The Potter Clan's Vengeance

Chapter 54 : Grindelwald's End

Chapter 54

Nurmengard.

One could never tell the passing of time in Nurmengard. The cell that kept Gellert Grindelwald captive was capable of fooling even the inner eye of a seer. The inner walls consist of slabs of grey, smooth rock, hypermodern in its design, but also unbreakable and unyielding. The plumbings and pipeline were all layered with anti-intrusive wards keyed to the signature of the Elder wand.

One does not trifle with the wards of Nurmengard. They were known to be not only powerful but toxic since you can't contain the most powerful Dark Lord in history without any drawbacks. The guards that kept Nurmengard minimally hospitable were all suffering from one illness or another due to the toxins. Some of them elected to only send the newspapers and meals via Goblins that are tied to the fortress's defense in the first few years of his incarceration.

The wards are simply too strong, too malevolent to be worked with. Not unless, of course, you were Albus Dumbledore.

It was Albus Dumbledore, who insisted on not giving him and his most loyal commander, Hans Gaultier, the Dementor's kiss, by pointing out the lack of magical contracts that linked him to the majority of his crimes. It was Albus Dumbledore, who used the tiny deviation of the earth's axis to employ a one-sided redirecting ward, ensuring that the ambient magic of Nurmengard would no longer heed the wishes of its creator.

BOOM.

What the...

Gellert turned his head slowly in the direction of the noise, his eyebrows lifting. Nothing like this has happened before...

The lava-based foundation of Nurmengard wards sent magical currents up the cold grey walls of Grindelwald's confinement, before extinguishing. Beyond the room, his sensory magic told him the guards were already unconscious.

Powerful, he thought, as the air thrummed with ozone, like electricity dancing upon a spider's web. He was familiar with muggle electricity and was both intrigued and repulsed by it, a foreign power trying to invade his magical facade.

Wondering, with curiosity, whether the intruder has been fragmented by the layer of Exedus enchantment. Gellert lay back on his bed again.

But he didn't have a long rest.

Mere minutes passed when there was another streak of magical current running up the walls, this time not entirely Nurmengard own. The guard must be on a shift change, he thought, which explained the lack of backup guards securing the important prisoners. He barely formed the thought when smoke started seeping in through the opaque hole that was meant to be the magic ventilator.

Then the fume solidified into a tall figure.

A face, whiter than the bleached color of bone, with wide, livid scarlet eyes, and a nose, that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils, stared back at him. His whole body seemed to have suffered detrimental burns but healed at such a pace that Gellert could only assume one thing; Unicorn-blood based rituals.

The old warlord let out a minuscule sigh before glancing up at the intruder's face again. He had wondered, for some time, when he would be meeting the upstart.

So this is Lord Voldemort.

"So, you have come. I thought you would . . . one day. But your journey was pointless. I never had it."

"You lie!" he hissed with malice.

Legilimency probes of abnormal power made audible sizzling sounds against his own defences. The probes came from all directions, obscured yet enhanced by the oppressive aura of this new dark lord.