Nurmengard.
Its location had long since faded into uncertainty. Rumors claimed the fortress rested somewhere among the Austrian Alps, a towering black structure said to rise above the snow-covered mountains like a shadow frozen into stone.
In truth, Nurmengard was created by the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald during his rise to power before the Second World War, originally acting as both his stronghold and personal prison. It was said that anyone who openly opposed him risked vanishing behind its walls, never to be seen again.
The greatest irony, however, came after Grindelwald was defeated by Albus Dumbledore in their legendary duel, when Dumbledore chose to imprison him within the very fortress Grindelwald had once built for others.
Powerful wards were then cast over the prison, woven together with old magic that concealed even its location from the world, ensuring Grindelwald would never escape. And that was precisely why, although it had once been a famous structure, so little was known about the place today.
Even those old enough to remember the stories only knew that such a place existed, but the moment they tried to think about where it truly stood, or even focus on the fortress itself for too long, their thoughts would slip away like smoke through their fingers.
And just like that, half a century passed in cold silence. The world moved on, new wars came and went, and eventually even the name of the fortress faded into history, remembered only by a select few.
Even Albus Dumbledore appeared to have slowly forgotten about the prison in recent years. Perhaps the curse that had infected him was the reason, forcing him to focus on searching for a cure, or perhaps he had simply become too busy.
In any case, his last known visit had supposedly taken place almost five years ago, and ever since then, Gellert Grindelwald had remained alone within its cold and silent halls.
Nurmengard, after all, was unlike ordinary prisons where guards constantly patrolled the halls and watched over the cells. The fortress itself was more than capable of handling such things, as powerful enchantments covered every inch of the prison, both inside and out, maintaining order without the need for human hands.
In fact, it was decided that it would be best if there was no one to monitor him in the first place. The first-generation Dark Lord was simply that dangerous, a man said to be capable of swaying even the strongest minds with nothing but mere words. It was better to let magic itself monitor him instead.
Meanwhile, with a bit of some clever magic, keeping a physical body alive was hardly a difficult task. Of course, it won't be pleasant for the prisoner, but then again, prisons were never meant to be comfortable places.
However, that decision to let magic alone imprison and monitor him might not have been the wisest one.
Recently, the usually cold and empty prison had become, one could say, rather lively, but no one seemed to be aware of it. Today in particular, something finally seemed to have stirred within its cold and otherwise silent halls.
Like a sleeping beast awakening from a long overdue slumber, a low rumble first spread throughout the empty halls, before all of a sudden, a violent wave of energy burst forth from the very depths, tearing through the ancient corridors and rushing along the stone passageways making the rows of magical firelights lining the walls flicker wildly for the first time in decades.
Then, all at once, every flame went out, and the endless corridors were swallowed by darkness. However, the darkness did not last long. Barely a second later, the magical flames suddenly burst back to life once again, the rows of firelights reigniting down the corridor in perfect sequence and stretching endlessly into the distance until the cold black passage was illuminated once more by dancing orange light.
The sound of something strong snapping apart echoed next, like a thick rope snapping in a quiet room, followed shortly after by the distinct click of a lock turning.
Then came footsteps, after the first step, the second followed several long seconds later, slow and heavy enough to echo through the silent corridor.
At the very end of the structure, deep within the centermost section of the prison, stood a small square opening sealed behind thick iron bars, and from within that cramped darkness, a figure slowly stepped into the firelight.
The man looked barely alive. Long white hair fell past his shoulders in tangled strands, while deep hollows rested beneath dull, lifeless eyes. His cheeks were sunken, and his pale skin stretched tightly against bone as though he had gone years without proper food or rest.
He looked less like a living man and more like a corpse that had somehow remembered how to walk. His back remained hunched as he took the first few slow steps forward, one hand gripping lightly against the cold iron bars as he passed them.
The broken, half-dead appearance he carried, however, did not remain for long. With every step he took, his body was slowly straightening, the curve in his spine gradually disappearing while his posture was rising inch by inch until, finally, he no longer resembled the broken old prisoner that had emerged from the darkness moments ago.
The hollow look around his eyes was also fading rapidly, while color returned to his face as though life itself was flowing back into his body. Even the sharp lines of starvation were softening before the eye could fully process the change.
By the time he passed through the iron bars and entered the long corridor completely, the transformation was already complete. The old prisoner was gone.
Now, the man stood tall and upright beneath the firelight, looking far healthier than he had any right to after spending half a century locked within the depths of a place filled with nothing but cold and silence.
Gellert Grindelwald took in a long inhale, as if he was embracing something he had long lost. And with that, the final change also occurred to him. The plain white fabric he wore began to ignite, literally looking as though it had caught fire, the flames moving from bottom to top, replacing it with a perfectly tailored black suit that seemed to fit him like a second skin.
Even his long white hair, wild and matted from decades of neglect, slowly combed itself back into place as though guided by invisible hands.
"I'm curious... how exactly did you remove the other two seals?"
Gellert Grindelwald raised his head, turning slightly toward the wall before a faint, reminiscent smile spread across his lips. "One seal bound my magic, another chained my body, and the last imprisoned the soul... a rather poetic arrangement, wouldn't you say? It was my old friend's idea..."
"And I just so happened to possess the key to remove the seal on your magic..." said Volkov, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, while the hand gripping his wand tightened ever so slightly.
He appeared calm on the surface, but only he knew how tense he was truly feeling right now. The hand wrapped around his wand had slowly stiffened without him even noticing. Though he and Gellert Grindelwald were both archmages, only now, standing before the man himself, was he truly realizing that even between those of the same rank, there could exist an ocean-like gap.
"Yes... your plan was to open one seal, then brute force your way through the other two... I am glad I did not follow such crude thinking..." said Grindelwald, before turning back toward the place where he had spent decades upon decades unmoving.
He continued while staring absentmindedly ahead. "Fifty years is a very long time, long enough for one to understand the nature of even their... cage. You are right, of course. It was my fortune that the key Anton held just so happened to free my magic. After that, solving the remaining seals became no more difficult than turning the key of that otherwise useless iron gate."
He turned back toward Volkov once again, and of course, the agitation the man was so desperately trying to hide did not go unnoticed. However, he made no comment to reassure him.
Meanwhile, on the wall, a screen played live footage of the Triwizard Tournament finale, thoughtfully mounted there earlier by Volkov.
"It appears your old friend isn't aware of what's happening here just yet..." Volkov said after a moment, eyes drifting toward the feed showing Dumbledore giving his closing remarks to the champions and the audience.
Grindelwald's eyes reflected that familiar figure as well, the man he both hated and respected, and his brows furrowed slightly. His gaze gradually deepened, as though a torrent of thoughts was passing through his mind, until finally he averted his eyes.
Crunch!
In the same instant, the device caved in on itself, turning into a small chunk of iron before falling from the wall.
"Was that really necessary?" Volkov's brows twitched.
"What about... Tom Riddle?" Grindelwald asked instead.
Volkov had already grown used to the first-generation Dark Lord's strange way of speaking, casually abandoning one topic before drifting onto another without warning. He sighed, answering, "The wards had been triggered, like I said earlier. So I'm assuming he got what he wanted..."
Grindelwald hummed quietly as he listened.
"Well, it doesn't matter now, does it?" Volkov continued. "You're free, just as I promised... without so much as a noise—"
"I still cannot leave here..." Grindelwald interrupted him, once again wandering off the subject as his gaze absentmindedly drifted back toward his old "cage."
"What?" Volkov arched a brow, his voice rising slightly. This time, he genuinely did not understand what the man was trying to say.
"This place... it is simply perfect, and dare I say, almost a coincidence... powerful wards, powerful enough to contain sudden bursts of magic..." He let out a quiet sigh before continuing. "But... I cannot allow myself to be vulnerable..."
"What are you talking about now?" Volkov asked in his thick Russian accent, taking a step forward. Something about the way Grindelwald was speaking made him deeply uneasy, even if he could not fully understand what the man was trying to imply. "What exactly is stopping you from leaving—"
PFFT!
However, his words suddenly came to a halt when, out of nowhere, he heard the sickening sound of something being pierced. The feeling reached him a moment later, as he slowly lowered his gaze, he saw a hand protruding from his chest.
"What... is..." he muttered weakly, it turned out that sickening sound had come from himself. He was more confused than anything else for the moment, perhaps the pain had not even fully registered yet, and he instinctively raised his head.
But the person he expected to still be there, the man who had been standing in front of him just a moment ago, was no longer there.
"You have my genuine gratitude for everything you have done for me..."
Then he heard a voice come from over his shoulder, making his eyes, which had only just begun to widen, suddenly shrink until the pupils became pinpoints.
"Truly. Your noble sacrifice is something I will remember dearly. Unfortunately, I cannot trust anyone to stand beside me while I am at my most vulnerable. Human hearts are fragile things, after all, and loyalties have a habit of changing when fear begins to whisper..."
PFFT!
He then faintly saw the hand pull back out from his chest once again, but that did not make him feel any better. The wet sound echoed horribly inside his ears, worse still, he could feel that something inside him was now missing.
However, he did not even get the chance to guess what it was, because his eyelids had already begun to feel heavy, his vision slowly fading away.
"Wh... why..." was all he managed to mutter before darkness swallowed his sight completely, followed shortly after by his consciousness.
Thud...
His body fell face first onto the cold stone floor, thick blood rapidly spreading beneath him. The impact turned his head slightly to the side, but even unconscious, his eyes remained open. The sheer shock and disbelief of his final moments still remained frozen within his wide-open eyes, as though even death itself had not been enough to erase the terror of what had just happened.
He, a dignified archmage, one of the most powerful wizards in the world, had been killed, killed so unceremoniously, so... anticlimactically. Who would believe it? Heck, even he himself would not have believed it.
Meanwhile, the culprit had already walked past the body, blue flames silently igniting across his hand and reducing both the blood and the still faintly beating heart within his grasp to ash.
Though his final words to Volkov had carried a hint of regret, his expression now remained completely empty. But the moment he crossed the iron gates again, the emptiness within his eyes slowly disappeared, replaced by a faint gleam, followed by the slightest upward curl at the edge of his lips.
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