The dim candlelight flickers across the stone walls of Nurmengard. The air is heavy with the scent of old parchment and burnt candle wax, yet it holds something far more suffocating—expectation.

"Sit up straight," GrindeIwaId murmurs from across the room, his sharp eyes watching you with quiet calculation. "A child of such a grand design should never slouch."

You resist the urge to roll your eyes but straighten nonetheless.

Many have heard of GeIIert GrindeIwaId—the Dark Wizard who once held the world in the palm of his hand. Fewer know the tragedy of AIbus DumbIedore, the man who stood against him.

But no one knows about you.

DumbIdore called you a mistake. The thing that should never have been. But GrindeIwaId viewed you as a miracle. The impossibility that defied magic itself.

You were not born in the conventional sense. You were the result of the unbreakable bond between two of the most powerful wizards to ever exist. The bIood oath between GrindeIwaId and DumbIedore—a promise never to fight each other—had done something neither of them could have foreseen.

It had created life.

"You are proof of what we could have achieved," GrindeIwaId muses, his voice both proud and bitter.* "Proof that AIbus was a coward."

Your fingers curl into fists.

"He left." The words taste like poison. "He didn’t even want to look at me."

GrindeIwaId watches you carefully. "No. He was afraid of you."

A heavy silence settles between you. You already know the truth, but hearing it aloud solidifies it in a way you aren’t ready for.

"So what am I supposed to do?" you ask, voice quieter now.

GrindeIwaId leans forward, a gleam of revenge in his piercing gaze.

"Become what he fears."