"Grindelwald!"
Dumbledore's expression was cold as stone, his aura roiling with a sharpness he held just barely in check.
Before him lay a landscape of broken walls and scorched ruin. The once-vibrant manor had been reduced to rubble, and the acrid stench of sulfur clung to the wreckage left behind by Fiendfyre. Beneath the debris, wizards lay buried, their fates unknown.
Grindelwald didn't care. Dumbledore burned with fury over it.
"What has happened to you? Why are you more unhinged now than you were then, more extreme? Why must you provoke wars that serve no purpose? Why must you keep harvesting lives?!"
Dumbledore fired off three questions in a row, giving voice to the confusion and frustration boiling inside him. His wand was already raised. If Grindelwald failed to give him a real answer, he meant to strike with everything he had, trusting to the wand that had never once failed him.
Facing down a Dumbledore roaring like an enraged lion, Grindelwald only smiled. He leaned back, and an old, weathered armchair appeared out of nowhere to catch him.
"Why ask me, Dumbledore?"
"Who's responsible for where things stand today? Not me. Babajide. The International Confederation of Wizards. Those Ministers who don't know their place."
"They started this war. They planned this ambush." Grindelwald waved a hand, and a gust of wind swept the stinging odor from the air. Watching Dumbledore's expression stay locked in that same grim cast, his smile only widened. "You won't go question the ones who actually started this. Instead you come here to give me grief, just because I'm the one wearing this face?"
"Shouldn't the guilty have a wand pointed at them? Well? Look at me, Dumbledore!"
Dumbledore's pupils widened slightly, confusion mixing with something close to shock.
Wasn't he the one here to demand answers?
Why did Grindelwald sound more outraged than he did?
Dumbledore steadied himself at once, refusing to let Grindelwald pull him off balance. This man was a master of twisting words and stirring hearts. Hadn't Dumbledore himself once fallen for it, and hadn't that led straight to tragedy? Next to him, even Voldemort's tricks looked almost laughable.
"Walking out of Nurmengard was your original sin." Deep disappointment shadowed the blue of Dumbledore's eyes. "You forgot what we promised each other. Who was it that swore he'd grow old alone in that tower? I believed you. And you betrayed that trust."
"The tide of the age carried me forward."
Grindelwald held Dumbledore's gaze without a trace of guilt. Where their eyes met, it seemed for a moment as though the old duel of their youth had come back to life between them.
"There was a time I was certain too, certain I'd live out my days in that tower, holding on to the memory of one summer until death finally came for me."
Dumbledore's beard trembled, just slightly.
"But the world doesn't bend itself to any one man's will."
Grindelwald looked down at his own hands, strong and steady, his voice dropping to something almost like a murmur. "The Saints need someone to guide them. The magical world needs my strength. And I... I wanted to see the final turning of the age with my own eyes. So I came to Berlin. And now I'm here."
"All of that is nothing but excuses."
Dumbledore's grip tightened on his wand. "You are the root of every catastrophe that's followed. Don't lay this at the feet of the wizarding world. Without you, everything would have moved toward something better."
"Better, like that little clown who calls himself the Dark Lord?" Grindelwald let out a short laugh. "Look at him, Albus. Look at all the trouble your mercy has caused. If you'd had the nerve to finish that Tom Riddle off back when you had the chance, would any of this have happened?"
"I paid that clown a visit in Albania."
Dumbledore's pupils contracted sharply, the killing intent he'd been holding back surging hotter, but he didn't strike. He waited to hear what Grindelwald meant to say next.
"You sought out Voldemort?"
"I did." Grindelwald admitted it plainly. "I was curious. Curious what kind of power could make a wizard like you hole up in Hogwarts and never come out."
"And?"
"And? He disappointed me. Just like you're disappointing me now, Albus. Go back and tell the world this: from now on, there is only one Dark Lord left standing, and that is me. Gellert Grindelwald!"
"No." Dumbledore's beard stirred faintly in the wind, and his wand dipped. "After today, there won't be anyone left in this world who can call himself the Dark Lord."
"Then come and prove it!"
The fight broke out without warning. Robes billowed, magic surged in every direction, spells shrieked through the air.
Gold and blue light flared against each other, locked in fierce contention, until even the air itself seemed to take the shape of blades, tearing gashes into the earth.
Dumbledore still held something back, deliberately drawing the battle beyond the manor grounds to spare the Bulgarian Ministry officials still lying wounded on the ground. Grindelwald cooperated without protest, showing no interest in using them as leverage.
Once they'd put enough distance behind them, Dumbledore stopped holding anything back at all. He closed the distance in an instant, appearing directly before Grindelwald, the Elder Wand carrying a power that made the air itself shudder, transforming into a blade of cold light that drove straight for Grindelwald's chest.
A tearing sound.
Robes split open, but there was no give of flesh beneath them. The shredded fabric burst into dozens of serpents, jaws gaping wide, striking at Dumbledore from every side.