The Mystery of the Frozen Heart

1925

1 “There is still the matter of how to get to Alastair without getting caught,” Ronny said to Celestia. He was still disguised as an elderly Muggle lady who bore the improbable name of Loretta Sparks, whilst Celestia was posing as Mrs Sparks’s daughter, Carlotta. They were on a Muggle train, heading to London. It probably wasn’t necessary to take that extra precaution, but both Ronny and Celestia had agreed that they couldn’t be careful enough. After all, there were only a few days left to save the Fawleys, and they had in their possession an artefact that was wanted by everyone and their Niffler, it seemed.

“I know.” She was sitting by the window, her briefcase on her lap. Inside, protected by a containment spell, was the one thing that could save Alastair and his parents. A less trite metaphor would not come to her, but hell would have to freeze over before she gave up the frozen heart. “Nothing but this thing here” – She patted the suitcase with one gloved hand – “can thaw the ice-”

“We need to find out how it works, too.”

That.

Unwittingly, she thought of Newt.

How he had hated her plan.

She didn’t have a choice, though. No, she was all out of options at this point. “Yes, indeed. But as I was saying: only the frozen heart can thaw the ice. Still, the fate of the Fawley family isn't exactly a secret. Now that I’ve attracted the attention of the American government, they will no doubt have alerted the Ministry of Magic. I was broken out of MACUSA by Grindelwald fanatics – my sister.” She closed her eyes. Her head was pounding. Her mouth was cottony. She felt nauseous. Small wonder, really: she hadn't eaten in two days. This wasn’t by choice, of course. The simple truth was that nothing would stay down.

“Didn’t you get recruited by that Auror fellow?”

“I ran. He won’t exactly be speaking up on my behalf after the debacle at that barn.” Her head hurt worse than ever. She’d left them all behind: the Malfoys, Leta…

…Nocturna.

Yes, yes, yes, Nana was a big girl and would survive this setback, but it had been a betrayal. What had happened to Apollo and Ares and Leta? Had they been caught? Were they after her? No. No use thinking about them. No use feeling guilty. They wouldn’t do her the same courtesy.

Newt’s voice said, in her mind, that she shouldn’t base her moral code on what others did or didn’t do.

Celestia had left him behind, too. It couldn’t be avoided, though. These were choices she’d needed to make. If only her teenaged self could see her now. She’d probably be shocked beyond rational thoughts at the borderline evil things she was capable of. “There will be Aurors, in all probability – magic wards, maybe some local Grindelwald supporters.”

“Of which there are quite a few. If your sister ratted you out, then they’ll probably be waiting.”

“I believe she might have done just that. It’s all for the greater good, I’m told.” She opened her eyes again, looked outside the passing landscape without registering any of it, and blew out a heavy breath. Her whole body felt as heavy as lead. “So what do we do, Ronny? I’ll have to rely on your sense of practicality. I’m no good at all this spy business.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? I wouldn’t have got far by myself.”

“Like everyone else. What’s so wrong with needing the help of a friend? We all do.”

She smiled at him, said, “You’re sweet, you know. Thanks for everything,” and then sighed. “Oh, this whole situation is so wretched! How on Earth are we supposed to get even close to Alastair after all the fanfare? Secrecy is completely out the window now.”

Ronny mulled this over for a moment. He tugged at the lacy cuffs of his flowery coat. “I’ve been thinking about it the whole time we were on that ship. The problem is, we don’t know what’s waiting for us, or who.”

That…oh. Perking up, she shifted her weight so she could stare at him, wide-eyed. “Ronny, did you Obliviate the Scamanders after you ransacked their house?”

He made a face. Like this, he looked a bit like old Mrs Parkinson, the tough-love babysitter who had sometimes looked after Celestia and Nocturna.

Both had loved her. She’d died of Dragon Pox not five years past.

“Of course I did,” he said.

“Does anyone know what you’ve been up to these past few weeks?”

That was when the proverbial galleon dropped. It was obvious from his expression. He chuckled. “No. You follow Quidditch?” When she shook her head, he nodded. “Well, last season, I got injured so severely, I almost died – was in a coma for a fortnight, if you can believe it.” He raised his hand to run his fingers through his hair, but then obviously remembered that the Muggle he was impersonating had long hair piled up in a bun. “So I took a sabbatical – a whole year. I said I’d travel around, recover, pick some flowers, the like.”

The mere thought of Petronius Flint frolicking through a meadow, picking flowers, was so absurd, she had to snicker despite all the current drama.

He smiled, looking a lot sweeter than Mrs Parkinson ever had.

Mrs Parkinson had been the best.

“Nobody knows you’re involved, then,” she said, and grabbed his wrist. “We need to use that to our advantage, Ronny.”

His smile morphed into a smirk. “I think I have an idea.”

2 That Porpentina Goldstein was a nuisance and a half, but letting a competent Auror die on his watch would be extremely out of character for brave and responsible Percival Graves. Besides, wantonly killing talented wizards and witches was not something Gellert Grindelwald was prone to do if he could help it. As long as the young woman didn’t interfere with his affairs more than (unwittingly) assist him, he’d do what Percival Graves would do in order to keep her breathing.

Besides, her curse had given him a good excuse to return to Europe – to return home. He wouldn’t be able to stay, naturally, but for a little while, he’d be able to go back to being himself. That was a risk and a half he was taking, yes, but fortune favoured the bold, as the idiom went. Besides, he was pretty confident that Picquery and the rest of MACUSA were so arrogant, they’d never connect Graves’s absence with Grindelwald’s resurgence – temporary though that might be. He’d return to America, of course, if only to avoid capture, to keep his enemies guessing what was to come next.

Well, in all honesty, he had to admit that he was taking a risk because he missed being home and because he missed being himself. Such was the nature of homesickness and nostalgia. Also, he’d always been a risk-taker. One did not start and head a revolution without a good deal of boldness and fearlessness.

What he’d told young Ethel had been the truth: they hadn't won, yet. In fact, they were far from it. Support for the cause had grown ever since the end of the War, but still, most people were afraid of the idea of revolution. They were afraid of taking their fates into their own hands, of taking control. They were afraid of change. Many among the so-called Purebloods supported wizard superiority, whilst among Muggle-borns and Halfbloods, support was rather limited. Reasons for this were fairly obvious: nobody who came from a Muggle family wanted their parents, their siblings, their friends to become subjects under wizarding rule. Sadly, that was something they would have to learn to accept. Wizardkind was superior in every way. It was time that they took up the mantle of responsibility.

Grindelwald was also fairly convinced that many wizards and witches among Halfbloods at least could be converted to see the light. All they needed was the right incentive. All they needed was to be shown the truth about themselves and their role in this world…

…which was why it had been a primarily good decision to return to Europe for at least a little while. Things needed to be taken care of. He wasn’t exactly prone to micromanaging, but he was a man of action as well as theory – always had been. That was why he needed to be here, needed to take care of this important affair, needed to personally make sure that matters turned out advantageous to his people. Insisting on taking Tina to Albenheim had been the perfect excuse. Picquery hadn't even complained; she’d just sighed and consented, saying that he’d do it anyway. Was the real Graves such a team dad? Funny. At some point, keeping him alive, hidden, and incapacitated would no longer be necessary.

Being back in Europe was so elating, he briefly considered looking up Albus Dumbledore. As soon as the thought formed in his mind, he trampled it down again. How nonsensical this would be – dangerous and arrogant, too. No. No, he and Albus had parted ways a long time ago.

Albus would never see reason again; he’d made that much clear.

No matter.

It didn’t matter.

What mattered so much more right now was that Celestia Prewett and Petronius Flint (and hadn't young Nocturna been honestly indignant about her sister’s betrayal? Poor thing) be intercepted and stopped from using the frozen heart for the insipid purpose of thawing three people.

No, Grindelwald had something much more important planned for that precious artefact. He was going to make sure that that sentimental girl didn’t mess it all up.

3 Ever since Celestia had set a trap for him in Athens and run off on her own, Newt had waited for her to return to England with the frozen heart in her possession. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t understand why she had done what she had done. It also wasn’t as if he couldn’t have predicted her actions. She was determined to save Alastair and his parents no matter the cost. The problem was, it would be one hell of a cost – in fact, one he didn’t think she would be able to stomach.

They had travelled all over the British Isles, Ireland, the European mainland. They’d even been as far as western Russia. There had been rumours and whispers and false reports, but nothing of substance anywhere.

His parents had doubted the wisdom of his decision to accompany one of the people responsible for his expulsion on this fools’ errand, but he’d insisted, and they’d then left it alone. With Celestia’s money, they’d got far. She paid for lodgings and train tickets and supplies and information. He provided his knowhow. Most of the time, they didn’t talk much among themselves. It was draining, to say the least. As the months raced by, they both got more and more frustrated, more and more desperate.

Then, the lucky break had occurred. Finally, someone had been able to provide them with concrete evidence that the frozen heart had been found in the USA. Unfortunately, at the same time, Newt had discovered what Celestia had been hiding from him: what she believed she needed to do to unlock the mystery of the artefact.

The problem was, there was no one opinion on how to get the thing to work once it had been ejected by the Hiberhus Horridus. Newt’s book had no section about it at all; it was old and mostly written from the perspective of someone who wanted to scare their audience. There were, actually, no books in existence about how to care for magical creatures  – only about how to use them or get rid of them.

Therefore, it kind of figured that Celestia would go for the worst solution of all.

It was why he had to stop her before she could do something irreversible, something she’d regret for the rest of her life. Running after her wouldn’t help. No, he needed to intercept her, to catch her before she could give into fearmongering and violence, to help her do the right thing.

Lives depended on it.

4 It turned out that six days had passed since Tina had mysteriously lost consciousness in New York City. That was almost an entire week. She knew that people had been out for longer, depending on the extent of their injuries or the severity of the curse they’d been hit with, but the thought of having had no agency at all, of having been oblivious of everything for that long was ungodly creepy – horrifying, actually.

Daylight was making way for dusk on the sixth day when she woke up. Now, she was downstairs in what turned out to be some kind of guesthouse, eating a hearty dinner. Tina had never been picky about food, despite her sister’s amazing skill at cooking, but today, they could have served her anything and she would have wolfed it down with the same gusto. The landlady – a surprisingly young woman with limited English skills – told her that her clothes were being cleaned and would be returned to her soon. The woman couldn’t tell Tina, however, where her wand had gone.

So here she was, in a village smack in the middle of a vast, dark forest – Grindelwald’s hometown, no less – with no wand, no proper clothing, no idea whether she was going to survive the cursed tattoo, surrounded by people who spoke a different language. From what she knew about this place, there were quite a few who spoke at least some English or French, but all they had to do to keep Tina out was to revert to their native tongue. She needed to find out what was going on with the terrorist cell she’d busted back home, what had happened to those who’d escaped, whether Celestia Prewett and her sister had found the frozen heart. It would’ve been nice if Graves had left her a note with some sort of explanation on it. It would also be nice if she were able to perform wandless magic, like him.

Come to think about it, had he always been able to do that?

She couldn’t quite recall.

More than anything, she wanted to reach Queenie and tell her that she was still alive and not doing too badly. Any attempt at getting the monosyllabic Franconian landlady to get her wand back failed. Either the woman honestly didn’t know, or she didn’t want to know. She was friendly and all, but all of this struck Tina funny. Maybe Graves had requested that she be kept away from any means of doing magic until she was cured. Maybe he didn’t trust her not to go traipsing about before her body could handle it.

He’d be right, too.

The thing was, Tina couldn’t just sit around doing nothing. There was too much going on that she couldn’t just ignore. Both Graves and Madam Picquery would remind her that she wasn’t the only Auror in the world, and that the fate of humanity didn’t rest on her shoulders. Again, they’d be right. Still, sitting around uselessly made her antsy. This whole episode was bound to end in disaster if the right people didn’t manage to catch the Prewett sisters before they could wreak havoc with that potential weapon of mass destruction.

Sure, Queenie had said that Celestia Prewett had no ill intent, that she only wanted to save her paramour. The evidence, however, led to a different conclusion. Celestia and her sister had run off together, presumably, since they hadn't been at the barn. The former had even changed wands with her ex-husband so as to avoid being magically tracked. Now, if that wasn’t suspicious, nothing was. She needed to be found. She needed to be stopped.

Tina couldn’t just sit around and wait for the world to end.

After she’d eaten, the oddly chipper librarian returned, a knitted bag slung over her shoulder. There was snow in her hair. “Ready for your next treatment?” She took off her muddy, snowy boots and left them by the kitchen door. By the dim, orange light of the fireplace, her eyes seemed to shine.

It could just be that Tina was projecting, too. She did that sometimes. “Do you think it’ll work?” Her dead arm, held in place by a sling, was starting to drive her crazy – not as crazy as the itch would have, but it was bad enough.

“The treatment is…experimental, but I’m confident, yes,” Trolldenier said, smiling, smiling, smiling. The woman was peculiar. “It’s gonna sting a bit, though. Maybe I should knock you out.”

There was a pang in Tina’s stomach. “No,” she hurried to say, probably with a little too much vehemence. “No, please. I’ve been out too long as it is.”

Trolldenier squinted at her for a bit, but then smiled again, and nodded. “All right. Let’s go upstairs. Wouldn’t want to break the lovely décor whilst thrashing in horrible agony, would we?”

Had that been a joke? Tina’s throat went dry. Acid shot up from her stomach to the back of her throat. “No.” Feeling oddly beside herself, she followed the woman upstairs, into the bedroom she’d woken up in.

“Sit on the bed. Let me take off the bandage.”

After Tina did as instructed, Trolldenier carefully removed both sling and dressing. There was probably no need to be this cautious, though. The arm was dead. Tina couldn’t feel a thing.

For a while, Trolldenier rummaged inside her bag, until she found a small flask containing a viscous, black liquid. She unscrewed the top, careful not to touch the contents of the flask, then pulled her wand from one of her dress’s pockets and made a pained face at Tina. “Like I said, this might sting a bit. I really should knock you out, dear – for your own good.”

Even though she always tried not to think of that awful subject, these words reminded her of her parents’ illness. They’d gone through all sorts of painful experimental treatments, as well. Tina’s stomach lurched. She shifted her weight, uncomfortable. The bedsprings creaked. “Just tell me the truth.”

Trolldenier seemed to consider this, but then, she nodded. “All right. Brace yourself. This is gonna hurt like all hell.” With a flick of her wand, she pulled a strand of the black liquid from the flask and let it fly across the room and settle on Tina’s arm. The oily drops coiled around her, then spread, covering her skin in a shiny black layer.

“I don’t feel…” But then she did feel it. Her arm burst into black flames. Before she could even draw breath to scream, a spell hit her square in the chest and she lost consciousness. It was for the best, maybe even for the greater good.

5 When Tina woke up, it wasn’t like the previous time. No, this time, she regained all of her consciousness, all at once, waking up with a jolt as if struck by lightning. She found herself sitting upright, breathing hard, feeling as if she really had been lightning-struck. Her skin felt sore, like that one time she’d gotten a bad sunburn during that one weekend the whole family had spent in Atlantic City. What…where was she, what had…what…

Oh. The curse. That weird, smiling witch. Franconia. Black flames.

Stomach cramping and heart thundering, she raised her left arm – wasn’t dead anymore. It was bandaged, though. No itch – a good sign! But it hurt. Hurt as if it been burned. That was because it had. She rolled her eyes at herself. How long had she slept this time? Her thoughts were a little fuzzy, and her body felt heavy, but the vague itching sensation was gone. With care, she peered under the bandage. When she saw that there were no vines, she half exhaled, half sobbed her relief and let herself drop backwards on the mattress. The treatment had worked! She was cured.

A good long while passed until she had herself under control again.

This whole thing begged the question, didn’t it? Why was she even here? How did a Franconian librarian know how to treat a ludicrously specific curse that someone had been hit with on the other side of the planet? Yes, the local university was famous for its humungous library, true. But still, something about the circumstances was suspicious. Also, where was her wand?

She worked herself up to a sitting position, looked down at herself, and saw that she was wearing a different nightgown. It was night, too, wasn’t it? It was dark outside; the only source of light was the smouldering fireplace. This would be a great spot for tourism if it weren't for the whole Grindelwald thing, no doubt. Then again, one couldn’t blame an entire region for one bad apple. There was no proof that everyone here – or even the majority – supported the town’s most infamous son.

Besides, as strange as the librarian’s mannerisms struck Tina, the woman had saved her life. Ethel Partridge would be so upset. Feeling a little rotten, Tina had to laugh softly at the thought. No, it wasn’t nice. But hey, failing to kill one’s enemies was an occupational hazard for these wizard superiority fanatics, wasn’t it? Still, the feeling of amusement melted away when Tina remembered that she herself had killed Ares Malfoy.

He had probably not been a very nice person, no.

That didn’t change the fact that she had taken a life, and that there was a price to pay for killing, even in self-defence.

She got to her feet – her legs were less wobbly than last time, which was good – and decided to explore this room a little. There was a closet. Her clothes were not inside, only extra bedding and a few towels. Damn it. But Tina wouldn’t be Tina if she let lack of proper clothing stop her from pursuing her goals. Maybe the landlady would know where Tina’s clothes were now. Hell, maybe she’d even get her wand back. There was no more reason to keep her here. She was cured. She could get back to work.

Downstairs, there was no-one. There was a fire crackling happily in the living room’s big fireplace, but the place itself was empty. Weird. When she saw that there were coats and knitted scarfs hanging from the coatrack at the front entrance, and an assortment of boots piled under it, she decided to go do some reconnoitring. She wasn’t stealing anything, only borrowing, and only because she needed answers. The pair of boots she picked were a bit large, but all right. The coat was heavy wool – a bit scratchy on her bare arms, but warm. She slung a green scarf around her neck, up to her nose, pulled the coat’s hood over her head, and headed into the cold night.

Outside, it was silent – not just quiet, but silent. Snow was still falling, coating the whole world in white, making the cobblestone streets slippery.

How strange it was to walk around without a wand.

Beyond the village, the forest loomed – the forest and the Drachenstein castle, which housed the university. All her life, Tina had wanted to visit this place, and now, she couldn’t wait to leave it. It was all about timing, really. Like the village surrounding Hogwarts, Albenheim was entirely magical. No-Majs couldn’t find it; in fact, it was said that no-one who wasn’t welcome would be able to. That, though, was a rumour Tina refused to believe in. People had a predilection for making things scarier and more mystical than they really were. Right now, she could do with less awe and fear and with more practical solutions to her little predicament.

That was when she came across what looked like the public square. It had a well in the middle and was surrounded by taller stone buildings – administrative, no doubt. Most windows in most buildings were dark. There was, however, something that looked like a pub or an inn or something of the sort. Warm light shone out its windows and through the door cracks. The closer Tina got to it, the better she could hear chatter, laughter, and even music. This place was basically the polar opposite of New York City, wasn’t it? A small village where everyone knew everyone else and they all met at night at the same inn.

A little voice inside her head warned her against just going inside, unprepared, but she told herself that that was silly. These people were not her enemies. One of them had treated her, another was sheltering her. Being hostile to them just because they were Grindelwald’s compatriots would be unfair, not to mention bigoted and prejudiced. Nobody was perfect, but Tina did try to not let her judgment be clouded by unfounded biases.

After taking a deep breath, she pulled open the inn’s door (it probably had a completely different designation in German) and stepped inside. Immediately, she relaxed. The air was warm and dry and smelled of roasted meat and spices. The place was packed. Not only around the bar were droves of people. All the tables were occupied, too. In the far corner, someone was playing a violin. This was nice, wasn’t it? After pulling down the hood of her coat and getting the scarf out of her face, she approached the bar.

A thin man of perhaps forty was standing there, chatting with patrons he clearly knew. When he saw Tina, he cracked a smile and approached her. A few of the patrons watched her, probably curious to see a stranger.

“Welcome, welcome,” the barman (presumably the proprietor) said, pronouncing it ‘vellcomm’. He had long, brown hair pulled back by a dark ribbon and looked like someone transported straight from the eighteenth century. “You are Tina, right? You are coming from America?”

She blinked at him for about two seconds, but then nodded. “Yes, I’m American.” It was hard to resist the impulse to correct him, but she didn’t want to be obnoxious. Besides, he at least spoke some English, whilst she knew nothing but her own native language and some mongrel Latin used for spells. “I…I need to find a woman called Blanche Trolldenier. I think she has my wand.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, and waved off. “Soon, she will be here. We all come here tonight. It is a fête.” When he obviously saw the lack of understanding on her face, he twirled his hands in a seemingly international gesture of what’s-that-word-again. “A party?”

“Ah. Yes, party.”

“You are staying? Party with us tonight.”

“I don’t have any money on me.”

“For you as honoured guest, it’s on the house. You drink beer? Sure you do. Only bathtub moonlight in America. That’s no good.” Without waiting for a reply, he drew beer – it was brown and foamy and unlike anything Tina had ever seen – into a pint glass, it looked like, and placed it before her on the bar.

Again, she resisted the urge to tell him it was ‘moonshine’, not ‘moonlight’. “Thank you.” She raised the pint to her lips and took a sip. It was a little bitter, but also pretty sweet, and tasted unlike anything she’d ever known. It was amazing. Her stomach growled. How long hadn't she eaten? Better not to drink too quickly. “So what are you celebrating?” She had to almost yell. The ambient noise level was pretty high, though the voices were less nasal than she was used to. That was an effect of the language, of course. Unlike English, it sounded lower-pitched, throaty, and somewhat rough – not unpleasantly so; only different.

The barman cracked a toothy, warm, charming smile. “Someone important is returning home – one of us.”

Tina noticed that more people were surreptitiously watching her. That was nothing suspicious in and of itself. After all, one had to assume that not many strangers stayed in the village, and probably even less wandered into this inn or pub or restaurant or whatever it was called by the locals. Still, she tensed up a bit. “Really?”

“Yes,” the barman said amiably. “Drink. It’s good for you. You’re looking pale.”

Feeling a little silly, she just looked down into the glass, frowning.

That was when a voice behind her said, in English not the least bit accented, “They’re not trying to poison you, Miss Goldstein. These are good people.”

Slowly, she turned around. “I wasn’t thinking that-” Her words got stuck in her throat as she froze when she saw who had addressed her. Here she was, in the middle of the Franconian forest, surrounded by strangers, wandless, face to face with Gellert Grindelwald.