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(Enchanting Melodies) Chapter 438: Dark’s Delight
🕑 Added 2025-03-08 14:00:08 +0000 UTCChapter 438: Dark’s Delight
14 June 1995, Nurmengard
Gellert Grindelwald sat in his office as he reviewed the calculations for his ritual for the hundredth time. One week. That’s all he had left. He had a single week left until decades of plans finally paid off until his dream of a free magical world fell into place.
He hadn’t wanted this, not really. He hadn’t wanted to be so drastic, but fate had forced his hand. Sure, Ragnarök was blinding his divination, it had ever since the World Serpent perished, but he saw what was coming for his people. He saw the muggles evolving, their capabilities expanding, mastering the laws of physics and bending the world to their will with just their wits and their science.
He was awed at first, until he saw them finding the magical world and instead of allying with them, instead of cooperations, they invaded, they subjugated his people, for the crime of being born different, of being born better. Gellert watched as his people became barely more than weapons. He watched as they were experimented on by his people.
He had ever since he was a boy.
People thought that being a seer was a gift, but Gellert learned a long time prior that it was nothing more than a curse. No wonder Seers often turned mad. The future was ever-shifting, ever-changing, twisting and turning in Fate’s hands, and it definitely wasn’t kind. It would have broken anyone, but all it did was give Gellert purpose.
It was a glorious burden, one that he would shoulder for his people. And so, he dedicated his life to the magical world, saving all creatures with a drop of magic from what awaited them. He had rejected his role as a Champion of the Dark, resisting serving the entity, barely using its power, and doing his best to save his world, to conquer the muggles and wipe the fate that awaited his people.
He found a friend in his quest, Albus Dumbledore. They were barely men when it happened, barely more than a few teenagers hoping to find a place in the world. Gellert shared his purpose with Albus, shared his dream, and his hopes, and for a short while, everything aligned. The Champions of Light and Dark would work together to stop the end of the magical world, to create a good world. Sure, they had different opinions, but it just didn’t matter, for their goals aligned.
Until Arianna Dumbledore died.
Albus’ grief was horrible and Gellert left him his space, but ever since that day, he’d been different. Albus spoke of him about creating a world of kindness, of weakening the magical world for the sake of their own protection. It was a foolish idea born of anguish that Gellert couldn’t see. And so, they parted ways. Gellert left Albus to his foolishly optimistic dreams, and they agreed that Gellert would not attack and involve himself in Britain, and in exchange, Albus would leave Gellert to his own devices.
And Gellert was successful. He manipulated the muggle war to make them weaken themselves, not that he needed to do a lot. They were so eager to destroy themselves by the millions, after all. He took over multiple magical countries, building an army, ready to attack the muggles once they had wiped themselves for them. Sure, a few people resisted, but Gellert quickly silenced them, his power overwhelming them.
He didn’t like spilling magical blood, but he had no other choice. He couldn’t gamble with his species’ survival. It was barely a drop in the bucket of what was coming. Everything was going well until Albus Dumbledore decided to oppose him.
Gellert had never been as blind-sighted as he had when he heard the news. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He had followed their agreement to the letter, and yet Dumbledore broke it. It was obviously because the man found himself in a roadblock while trying to fulfil his foolish dream and decided that being a war hero would help accelerate them. The worst thing was that he hadn’t seen it coming. He still didn’t know why or how that happened. If he had to guess it Albus used the Light to hide himself from him.
Gellert decided to pursue the Elder Wand, in a bid of desperation, in the hope that it would help balance the scales. The Dark had offered to help, trying to entice him with an increase in power, all for the cost of his servitude. He was tempted to give in but decided not to. Gellert didn’t trust it to help save his people, and what would be the point of saving his people if he ended up dooming them once more?
He remembered his lessons from Vlad about the Dark’s nature, and how the entity interacted with its champions. It seemed to thrive when making bargains with them, granting them power at a cost. A side effect was that Champions of the Dark tended to be more powerful than their Light counterparts, but they tended to become more unstable, giving in to the Dark’s own constant desire for destruction. A lot of the vampire’s lesson was about the idea of control, of mastering oneself and not making foolish deals that would cost too much.
Gellert had thought that the Elder Wand would compensate. He thought that he would defeat him. That the advantage that the Dark gave him would be too costly. It was the biggest mistake he ever made. Even with the Elder Wand, Dumbledore defeated him, fully empowered by the Light. Sure, it had been a close fight, but the Elder Wand did not bridge the gap between the two. Even then, Albus didn’t even kill him and give him a suitable end. No, he kept him alive, with the full knowledge that his people were going to either die or end up subjugated. It was too late. The muggles were advancing too quickly, and now the wizarding world’s destruction was imminent.
That was probably what pushed him over the edge and got him to make a deal with the Dark. The salvation of all magical beings, under his control, in exchange for Ragnarök, the opportunity to fight the Light one final time.
It had been the best bargain he had ever made. Every few centuries, a potential Ragnarök took place, and every single time, the hero of Ragnarök refused to activate it. There was a potential End of Days coming, and all Gellert had to do was to make sure that the champion would choose for it to happen.
Gellert didn’t mind it. Given what he had seen coming for his people, even if he failed, he didn’t mind taking the muggles with them. It was better for it to occur sooner rather than later, after the destruction of the magical world.
In the meantime, he prepared his ritual. The Dark had, for his agreement, given him more power than any other Champion before him. He used this power to enhance his divination by connecting to his alternates across the multiverse so that he wouldn’t be taken off-guard again.
He created his ritual and arranged for prophecies to be destroyed and for the entire tournament to take place. He made sure that the magical world remained calm and used his vampires to silence any potential trouble for decades, but he left Britain alone. He didn’t want to warn Dumbledore of his movements.
When the World Serpent perished, the world seemingly shifted. There was a wall in the future, an event that stopped anyone from seeing past it. He recognized it for what it was. Ragnarök.
It was his time to act, to do his part of the bargain with the Dark. It hadn’t taken long for Gellert to find who the hero was. Harry Potter. Funnily enough, Albus seemed to do his best to earn the boy’s enmity, and for that alone, Gellert decided that he liked him. He was a descendant of the Peverells and obviously inherited their magic. He was intelligent and from what their duel showed, very resourceful. Gellert spared him, as he had promised the Dark. The Champion of Ragnarök’s prophecy would light the flame that would devour the world, after all.
Of course, the opportunity came for Gellert to arrange for Albus to lose his dream, just as he destroyed Gellert’s. It was vindictive for the man’s actions. He hadn’t forgiven Albus for what he had done, what he had cost him, and this didn’t even make them even. Nevertheless, he allied with the man.
It was so easy to trick him, so much that it even surprised him. He knew that Albus had a complex about suffering being sacrificial, but he never expected the man to be so consumed by it. To be fair, Gellert hadn’t truly interacted with him for decades, but it didn’t explain him having such an inhuman outlook on life. The only way it made sense was the Light’s influence. Albus had always trusted it more than he should have, and now he had no idea what he lost.
Either way, Albus helped him by becoming the face of the European school tournament, the farce he had come up with for their ritual, thinking that it was a way to save humanity from Ragnarök and that rebuilding after the End of Days would bring humans together under his guidance once the fighting ended. Gellert had no plan on doing that. Why would he save the muggles when they would inevitably become threats to his people? Why would he risk some idiot destroying what he would build? The magical world needed to be carefully controlled and be completely separate from their muggle counterparts. That was something that Gellert knew even before his failed crusade. And if the muggles perished when the Light and Dark fought, if the material realm was destroyed, then his people would be safe and sound under his protection, unaffected from the devastation, from the Great Cataclysm that would inevitably follow.
He was misleading Albus, of course, but hadn’t he misled Gellert first when he broke their promise and entered the war? It was only fair that he would be the one taken off-guard once more.
Gellert had to admit that it had been delicious to see Albus slowly sinking into darkness, slowly falling from the bright young man who wanted nothing more than to create a utopia without violence, cause the deaths of children, betray and kill his allies, and even kill his phoenix companion, and betraying the Light as he destroys its greatest weapon. After all, there was a reason why Gellert put Albus in charge of breaking the prophecies and dealing with the inevitable complications that would arise from it.
Oh, how he was looking forward to seeing the look in Albus’ eyes as he realized the horrors he had committed in his foolishness. Perhaps he would be too far gone by then, but Gellert hoped that a small spark of his old friend would be there if only to see his pain and agony.
Gellert’s thoughts were interrupted by a familiar presence slinking out of the shadows of his fortress, “Vlad Drakul. I swore that I’d kill you the next time I saw you.”
And he had every reason to kill the first vampire, his former mentor. He refused to join Gellert in his conquest and used his influence to prevent most of the vampires from joining him. It had taken decades of threats and displays of power, including a bit of authority from the Dark, to be able to assemble them into a competent army. If he had such a fighting force, he would have conquered Europe far faster, maybe fast enough that Dumbledore would have been hesitant to join the fighting, but that was wishful thinking at best.
He wasn’t as hung up about them as he used to be. It had been a betrayal, but it was due to a lack of vision, and not an actual opposition to his goals. Vlad Drakul cared very little for muggles either, but he was also a coward.
The vampire looked exactly as regal as the day they last saw one another, “I’m sure you could, but I like to think that our fighting would make a mess of this place, something that would interrupt what you’re planning here.”
It was very curious that Gellert hadn’t seen Vlad in his visions. To be fair, they were so close to Ragnarök that his divination wasn’t as precise as it used to be, and Vlad is skilful enough to cloak his presence slightly from Fate. Now that he had a tether, he could see where things were going. It was just small flashes of the future, but it made him smile slightly. Perhaps there was a reason to forgive his old mentor after all.
He smiled slightly, nodding to his former mentor, “Perhaps you are right, but then, why are you here?”
Gellert could see where the conversation was going, but he let it go through, if only for other people’s comfort. Everything was so inefficient when one could see the future already. His reply seemed to put the vampire at ease, “I was approached by someone. Someone that you’re no doubt familiar with. Harry Potter.”
Ah, Harry Potter, the hero of Ragnarök, and one of the biggest pains in Gellert’s arse. It was surprising how a single boy could endanger his plans so much. Messing with his prophecy, destroying his connection to his counterparts, blocking his divination, and now the potential to destroy the Light and Dark. He was brilliant, there was no doubt about that, but it had been a variable that Gellert hadn’t accounted for. He hoped that Ragnarök’s champion would be easily manipulated, a foolish heroic child with delusions of saving the world, which he could string along, not an actual competent young man who could have easily endangered his entire plan, the future of the magical world, trying to stop both him and Dumbledore.
If he hadn’t regained his sight with his ritual, lesser as it might have been, he would have succeeded. He would have killed both of them with their ritual by having killed Tom Riddle without their knowledge, or he would have destroyed the Light and Dark, something that no one in history came close to managing. He had made his countermeasures, of course, especially now that he knew of the dangers, so he wasn’t in any danger, but he had to admit that he was curious as to what Vlad came to tell him about the boy.
He motioned the vampire to continue which he did, “The boy came to me, knowing that we were not on good terms. I’ll admit to being tempted to help him until I realized what his plans were. He is preparing an attack on this fortress, hoping to disrupt the ritual. He’s gathering a team of powerful individuals, hoping to come here. He claimed that he could destroy the Light and the Dark. He claimed that he killed Tom Riddle and that it would kill Dumbledore, and now he would only have to deal with you.”
That actually aligned with what he had discovered, and he asked, “How did he say he would kill the Light and the Dark.”
“With a ritual of his own, creating some kind of curse that would infect the powers and turn them on their own energies. I’m unsure if this plan is viable, but it is true.”
“And why did you come to warn me, then.”
The first vampire smiled smugly, “Because I know a winning side when I see one, and I think your chances are better than some foolish boy with delusions of grandeur. I know that we didn’t part on good terms Gellert. I know that we have differences regarding how the world should be, but you have to admit that the boy needs to be stopped.”
Gellert hummed. He was tempted to just kill the vampire and be done with it. Vlad Drakul was a slippery man, who often attacked when you least expected it. Gellert would be foolish to trust him, but then again, after his ritual, he would have all the power and time in the world to kill him. Nevertheless, his motivations did align with his personality, even if the man was annoying in how he could hide from his visions. It would be useful to have a spy in Potter’s circle, someone able to finally stop him from taking Gellert off-guard as he nearly did before, “And how do you propose to do that?”
“You know fully well that the way to go after him shouldn’t be direct. You should target Greengrass. If you have her, he will not fight you. I know his type. He would let the world burn if she would be safe.”
“Wouldn’t he hide her from the conflict,” Gellert answered.
Vlad grinned, “She refused to do so. He already hid her family, the very few members of the Black family left, and anyone close to him, really, but not her. She wanted to fight, and he agreed to let her, even if he was reluctant. It’s foolish but love often is.”
“Indeed,” he hummed, “Love has always been a foolish emotion.”
“Do you wish for me to take the girl?” Vlad asked.
Gellert released his hold on his divination and saw the paths ahead. It was extremely straining on him, as he had to process everything himself instead of relying on his counterparts. He was still blocked from the moment Albus destroyed his prophecy, but he could see a bit after that, even if it got progressively foggier as he neared the last task.
Vlad always failed, dying instantly, as the boy found him. The only person who managed to do it properly was himself, and even then, the boy always managed to find her before the last task no matter where he put her. Sometimes it took his days, sometimes only hours, but he always did.
It was very impressive, to say the least. He also always made a nuisance of himself if he had a plan, going so far as to destroy the entirety of Hogwarts to cancel the last task and stop the ritual entirely if he didn’t have her. Vlad had not been lying when he said that the boy would burn the world for her. There was only one time he managed to hold her and that was when he put her here, in Nurmengard, and taken her the night before the task. The boy wouldn’t figure out that she was taken for a while, and he wouldn’t manage to bypass the fortress’ wards before the ritual took place.
Gellert hummed and shook his head, “No, I’ll do it myself. Do not concern yourself with it anymore. As for now, I want you to act as my eyes and ears in Potter’s circle. Tell me where the girl is at all times and try to figure out where her family has been located. It could be useful.”
Vlad nodded and turned, and right as he was about to leave, Gellert spoke up, “I’m happy to have you on my side, old friend.”
“Me too, Gellert. Me too.”
When the man disappeared, Gellert smiled widely. Well, wasn’t this a nice surprise? Ah, Vlad. Always so certain, always so convinced he’s in control. Well, he wouldn’t have to worry for long. Soon, none of them would.
For all his machinations, Gellert failed to see the victorious smile on the vampire's face as he left the room.
AN: I realized that I never really made a Grindelwald backstory, not explicitly despite having written the lore for it. And since Ragnarök is very close, I decided that I should add it now. A lot of you probably figured out where I'm going with Vlad, and I wanted your opinion on that. Still, the chapter got away from me a bit and I hope it came out like I wanted it to, but I don’t mind rewriting it depending on your feedback. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
Comments
gv100
Bro was actually burdened with glorious purpose lol
Afterdark230
There you go, that’s the curve ball we needed!!!!! Those last lines tied it in.
Abe 7
Nice curveball. Trojan horse strategy. Eye of the storm safety kind. Will Daphne be able to open up a backdoor for Harry’s team from inside ? Wondering how Harry and Vlad are manipulating Grindelwald’s vision?
athass_prkr
I think I might have made things a bit too confusing, I guess. I added something near the end to help. Do you think it’s enough to clear things up a bit?
Afterdark230
Yeah I was confused as Vlad wanted Ragnarök. He wanted to see both sides fail. So maybe he is playing both sides. I also think Harry is planning for this as well. If not it’s a large blind side for him.
Jafarr710
So this is Harry's plan for Daphne? Is she a Trojan horse the enemy forcefully pulled into his fortress?
athass_prkr
I don't actually remember this being Vlad's goal, to be honest. I remember him just having to escape the dark, which isn't the same as saying that he wants Ragnarok to happen. I'll take a look at the older chapters later to make sure I'm not forgetting anything, but just in case, I edited this part a bit in the chapter so that it wouldn't be too bad. As for why he acted this way, I would recommend re-reading the previous chapter. It should help clear things up again. Either way, thanks for letting me know of a potential plot hole :).
Callum Runchman
Wait i thought vlad wanted ragnarok to happen, I thought the whole point of it was that he was betraying the dark that had enslaved him and was working with Harry and the others. I'm very confused right now
