~ Apologies for the sporadic update schedule, I haven't had time to replace my old laptop yet, so I'm still using my phone to write. It is also the reason I haven't updated the cover picture for the fanfic. That, along with having trouble finding the right image for the cover. Hopefully I'll find a solution for both soon enough.
~ Void Emperor.
~
~ Shadow Copy One - POV ~
~ Nurmengard Castle, Austria ~
As I sat there on my conjured obsidian throne, watching Grindelwald come up and discard theories to debate my mind altering revelation that I had just dropped on him, I started considering my next steps. With or without Gellert Grindelwald.
Obviously with him on board my goals while in the wizarding world become far easier. It's always nice to have more than just myself working alone towards my goals while in this world. Especially when I don't have access to my main bodies bottomless well of power.
Not that I'm saying I'm weak or anything, but as just a Shadow Copy I'm limited in what I can do without impunity. Although taking on most of the wizarding world is still more than possible, not that I plan to, but still possible. At a certain point It would just end up being exhausting and counterproductive for my longterm plans and goals.
With Grindelwald and any of his former associates as my subordinates helping me, collecting the resources and knowledge of this world would become a breeze. I'll be able to use the majority of the time needed for that endeavor enjoying my stay and leaving the rest of it to them. Making my stay in the wizarding world more pleasurable and making sure that my main body receives memories of me enjoying my future school life at Hogwarts. Which has been a big part of the reason I was sent here in the first place. Living out my childhood fantasy.
In our past life we were big fan's of the Harry Potter series. Before we were mercenaries running around the world on mission that often times became increasingly difficult and dangerous, we were just a very average person who enjoyed reading, watching, and consuming anything fantasy related. Wether that was books and movies like; A Song of Ice and Fire series, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, The Witcher, and the Harry Potter books and movies. Or anime and manga like; Code Gease, Bleach, Overlord, Berserk, and That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime. You could say we were just like any other fanfiction characters who ends up being reincarnated after a lifetime of being an Otaku.
In our down time we used to spend hours online reading fanfiction inspired by our favorite anime, shows and films. We enjoyed reading so much that we were on the precipice of being called antisocial and withdrawn. If it weren't for the few lifelong friends we made during highschool and our military career, we wouldn't have had any social skills at all. In fact, without those few people who got us out of whichever book or show we were absorbed in at the time, we would have probably become some sort of shut-ins.
While I was reminiscing about the past, which was a really long yet short time with my perception, it seems that Grindelwald has come out of his shocked state. So I refocused on him and what he would say.
"Even if I were to believe what you are claiming to be, which is hard to believe, but let us put aside what you are for now and speak on the why of it. Why have you come to this universe you claim to not be from? Why come here?" He asks incredulously.
"Why not?" I answer back before continuing with a smile. "I truly enjoyed watching this universe and many just like it, why wouldn't I be tempted to insert myself into the world I enjoyed watching so much. Wouldn't you?"
"True enough I suppose, yet you haven't answered my question completely. Why come to me? Surely you didn't just enter a whole world just to come and meet a withering former dark wizard locked up in a cell. What is it that a 'fledgling vampire god' wants from me?" He asks again.
"Everthing. I'm here because I could use someone like you Gellert. Not the current you, who seems content with withering away in this self-made prison, but the younger idealistic version of yourself. The version of you that saw the destruction and barbarity of the Muggles, the No-Mag could inflict upon themselves and decided to act. The version that I wholeheartedly agreed with to a certain extent."
Gellert at this point was more than receptive to my words and I wasn't even using my natural vampiric charms to draw him in. Just word's of an ideology he once believed in with ever fiber of his being before his defeat by Dumbledore humbled and hollowed him out, so I continued.
"You were right about humanities future, and even more so about wizard kinds grim future, more than you know. I've seen it as well, the future of the wizarding world and what happens when the Statue of Secrecy fails. Not that it happens in your lifetime. But it does happen. Decades from now they find out about wizard kind and they do what the always do when they discover something different from themselves. They'll try to control and covet it, and when they realize that they can't have it for themselves, they'll try to destroy it." Which was all true, no deception was needed for that part, humanity is ever so volatile to anything that is different from the norm.
At this point I knew I had already had him. He had been so hooked on my words he hasn't even noticed that he has completely forgotten about his Occlumency, his mind shield was completely down. If I wanted, and actually knew how to, I could have sent a Legilimency attack into his mind and read how shocked he was, how much he was in agreement with my words. Instead I capitalized on his undivided attention and pushed forward with my recruitment pitch.
"I don't want you for your power, Gellert, for a wizards power pales in comparison to my own. I want you because you have something far more valuable. Foresight. Prescience is truly a gift and a curse, one that we share in fact. I am here, Gellert Grindelwald, because I wish to recruit you and any other like you for my vision of the future. Not only for this world's fate, but for my own world's fate. A world that could become a new beginning for you and anyone else that we could convince to join us."
As I finished giving my speech, I could see the moment that I truly had him. The conviction that had returned to his eyes, the hope and recognition of finding a like minded soul, even one currently beyond his comprehension. That's why I wasn't surprised by the next word's that come from his mouth, word's that brought a Cheshire Cat sized smile to my face.
"What would you have me do? What could I even do to help one such as yourself?"
~
~ Borough of Islington, London, England ~
~ 12 Grimmauld Place ~
Ahh, modern civilization. It's quite a balm to my soul. Don't get me wrong, I love my new medieval home-world of Asoiaf, but it does get quite tedious without modern amenities. Especially for someone like me that came from an era of smartphones, smart appliances, and most importantly modern toiletries. The oral hygiene alone was something that I missed so much that I was delighted with these Londoners, although severely crooked and yellowed, yet clean smiles and moderately fresh breath.
'Anyway,' I thought to myself as I shook off my thoughts on the oral hygiene of the country and focused on my new home in this universe. 'I'm finally going to be in my new home in my new body, a Black that wasn't born in the conanical timeline. Here I come 12 Grimmauld Place.'
12 Grimmauld Place was the ancestral home of the Black family, located in the Borough of Islington, London, in a Muggle neighbourhood, and the location was protected by a Fidelius Charm. As the house was invisible to the neighbourhood residents, the local Muggles had long since accepted the mistake in numbering which landed number 13 next to number 11 as a clerical error.
About 11 years from now this place would become the headquarters for the Oder of the Phoenix after Sirius Black offers it up to Dumbledore. Not that I plan to change that, but I definitely want to change who does the offering in this alternate timeline.
At this point in the canon timeline; Sirius Black has been Azkaban for a couple of years along with Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black, Regulus Black has been dead for about four years, same for Orion Black - Sirius and Regulus father. There are only two adults members of the Black family living in Grimmauld Place: Walburga Black, Sirius and Regulus mother, and Arcturus Black III, Sirius and Regulus grandfather. Excluding Andromeda Tonks; the mother of Nymphadora Tonks, who was expelled from the Black family for marring the Muggleborn Ted Tonks, and Narcissa Malfoy whose married to Lucius Malfoy.
In the canon timeline Walburga Black dies in 1985 alone with only the Black family House-elf, Kreature. Arcturus Black III dies in 1991 somewhere in seclusion away from the pure-blood mania of Walburga and the empty Black family home, even as the previous Lord of the House.
But in this alternate universe there is one other Black living with Walburga in Grimmauld Place. The Third son of Orion and Walburga Black, Sirius and Regulus Black's youngest brother. A brother who dies of Dragonpox the summer before he was scheduled to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Corvus Pollux Black. My new identity.
~