Tap, tap, tap.
Leather shoes stepped across the polished floor of Durmstrang Castle, and the bright moonlight of the summer night fell over the figure leaning on a cane.
His movements seemed casual, but each step was firmer than the last.
At last, with a dull thud, the cane struck the floor. The man stopped before a portrait that had been waiting for him for a very long time.
"You've changed more than I imagined, Gellert."
The night did not keep Harfang Munter's portrait from speaking, and Grindelwald did not care that he was standing here so openly.
Even in a school that did not exactly welcome him.
"But I hear your temper has grown even worse. You were the one who scolded that young couple out wandering at night just now, weren't you?"
Standing before the portrait, Grindelwald looked over the various furnishings of the castle with interest, a faint trace of nostalgia in his eyes.
It had been nearly a hundred years since he had last returned here after being expelled, and the ancient portraits on the walls were among the few memories he still retained.
"Heh." Munter gave a contemptuous laugh, paying no mind to Grindelwald lurking in the castle and observing him.
"Ever since your fine students, Tver and Cynthia, left the school, Durmstrang's students can't even come up with a decent excuse for wandering around at night. They actually dared to say they wanted to sneak into the kitchen for a midnight snack!"
Grindelwald withdrew his gaze with a strange expression. This Mr. Munter simply admired Tver and Cynthia's talent. Back then, Tver had used the very same excuse to get away with it plenty of times.
That was also because Durmstrang had an atmosphere where strength came first. With Tver's night-owl habits, he had run into professors many times while wandering around at night, yet had rarely ever been punished.
Of course, Grindelwald had enjoyed more than a few privileges when he was a student too. Otherwise, he would not have been able to experiment with extremely dangerous Dark Magic right under the professors' noses.
"Hey." Munter's sudden voice pulled Grindelwald out of his memories. "These years in Nurmengard must have been hard. Do you want to come back to Durmstrang and try being headmaster for a while?"
Harfang Munter was not making the suggestion on a whim.
In fact, ever since he learned that Tver's teacher was Grindelwald, he had been watching Tver's words and actions closely.
If Tver had shown ambitions similar to Grindelwald's, then no matter how gifted he was, Munter would have found a way to expel him.
But he had never expected that Tver would not be influenced by Grindelwald at all.
Apart from their identical elegance and outstanding magical ability, the two of them had completely different cores.
One could even say that Munter could sense in Tver a gentleness fundamentally at odds with Durmstrang.
It was precisely because of this that he had begun considering the possibility of letting Grindelwald, this former genius student, become Durmstrang's headmaster.
To put it plainly, as long as Grindelwald agreed not to incite the students to throw their lives away for him, Munter would immediately drive that current headmaster, who was not even as good as Karkaroff, out of office without another word.
Grindelwald was amused by the proposal. He grinned silently and thought it over for a moment, but in the end, he shook his head, much to Munter's disappointment.
"I still have some matters to deal with right now. Perhaps in the future, I will seriously consider the invitation."
"Oh?"
There was no need to rush when it came to finding a headmaster. Since Grindelwald had said he would seriously consider it, Munter's goal had already been achieved.
So his attention was now completely drawn to the "matters" Grindelwald had mentioned.
"I suppose that is why you returned to Durmstrang after all these years?"
At the mention of the reason he had come to Durmstrang even at the risk of exposing himself, Grindelwald's expression immediately grew serious.
"I came back here only to clarify one question. A question about Tver..."
His hand tightened involuntarily around his cane, as if he wanted to draw his wand on a portrait.
"Before he started school at the age of eleven, how exactly did Tver travel hundreds of miles alone from his family manor in Hampshire and appear, without any reason, at the Gaunt Shack in Yorkshire?"
Yes. Ever since Grindelwald realized that Tver had laid out his plans well, he had indeed relaxed quite a bit overall.
His trip to Hogwarts had originally been to help Tver resolve the concerns that his identity as Grindelwald's student had caused Dumbledore.
After that, the only question left for him, or rather, for Tver, to answer was this.
How, back then, had Tver managed to find the ring Voldemort had left in the Gaunt Shack?
At first, Grindelwald had asked Tver about it out of curiosity, but Tver had brushed it off, saying he could not remember. By the time he woke up, he had already been cursed and was back in his bed at the manor.
But that question had always lingered in Grindelwald's mind. It was only that the Curse on the ring had been more urgent, and to help Tver extend his life, he had temporarily set aside his investigation into the matter.
Now things were different. Tver had completely lifted the Curse, so what had happened back then naturally became something Grindelwald cared about.
Since Tver was his student, then as his teacher, he naturally had to find a way to resolve his student's lingering worries.
Thinking this, Grindelwald fixed his eyes firmly on the stunned Munter inside the portrait.
There had been no trace of what happened back then. Even after he had searched the Gaunt Shack from top to bottom, he had found no person or object that could possibly have sent Tver there.
To investigate this, he had even quietly observed Tver's parents, as well as the house-elves who had served the Fawley family all along.
But he had found nothing.
That was also why Grindelwald had no choice but to travel through the countries of Europe and remain silent for so long.
In the end, he could only treat something Tver had once mentioned unintentionally as his final clue.
"'Stopping will let him see more clearly.' Those should have been the last words you said to Tver, weren't they?" Grindelwald carefully watched every expression on Munter's face.
Those words had no connection to Tver coming into contact with the ring. Although he always felt the two matters could be linked, there was no actual evidence to prove it.
However, Munter's silence seemed to confirm Grindelwald's unreasonable guess.
After a long while, Munter sighed helplessly.
"I also don't know who cursed Tver with such a vicious Curse back then. That is the truth."
"But there is one thing I know better than all of you. Whether there was a Curse or not, Tver had been targeted by some existence..."
He abruptly raised his head. His eyes widened terrifyingly, looking as if they might split apart inside the ancient portrait.
"In other words, whether or not the Curse existed, and no matter which enemy stood in his way, it was Death that wanted to claim Tver's life!"