Nurmengard.
In the bare cell on the top floor, two old men sat across from each other at the rickety little table.
The dinner plates had been cleared away. All that remained were two cups of tea gone cold and a dish of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans that had barely been touched.
Right now, these two men—well over two hundred years old between them—sat hunched over the slim booklet like kids with a brand-new toy, fingers tapping and scribbling across the pages.
Grindelwald fired off a string of pointless test messages:
[Good evening.]
[Have you eaten?]
[What are you doing?]
...
Dumbledore answered every single one, no shortcuts.
Grindelwald stroked the scraggly beard on his chin. A spark of genuine curiosity flickered in his mismatched eyes.
"Pretty clever little alchemical gadget," he said, voice carrying that rare note of pure interest. "Didn't expect the kid to have real talent in alchemy too. Picks up everything, dives deep into whatever catches his eye—just like you…"
He paused, then looked straight at Dumbledore and asked the question that actually mattered.
"This SwiftSpeak thing—its range has to be decent, right? Otherwise it'd be useless except for face-to-face chatter."
Dumbledore set the booklet down, picked up his stone-cold tea, and took a sip like it was still hot. He didn't seem to mind.
"According to Lucien, the maximum reliable range for smooth picture and video transmission is one county right now."
Grindelwald's pale brows shot up. He'd been about to ask how the picture and video features worked, but the word "county" stopped him cold.
"What about text-only?" he asked instantly. "What's the absolute limit?"
Dumbledore kept tapping away on his own booklet, tone casual, as if they were discussing the weather.
"Text-only can cross countries. From Hogwarts to Beauxbatons, for example—maybe a couple seconds of delay at most."
The realization hit Grindelwald like a Bludger.
Fast.
Way too fast.
Messages moved at the speed of thought.
Wizards normally relied on owls. A letter could take half a day at best, several days at worst. In bad weather or remote areas, ten days or two weeks wasn't unusual.
You could use the Floo Network for faster delivery in an emergency, but that required a connected fireplace—and not every safe house had one. In wartime, the Network got cut off constantly depending on who controlled the nodes.
Every other communication method had its own fatal flaws.
That meant wizards were constantly crippled by delays. Whole battle lines had collapsed in past wars simply because a single order never arrived in time.
But this…
Grindelwald stared down at the thin booklet in his hands. Pocket-sized. No external nodes. No fireplaces. No middlemen. No one's permission required.
He didn't care what it would do for everyday wizard life—whether owls would go extinct, whether young couples would stare at the screens grinning like idiots all day.
He was thinking about war.
Real-time communication would change everything.
He could issue orders instantly. His followers would receive them in seconds instead of waiting for owls or risky Floo relays. Front lines could report back immediately, letting command adjust on the fly.
A squad under attack could scream for help and get it in seconds. A position overrun could receive retreat orders before the enemy even finished celebrating.
A single leader could direct multiple forces at once, with every unit's status right at his fingertips.
The entire organization's efficiency would jump to an entirely new level.
Occupied territories could be controlled far more tightly—every outpost feeding real-time reports straight back to headquarters.
The difference in wartime intelligence and coordination would be decisive.
Grindelwald's old campaigns had swallowed most of Europe. But as the territory grew, the fatal weakness became impossible to ignore: too few wizards, too slow communication.
Lines stretched too thin. Orders lagged behind.
By the time reinforcements finally got the message, the battle was already lost.
A trapped unit sent for help and the rescue arrived to find the enemy flying their flag.
If he'd had SwiftSpeak back then…
Grindelwald's fingers tightened around the booklet until his knuckles whitened. A complicated light flashed in his mismatched eyes.
Such a powerful alchemical creation… invented by a kid barely into his teens?
And the boy hadn't even been born a few decades earlier…