Normal Days

“Wait, hold on, let me lock up.” Paul says, running quickly back to the bank’s front door. He jogs back up to the group, then nudges Sirius. “Gotta make sure no one breaks in, right?”  

“Ha ha. You’re a real laugh, you know that?” 

“You know it, pardner.” Paul says in return, laying the fake Southern accent on thick. 

Grindelwald leads the little misfit pack, Percy and Oliver trailing close behind him. Percy was closely monitoring the wards to make sure they stayed intact. He wasn’t taking that spitting one-off comment as lightly as Oliver was. Oliver was asking Grindelwald pretty stupid questions, with Grindelwald dotingly answering them.

“So have you ever played Quidditch?” 

“No, but I’ve gone to many a game in my time. I even got the chance to meet the animal that inspired the snitch.” 

“Cool! What were enchanted brooms like in the 1800s?” 

“Slower. I know in one town instead of brooms they used saddles and made horses out of clouds to ride on instead.” Oliver had stars in his eyes and a plan forming in his heart when he got that particular piece of information. 

“Percy, Quidditch cowboy edition. Percy, I could be a cowboy.” 

“Yes, you could be.” Percy says, a smile on his face just as stupid as Oliver’s question. 

This particular Rainforest Cafe was special, with each animatronic donning a little cowboy hat. Except for the snake, which proudly wore a sheriff badge on its scales. 

When Gellert stepped in, the hostess immediately recognized him and directed the party to a booth right in front of a stage. 

Percy and Oliver had never been to a Rainforest Cafe, but vaguely recognized it as an American fast food franchise that was fairly new in the 90s. Most were closing down in their original timeline due to the gimmicky nature of it. But this was a Rainforest Cafe in its prime. 

Aside from the fact that Percy and Oliver have been living out in the forest for the past couple of days, this was a much needed interpretation of that lifestyle. Cold AC bore down on them, with the sound of “jungle noises” playing throughout the speakers in the room. The walls were painted with murals of monkeys and snakes, the ceiling covered in fake foliage.  

A waiter came by wearing a safari-styled uniform, down to a fake badge patch and an ID that proudly said his name was Dave. 

“Hi y’all,” Dave drawled, “It’s nice ta see you again, Gill.” 

“It’s very nice to see you as well, Dave. We’ll have a round of the Cheeta Rita for everyone and the Safari Fries, please.” 

“Sounds good, it’ll be out in a bit.” When Percy also looked around, he noticed a distinct lack of people. 

“This place is kind of a ghost town, huh?” Oliver comments. 

Gellert is the one to nod, “This Rainforest Cafe is one of the draws of coming out to Faith—besides the rainforest right outside of it and the teller booth made from an American church’s pews. But recently, people have turned away from here, saying that this town is haunted. Ironically, that means the tourists will only come during the winter season, so this stretch of summer is very empty. Oh, I think I’ll get the Creole Mac and Cheese, it has been a while since I’ve had that.” 

Lila hums, already used to the weirdness of her day, “I’m going to get the Big Islander Caesar Salad, the shrimp one was pretty good last time.” 

“Yeah, should we get cheese sticks for the table too or are the safari fries enough?” 

“Yes, excellent idea Paul. We’ll get the cheese sticks, too.” Then, Gellert turns to the other three, “Do you know what you want? It’s on me, of course. All blood money from the family.” He says it very airily, but Oliver is guesses that Gellert probably isn’t lying. 

“The, uh. Python pasta looks pretty good.” Percy says, mentally updating his will (again). For fuck’s sake, he’s about to eat lunch with Gellert motherfucking Grindelwald.

“Is the Edge of the Forest good?” Oliver asks, kinda just going with it. That’s been working so far and he’s been pretty lucky with doing that—he got his husband back and a dog!

“Oh, that’s one of my favorites,” Lila pipes in, “It’s fried chicken with this really thick gravy over it.” 

“And you, Black child?” 

“Uh, Gill. That dude’s not black,” Paul awkwardly points out. 

“His last name is Black.” Percy clarifies, “His family is pretty famous from our uh. Neck of the woods.” 

“And my first name is Sirius.” Gellert laughs, clapping his hands. “The dog constellation! Oh, and they say that your family doesn’t have a sense of humor.” 

Dave comes back with bright red glasses of the Cheeta Rita, then takes everyone’s order. Not a moment later, he comes back with the cheese sticks and fries for the table. 

“It’s been a bit slow, so we’re able to make it a bit faster. Your food should be right out.” 

“Thank you, Dave,” they all say because we stan minimum wage waiters and waitresses. 

Percy takes a sip, then immediately regrets it. “Wow, this is.” 

“Alcoholic!” Oliver finishes Percy’s sentence, then his own drink. Wow! And the only way to know there was alcohol in the drink was to feel the burn in your throat and stomach. Because it tasted like straight sugar that was set on fire.  

“It’s good for the soul.” Gellert says in response, sipping at his drink. “But, to the important matter.” Gellert scoots closer to the table, putting some fries and cheese sticks as he talks. 

“Paul and Lila, perhaps you do not know this about me, but I was a bad person.” The three other wizards look shocked at Grindelwald’s confession, but he continues on anyway, “I have done some bad things to people across the world. And for it, I was imprisoned. But, I was patient. Bided my time. Then one day, when the guards had a sympathetic ear to my woes, they freed me.” Dave comes back with the food and refills Gellert’s drink. 

It’s the year 1994. And for the first time in over fifty years, Gellert is free. Of course, his freedoms came with restraints. As soon as night hit in Nurmengard, he had to be back in his cell. The sympathetic guard had given Gellert a portkey to return with and a watch to show what the time was in Germany. 

The portkey that took Grindelwald outside of his prison was an old one that the guard had to fix himself, so the locator might have been a bit broken. And broken was an understatement. Because instead of taking Grindelwald to the Ministry of Magic in the UK, he was sent to the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Popped right into an Aeropostale dressing room, empty thankfully. 

And there, Grindelwald was thrown into the muggle world of the 90s. 

“That was only five months ago.” Percy says, truly a master of math. 

“And it’s been quite an eventful five months.” Gellert says in response, pulling back his sleeve to reveal a sleek watch charmed to look like a Rolex (because Grindelwald apparently needs to have some ice on his wrist) showing 4:34 PM, a great contrast to Faith’s own 10:06 AM time.

“I have a quite a few hours until I need to leave.” Grindelwald off-handedly mentions before getting back into the story. 

Grindelwald walks through the mall, amazed with inventions and sights far too technologically advanced to be made by those violent muggles. Where were all of the guns, the anti-wizard  sentiments that should have surely leached into even the most suburban parts of muggle society?

But nope. Instead, Grindelwald found the lego store and was amazed at the recreation of an entire ship just by little building blocks. 

“And that’s when I stumbled upon it, in its grand opening. The Rainforest Cafe.” The first one to ever open, the Rainforest Cafe in the Mall of America was bustling with life, but made room for Grindelwald in a little table, ordering the waiter’s recommendation. 

“It was lovely. Nothing like the grand meals I’ve eaten before. But it was so. Amazing, to see what the muggles of this time could accomplish, all without the help of magic.” It was a moment where Grindelwald was able to pause and observe the life going on around him. And truly know that this life, too, was precious. 

Grindelwald would never say this part aloud, at least to those in his current company. But when the fake thunderstorm happened and the sprinklers got his cheek wet, he thought of muddy shoes. And the man who’d gotten his brand new vest dirty. Who smiled like the sun and emanated kindness like its rays. In this little booth meant for one, Grindelwald found love in the Rainforest Cafe because it soothed the loneliness of not having Albus across from him, beside him. 

In the beginning, Gellert wanted unstoppable power, pure and awe-inspiring. He wanted the world to fit nicely in the palm of his right hand, and Albus in the other. Then, Gellert tasted fear for the first time when a spell hit Arianna Dumbledore and closed her eyes for the last time. 

Power for the sake of control became power for the sake of protection, to safeguard from fear. Or to push down the look that Albus gave him as Gellert ran as far as he could. Maybe it wasn’t just fear, but regret that the words “I’m sorry” could never find its way out of his mouth, or at least not in front of Albus himself. 

“One day, and one day soon, I hope to bring Albus to this Rainforest Cafe.” 

Gellert himself was patient, but his thoughts? Not so much. Fifty very long years spent in a cell, looking at the same walls and the same hands growing wrinkled and aged. Fifty years to realize that the world would never fit so nicely in his hand as Albus’ did. Power couldn’t really compare, in all actuality, to the way that Albus looked at Grindelwald. 

“That’s. That’s really sweet, Gellert. And Professor Dumbledore would really like the ambiance here.” 

Lila perks up, “So Al is a professor?” Percy nods, “He’s the headmaster at our school. Oliver and I just graduated.” Paul snorts. 

“Well, if you’re looking for a job, Faith is always hiring. And the employees get free room and board since it’s so out of the way from everything else.” 

“Yes, that is why I took the job as a security guard. Now I can head back to Nurmengard and come back here within the hour to refresh the magic there.” 

“How do you plan to get Dumbledore here? Wasn’t he the one who locked you away?” Sirius asked, much more pleasant now that he’d devoured his meal and was working his way through another appetizer. 

“Knocking on his door and asking him, of course.” Oliver and Percy share a look. 

“What if we send him an owl and tell him to meet you here instead. He’s still at school looking for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher since the last one got hate crimed by him,” Oliver points at Sirius. Who looks affronted, but then shrugs, stuffing another cheese stick into his mouth, “so he’ll definitely be at Hogwarts.” 

Gellert claps his hands together again, “Wonderful! Oh, wonderful.” Lila starts talking with Gellert about what he’ll wear, if he should get Albus something like a “Sorry I almost tried to enslave the muggle race” goodie bag. But Gellert was adamant that he would want something called “creatine” and “Asics running shoes”. 

“Where are we going to get the owl?” Percy asks.

“What are you going to use an owl for? Just deliver it through the post.” Paul says, shooting Percy a confused look. 

“The post for our school is only accessible through uh. Owl.” It kind of dawns on Percy that they probably broke the Magical Secrecy Act five times over within the hour, not to mention the failed bank robbery. 

“Well, if you really need owls, the forest is full of ‘em. Just need to catch them.” 

Sirius shrugs, “That’ll be easy enough. We can probably get it done tonight.” 

“Wonderful! Write that we shall meet two days from now.” The Gellert shakes his head, “No, no. I cannot wait another day. Tomorrow, we meet tomorrow.”  

“Wait, Gellert, I think if we tell him that you escaped Nurmengard he’ll try to kill you instead of take you out on a date.” When Gellert’s face fall, which looks really sad considering his age, Percy is quick to fix it with, “But we can tell him it’s a surprise! Then he might be even more excited to see you and maybe not try to kill you.” Gellert perks back up. 

“Yes! We must not get too pessimistic.” 

The rest of Gellert’s time in Faith was spent in conversation with this group of six. Another round of cocktails, this time called Rainbow Colada were dispersed through the group, with Oliver and Percy talking about how they ended up in Faith in the first place. 

“---with nothing but a bag of condoms and Quidditch supplies!” The entire table erupts in laughter, Grindelwald finding particular joy in the mischievousness of the twins. 

“When I found them, they were snogging in one of the waterfalls, so they were putting at least one of those to good use.” 

“My, what advanced magic. International portkeys—unregistered ones at that.” Gellert says, thinking on how to recruit the twins to his cause. What cause he didn’t quite know, yet. Dominating muggles was a young man’s game.

“I feel like they didn’t know where the portkey was going to land,” Percy replies, putting down his drink and rubbing at his flushed cheeks. He was a bit of a lightweight. “When we were traveling through the portkey it felt like we weren’t going in a clear direction. I’m pretty sure I even saw Hogwarts for a second.” 

“Hm. If your brothers were trying to portkey you to the school then the school wards could have redirected the portkey to another location.” 

“No, they definitely know about the wards. I remember them getting in trouble with McGonagall for trying to mess with them to get Snape locked out of the school.” Oliver pipes up, sneaking a sip at Percy’s drink. He was decidedly not a lightweight. “But I definitely think they were going to send us somewhere that had a supply of food. Because no matter how stupid we keep on saying they are, there’s no way they wouldn’t have provided some way to get food.” 

“Is the name of your school actually Hogwarts?” At the wizards’ nod, Lila crinkles her nose, “Gross.” 

Their conversation drifts on, Paul talking about recently volunteering at a shelter and maybe adopting a cat. Lila talks about her own cat, a fluffy little monster lovingly named Frito because his fur is the same coloring as the chip, down to the brown freckling. 

“I had a pet, too. His name was Antonio.” Gellert says, second Rainbow Colada finished. Dude was fucking DRUNK and ready to start trauma dumping. “I got him after Albus and I broke up. He was the cutest chupacabra of the bunch. The strongest, too. He ate his twin.” 

“Cute,” Oliver says, a little scared but also pretty genuine. He didn’t know genocidal killers kept pets. But it kind of tracks with Nagini and Voldemort, so. 

Gellert sighs, a little smile on his face as he thinks about his pet, “He was part of my first prison break. Barely knew how to roll over, but gladly bit the face of the head Auror on my command. He was such a good boy.” 

“What happened to him?” Percy asks cautiously. Chupacabra’s really weren’t the friendliest sort, and there weren’t many recorded instances of them bein domesticated. 

“Newt Scamander won over his loyalty.” Gellert says, not with malice, just with a bone tired understanding of loss, “Hufflepuffs tend to do that.” Gellert puts his hands up, “But from what I heard, it seems like Albus just went fully into his lifting.” 

“Lifting?” Percy questions. But gets drowned out by Lila and Paul laughing before they abruptly stop and look at each other “seriously”. 

“Think Hufflepuff is another school?” Lila stage whispers to Paul. Paul shakes his head, “I think it’s a slur, don’t repeat that word.” Lila nods her head “sagely”. Oliver cracks up laughing. Maybe he was a little bit drunk. 

The topic eventually swings to school. Lila talks about how she’s in her final year, very stressed and very intimidated with the job market. 

“It’s been really nice working here, but I don’t know if I’d want to work here full time. It’s so far from town and I always miss my parents and my friends when I move out here for the summer.” She says, “Plus, I really do want to go to college.” 

“Oh, what would you want to major in?” Percy asks, always wanting to help with college advising. Oliver snorts, recognizing his husband’s (that was his actual husband!) passion. 

“Marine biology! I love sea creatures and I want to study the Twilight zone. I’ve heard about some people even discovering the Titanic wreckage with these submarines, it would be so cool to operate them.” 

“You know,” Percy starts, “Hawaiʻi has some of the best Marine Biology programs in the world. It would be a far cry away from Faith, or even Wales, but it’s beautiful.” 

Sirius frowns, “Now, when have you been to Hawaiʻi?” Percy opens his mouth. Then fucking closes it because yeah. When has he fucking been to Hawaiʻi in this timeline? He looks to Oliver for help. 

“We were thinking about going there for Uni. Perce is really into their Accounting program and their sports teams hand out some nice scholarships.” Oliver says easily enough, sneaking to grab Sirius’ drink, too. Sirius smacks away his hand. 

“Ooh, Accounting?” Gellert muses, “But Dark Lord seems like such a nice career path for you, Percy. It would put you in significantly less debt than a college education.” He singsongs. And he’s not wrong, but that doesn’t make perpetuating wizard racism and terrorism the better option. But Gellert was definitely not done trying to convince the two that world domination is better than a Bachelor’s Degree.

“And sports. Come now, Oliver. Being a Dark Lord is a young man’s game, Tom is in his 60s—oh, Tom is the current Dark Lord in Britain.” Gellert clarifies to Lila and Paul. They nod seriously. “Britain needs some fresh new blood to shake things up. And I will concede that perhaps blood purity is not all it’s cracked up to be.” 

“Because it promotes incest?” Oliver asks, subtly. 

“Because it promotes incest,” Gellert agrees, “But because it lacks the creativity of muggles. Muggles do not have a Rainforest Cafe. But perhaps they could if a younger Dark Lord pushes that agenda.” 

“Are you trying to…puppet master us into becoming Dark Lord so you can have more Rainforest Cafes in Europe?” 

“Yes.” Gellert smiles, “But for now, I must be off otherwise Albus will know of our plans through another means. But let us meet at the bank tomorrow with the updates.” Gellert stands, dropping cold hard cash on the table (with a sizable tip for Dave because we still stan minimum wage waiters and waitresses). “Farewell, everyone.” Gellert says to the group, strutting slowly out of the restaurant because he’s dramatic and old. He says a nice farewell to Dave and the hostess as well, both replying with Gellert’s name. 

When Gellert is fully out the door, Paul turns to them and says, “It’s so nice of you three to be playing Gill’s game.” 

“What game?” Percy asks, dread filling his stomach. Ah shit, would this be another one of Gellert’s manipulations. 

“DnD! He always talks about Hogwarts and Godric’s Hallow, we were both so confused until we realized he just likes playing DnD in his free time.” 

“DnD, like Dungeons and Dragons?” Oliver clarifies, the fullness from the food making his thought process slower than it usually is from all the blunt force trauma he’s suffered throughout the years. 

“Yeah, he plays as a wizard, right?” 

“Dungeons and Dragons, the tabletop roleplaying game?” Percy also clarifies, in part for Sirius who looks very lost and confused. 

“Yeah, what other Dungeons and Dragons is there.” Paul laughs, the rest joining in. 

“O-oh. Yeah, hah.” Percy tries to respond but. What the fuck, that’s one way of being in denial of magic. Fuck it, may as well just go with it. 

“I’m a Cleric in the game, so I also use magic.” 

“Oh, right, is that why he had all that strange writing on his clothes?” Lila asks. 

Percy shares a look with Sirius and Oliver, “Yes. Yes definitely. This was our first time meeting up with Gellert in a long time so we wanted to do something extra special.” 

Sirius butts in, now picking up on how they were gaslighting these poor muggles, “I thought you two were part of the game, sorry if I scared you.” 

But Lila waves him off, “Nah, I get it. Besides, you can’t be Sirius Black—you’re way too,” She vaguely gestures at him while frowning. 

“Too what?” Sirius asks, not sure whether he should be offended or mildly grateful. 

“Too sane.” Paul replies. “When the murders were going down, I heard Black ate a guy and only left his finger.” 

“Yikes.” Percy says, then clears his throat to get Sirius’ attention—who’d been getting ready to comment on how Peter Pettigrew is more rat than man. 

“Well, we should be on our way.” Percy stands, hauling Oliver and Sirius with him. “Got an owl to catch and a professor to reunite with his ex-lover and the like.”

“Oh!” Lila shoves their leftovers at them, “Don’t forget your takeaways. I think Dave even refilled our glasses, too.” She points at the little styrofoam cups, with a little red-eye tree frog as the logo. His name was Kiki and he is the main mascot of the Rainforest Cafe

“Thank you!” Oliver says, then as they leave they all say thank you to Dave in unison because minimum wage workers should be thanked at least three times for their amazing job. Unless they are busy, then thank them silently, like a prayer. 

Exiting the Rainforest Cafe, Percy, Oliver and Sirius walked in silence back to Sirius’ hideout, idly observing as the ground changed from the anally-kept dirt roads to straight up jungle. 

“Fuck, is Buckbeak still injured?” Oliver asks, a little tipsy from the Cheeta Rita and the two helping of Rainbow Coladas (his and Percy’s). 

“Yeah, his leg got twisted when we landed here. The forest was denser than it looked from above.” Oliver nods. 

“Ok, I’m not as familiar with hippogriffs but I’ve healed a couple of owls, their feet are kind of the same as Buckbeak’s, right?” He looks to Percy for answers, but Percy is sadly throwing up in the bushes because that was way too much alcohol for him. 

“Oh, forgot how shit your tolerance is.” 

“Damn, isn’t he a Gryffindor?” Sirius asks, a little impressed with how none of it got on Percy’s clothes. 

“He mostly stayed out of the party scene.” Oliver says, purifying one of the leftover Rainbow Coladas for Percy to down. 

“Strong man.” Sirius comments, continuing on. 

Oliver smiles, patting Percy’s back, “The strongest I know.” 

Buckbeak makes an upset crowing noise when they enter the cave, only mollified when Sirius presents his leftovers.

“Here you go, you fat bird.” Sirius says, affectionately petting Buckbeak’s little crown of feathers. Oliver gets to work, resetting Buckbeak’s bone and wrapping it in gauze he summoned from some leaves outside of the caves. 

“That should be that, then.” Oliver calls out, patting off the invisible dust from his pants so he can oggle at his ring in a ‘subtle’ manner. Then he goes over to his husband (holy fucking shit, his husband!) and they walk back off into the forest to go find one of those goddamn owls. 

It is fully night by the time that Percy decides to throw in the towel. There’s been too many big things that have happened and they need an owl? He’ll get an owl. 

Oliver and Percy are perched on a little pile of small boulders, Oliver casting silent identification charms at anything that moves. This is their break time, but Percy also wants this to be their sleep time. So he simply. Stands up, walks into the forest. Then comes back out with one of those fancy owls. 

“What you got there, Perce?” Oliver whispers. Percy proudly holds out that fucking owl they’ve been looking for. 

“His name is Cha Cha, like that stupid frog from Grindelwald’s obsession.” The owl, small and brown with the same color fur as the trees around it, had the most startlingly red eyes. Big, red eyes, too. 

“I think Cha Cha came from my nightmares.” 

“Lucky that you got to sleep to have those nightmares. C’mon, let’s just write the Professor then go the fuck to sleep. The weather’s nice, we could probably transfigure some of this glass into a tempurpedic if we try hard enough.” 

“Alright.” Oliver rummages through his pack, finding the parchment and ball point pen before scribbling something then tying it to Cha Cha’s leg. 

“Go deliver this to Albus Dumbledore. If he’s not at school, he’s probably at his house in Godric Hollow.” Oliver says, slowly. Hoping that this bird could do that nifty thing of finding a person. The owl looks at Oliver with its stupid scary eyes, then flies the fuck off. 

And with that, Percy casts a couple of spells on the ground, then cusses it out a little bit, before falling down on a very comfortable patch with Oliver cozied up beside him.