flicked his hand lazily at Harry, who was promptly flung several feet backwards, landing hard in the mud and gazing up at the stars through blurry eyes. 'I choose to remain here so I can never again be tempted to bring that evil upon the world. I told you before, you always have a choice.'

'So, let's say I choose not to fight, t-to walk into the forest and disappear,' Harry said, hauling himself to his feet, determined, scared as he was, not to show it, "what happens to all my friends, to everyone else?"

"They will all die." Grindelwald said it as though it was the result of a choice between whether to have pizza or steak pie for dinner, and Harry was horrified at the wizard's callousness. Harry knew without any further thought that walking away was not an option. Ginny was currently God knows where, in God knows what kind of trouble, and without Professor McGonagall at the helm, Hogwarts could be in total disarray with a dangerous tournament to get through. As if - and Harry thought he probably was – Grindelwald had read his mind, he seemed to cast off any further discussion of running from the fight with Morgana and launched into a lecture on the benefits and applications of wandless magic.

It was probably the strangest lesson Harry had ever encountered, standing in the pouring rain, and howling wind outside of an inescapable clifftop prison that had just proven completely useless at holding its sole captive within its walls. Yet, as he listened to Grindelwald talk of magic, Harry couldn't help but notice how similar Grindelwald seemed to his former headmaster. In fact, the strange way in which Grindelwald spoke of magic, as though he revered every spell from the simplest of charms, to the most extraordinary feats of wizardry, he almost felt as though he was sat back in Dumbledore's office. Grindelwald had a boatload of charisma, and a soothing, warm voice, and when he spoke of how being able to cast a spell with a wand in one hand, and another with your open palm felt like the magic you were producing was an extension of your very self, Harry could fully appreciate how Dumbledore had been taking in by him. If Harry hadn't heard of the stories of Grindelwald's misdeeds, he would've been fully taken in by him as well.

'Of course, you will need to start from the very beginning with wandless magic. You must un-learn that which feels natural. Levitation, summoning, moving small objects, these are what we must work on first.' Grindelwald had spoken on the subject for nearly twenty minutes, and having been out in the weather in the pajamas he was still wearing from the attack on his cottage, Harry was starting to shiver badly. 'Oh, yes, inside, inside.' Grindelwald said, and grasped Harry's shirt, pulling him through the miniscule slit window that he had appeared through earlier. Harry felt as though he had been squeezed through the neck of a plastic bottle, almost like apparating, and couldn't fathom how this could be done with a wand, never mind without one. Grindelwald's prison cell was not much more appealing than the mud outside, it was perhaps three square meters, with a small toilet and shower taking up one wall. A large wooden board was nailed into the stone wall to serve as Grindelwald's bed, and the floor was large cold flagstones.

'Forgive me, I don't often have guests,' Grindelwald said gesturing around the space, and then clicked his fingers, causing two leather armchairs to pop into existence. 'The guards do an inspection once a week, on Fridays, so you'll have to go into the forest and hide. It used to be daily, but they're more confident I won't escape now.' He said the last sentence with a Cheshire cat grin that reminded Harry of his late Godfather.

'Thanks,' Harry said with a tone of bewilderment and sank into the armchair. 'Something's been bothering me since the headmaster brought me here.'

'You wish to know why he deems it essential for you to learn to use your magic without the aid of a wand.' Grindelwald replied matter-of-factly, clearly still gleaning information from the surface of Harry's thoughts. 'Wands are too slow. Morgana Le Fay does not need to channel magic through a wand, staff, or any other instrument to win a duel. She can directly influence magic with a single thought. By the time you've raised a wand against her, she has simply thought of you being dead, and made it happen.'

'How am I supposed to compete with that?' Harry snapped incredulously.

"That, I'm afraid, is your problem to contend with. In the past, Morgana has been defeated by multiple wizards, all wielding magic as she does. It is a skill that has been unfortunately lost to the past. You see, our magic does not come from the wands that we wield. These are mere tools. Powerful tools, yes, but not the driving force behind that which makes us special. Magic is fundamentally connected to our world, it is everywhere, it surrounds us, flows through us. You can feel its presence at every moment."

"How?" asked Harry in a dull monotone.

"Did you ever make anything happen?" Grindelwald replied, "When you were a child, and you were afraid, or angry. Did you ever use magic without ever meaning to?"

"I released a python from a zoo and trapped my cousin Dudley in its enclosure when I was eleven," said Harry, remembering the first time he had discovered that he could speak Parseltongue, though he didn't know he was doing it at the time.

"Without knowing, you reached out and felt the magic around you, and bent it to your will. I believe we bring in the use of wands far too early in a child's life. They forget this feeling, and all to quickly it is lost to the sands of time, becoming more and more difficult to recover as time goes on."

"But how am I supposed to feel the magic around me? I didn't know what I was doing then, I don't remember feeling anything."

"Don't be so sure," said Grindelwald, eyeing Harry curiously. "Even Muggles can detect magic Harry Potter. Small things, like when they come across a magical creature. They know in their heart that they have come across something extraordinary, but their brain tricks them into believing they are being silly, comes up with a plausible excuse that fits their understanding of reality. It is the same with Wizards. We believe that magic resides in our wands, and so we don't bother to reach out and feel the natural magic that surrounds us so completely."

Harry was still a skeptic, but he dared not voice this opinion to Grindelwald, especially as the man had just given him a very comprehensive demonstration that what he spoke of worked. As he lay awake on the lumpy mattress that Grindelwald had conjured for him, he decided to try it for himself, reaching out into the darkness to see if some great mystical force presented itself to him ready to do his bidding, but after twenty minutes of this, Harry had to conclude that he wasn't, in fact, Luke Skywalker and that The Force was a figment of some wealthy film director's imagination.

Struggling once again to find sleep, Harry thought of Ginny. Where was she now? Was she safe at home, or at the Burrow? Had she managed to escape from their attackers? Was she out there looking for him, not knowing the search would be hopeless? Were Ron and Hermione helping her? Wherever she was, Harry made a silent vow that he would see her soon, although he wasn't sure how exactly he was going to keep it. Once again Harry felt as though he was following a plan laid out for him by the Headmaster of Hogwarts, although this time he had no prior relationship with the man, and wasn't sure if he could trust him at all. Only time would tell, he supposed. Harry rolled over on his mattress, and lay awake for many hours until sleep finally claimed him.

Authors Note:

Hi Folks,

Thanks for reading this new chapter. I have the next chapter partially complete as well, so expect an update within a month or so. I'm also partway done on the next chapter of The Great Prophecy, which, if you have missed it is a complete re-write of book 1 in this series - After the Battle of Hogwarts.

I realise updates for this series has been thin on the ground, and I can only apologise to you all for this. Life has been very hectic over the past 3 years, but I'm pleased to say that things are looking up for me. I have recently purchased my first home, got a new job, and gotten engaged. Now that I am happier and things are settled for me I hope to come at my writing with a new energy and update more regularly. To try and aid this, I have also been writing Book 3, The Sorceress's Apprentice, alongside GP and ToC. I currently have 2 chapters completed and hopefully will finish writing it about the same time as Tournament of Champions. This means that once Tournament of Champions concludes I will be able to release The Sorceress's Apprentice weekly.

I have also started uploading The Great Prophecy on Archive of Our Own, if you would like to follow me there instead.

Thanks again, and please leave a review if you would like,

IronManRidingaNimbus.