Gellert's gaze stayed on Corvus long enough for the tea to stop steaming.
The old man did not fidget. His stillness had weight. Fingers rested around the cup. The corner of his mouth lifted, not warmth, nor mockery. Something in between.
"Tell me, young man," Grindelwald drawled, voice smooth, careful with every word, "what will it take for you to lower that guard of yours. Against me and mine."
Corvus did not shift in his chair. His eyes stayed level.
"I have no issue with the Acolytes. One is my dear old grandfather. Another is Aunt Vinda herself," he answered. "They believed and joined you. They paid." His gaze roamed over the four. "They got killed or were left to rot. My issue is not with them, it is with you."
Arcturus sat behind the desk, posture straight. Vinda kept to the side chair, legs crossed, her expression unreadable.
The four newly freed watched from the sofa where they sat. They looked clean, washed and rested, but their eyes still held the dungeon. Abernathy's jaw worked as if he were chewing old rage. McDuff kept blinking too slowly. Carrow's hands never left her lap. Nagel's gaze moved like a knife.
Corvus leaned forward just enough to make the room listen.
"You were a strong leader," he continued. "You liked being in front and admired. When you started to burn half the magical world, did you ever stop to count us? Not the flags, nor the followers. Bodies."
No one spoke.
Grindelwald's smile thinned. He took a slow sip, eyes on Corvus over the rim.
Corvus held the silence for a beat, then pressed.
"Our numbers, with optimistic guesses, are around five hundred thousand," he said. "Global. That is everyone. Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Africa and even the parts of the world that do not bother reporting. Even if we pretend the figure is true, it is still a joke compared to the mundane world."
He tapped a finger once on the arm of the chair.
"At the peak of your days, it was lower than that. And your war, or whatever pretty word you prefer, cost us over ten thousand."
Vinda's chin lifted a fraction. Carrow's fingers tightened on her cup. McDuff's mouth set into a hard line.
Corvus looked at none of them.
"The death toll was ten thousand magicals," he repeated, voice calm, which made it worse. "From both sides. And then Dumbledore plays his own games on top of it, with the same phrase on his tongue. Do you understand why I do not trust either of you?"
The air in the study felt colder. Not magic. Mood.
Grindelwald's eyes narrowed slightly, not anger, but assessment. He spoke with soft precision.
"You speak as if I did not pay for every one of them."
Corvus gave a short, humourless sound. "You paid with other people's lives."
A beat.
Corvus continued, tone clipped.
"The phrase 'for the greater good' should have been reality. Not a banner, not a sermon. Reality."
"I am pushing laws through the countries we control enough votes to pass them. Laws that protect us and hide us from the mundane world. I am pushing Squibs into mundane cities, governments, and militaries. They are to gain positions and rise as much as they can. I am pushing for more countries to fall under acolytes, such as Russia and Germany or members of the Alliance, such as Norway, Sweden and Turkey." He did not mention that every one of those figures was already under magical oaths or contracts.
His gaze cut to Grindelwald and held.
"Do you think I do not want to take a walk and curse every naive progressive who still believes we can live side by side. Or the idiots chanting about global harmony and cultural salvation, as if slogans change biology, nature and numbers. This world is not walking to its doom; it is running."
Grindelwald's fingers drummed once, slow. He did not interrupt.
Corvus reached for his cup, took a sip, and grimaced. The tea had gone lukewarm, bitter on the tongue.
He set it down with a soft clink.
"Tibby."
The elf appeared with a quiet crack, more polite than most elves managed. He glanced around the room, eyes flicking to Grindelwald for a fraction of a second, then back to Corvus.
"Master."
"Refresh the tea," Corvus ordered. "And bring the vial. The one where Voldemort is kept, please."
Arcturus did not react. Vinda's eyes sharpened. Carrow went still; this was the name responsible for House Carrow's fall. She tilted her head. What did the vial mean?
Tibby vanished.
Grindelwald raised a pale eyebrow, curiosity plain. "You keep trophies, then."
Corvus did not answer.
Tibby returned with a tray, steam rising, the scent of fresh tea cutting through. He set the cups down with care.
Then he placed the vial.
It was not a simple piece of glass. It was layered, etched with runes fine enough to look like frost. Something was swirling inside, the kind that made the skin crawl if you stared too long.
Corvus picked it up, turned it so the room could see.
"This is what the thing calling himself Lord Voldemort is," he said.
Carrow's breath caught. Abernathy leaned forward despite himself.
"His name was Tom Marvolo Riddle," Corvus continued. "Half blood. Son of a Gaunt witch and a mundane man. He is responsible for the death of both lines, both magical and mundane."
Nagel's expression twisted, not at the bloodline, but at the arrogance.
"This idiot decided to anchor himself to life with Horcruxes."
The word hit the room like a slap.
McDuff swore under his breath. Carrow's hands clenched hard enough for her knuckles to pale. Abernathy's eyes flashed with disgust.
Carrow's voice cut in, cold. "Desecration."
Corvus nodded once.
"The soul of a magical being is sacred," he said. "Blessed by Mother Magic. To shatter it is against everything we stand for."
He lowered the vial slightly, eyes never leaving Grindelwald.
"I destroyed them. All of them."
Grindelwald's face did not change, but something behind his eyes did. A flicker of old visions, old certainty, disturbed.
"This," Corvus added, voice flat, "is his final form."
He turned the vial a fraction, the wards catching the light.
"And this," he continued, gaze locking on Grindelwald, "was the wizard you saw in your visions. The one who would have killed you. And your dear great aunt."
A pause.
"You are welcome, by the way."
The sarcasm landed clean. Vinda and Arcturus both twitched a smile. 'Corvus was of the Rosier - Black blood for sure' was what they thought. Arcturus kept his face neutral, though his eyes were sharp with approval.
Grindelwald watched the vial for a long moment, then looked back at Corvus.
Corvus set the vial down on the desk, careful, like placing a blade.
"This failure of a wizard is a direct result of Dumbledore's manipulations; counter to this sorry excuse of a darkish lordling was a kid named Harry Potter. Just another House he destroyed with his games. I do not want a mind that thinks in such Machiavellian ways in my ranks unless I can trust it will not turn on me and mine."
"Do you see why I do not trust you, Lord Grindelwald?"
--
Gellert pushed his chair back with a slow scrape, the sound sharp in the tight room. He rose to his full height, coat hanging open, pale hair tied back as if the habit still mattered. His hands came together.
The claps were measured. Not a jeer. Each one landed like a judge's gavel.
Corvus kept the vial on the desk between them.
Gellert's applause stopped. He let his palms hover a breath apart, then lowered them, fingers relaxed.
"I can see it," he said. His voice stayed light, almost pleasant. "The mind behind it. You do not shout, young man."
Arcturus shifted in his chair. The old Minister's tea sat untouched for the second time. Vinda had not moved since Corvus set the vial down. Her eyes kept flicking to it, then to Gellert, then to Corvus again.
Gellert's gaze passed over them, a quick count, then returned to Corvus.
"And I agree," he continued. "If I had met the man you described, I would not have trusted him either."
Corvus watched him without blinking.
Gellert's mouth curved, faint and tired. "So here is my answer, young Black.
I am not Albus. I do not do his little corridors of mirrors. I do not lay a trap, then wait ten years to feel clever about it."
A small lift of his shoulder. A shrug, almost elegant.
"If I turn against you," his tone cooled, "you will know. I will not sit at your table and plan your fall while I sip your tea, which is a good one, might I add."
Grindelwald's eyes slid to the vial. He looked at it as if it were a corpse on a slab.
"The deaths," he said, quieter now. "Those numbers. That is why I did not even attempt to leave Nurmengard."
Nagel's jaw flexed. Abernathy's hands tightened on his cup. Carrow and McDuff were no different. Their backs were too stiff, their shoulders too guarded. Fifty years in stone did not leave politely.
Gellert's gaze softened when it touched them. For a breath, the charm dropped.
"I did not pay," he said. "Not properly. I had a wand once that made men kneel. It did not make me wise. When the war ended, the world left me here, and I stayed. Not because I was loyal to my prison. Because I was tired of burying people."
He looked back at Corvus.
"As for that soul," he nodded at the vial, "I was ready to die. I made peace with it. I did not know the death of my great aunt would come from this thing."
Gellert inclined his head. It was a courtly gesture, old fashioned and sincere.
"So thank you," he said. "For her, and for me. I did not think anyone would spare me a kindness again."
Corvus's expression did not change, but his eyes followed Grindelwald's every movement. This man has a strange charm to make people listen and follow him.
"You are doing something I failed to do," Gellert went on. "You are turning a dream into a system. A real one. Laws, wards, borders and control, where control matters. You are building, not burning."
Arcturus let out a low sound that might have been approval. Or might have been relief.
Gellert's lips twitched as if he heard it.
"My stratagems failed," he said. "Not only because Albus was clever enough to dismantle the blood pact. Not only because he was stronger. That war had one end, no matter who stood at the front. I ran out of time. Out of bodies. Out of allies. Out of everything that mattered."
Arcturus's eyes flashed at the mention of Albus, then cooled. He stayed still.
"And no," Gellert added, almost gently, "I do not hate him. I am grateful. He ended it before I drained what I had left. Lives were saved because he stopped me. That is a truth you all can dislike as much as you like."
Vinda's nostrils flared.
Gellert's gaze returned to Corvus and held.
"Now," he said, voice lifting again, clean and composed, "let us stop speaking of past and graves and begin speaking of tomorrow. Tell me what you want from me. I understand words mean very little to you."
Corvus's eyes flicked to the others, a quick scan. He measured the room the way he measured a battlefield. Then he reached to the side of the desk, drew a blank parchment from a stack, and slid it across the polished wood.
"Please," Corvus said.
A pause.
Corvus kept his tone even, almost polite. "Write what reassurance you would have asked if you were to stand where I am."
Gellert's smile widened, amused now. He turned to Arcturus and Vinda. "You have a good seedling."
"I would have asked for a line I could have held you to."
Gellert continued. "I should be practical and simple."
He sat and reached for the quill without asking. The quill lay in his fingers as if it had waited half a century for that grip.
Arcturus leaned back, arms folded, expression flat. Vinda's gaze stayed on Gellert's hand, on the quill, on the sharp scratch of it as it touched parchment.
The room went quiet.
Gellert wrote with a quick certainty. No pauses to think. No testing phrases aloud. His mind had already made the shape of it.
Corvus watched the words appear, jaw set.
When Gellert finished the first lines, he read them aloud in the same voice he used in a rally, soft enough to pull people closer.
"I, Gellert Grindelwald, by name and intent, give assurance to Corvus Black of House Black and House Rosier." He winked at Vinda at the last words.
He glanced up, eyes bright. "You like titles. It is only fair I acknowledge yours."
Corvus scoffed.
Gellert returned to the page.
"I will not act within his spheres of influence without counsel and notice; I will not move my acolytes, Nagel, McDuff, Carrow, Abernathy, Black, Rosier, Volkov and Krafft in a manner that undermines his short, mid and long term designs; I will not stir open war against the Confederation, nor provoke open conflict with the Muggle powers, without weighing the cost with my acolytes and with him when his realms are touched; I will not seek to take what was taken from me by intrigue, coercion, or contest; I will not attempt to sway his ministries against him, nor to loosen his wards, nor to pry at his sealed works."
He paused, quill hovering, then added a last line with a different pressure.
"I retain the right to act in immediate defence of life when life is under direct threat, and I will give warning where warning is possible."
The quill stopped.
Gellert's eyes lifted to Corvus again. "There." He said and slid the parchment back. I would have been much harsher if the subject were not myself."
Abernathy shifted in his chair, restless. McDuff's eyes had not left the parchment since the first sentence. Carrow sat with hands clasped so tight her knuckles had gone pale. Nagel watched Gellert the way a soldier watched a general who had failed him yet still mattered.
Arcturus exhaled through his nose. "You left out the part where you do not run your mouth."
Gellert's smile turned sharp. "If you want me muzzled, Black, you should have kept me in my tower."
Arcturus's mouth twitched. He missed his friend.
Vinda finally spoke. Her voice cut clean through the heat left by the vial. "You have not asked for anything in return, Gellert?"
Gellert turned his head to her. Grindelwald smiled again, all charm with teeth behind it.
"I want the same thing I asked for before I was dragged through stone and chains," he said. "Additionally, I want my people to live the years they lost. I want them," he motioned towards the four, "to start looking decades younger."
Arcturus snorted. "And yourself?"
"I made my peace with death, Arcturus."
Arcturus was not finished, though. "Yet, I have not made my peace with your death, Gellert."
He turned to Corvus; no words were spoken, yet the question was there.
"Just for the record," said Corvus as he stood and started to walk towards the Ritual Room. "I was going to rejuvenate him after getting another contract or an oath. From each one of them as well." He motioned to the four.
"So, be the reasonable grandfather and make them sign this. While I deal with the 'details.'" He said as he left the study. Five parchments sailed through the air and landed on the laps of Grindelwald and the rest.
"You are missed, you all are," Arcturus said. When the parchments were signed with blood quills, he put them all in one of the drawers.
"So do you," replied Gellert. His gaze locked with Vinda for a while. "More than you think."
---
A/N
As we turn the page to 2026, I want to thank you for being part of this journey. May the months ahead bring you laughter, good health, and moments worth treasuring. Here's to fresh starts, bold dreams, and the little joys that make life brighter.
Cheers.
Usiel
----