The Greater Good [GrindelwaldxDumbledore]

Chapter Twenty Six ~ Battle of Nurmengard

Albus watched a summer storm blows across the grounds. The trees bowed to the wind. His wastepaper basket was overflowing with letters, their seals broken and paper crumpled. Guilt twisted his insides into knots.

Albus' room glowed emerald green as the fireplace ignited. Once they subsided a short man in a bowler hat stepped down from the hearth.

"I trust you have been kept informed of all his crimes?" The minister dusted the soot from his cloak as he stepped out of the fireplace.

"You should teach your minions how to perform an untraceable resealing charm." Albus pointed to his discarded letters, "I know you have been intercepting my correspondence, even though he is much too busy to be writing to me."

"Do I detect a note of sadness?" The minister removed his hat and twirled it slowly on his finger. "You should be happy that he is maintaining his distance. I have it on good terms that the camps were his idea, planted in the mind of that muggle by magic."

Albus shook the image from his head.

"Whole towns walked in and wiped out in a single sitting. Men, women and children in their hundreds." The minister's hat flew off his finger and rolled across the floor. "He's on the inside, his followers pulling any child from the huddled masses that might possess magic. They test them by..."

"Enough." Albus' complexion paled. He clutched onto his bedside table for support.

"No, Albus, we need to act now. I have written and I have asked politely and you act offended but refuse to budge on the matter. So I must ask why. Is there some long lingering sense of loyalty?"

"No." Albus' voice was barely audible. He couldn't look at the minister. His throat constricted around his explanation, snuffing out his words.

"Love?" The minister cocked his head to the side to get a better view of Albus' face.

Albus let the silence linger. His muddled emotions not allowing him to answer. His heart yearned for the boy he met in Godric's Hollow. For the plans they made and his dream to make the world a better place. "I never expected him to go this far."

"This wasn't your plan?"

"We wanted to change the world for the better; to stop the wars before they happened." Albus's body trembled with the rawness of the emotions. "I do not believe this was his plan."

"You think you can save him?" The minister chuckled.

"I have to try." Albus stood up straight and looked the minister in the eye. "I owe him one last attempt to see reason."

"You'll be accompanied by a team of aurors."

"That would be counter-productive. I do this alone."

"I think not. Your allegiances are not proven."

"I have sat here in this school working hard to get students, like your dimwitted son, through their exams. I have not charged off to Europe to join his cause. I have restricted my contact with him to the point that he probably already counts me as the opposition."

"His love for you is that fickle?"

"He has men whispering in his ear." Albus pushed past the minister and stormed off down the corridor. "They have used him to further their agenda. I do not see any letters landing on my desk about Marcus Delaney or Albert Stevenson."

"They are his followers, brainwashed into believing in his cause."

Albus snorted as they approached the entrance hall. "Marcus was the one that confunded the driver of the motorcade. If he hadn't done that the first war would never have started."