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Grindelwald pushed the stone tablet toward Julien once more.
Up close, Julien could see mysterious patterns shimmering across its surface—far clearer than the one he'd glimpsed in the Mirror of Erised.
It looked like a star chart, but nothing like Earth's night sky. The design was three-dimensional, multi-layered, and geometrically impossible, as if it were a projection from another world.
"Dumbledore wouldn't dare let you see this right now," Grindelwald said. "He's terrified you'll choose to open it. He only understands absolute risk control."
Julien didn't touch the tablet. He studied Grindelwald—the old man history had labeled a Dark Lord—and asked quietly:
"Why do you believe I'll choose 'understanding' instead of doing what Dumbledore wants and refusing to open it?"
Grindelwald laughed. The sound echoed through the tower, carrying a weary kind of release.
"Because you're half-blood. Pyxis's bloodline lets you sense the Stargate. Lily Evans's blood anchors you to this Earth. You're not a pure-blood Black, so you're not trapped by the Guardian's duty. And you're not a Muggle, so you won't be paralyzed by fear of the unknown."
He took a step closer, lowering his voice.
"And because… I met your aunt. Lily Evans. Back when she was still a student. She had the same tuning potential you do, but she chose a different path. You inherited her anchor… along with the Black family's freedom to choose."
Julien's blood ran cold for a second. Grindelwald had met Lily?
"Ophelia didn't tell you?" Grindelwald stepped back to the window, as if the brief closeness had been an illusion. "Lily Evans came to Nurmengard once. Not in the flesh—through dreams, through her natural sensitivity. She asked me how to protect her child from Voldemort."
"And you told her?"
"Yes. I told her love is the oldest seal, even if it's also the most fragile. Her choice created the legend of Harry Potter."
Grindelwald's gaze drifted into the distance. "But you're different. You don't need a legend. You need… a more complicated ending."
"Why me? The Rosier bloodline seems to—"
"No, no, no. They are supporters, not tuners," Grindelwald cut in. "And besides…"
He smiled, and for the first time there was real warmth in it. "Because that girl will choose to go with you. Wherever you end up."
Outside the window, the sun finally rose fully, shrinking Nurmengard's shadows to their shortest point.
Julien noticed that in the brightest moment, a flicker of golden light also passed through Grindelwald's eyes—something Ophelia didn't have, as if he were already glimpsing some future.
Seeing Julien still hesitating, Grindelwald chuckled. "Take your time. The Stargate can wait. You need time to choose, and I'll find a chance to talk sense into Dumbledore. But right now, the urgent matter is Azkaban."
"Azkaban?" Julien thought back to last summer's dream on the train—the lonely prison floating on a black sea.
Grindelwald nodded. "The rot in Azkaban is spreading faster. The Dementors are multiplying. Someone needs to mend it."
"Me? A twelve-year-old wizard? Shouldn't that be a job for you or… well, Dumbledore?"
Grindelwald sighed softly and shook his head with a smile. "Look at me."
He walked to the window. Only then did Julien realize the light in the room wasn't coming from outside.
It seeped from the seams between the stones and radiated from the grain of the bricks, as if the tower itself were slowly burning, feeding on some invisible fuel.
The light created a multiple-exposure effect on Grindelwald. When Julien blinked, he saw overlapping versions of the man:
The young revolutionary from old photographs—sharp golden hair, mismatched eyes burning with ambition.
The broken prisoner from Dumbledore's memories—stooped and decayed, eaten away by regret.
And the solid figure standing here now, caught somewhere between the two, a being compressed by time.
"What do you see?" Grindelwald asked, his tone carrying a test.
"Three versions of you," Julien answered honestly, "existing at the same time."
"Good. You really do have the same potential I do. We're both excellent observers."
Looking closer, Grindelwald's face resembled a geological cross-section.
The outermost layer was the frailty of a ninety-year-old man: skin thin as parchment, veins showing an unnatural gray-black beneath. The wrinkles weren't random—they formed geometric patterns like weathered runes at the corners of his eyes, forehead, and mouth.
But beneath that decay, Julien could sense younger structures through magical resonance rather than sight: the muscle memory of a fifty-year-old, the neural reflexes of a thirty-year-old, the sharp soul of a seventeen-year-old. These layers didn't replace one another; they existed simultaneously, like different eras in sedimentary rock.
His eyes were the most complex. The iris color shifted between blue and gray depending on the angle of the light.
But Julien noticed that when Grindelwald spoke of "observation," the color settled into silver-white—eerily similar to the look behind Dumbledore's half-moon spectacles.
When he spoke of "opening," it darkened into abyssal black, carrying the same oppressive weight as Voldemort's pupils, but more… restrained.
"You're comparing," Grindelwald said. "Dumbledore, Voldemort, or Ophelia?"
"You're different from all of them," Julien said firmly.
"We are all different faces of the same coin." Grindelwald slipped his fingers into the flowing structure of the wall. The motion caused no disturbance, as if his hand were also part of the projection.
"Dumbledore chose stability. Tom chose greed. Ophelia chose loyalty. And I…" Grindelwald gestured for Julien to follow.
They descended a spiral staircase—downward, yet the view of the fjords outside the windows never changed in height—and entered the tower's "interior." There were no distinct floors here, only continuous folds of space, and perhaps even time.
"Now I can tell you—my body has become part of Nurmengard."
Grindelwald noticed Julien's gaze and explained willingly, "Decades of symbiosis have caused too much exchange between me and this tower. I can sense its condition, but I cannot leave. This isn't Dumbledore's imprisonment—it's physical adhesion. My biological tissue has fused with the spatial folds of the building."
"That is the price. When I built this tower, I was young, just like Dumbledore. I thought I could control everything and stabilize Nurmengard. But as the Muggles say, everything you receive already has its price marked in secret."
He lowered his sleeve with an ancient kind of grace. "What I received was privilege. I will be the first human to witness the complete transformation of the world's wall—whether it collapses or harmonizes. Besides you, of course."
"So you're saying Nurmengard is like Starfall Cove and Azkaban… except here, you're the one—or rather, this tower is the one—holding it together?"
"Exactly. Starfall Cove, Nurmengard, Azkaban—and there's one more in Romania. These are all wounds in this world."
"So you really can't leave Nurmengard?"
"Obviously not."
"Do I have the ability to go to Azkaban? Or how exactly do I seal its wound?"
"Every wound is handled differently, Julien. Starfall Cove used a star fragment. Azkaban requires… conversion."
"You naturally don't have that ability yet. But I can teach you."