Chapter 332: The Falling Darkness
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I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.
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21st October 1995, Nurmengard (Earth 2)
A thunderstorm raged outside Nurmengard, the sound of rain hammering against the ancient stone walls, muffled but relentless. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the darkened sky, casting brief, jagged shadows through the narrow, barred windows of the fortress.
The low rumble of thunder echoed through the corridors, mingling with the constant drip of water seeping through cracks in the stone. The air inside was damp and smelled of mildew, a musty scent that clung to everything. Harry could feel the chill of the storm even in the deepest parts of the prison, the cold seeping through his clothes as he navigated the winding passages, completely invisible.
He hadn't planned on coming there, not at first, but with his plan coming to fruition just a few days later, he couldn't really help himself. He wanted to know what the difference was between his world's Gellert Grindelwald and his counterpart there. To be perfectly honest, he had been pretty surprised with how this Dumbledore differed from his counterpart.
The Dumbledore in Harry's world was an egomaniac who always thought he knew better. He wanted to be a hero, to save the world himself and thought that he was the only one who could do it. He justified all his failings as necessary sacrifices for his utopia and was prepared to commit one atrocity after another for his ultimate goal.
Using the resurrection stone subtly allowed Harry to get a glimpse of this world's Dumbledore's soul. It was hard to describe, but it was like he had a small summary of the man's personality.
He was very similar to his counterpart; he thought he knew better than most people and was also very stubborn with his convictions. He craved control, but the difference was that his role in his sister's death had obviously marked him far more than his counterpart in Harry's world. He feared power and authority yet was very drawn to them at once. It was a paradox that described the man best. He seemed to be of the opinion that people should be allowed to make their mistakes. His reluctance to fight Voldemort, at least in the start of the war, was because he believed that this was a monster of Britain's creation and that it was Britain's responsibility to fight him off. He simply expected Tom Riddle to want to conquer magical Britain, not Voldemort. He did not know that his former student had fallen so far into depravity and had turned himself into a monster.
He did not create Voldemort to act as a pawn for his plans, like the man in Harry's dimension. No, he simply let things spiral out of control because he didn't want people to rely on him and for him to fail them, just like Arianna had and died because of it. The man had obviously fought Grindelwald because he thought he was responsible for the man's actions because he had helped him plan for his war, only to change his mind at the last second. And now, he was falling into bad habits as he was trying to salvage the situation and do his best to beat Voldemort.
It was sort of sad, to be perfectly honest, and with that said, Harry wondered how Grindelwald differed from his counterpart. The Champion of the Dark was a very mysterious figure in his world, one without many weaknesses and pressure points, and the potential knowledge he could give Harry alone could one day save his life.
Harry moved quietly, his eyes scanning the walls, which were lined with flickering torches struggling to stay lit against the draft. The stone was etched with various runes, their glow dim and unsteady in the shifting light. There weren't really many guards around and Harry could see why. The entire fortress was a far better warden for a magical prisoner than an entire squad of highly trained wizards. It was ingenious really, how the runes somehow mixed with the odd black stone that the prison was built in, which destabilized any form of structured magic.
Anyway, the result was the same, no one could cast any magic in the fortress; it would fizzle out in mere seconds anyway. Being a guard here is the same as being unable to cast any magic for hours every day. No sane wizard would even agree to that, after all.
At last, Harry reached a heavy iron door, slightly ajar, the sound of the storm louder now, as if it were right outside. Harry used his invisibility cloak to phase through the door and appear on the other side, finding himself in a small sparse cell.
The room was dim, lit only by a single enchanted candle whose flame flickered with each gust of wind that found its way in. In the centre, on a plain wooden chair, sat the familiar face of Gellert Grindelwald. The once-feared dark wizard looked up as Harry entered, his pale face drawn and tired, but his eyes still sharp, a knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He was dangerous, there was no doubt about it, but he didn't exude the primal sense of danger that his counterpart in Harry's dimension did. He spoke with a raspy voice that was obviously not used often, "I wasn't expecting any visitors anytime soon."
"Well, I couldn't really help myself. I have to say, your taste in decoration is one to be desired, even if the enchantments are a masterpiece. Did you seriously carve the runes on every single stone in this place? Because that would have taken a long time."
The old man chuckled, "Oh, years and years. No one really appreciated the effort involved. It was always about how terrible it is, how horrible I was to make it, but never the magic behind it."
Harry couldn't help but be amused by the former dark lord's complaining. People never really cared about how something was made, only the consequences of its creation. As horrible as this fortress was, the magic involved in creating it was brilliant. Yet, people didn't study it because it was associated with Grindelwald as if he would suddenly break out if they tried to understand it.
Still, the dark lord's sharp eyes met his, "You look familiar. You're a Potter, aren't you? I remember fighting a Potter once a few decades back. He had the same hair and almost the same face. His eyes were brown though. He's one of the few that survived for long enough to escape, a commendable effort."
"Yes, my name is Harry Potter."
"And why have you come, Harry Potter? Do you wish to mock this old man for his suffering?"
The young wizard simply shrugged, "Not really, you see, I happen to know that you have a certain set of skills, a certain form of sight to be more precise. I happen to be the same and was wondering if you had any way to train that particular skill."
Grindelwald snorted, "You came to a Dark Lord, one of the most despised men in Europe to ask for magic lessons?"
"I also wanted to take your measure. You're not how I expected you to be. You're too relaxed."
"Did you expect me to jump at you and spew my rhetoric? It's too late anyway, the muggles have progressed too much for us to conquer them. We all know that war is inevitable and the more we wait, the lower our chances are. It's already too late. But what do I care? I'll be dead when the chaos starts anyway. You know, it was this cursed sight that got me to do this, all those countless visions. I thought that my cause was so righteous because I saw it. I failed and I accepted that a long time ago. Albus won our battle, and he deserved the right to make his choices, as cowardly as they are."
Harry nodded to himself. Grindelwald always had a point when it came to his war, and it was probably why his cause was spread all over the world. There was a reason it was called the Great War, after all, "What about the sight? Will you help?"
"I have kept a journal of my exploration in the subject which included training methods that I developed. It's in one of my old caches where I kept the things I consider to be private and sentimental. I'm inclined to give it to you for one simple favour."
He waited in trepidation for the man to continue, "I want you to kill me."
That brought Harry short, "What?"
"Yes, as unusual as this is. I want you to kill me. Do you have any idea how much torment I experience every day? I see everything, the horrors and the beauties alike. I saw him too. He's so powerful, so strong, so much more than a mere human could ever be. And yet he's a monster. I thought he was to be my fate, but I was wrong. It took me embarrassingly long to see that. I've been inside his head for so long and even worlds apart, he still keeps pushing me towards committing chaos, to break out from this impossible prison and open my heart to the darkness."
The man took a deep breath and continued, "He's been there since the beginning. There was never supposed to be a war, not at the start. We planned on creating a paradise for our people, a place of true magic, that we could lock away and protect from the muggles. But I just kept seeing so much pain and suffering, the destruction of our people that I just couldn't take it. I saw war in my future, in every future, and assumed it was the right way to approach the problem. I assumed that it was my fate to be the magical world's liberator. I can see now that I was mistaken, that I have fallen into his trap. And now, every time I close my eyes, I see horrors. I see a monster that would burn the world, that would sacrifice billions of lives for his victory. And I saw you, fighting him, trying to stop him, the Master of Death, the Lord of Space and Time. I saw it all; Ragnarök and the ashes that follow."
Harry's blood froze as he heard this, "What are you talking about?"
"Gellert Grindelwald. Your Gellert Grindelwald. He created a ritual, projecting his sight towards us, his counterparts, blinding our sight with the endless horrors that he had seen, pushing us towards a war that we were unknowingly fated to lose. And as we all ended up in this cursed prison of our own making, he highjacked our sight to supplement his own, turning us into puppets that are powered by his sight. He forces us to experience war, to see the horrors of his own making, to see the destruction he brought."
"It's impossible to see across universes. The energy required alone would kill anyone foolish enough to even try and even then, the amount of knowledge would overwhelm its caster," Harry retorted.
The man simply grinned, "The Light and Dark exist across time and space, and have traces in the void between worlds. Even then, he does not use us to see across dimensions, but more as a way to supplement his own sight, make it more refined, and his visions more accurate. He cannot see what I have seen now, but I am cursed to see his world until my dying day."
Seeing Harry's doubtful look, the former dark lord took a deep breath and continued, "I saw you fighting him once and lost to him, badly. You used some kind of enchanted gun against him and actually landed a hit. He was impressed, more than anything, but he only spared you because he saw another way to use you. That's not a good thing. You need to be better, much better, if you ever hope to stop him. His cause is righteous, but his execution is filled with horrors and that makes him more dangerous than ever. My journal will add a new weapon to your arsenal, in exchange for you to end my torment. Let me die as I am supposed to. Kill me. Let my life end with a measure of dignity. I am ready. The question is, are you?"
This changed a lot. Grindelwald, the one from Harry's world, had always been scarily good at planning things. He was always dozens of steps ahead of anyone and it had always baffled him how he managed that. He thought that it was the decades of preparation the Champion of the Dark had ahead of everyone else, but this was a more sinister option. If even a fraction of this was true, then Grindelwald's prowess as a Seer, enough to even affect Harry's own vision, was because of his counterparts more than anything. This was a ritual on a scale that Harry never thought could ever be possible and definitely carried and maintained by the Dark.
No, he needed to verify things first before making any assumptions. If Grindelwald could somehow use his counterpart's sight, then it wasn't hard to assume that he could influence them, that this could be a trap from a man in another universe as well.
Harry stood there, frozen, as he watched the man basically beg him to die while he was slowly trying to process the information that he got, "Alright, we have a deal. Where is this cache of yours?"
The relief on the man's face almost broke Harry's heart. He had no doubts in believing that the man had to be suffering from something. Still, the former dark lord spoke up, "In Godric's Hollows, specifically in my aunt Bathilda Bagshot's house. You'll find everything in a secret room I made above the attic."
Harry nodded, "Goodbye, Gellert Grindelwald."
"Goodbye, Harry Potter. Thank you and good luck. You're going to need it."
Those were the last words of Gellert Grindelwald before Harry touched him, allowing his crest to manifest itself. In a single second, the man had turned to ash with a soft smile on his face. Harry immediately turned into a raven and phased out of the cell, his mind occupied by Grindelwald's revelations.
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AN: I'll be honest here and say that I'm not sure about this chapter. I thought it was a nice way to tie things together, give Harry a little push towards mastering his seer abilities, and explain a bit why Grindelwald's Seer ability is so overpowered, even with him being a Dark Champion. I'm not sure if I captured this version of him well, or if the chapter genuinely landed wrong. I don't mind rewriting it, so, as usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.