Chapter 5
If it were under better circumstances, Minerva would be quite enjoying her stay in a charming little hotel abroad. As it was, she'd been unable to sleep. The bed hadn't been laid in at all. Since arriving last night she'd scarcely moved from the chair by the window, waiting for the sun to rise up over the picturesque mountains that this hotel was nestled between. When it was finally bright enough to read without assistance from a light, Minerva looked down at the many papers covering her lap and selected the letter she'd brought with her all the way from Caithness. In spite of where she was and everything else that was going on, it still managed to make her smile.
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Professor McGonagall,
We crushed Slytherin in the Quidditch Match on Saturday! The final score was 80-210, with the snitch caught inches away from the ground by yours truly. The house cup is going to look so good in your office!
Other than Quidditch, the mood at school has been pretty grim while you've been away. The news of the latest Death Eater attacks has been all over the papers. Professor Dumbledore told us that it happened where you’re from so we’re all thinking of you and miss you a lot . We’re trying to keep out of trouble, failing most of the time. However, in your honour, I’ve been practicing Transfiguration nightly on Peter’s toad - I might even be ready to vanish him by the time you get back. Aren’t you proud of me?
All the best from your favourite Gryffindor,
James Potter
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The sweet note from her student had been accompanied by a pot of Asphodel flowers that she was quite sure he and his mates had nicked from the Herbology greenhouse, but she’d appreciated them all the same. She had left them on her mother's kitchen table before leaving, but the mere sight of them had made her miss Hogwarts and wrought her with a strong desire to return to her minimalist quarters and classroom as soon as possible. Motivating her to accomplish what she'd come to Austria to do quickly and efficiently.
“Thank you, Mr Potter,” Minerva murmured to herself aloud.
She slipped James’ letter in the back of the fat file folder she had brought with her to read through. It contained all the details about the enormous case built against Gellert Grindelwald - much of it in translation because the Dark Wizard had committed crimes in countless countries around the world in his desire for power and full control. She knew that Dumbledore would likely be upset if he knew about the hundreds of personal testimonies she'd read through in the last few days, but Minerva wanted to really grasp the full extent of the atrocities and the victims before she went face to face with Gellert Grindelwald. She thought that would make her more immune to any ploys for manipulation.
“Gellert isn’t accustomed to conversation,” Dumbledore had briefed her before she left. “The aurors who guard him are ordered to never step inside his cell or speak to him. I had to go through the Austrian Ministry of Magic for this exception because one of the conditions of Gellert’s imprisonment was that he have no direct contact with other people ever again.”
Dumbledore didn't tell her that he had specified those conditions when he'd imprisoned Grindelwald, but Minerva knew that he had. Quite essential, when Grindelwald had proven himself again and again quite proficient at talking his way out of anything. Dumbledore might have spared him the death penalty, but the existence he'd been sentenced to couldn't be much better. To be locked up, completely alone, with no creature comforts or purpose - Minerva thought that had to be a perfect example of a living hell.
“After enduring solitary confinement for nearly thirty years we’re supposed to presume that he’s not completely insane by this point?” Minerva had been skeptical.
“That will be for you to determine once you’re there,” Dumbledore had replied, his blue eyes blank and distant. “I trust your judgment.”
Nobody aside from Dumbledore and Alastor Moody - head of the auror department and her assigned accompanier - knew about this trip. Elphinstone and her family believed she’d gone back to Hogwarts but Dumbledore was still covering for her there while Minerva was concentrating all her energy into this first order of business. Though she hated lying to Elphi, she'd agreed when Dumbledore had requested they keep this between them. She knew that Elphinstone would not have approved of what Dumbledore was asking her to do.
“He’s permitted mail and well versed in current events - he takes papers daily from all around the world,” Dumbledore had continued, and Minerva hadn’t asked him how he knew this. She supposed it was only natural that Dumbledore would want to keep close tabs on the person he had sentenced to a lifetime in prison. Even though she believed him when he claimed that he’d never been back to Numengard in all this time and never intended to.
“Has he been warned that I’m coming?”
“I’ve sent word but it probably wasn’t necessary,” Dumbledore had replied. “Gellert sees what nobody else can. I’m sure he already knew.”
Divine sight. The inner eye. Minerva leaned back in her chair and stared up at the snow covered mountains where she knew Nurmengard to be concealed. Though she did not doubt that Gellert Grindelwald was a true seer she was uncomfortable with the idea of dialogue less grounded in fact than prophecy.
“Ask him about Lord Voldemort’s movements, whether he thinks I should confront him, just ask for his opinions on a way forward - that doesn’t mean we’ll do what he says, but adding another perspective to the mix would help. And I'd like to have a firm grounding before I call the Order of the Phoenix together for the first time.”
Dumbledore had named the organization he'd formed to help fight Voldemort after his beloved bird Fawkes. Just like a Phoenix rises from the ashes, so would they too prevail. Or at least that was Dumbledore’s intentions - Minerva wasn't sure what she believed in yet. She just knew that her faith in Albus Dumbledore would propel her to give the best that she could. Uncomfortable though it was to see the emotion in his eyes when she'd agreed to visit Nurmengard on his behalf.
"Almost ready?" A gruff voice called through the door, followed by some abrupt knocking that Minerva found quite invasive, though she was also eager to get going.
Swinging her legs down to the floor, Minerva used her wand to vanish away the papers in her lap should anyone come to clean the room while she was away. Already dressed, Minerva pulled on her warm green coat over her dress and slipped on her hat, gloves, and boots. Her hair was still pulled up in the no nonsense bun she hadn’t bothered to take it out of since yesterday and she didn’t even glance in the mirror as she passed it.
"You're early," she stated, opening the door to find Alastor Moody waiting impatiently for her in the hallway.
"We've got a longer walk than I'd expected," Moody said unapologetically. "Albus neglected to tell me that he made it impossible to apparate in the forests around the fortress. We have to go up the mountain on foot and I don't want this to take all day or the Ministry’s going to start asking funny questions."
"Not a problem," Minerva replied, closing the door to her hotel room behind her and slipping the key into her coat pocket.
She knew it was important that this meeting with Gellert Grindelwald not become common knowledge. Moody had helped make the arrangements for today but was escorting Minerva in an unofficial capacity. This wasn't approved Auror business, but Moody had become frustrated with the oversight at the Ministry and was glad to be partnering with Dumbledore. His primary motivation was to restore order and some semblance of peace in a society that had Death Eaters running rampant while government interference prevented him from doing his job more effectively.
"Up there - you see it?" Moody asked, once they had stepped outside into the snowy village that hadn’t yet come alive at this early hour. He pointed at a structure made of grey stone high above them, mostly obscured by the trees but not quite as remote as Minerva had imagined. "It's invisible to Muggles and positioned perfectly to see anyone approaching. I can see why Grindelwald chose this spot."
"How long of a walk do you figure?" Minerva asked.
"Maybe an hour," Moody replied. "You good with that?"
"Of course," Minerva said stiffly, tightening her scarf around her face while Moody left his bare to the elements.
A true warrior, he probably didn't even feel such minor discomforts as cold, she thought, as they began to walk through the clearing together. It gave her a close up visual of the scars on his face. Every time she saw the auror he seemed to have added to the collection of criss cross marks on his skin.
"Albus told me to let you go in alone," Moody said suddenly, after trekking most of the way up in his customary silence. He wasn't much of a conversationalist and Minerva felt so winded from the climb that she didn't mind not talking. It gave her more time to rehearse what she wanted to ask and say once they reached Nurmengard.
"Strange request - actually this entire mission is strange," Moody continued. "I don’t suppose you’ll enlighten me as to why he chose you to go in when I’ve years of experience interrogating inmates in Azkaban?"
"I’ll agree with you that it’s strange," Minerva answered vaguely, her voice breathless. She was unable to tell him that there were things she knew that made her the only person Dumbledore would trust to handle this appropriately because there were some things that could only be shared between the closest of friends.
Such was an occasion several years ago on a drunken Christmas night when Dumbledore had confessed to her how lonely it felt being him. As beloved as he was to so many, there were unique realms in Albus Dumbledore’s mind that created a wedge between him and everyone else. Only for a brief time as a young man had there been someone whose mind worked the same way as his - and Minerva knew better than to consider that a slight on her own intelligence or their own connection. She knew that Gellert Grindelwald’s brilliance and power was not to be understated and that being forced to accept what Grindelwald had chosen to do with his gifts had broken parts of Albus Dumbledore that could never be put together again.
"The irony of being imprisoned inside the prison you built yourself," Moody observed when they finally reached the entrance to the fortress and the iron gates creaked open to admit them.
"It looks friendlier than Azkaban," Minerva replied, who had actually never been to Azkaban but who had heard enough of the same stories as everyone else to find the place rightly terrifying.
Together they walked across the courtyard, Minerva’s eyes raised up to the steepled tower where she knew Grindelwald was kept. In spite of this not being Azkaban, there was no question that this would not be a pleasant place to be locked up and told you could never leave.
"Dumbledore’s never approved of dementors," Moody said wryly, taking hold of the brass knocker on the door and banging it loudly so that its noise echoed off the snowy mountains like chiming thunderous bells.
Moody seemed to consider Dumbledore a bit too tender-hearted on this matter. While many proclaimed to feel safer knowing the dementors were standing guard at Azkaban, Dumbledore had always been adamantly opposed to their use. A practice he'd called cruel and inhumane more than once. He would never have tolerated them here at Numengard. And despite being rough around the edges, Moody had never lost sight of his own humanity either. He always tried to capture rather than kill whenever possible, which had raised him even higher in Dumbledore’s esteem.
"Welcome!" a young man in navy robes answered the door and looked back and forth between the pair of them with a smile on his face. He looked as welcoming as he claimed to be. Like they were guests in his house instead of visitors to a notorious prison.
"You're Alastor Moody, yes? Head of the Auror department in Britain?"
"That's right," Moody said curtly. "This is Minerva McGonagall - she teaches at Dumbledore’s school."
"I'm Frédéric," the auror introduced himself, stepping back to allow them admittance. "Come in. We've been expecting you….how's that walkway though? We find it murder on our legs."
Minerva entered the castle ahead of Moody and let out a small gasp at the beauty within that she hadn't really been prepared to expect. Ice sculptures charmed to never melt were arranged around the hall, reminiscent of the ones they sometimes decorated Hogwarts with at Christmas. There were landscapes in heavy frames hung on the walls - clearly magical because of the way the waves in a painting of the sea kept crashing against the sand. The floors were all made of white marble.
"This place could be a museum," Minerva remarked, turning in a circle to take in the impressive views outside the large windows that allowed in loads of natural sunlight.
"Yeah, the old guy really had a nice set up here for awhile," Frédéric chortled. "There’s bedrooms down that corridor to your right- we use them now since we work rotating seventy-two hour shifts. And then there's a bathroom at the end of the corridor to your left with a tub the size of a swimming pool. A pretty impressive library as well. Would you like to see?"
"Maybe later-" Minerva started to say but Moody cut her off.
"Are you planning to ask us to do any basic security screening or are we to just voluntarily present you our wands?" He demanded sternly, and the young auror's pale skin flushed a crimson red.
"Sorry sir," he stammered. "It’s just, we knew you were coming and it was already in the agreement that you be able to keep your wands on you the entire-"
"That's not an excuse to abandon the most rudimentary safety procedures," Moody interrupted. "How do you know that we haven't been replaced by Death Eaters who are impersonating us in a ploy to break out the only prisoner entrusted to your care?"
"You're not, are you?" Frédéric asked weakly, looking mortified.
"If it's alright, I'd like to get started," Minerva spoke up, cutting through the awkwardness in the air as Moody shook his head in disbelief. "He's kept in the tower, correct?"
"Stairs are that way," Frédéric told her, pointing over his shoulder and looking relieved to have the attention off himself.
"I can tell that they ship the aurors they don’t trust to handle anything important out here," Moody grumbled as he followed her the way Frédéric had directed them.
"Everyone has to start somewhere," Minerva said diplomatically, pointing her wand at her boots and then Moody’s when she spotted the trail of snow and slush they were leaving on the floor behind them. Her feet tingled with warmth and dried instantaneously.
"Well I'll be sending a report to their superior before we head home," Moody growled. "They’re charged with guarding Gellert Grindelwald and the rest of these jokers are probably lounging in the swimming pool! If You Know Who waltzed up to this place they'd welcome him in and hand him the keys."
"To be fair, I think only Dumbledore would be able to stop You Know Who from doing exactly whatever he wants to do," Minerva replied as they stopped at the narrow stairwell that led up to the tower. "But at least you've found something to do while you wait for me. Do you need parchment and quill?"
She smirked as he waved her away impatiently but with each step she took her humor dissipated more and more. There'd been so much distraction for a few minutes that it let her temporarily forget that she was about to do what nobody else had done since his capture. She climbed very slowly, appreciating just how tall it was and what a considerable distance existed between Grindelwald’s cell and the ground floor where the aurors congregated. He would never overhear even snippets of the conversations down below from this height. What must it be like to go so long without hearing the sound of another person’s voice?
"Hello," a tired sounding voice called out to her, just as soon as Minerva reached the landing and was confronted with a wall of strong bars that sealed off the rest of the tower.
Minerva watched as Gellert Grindelwald slowly pulled himself up from his seat behind a large desk buried under newspapers and books cracked open with their spines up. He pressed one hand to the front of his grey ragged pajama shirt - as if about to adjust the non-existent tie that he would have worn in his former life.
"Hello," Minerva said back, quite forgetting to feel afraid.
For one long moment they just stared at one another. Grindelwald looked quite stunned to see another person’s face and Minerva allowed him to overcome his shock as he soaked in the picture of her standing there. She'd needed a chance to steady herself as well. To take in what she thought she'd been prepared for but wasn't. Looking upon the man who no longer looked anything like he had in the wanted posters or propaganda that had once covered every periodical and store front in the Wizarding World.
Now he was barely a shadow of his former self. His clothes hung off his emaciated form. A thin blanket the same shade of grey as the remaining hair on his head was wrapped around a pair of frail shoulders. Great sunken eyes overwhelmed his skull of a face. He looked weak, pitiful, and unthreatening.
"You were told I was coming?" Minerva confirmed, stepping closer to the bars and folding her hands together.
"I received confirmation yesterday," Grindelwald replied. "Are you surprised I agreed?"
"No," Minerva said simply, glancing around the dark cell that was scarcely brightened by the strips of sunlight in the barely-there narrow windows cut from the stone walls. The world outside was hardly visible. Even if it was what he deserved, it was horrible to witness and Minerva was relieved to only have to endure it for a short while.
"I can’t imagine you had anything better to do with your time," she added.
This made him laugh, and when he did, Minerva saw that most of his teeth were missing. He didn't seem used to laughter, it got caught in his throat and converted into a wheezy cough that wracked his whole body almost instantly. Minerva watched on, powerless to do anything more than wait to see if he'd collapse. But then Grindelwald staggered over to the small table beside his narrow bed and poured himself a drink of water from a rusty pitcher set there.
"You’re correct, Madam, this is the most excitement that I have had in years," he said finally, once he had drained an entire cup of water and poured himself a second.
"And these are exciting, albeit dark, times," he added, bringing the cup back to his lips.
"Who to trust? Who to confide in? I bet you never expected to find yourself here."
"You’re quite right," Minerva agreed, sensing that he was sizing her up as much as she was him.
"I knew people would come eventually," Grindelwald confessed. "I haven’t been entirely forgotten. And I’m grateful that I didn’t have to wait for Voldemort to show up before I received a visitor."
"Are you expecting him?" Minerva frowned, squeezing her hands together at the sound of the name she’d probably never adjust to hearing.
"I think he'll come eventually," Grindelwald replied, "but he is not desperate enough to seek me out yet."
He must have had a vision of Voldemort at this prison, Minerva realized, watching as Grindelwald picked up the wooden chair from behind his desk with more strength than Minerva would have expected him capable of. Though the effort awarded him another round of coughing, he barely made it to the bars that divided them before having to drop the chair down to gulp the rest of his water. Minerva’s first impression was that he did not seem insane and if she did not know his history, he might have deceived her all together.
"You seem rather resigned for a man so dangerous that aurors can't even hand deliver you your food," she observed.
Grindelwald looked amused as he sank down into his chair with a sigh of relief. "They’re afraid I’d persuade one of them to let me out if we freely interact."
"Why haven't you tried to break yourself out?" She asked bluntly.
"How can you be sure that I haven’t?"
"Dumbledore seems confident that you haven’t," Minerva pressed on, but Grindelwald just shook his skeletal head.
"I designed this tower to be inescapable and then Dumbledore added his own enchantments on top of mine," he explained, leaning forward with some difficulty, he set his empty cup down on the floor by his feet. "The greatest wizards - or at least two of the greatest wizards that the world has ever seen- together created my prison. So, I assure you that I'm in here to stay."
Minerva pursed her lips together as she took out her wand and drew a chair in the air which revolved for a few seconds before falling with a thud on the stone floor opposite Grindelwald. Deciding not to prod further at the moment, but still not convinced that escape was as impossible for him as he claimed it to be. It did seem like he hadn’t even bothered to try. And why would anyone settle for such an existence without a fight?
"That was beautiful," Grindelwald said suddenly, who had watched her spellwork closely, and whose deadened eyes had suddenly come alive with a spark of wondrous arousal. "Even the most simple of magic is such a rare and beautiful expression. I never tired of it."
"I don’t think conjuration spells are simple at all," Minerva said wryly, as she sat down in her straight back wooden chair, which mirrored his.
"Of course not," Grindelwald hurried to say, "but you make it look easy. When I was in school I found Transfiguration to be one of the most difficult branches of magic for most people to master."
"But not for you," Minerva guessed correctly, who knew Grindelwald had been closely matched in skill to Dumbledore, despite his defeat.
Deciding on a whim to make this meeting more comfortable since he seemed so willing to talk to her, Minerva raised her wand again to this time conjure a teapot and two cups which hovered in the air before her.
"Would you like some?" she offered generously.
"Thank you," Grindelwald said, both looking and sounding surprised.
Minerva made quick work of pouring the tea into both cups, aware of his eyes on her the entire time. She supposed that if she’d been isolated from other people like he had, she’d have a hard time looking elsewhere as well and didn’t let it bother her. When she passed him his tea through the bars and accidentally brushed her fingers against his skeletal ones, Minerva heard his breath hitch in his chest. Her list of to the point questions temporarily falling to the wayside, Minerva’s expression softened as she gently pulled her hand away.
"How have you survived in here this long?" she whispered.
It didn't matter that there were no dementors. Within that much time your mind would drive itself to madness. That Grindelwald still seemed quite controlled caught her as suspicious and she wondered if it was due to an abundance of magical power or something more sinister. She watched Grindelwald savor a sip of the sweet tea, mulling over the question carefully before answering.
Finally he shrugged. "I suppose offing myself would feel like I'm taking the coward’s way out and I refuse to be a coward."
She nodded. Respecting that answer though she thought there was more to that story. Grindelwald breathing was gurgly - like he had fluid or something trapped in his lungs. He looked every single one of his years and more - unlike Dumbledore who, though old, had an energy and lightness about him that made Minerva often forget how long he had been alive - and that was even factoring in his long white hair and beard.
"So what is Albus hoping to gain from having you come here?" Grindelwald asked, getting straight down to business now the tea had been poured and formalities made.
"To use his words, a different perspective," Minerva replied automatically. "He thought that you might be able to use your unique standpoint to help him figure out a way to move against You Know Who."
"And by unique he means evil?" Grindelwald asked darkly, a shadow falling over his gaunt face as he drank more tea.
"The last thing Dumbledore said to me before I left was that he hoped you'd choose to take advantage of this opportunity to be an ally, not an enemy," Minerva said, making sure to look him directly in the eye.
She had caught the wistful tone in Dumbledore’s voice when he’d first said those words. And even reiterated, the words seemed to have a profound effect on Gellert Grindelwald.
"I never was the enemy," he said in a quiet, but firm voice.
Minerva continued to stare back at him unblinkingly. "So if You Know Who seeks out an alliance with you in exchange for your freedom, you won't help him?"
"No, I won't," Grindelwald said, without any hesitation at all that Minerva could detect.
"Why not?" She pressed on, disbelievingly. "Our side isn’t offering you any such deal."
"In short, because Voldemort’s ideology is weak, his methods crude, and his fear of death pathetic in my opinion," Grindelwald rhymed off matter of factly. "I do have standards, Professor."
"Well, I think that the two of you have a lot in common," Minerva retorted.
"You’re not alone," he replied, a curve of a smile twisting along his pale, cracked lips. "Personally, I find the comparisons between Voldemort and myself to be rather insulting. Perhaps I was just as arrogant as he is, and our abilities closely matched, but I’d like to hope that I wasn’t as short-sighted or selfish in my own aspirations."
"You hope?" asked Minerva.
“Look at it from my perspective,” he told her. “I saw visions of another war twelve years before it happened. Nuclear bombs falling from the sky and exploding down on earth like raindrops. Muggles were destroying the world as we knew it and I tried to do something about it. I wanted to be the hero and - yes - I thought my superiority in power and intelligence gave me the right to rule. I thought bringing the wizards out of hiding could restore order and minimize violence.”
"Muggles forced into subservience for the greater good…." Minerva interjected. “I’ve not forgotten.”
He sounded like the same Gellert Grindelwald from one of his rallies, rejuvenated suddenly by his own voice. His talk still energized him. And for a flash he seemed less frail and defeated - more like the man who’d had his name cheered in the streets by his numerous followers. Who considered himself a superior villain - the predecessor and rival of Lord Voldemort.
“So tell me how you’re different,” Minerva challenged him sharply. “Give me something that Albus can use, if what worked against you won’t work against You Know Who.”
"For all intents and purposes, I don’t understand him or his motives," Grindelwald said hoarsely. "I see things but I don’t get to choose what is shown to me or not. The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is very difficult business indeed…"
"But you have had visions of You Know Who?"
"Yes," Grindelwald nodded. "But interpretation is so subjective and can muddy the waters so thoroughly that we’d sometimes be better to have never seen it at all. In a figure as mysterious and secretive as Voldemort, I don't have much of an upper hand."
"It's a very wooly branch of magic to me," Minerva said, leaning back in her chair and crossing one leg over the other. She hadn't removed her coat since stepping inside and knew she wouldn’t be comfortable without it. The mere sight of Grindelwald wrapped in a thin blanket was enough to make her shiver. "I'm afraid I've never had much patience for the subject. Dumbledore has considered getting rid of the Divination program at Hogwarts all together."
"It would make sense,” Grindelwald replied. “Divination can't generally be taught and young witches and wizards would be better served disciplining themselves in magical practices they can actually master. Seers are born, not made."
For a moment he reminded Minerva of a school board governor. As if he had nothing more pressing on his mind than the course offerings at a wizarding school, and wasn't sitting in prison with several life sentences on his head. He was eccentric and clever, and Minerva was intrigued.
"But even for a seer, nothing can be written in stone," he continued. "Although I suppose Albus wouldn’t have sent you if he didn’t want us to at least try and make sense of things I’ve seen."
"I agree," Minerva said quietly. "Tell me when you first learned about You Know Who."
"Years before he became Voldemort," Grindelwald replied. "The first vision I saw of him was in the dormitory of the muggle orphanage where Albus delivered his Hogwarts letter. I saw that this boy was abandoned and unloved, raised apart from the magical community - a dreadful combination that Dumbledore should have known better than to overlook the warning signs of."
"One of Dumbledore’s greatest strengths is his ability to believe the best in people and his willingness to give anyone a chance until they prove him wrong," Minerva said loyally. “He also can’t be responsible for every child’s upbringing.”
"A nice sentiment until it generates a monster too strong for Dumbeldore to control," Grindelwald retorted.
Minerva’s mouth thinned. "Are you saying that You Know Who cannot ever be controlled?"
"No, I'm saying that Dumbledore cannot stop him - slow him down, scare him, inconvenience him - sure," Grindelwald shrugged. "But Voldemort cannot be captured and he cannot be killed. Voldemort’s downfall can only come from his own mistakes."
"So there will be a downfall?" Minerva asked.
"There’s always a downfall, Professor McGonagall," Grindelwald replied. "Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? We all know that eventually someone will rise and strike back. Nothing lasts forever."
"But Dumbledore can't defeat him according to you and he's the best chance we've got…"
"Voldemort will avoid Dumbledore at all costs so that opportunity probably won't even arise," answered Grindelwald. "Voldemort fears Dumbledore too much to risk going after him."
"What would you suggest be done then?" Minerva asked.
"If it was me, I'd concentrate on turning what makes Voldemort most dangerous into his greatest weakness," said Grindelwald.
At Minerva’s questioning stare, he elaborated. "Voldemort is incapable of love and that means that there are no limits to how far he will go - but that also means that he can never properly understand those of us that do love. He can't understand friendship, or the bond between a mother and child, or that these things endure a lifetime- even beyond death. I've seen enough to convince me that all of this is relevant."
"Like how?"
"I've seen a vision of a young man who is going to desert Voldemort and run to Dumbledore full of regret," Grindelwald shared. "I don't know when or who he is - I never saw a face. But I feel strongly that this young man is going to be important."
"Why do you say that?" asked Minerva.
"Because remorse is one of the greatest motivators there is," Grindelwald said simply. "If you have a heart, you're capable of feeling remorse."
"Is remorse why you're telling me this?" Minerva asked pointedly, not sure why she was suddenly so eager for him to confess what she knew Dumbledore yearned to hear. However, Grindelwald seemed reluctant to give a straight answer.
"Am I required to feel remorse for trying to do the right thing and create a better world?"
"So damn all those who got in your way?" Minerva said coldly. "You can talk about defeating You Know Who but are you telling me that you feel nothing for all your countless victims?"
"Even in just wars there are senseless casualties," Grindelwald replied. "That doesn't make me indifferent. I always aspired to use only the amount of force necessary and no more. My followers were in check. They never blew up a muggle village and left bodies in the streets without cause"
"Your time left lots of bodies in the streets…" she pointed out.
"But not because I enjoyed the sight of them there - and not the person that you loved. I can see him in your eyes right now," he said, causing Minerva to promptly avert her gaze down to her still full - now cold - cup of tea.
"The Statute of Secrecy has been cruel to you. I'm sure there's at least a small part of you that wonders how your life might have been different if you hadn't had to hide who you really were and could have just been happy. "
"Perhaps I accepted years ago that there are more important things in this world than me just doing whatever it is that makes me happy," Minerva said quietly to her teacup. "A hard lesson, but one that most of us learn before the end of childhood if we’re to grow into decent people."
And she believed what she was saying to be true - even if it was hard sometimes. It wasn’t okay to just do whatever you wanted in search of your own fleeting happiness without concern for everyone else around you. Marrying Dougal McGregor at eighteen and outing herself publicly as a witch wouldn’t have been worth the complications of bringing the wizards out of hiding. It might not have even granted her the ‘happily ever after’ she’d always presumed that it would - life was never that straightforward. She realized that now.
“You’re right of course,” Grindelwald said suddenly. “And of course I feel remorse, Minerva - if I might call you that. That’s why I’ve remained in this cell with no intentions to leave it until I die. I have too much shame - and too much respect for Albus Dumbledore for stopping me - to do otherwise.”
"Really?" Minerva raised her head to look back at him skeptically.
"Yes," said Grindelwald. "Not that it makes any difference now…"
"Actually, if what you’re telling me is true then, for the sake of your soul, I think it makes a great deal of difference," Minerva replied. "Though you're known for being quite adept at deceiving people into trusting you so I’d be foolish to believe anything you tell me until I leave this place and have time to think it over. You’ve had a lot of time to plan what you’d say if anyone ever came calling."
"I can see why Albus sent you," Grindelwald said, looking mildly impressed. "I can see why he thinks so highly of you."
"And I him,” Minerva said simply.
"Well, hopefully you both will conclude that I've spoken nothing but the truth. There's too much uncertainty for me to be more precise than this. Voldemort is a master legilimens. There isn't much that gets through."
“I hope the same,” Minerva said, conjuring some biscuits all the way from the kitchens at Hogwarts and offering them to him wordlessly, believing her purpose here to be done.
She didn’t think it was necessary to hear more visions or discuss the current events that Dumbledore was perfectly capable of researching for himself. Although she didn’t think that she’d even been here very long, she felt like it was more than enough. Her mind was just the vessel that would transport the information that Dumbledore needed - about Voldemort’s inability to love and the potential concealed in sorrowful remorse. She thought it would give Albus a starting base and if he needed something else - well Alastor Moody would probably be happy to come back for a proper interrogation.
"Thank you, Mr Grindelwald," Minerva said suddenly, rising to her feet.
"You're leaving already?" Grindelwald asked, standing up himself with some difficulty.
"I need to get back to Hogwarts," Minerva explained.
He looked disappointed but did not argue as he wrapped his blanket around his shoulders more tightly and nodded. Minerva felt something akin to guilt at the thought of leaving him alone here for maybe thirty more years and not doing anything to make him more comfortable. She didn't blame Dumbledore for not coming. It must be horrible to have to live with condemning someone to this life, even when absolutely necessary. Perhaps that was why Moody was so hardened from this line of work.
"Goodbye," Minerva said awkwardly, taking one last look around the cell.
She felt confused and mournful about the man condemned to die here. To perhaps never speak to anyone else again. For she was certain that she’d taken all that she could take from him. And that his purpose was over. All that was left was to do his penance and perhaps wait for Voldemort to come calling so that he could prove he really had changed.
Grindelwald smiled sadly. "Goodbye."