"Trust me, you shouldn't want anyone like me on your back."
"Maybe I don't want anyone like you on my back," His eyes darkened as he stepped closer, confining me tighter into barely any space as my back pressed against the wall.
"Maybe I want you. U...
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CHAPTER NINE
THE WORDS WRITTEN ON the pages were just how I had heard them. They weren't twisted, or altered, or shifted in any way. They were all the same. Ones I had heard pass from several lips all throughout my life, every pair of lips that had nothing to do with me or my family.
I suppose I should have been enthralled, or perhaps content that none of them knew more than that. I should've been tranquil, that the world knew not of the people Grindelwald stepped on for his rise to fame, the people he left behind, the ones he scarred. Did I want my name to be in these books, imprinted on paper for every eye to see? The thought was.. exhilarating. To be immortalized on paper must be exhilarating. But was this what I wanted to be immortalized for? Was my legacy forever to be intertwined with my great uncle's?
I could see Viktor Krum's presence in my periphery, his strong muscular form leaning against a shelf briefly before some spine or the other caught his eye and he reached out a casual hand to pull it off the shelf-and a brief inspection later, instantly putting it back. He hadn't approached me, hadn't shown interest in what I was doing, and for that I was grateful. I didn't want him, or anyone, to see, and somehow I guess he understood that.
I wonder if he knew of Grindelwald. Why wouldn't he? My great uncle grew up in the walls of Durmstrang, before he was expelled at sixteen for his practices. I wonder what Viktor Krum thought of the dark wizard. Perhaps, like the rest of the world, he too was glad that Grindelwald was tied to darkness in four walls only death would help him escape.
I flipped through the pages of the book, finding nothing more than Grindelwald's campaigns in areas of of Europe, numbers upon numbers-of his followers, opposers, but nothing significant to tell me anything of what I needed to know. I wanted to know of the mark, did anybody else remain that Grindelwald had marked? I grew up believing that perhaps it was only me. But what if there was someone else marked, a follower jailed in Azkaban, just now seeing the light of day?
I knew one thing for sure. Grindelwald did not mark everyone. His mark was reserved. Unlike Voldemort, he didn't brand his followers. But if he had branded me, so maybe he had branded someone else too.
