Burned Into Glory

Dine With Me

Nurmengard Castle, Austria

Queenie stared into the mirror in the quarters she'd been given. The witch who sewed Vinda Rosier's clothes had been enlisted to make Queenie a new wardrobe, and she was certainly skilled. Queenie had never felt so sharply dressed. She had on a black wool dress with silk pleated skirts and white silk cuffs on the sleeves.

"My, don't you look radiant."

Queenie turned to see Vinda coming into her quarters. No one kept doors locked here. It wasn't allowed. To lock one's door meant one was hiding something, and that went against the greater good. Queenie smiled weakly at Vinda Rosier and protested,

"My hair looks a mess."

Elle est plus belle qu'elle ne le sait, thought Vinda, and Queenie frowned as she wondered what that meant. She cleared her throat and turned back toward the mirror, using her wand to straighten her golden waves into a neat arrangement. Suddenly she thought of Jacob, of him screaming at her that she was crazy, and her eyes burned. She could still feel the cool blue flames licking her flesh as she went through them, as she went away from Jacob forever...

"He wants you to dine with him tonight," Vinda said from behind Queenie, and she whirled around in response.

"He... he does?"

Vinda tipped her chin up in the arrogant way she always did. She nodded. "He sent me to tell you. A private meal, you and him, on his main balcony."

"What?" Queenie's voice was hoarse then. She and Grindelwald only ever talked business. They talked about Credence. She read minds for him. She had never sat alone with him for an extended period of time. The idea of it was terrifying.

She wondered, abruptly, where Tina and Newt were right this moment. Were they together? Were they happy? Did it matter?

Nurmengard Castle was full of windows - like the enormous ones that Credence had blown out a few days earlier - but it was also bedecked with balconies that overlooked the snow-capped Alps. The views were positively stunning. Now Queenie found herself walking in t-strap heels that clacked on the marble floors, striding past archways and stained glass, feeling at last like she had a purpose. She was really working here. She wasn't in some droll Ministry position. She wasn't reading minds on a street corner. She was working for the greater good here. The fact that Tina and Newt and Jacob had been too blind too see was... well, it was a damned shame.

Queenie approached the mighty double doorway that led to Grindelwald's office. She'd come here before, to meet with him about a mind that needed investigation or to sit in on a meeting about his ideals. But now she raised her fist and knocked on the double doors with her nerves alight, her stomach fluttering, knowing she'd been invited - ordered - to dinner and wondering why.

The doors creaked open slowly to admit her. Queenie licked her red-painted lip and clacked into the atrium of Grindelwald's office space. On the walls were banners and emblems of the great wizarding families of Europe, and Queenie walked slowly through the corridor as she cleared her throat carefully.

"Miss Goldstein."

She snapped to attention at the sound of his voice, and then she looked up to see him at the end of the hall, waiting with his hands folded before him. Grindelwald was just as neatly dressed as Queenie was, in an elegant black velvet three-piece suit with a matching cape. His ice-blond hair had been carefully coiffed, and he smirked as he held out a hand.

"I hope you're hungry."

Gellert Grindelwald had been on the receiving end of several kisses in his life. He'd given more than a few himself. One very long kiss had been with Albus Dumbledore, though at the time it had felt like an obligation. Albus had been madly in love with Gellert, who in turn had wanted a powerful ally and nothing more. Other kisses had come from wizards he'd seduced to gain power or material goods. Vinda Rosier had tasted like red wine. Witches or wizards... the gender of the lips' owner never mattered. All that mattered was that the kisses were means to an end for Grindelwald. Houses, money, loyalty... kisses could buy those things.