Chapter Text
The room smelled faintly of resin and scorched parchment. A fire snapped in the hearth, but the heat barely touched the stone walls. Gellert Grindelwald stood rigidly between two iron-banded chairs, arms behind his back, chin lifted. Not defiantly, but with the trained neutrality of someone accustomed to scrutiny.
His features were sharp, almost too fine for a boy of sixteen. Pale skin, high cheekbones, and a narrow face that seemed made for contempt. His hair was thick and fair, verging on gold in the firelight, and swept back from his forehead in loose, careless waves. There was something unfinished about him still, a hint of the youth he hadn’t quite outgrown, but the eyes held nothing of a child. They were a pale blue, the colour of a sky drained of warmth, and even in stillness they flicked with restless, private calculation. One might have called Gellert handsome, if not for the cruel set of his mouth and the quiet, bitter amusement that seemed to haunt its corners.
He wore the school uniform precisely as required: collar fastened, cuffs straight, the stiff wool robes falling in exacting lines from his shoulders. Any deviation now would only invite more trouble, and the bastards would be watching for it. But Merlin, it chafed! The starched fabric scraped against tender skin, still raw from the birching, and the high collar pressed cruelly at the nape of his neck, where the bruises hadn't quite faded.
The boy's backside still burned. Not in the sharp way it had when the rod first landed, but in a low, stubborn throb that pulsed beneath the skin like a bruise he refused to acknowledge. He would not shift, not even an inch. They might have taken his wand, but they would not take that satisfaction.
Things had become quite intolerable at this bloody school of late ... particularly since the arrival of the new headmaster.
Gellert had despised men before. Pompous professors, nosy class representatives, his father on particularly officious days, but this was different. Headmaster Krupin wasn't a fool or a brute; he was worse. Utterly certain of his rightness. And he had made it his mission to humiliate Gellert.
Behind the desk, Gellert's enemy did not look up. He wore thick, practical robes the colour of stone, with a coarse hem and stiff collar, fastened with a plain iron clasp. Not a single ounce of vanity clung to him; he dressed like a civil servant rather than a scholar. Or a soldier. No gold embroidery, no family crest. Just state-issue black boots, polished to a dull shine. A man, it seemed, more loyal to function than tradition.
The headmaster was making notes in a heavy-bound ledger with a quill that scratched like claws across the page. Gellert’s wand had been taken. The silence between them had lasted seven minutes and twenty-three seconds. He had counted.
Gellert hated Krupin. Hated the man’s silence, his cold efficiency, the smug, clerical way he’d pronounced judgement and taken his wand like it was nothing more than a quill to be confiscated. The birching had been public and ceremonial. That, too, had been Krupin’s decision. Every stroke had burned, but not half as much as the humiliation. Gellert had sworn, teeth clenched, that he’d remember it. That one day, the balance would shift.
Then came the knock. Two brisk raps. The door opened without invitation.
“Ah,” Krupin said, not looking up. “Otets prishyol.”
Gellert's father stepped into the office, tall and commanding in a tailored charcoal wool overcoat with a velvet collar and silver cuff buttons. Viennese cut, military inspired, and unmistakably expensive. The starched edge of a white cravat peeked out from under his frock coat, and his moustache was trimmed to a razor’s edge, sharp as frost. He looked every inch the Central European gentleman: disciplined, self-assured, and entirely out of place in the threadbare bleakness of the Russian north.
Gottlieb Grindelwald took in the sight of his son and then the man seated at the desk.
“Guten Abend,” he said coldly. “Ich nehme an, Sie sind der neue Direktor.”
Krupin looked up at last, eyes pale and unreadable.
“Dobryy vecher,” he replied.
Mr Grindelwald hesitated. “Wie bitte? Sie verzeihen, mein Herr, ich spreche kein Russisch.”
Many of the students didn’t speak Russian fluently either. The school had been founded by German immigrants in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, and for generations its traditions, its curriculum, even its duelling etiquette, had reflected that heritage.
The name itself, Durmstrang, was a deliberate bastardisation of Sturm und Drang, that tempestuous German literary movement of the late eighteenth century. A fitting choice, perhaps, for a school once proud of its discipline and defiance, its love of magic as raw power and intellectual force.
But in recent years, absurd political turns had made life increasingly difficult for boys like Gellert. The privileges granted to German-speaking settlers under Catherine the Great were vanishing. Russification was the new order: schools shuttered, autonomy eroded, and children raised in the old tongue were now expected to parrot Russian without protest. Durmstrang had not been spared. The government had decreed, rather suddenly and with no small amount of self-importance, that everything was to be conducted in Russian.
For most of the students, it scarcely mattered. They spoke Russian at home or as a lingua franca in the Russian Empire and had studied German as a second, sometimes even a third language. But the tide had turned. Gellert still remembered the sting of humiliation when the first of the new instructors had reprimanded him publicly for speaking German in class. As if he were misbehaving. As if it were shameful.
To boys like Gellert, it was not merely inconvenient. It was an affront. The language of Poets and Thinkers, of centuries of magical thought, was now treated like a provincial dialect. And Gellert Grindelwald, son of Austrian-German heritage, felt the insult keenly. His eyes flicked to the headmaster’s face, then back to the fire.
Gottlieb Grindelwald tried again. “Parlez-vous français, monsieur?”
Krupin gave a thin smile. Then he said, in crisp, precise English:
“It is interesting, Mr Grindelwald, that you do not speak the language of the school your son attends. So that’s where Gellert gets it from, this notion that he’s somehow above speaking Russian like the rest of the students."
Mr Grindelwald blinked. Then his mouth pressed into a flat, unimpressed line. “And I find it interesting that you have taken a school founded by German wizards and turned it into a tool of foreign diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy?” Krupin repeated mildly. “Is that what you think this is?”
He stood, smoothing the front of his robes. “I would call it re-alignment. Durmstrang now reflects the world as it is, not as your forebears imagined it.”
“I did not come here to engage in political debate,” Mr Grindelwald said curtly. “You summoned me on the grounds of urgency, that my son had once again landed himself in trouble.”
Krupin gave that sardonic little smile of his.
“Quite right. And this time, young Gellert has managed to land himself in rather serious trouble indeed, Mr Grindelwald.”
“Serious enough to justify hauling me here from abroad?” Gellert's father replied, his tone clipped. “Could you not handle the matter yourself? Or have you forgotten how to wield a cane?”
“How amusing,” Professor Krupin said, though his expression remained entirely unamused. “I was just about to ask you the same. Your son, it would seem, is proving rather out of control.”
Gellert’s jaw tensed. He was sick of hearing himself described like some faulty clock or broken cartwheel. 'Out of control'! As though it were his nature that needed correcting, and not the narrow world around him that refused to make room for what he could become.
Gottlieb Grindelwald turned his head slowly toward Gellert and fixed him with a look that left no doubt: this was far from over.
"Was soll das denn heißen?", he asked his son irritated. "Was hast du schon wieder angestellt?"
Gellert spoke at last. “No permanent damage was done.”
“Oh, but there was nearly very 'permanent damage' done, wasn’t there, boy?” Krupin snapped, his voice cold with controlled anger.
Gellert met his gaze with a defiant glare. It wasn’t his fault Rosensztein had run to the authorities. If things had gone to plan, the filthy little Mudblood wouldn’t have been in any condition to say anything at all.
“What exactly does he mean by that?” Mr Grindelwald asked again, his tone low and suspicious.
Krupin turned to him. “Your son has been dabbling in necromancy.”
Gottlieb Grindelwald gave a weary sigh. Not of surprise, but of irritation. He knew that much already. Necromancy was only one part of the problem, and not even the most alarming one. Anyone who had spent more than five minutes in Gellert’s company knew he was utterly consumed by that wretched old Tale of the Three Brothers, the story they’d all been told as children.
His fascination with the Deathly Hallows had become unsettling, even for his own parents.
At first it was only the fact that the boy had taken to carving their symbol, that peculiar triangle with the circle and line, into desks, walls, bedframes, anything within reach of a wand or a blade. Last summer, his father had given him a proper thrashing for defacing his writing desk. He’d warned him then: one more piece of furniture marked with that ugly little emblem, and he’d get the cane again. And harder.
There hadn't been more carvings. But the endless theorising or the grim mutterings about mastery over death had not ceased.
“I’ve had words with the boy about that,” Mr Grindelwald said stiffly, making a dismissive gesture with his hand, one that unmistakably suggested the matter had been met with a cane. “I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”
“Oh, I rather think it will happen again,” Krupin replied coolly. “But it shall not happen here.”
Gottlieb Grindelwald’s brow furrowed. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Gellert has been given a dishonourable discharge from this institution. His wand has been confiscated. The only reason your son isn’t presently facing a criminal sentence is his tender age and that people are to scared to press charges.”
Mr Grindelwald turned slowly toward Gellert, who, to his dismay, was still wearing that same insufferably smug expression. It was then that the truth seemed to dawn on him: his son had crossed a line this time, one that couldn’t be quietly repaired with apologies or favours.
“For… necromancy?” he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse. There was more to it, wasn't there?
“For necromancy,” Krupin confirmed, “involving an unauthorised ritual conducted in the southern crypts. A procedure utilising illegal spells, charms, and - according to the second-year student he used as a subject - a cage made of bone. The boy very nearly died. I suspect your son may have intended to bring him back. I daresay it wouldn’t have worked.”
Mr Grindelwald stared at his son, searching his face for denial, for shame, for anything resembling regret.
But Gellert said nothing. And he made no effort to look away.
“Is that true, boy?” Mr Grindelwald asked at last, his voice tight with the strain of hope he scarcely dared entertain.
He waited, hoped the child would deny it.
But Gellert only gave a languid shrug. “There are more elegant ways of putting it,” he said, almost idly. Another shrug followed. “But yes. More or less.”
Krupin gave a quiet huff, the sort of sound that might accompany a muttered 'typical' if he’d bothered to speak aloud.
Gottlieb Grindelwald, meanwhile, felt something cold and merciless flood his veins. His son, a would-be murderer! And not a flicker of remorse in sight. He’d always known Gellert was difficult, wilful, even dangerous in his cleverness. But he had never imagined…
“I advised Mrs Rosensztein, the mother of the boy your son targeted, to consider pressing formal charges even though they might not lead to anything,” Krupin said coldly. “They are Russian citizens, after all, and this has all the markings of a despicable hate crime. But she declined.”
He said nothing further, but there was more he did not share with Mr Grindelwald. There was no father in the Rosensztein household. A fact that had not gone unnoticed by the boys of Durmstrang. Yankel Rosensztein was often mocked and cornered, whispered about in corridors and common rooms. Most were convinced his father had been a Muggle. His mother had never once named the man, and in the minds of cruel adolescents, that silence said everything.
Gellert only felt contempt. Let them bring charges! Let them see how far he would go if pushed. They thought taking his wand would humble him. It hadn’t. It had only clarified what he already knew: the law was for lesser men. He would make his own.
"They aren't even Russians", was all Gellert had to say to this. "They are-"
“Will the egg lecture the hen now?” Krupin said coolly.
Gellert opened his mouth to point out that no such saying existed in English, but his father shot him a sharp, warning look.
Yes. He was in serious trouble with his old man this time.
“Why are you doing this to my son?” Mr Grindelwald demanded suddenly. "Isn't a dishonourable discharge punishment enough already? You took his wand, for Merlin's sake! Do you want to ruin my boy's life? ... Is it because we’re Germans?”
The two men faced each other across the desk: One in austere Russian wool, the other in buttoned Viennese arrogance. Krupin had the air of a Ministry inquisitor, forged in the frost of the northern provinces. Gottlieb Grindelwald looked every inch the heir of an old duelling dynasty, starched and silent, like a statue carved for a tomb in some ancient German-speaking Hall of Honour.
Krupin smiled faintly. “I was under the impression you were Austrian, Mr Grindelwald.”
“Our family believes in the Greater German Solution,” Gellert's father replied stiffly.
The Grindelwalds, of course, considered themselves not merely Austrian, but part of something grander. The Greater German Solution was a vision of unity between Austria and the broader German-speaking world. Old ideas, perhaps, but fiercely held.
“Traditionalists,” Krupin murmured, as though making a note. “Germany had its age of greatness. That time has passed.”
Krupin spoke the words softly, as though quoting a eulogy. But there was satisfaction in his tone, the quiet pride of someone who had waited for the fall of an old world, and was now watching it burn.
Mr Grindelwald looked as though he might explode: Jaw tight, shoulders squared, eyes sharp with fury. That expression could mean one of two things. Either he would lash out at Krupin, defending Gellert as if affronted by Russian tyranny itself, or the storm would break later - behind closed doors - with Gellert as its main target.
The headmaster, of course, had already made his point. The birching had been carried out with ceremony, the old Russian fashion. Even the rod had been soaked in brine, to ensure the sting lingered long after the blows had stopped.
There would be an unpleasant reckoning with his father's cane once they returned home, of that Gellert was quite certain. It was only a question on how bad he was going to get it.
Mr Grindelwald stood stiffly, the corners of his mouth drawn tight as though he were forcing himself to swallow the last of his pride for the sake of his son.
“There’s nothing that can be done to reverse this, I take it?” he asked, his voice careful.
“Not here,” Krupin replied. “But if I may offer a word of advice: You might consider placing the boy in a reformatory.”
Mr Grindelwald turned a shade darker.
“A reformatory?” he echoed, his tone incredulous. “Are you suggesting I’m incapable of raising my own son?”
Krupin offered a small, mirthless shrug.
“Every attempt appears to have failed thus far. The boy behaves like a born criminal. If he continues on this path, I daresay he’ll spend much of his life in and out of prison.”
At that, Gellert shot the man a look of pure, simmering hatred. He’d show him. He was no criminal. He was destined for greatness. One day, they’d all see it.
“Then there is nothing further to discuss,” his father said crisply, his voice like the snap of a closing book.
The anger simmering beneath Gellert's skin wasn’t the fire of embarrassment. He had lost something precious today. But what Krupin hadn’t understood - what none of them understood - was that you could take a boy’s wand, but you couldn’t take his vision.
They had humiliated him in front of his father. They had marked him a failure. But history, he knew, would remember things differently.
“You're welcome to use the Floo in our groundskeeper's office again,” Krupin said with a politeness so thin it bordered on mockery. “Mr Koshk will see to it.”
Koshk. Another of the low-born rabble the Russians had seen fit to flood the school with. One hardly needed a family tree to know what sort he belonged to. The name was telling enough. Koshk was as much a Jew as Rosensztein, for all the bureaucratic tricks they used to disguise it. They could alter the names, dress it up in Polish spelling or smooth it into Russian translation, it made no difference. A Jew was a Jew was a Jew, and no amount of cleverness would make it otherwise.
Gellert’s lip curled as he followed his father through the door.
“You just wait until we’re home,” his father growled under his breath. “Zu Hause setzt es Senge mit dem Rohrstock, dass dir Hören und Sehen vergehen wird, mein Lieber.”
He’d thrash the rebellion out of the boy if it was the last thing he did! The initial shock of what Gellert had done had begun to ebb, giving way to a slow, seething tide of paternal fury.
Mr Grindelwald's anger had been simmering for months, ever since the disciplinary owls began arriving one after another, each more damning than the last. Unfortunately, he’d taken to translating them by spell - quick, automatic translations that stripped the nuance from every line. They all read the same: insubordination, backtalk, lack of respect.
What none of them explained was that half the offences stemmed from the fact that Gellert could scarcely speak Russian, and that certain members of staff had grown visibly impatient with his German.
“I didn’t do anything, Papa,” Gellert muttered, trailing behind him.
Mr Grindelwald came to an abrupt halt, and Gellert very nearly walked into his back. Before he could recover, his father turned and struck him, once across each cheek.
“Didn’t do anything?!” he thundered. “You nearly killed another student!”
“He’s a Mudblood and a Jew,” Gellert shot back, his voice rising as he rubbed his cheek indignantly. “And a Polish one at that. Krupin only calls him Russian because he’s from the Privislinsky Krai. It wouldn't have been a loss if he had died. Wäre nicht schade um den gewesen.”
“Gellert,” his father snapped, voice low and dangerous. “Don’t start that cantankerous rubbish with me. You’re the one who’s managed to disgrace himself - not the Jewish Mudblood. You got yourself thrown out of school, you had your wand confiscated. By Merlin, do you have any idea what that means?” He stepped forward, eyes blazing. “Ich hätte Lust, dir an Ort und Stelle die Hosen strammzuziehen, du Nichtsnutz!”
Gellert said nothing. Sixteen was a wretched age. Old enough to be threatened with prison like a man, but still treated like a child. His father would no doubt give him a proper caning once they were home, that much was certain. The man was seething! But he was also right: that wasn’t the real crisis. Gellert had no diploma. No wand. And if even Durmstrang, a school infamous for teaching the Dark Arts quite openly, had expelled him in disgrace, then who in their right mind would take him now?