The manuscript stack was not thick.
Only a few dozen pages, perhaps. The paper was ordinary Muggle A4, the edges slightly curled, as though someone had revised and patched it over and over again.
In the corner of the opening page there was even a tiny note:
A heartfelt labor from the Holy Archmage, proudly presented with utmost devotion.
It looked very much like the author had chosen a pen name for himself.
"So you came all the way to Nurmengard just to show me a story written by a child?"
There was a trace of mockery in Grindelwald's voice.
And a faint, subtle disappointment besides.
Dumbledore did not answer.
He simply pushed the manuscript farther across the table toward Grindelwald.
"Harry Potter. I know the name. The boy you care most about now."
Grindelwald was clearly not entirely ignorant of events in the outside world.
This "prison" could not truly confine him. Through the Aurors assigned to watch the place, he could still gather the latest information about both the wizarding world and Dumbledore.
"The savior of the magical world. Ha."
Grindelwald's tone was thick with ridicule.
Across from him, Dumbledore said nothing. He only stood there quietly, both hands resting atop his staff, his expression calm as carved stone.
"You grow duller with the years."
Grindelwald lowered his head and looked at the manuscript.
It really did count as an unpublished novel, born from some young wizard realizing that he was in London and therefore wanting to write something connected to London's story.
Why it had never been submitted for publication was unclear, but it was obvious the author had revised it many times.
The opening of the story:
A little boy living in a cupboard under the stairs, once the most talented pupil at the nearby primary school, whose grades then plummeted because of constant disturbing dreams.
A child who had once been a genius had become ordinary, and because his parents died young in an accident, he ended up left in the care of relatives who mistreated him daily.
Even the little girl who had pinky-sworn herself to Harry in nursery and entered into an unbreakable childhood marriage pact with him decisively broke off the engagement once Harry became an underachiever.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, never mock a poor boy!"
On a night thick with grievance, Harry received a letter of admission from a distant magical school.
That very night, a soul burst forth from one of the keepsakes left by his mother, cackling eerily, and declared itself to be Harry's younger brother.
The Twin Son upon the Throne.
The story only grew wilder from there.
First came the giant Hagrid descending from the heavens atop a dragon during a school reunion, rescuing Harry from mockery by his classmates with the immortal line:
"Your Highness, it is time to slay the fiends."
Then came the trip to Diagon Alley, where Harry unexpectedly inherited the ancestral wand of the Ollivander family.
And then the Hogwarts Express, where Harry met Ron, born with a Forbidden Magic Body, along with Hermione, the supreme witch reborn into a second life.
The plot surged onward in endless waves, and even Grindelwald found himself reading with real enjoyment.
"Dumbledore containing twin souls within one body, by day protector of the world, by night plotting to open the gates between worlds and summon a burning crusade from the stars?"
"Voldemort parasitizing Quirrell, secretly searching for the perfect vessel so he can seize a new body and live a second life?"
"No, wait, why hasn't this fellow finished it..."
Grindelwald skimmed at speed and quickly reached the final page, where the plot stopped before the mirror in the underground chamber.
With the aid of his twin brother, Harry Potter unleashed powerful ancient magic and cast Mother's Embrace, summoning Voldemort's own mother into being.
The story had not actually ended.
But the manuscript had.
Grindelwald looked up at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore gave a dry little laugh.
"As you can see, perhaps even the author himself had no idea how to bring it to a conclusion, and so chose to leave the story unfinished."
He expressed his opinion in the gentlest possible way.
As for Iain's state of mind, he declined to comment.
"Any reader with taste would throw this into the rubbish bin. Fortunately, I have very little taste, and I rather like it."
With some regret, Grindelwald lowered the manuscript.
"In truth, it is not merely a story."
Dumbledore's eyes flickered slightly, and his finger tapped lightly on the paper.
"There is a good deal of dreadful creative excess in it, but some details, some pieces of information, are things that child could not possibly have encountered growing up."
"And if one strips away the chaotic elements mixed into the story, many of the developments align uncannily with the course I myself arranged, and with the direction I hoped events would take."
Dumbledore hardly needed to say the rest aloud.
Grindelwald nodded in understanding.
"So you think the young wizard who wrote this possesses extremely powerful prophetic talent."
At that, Dumbledore fell silent for a while.
"Just as you once did. The ability to see the future in a clear line."
He spoke softly.
Grindelwald smiled.
The smile was brief and faint, like a leaf touching the surface of the water and being carried away before one could even make out its shape.
"So you really do intend to use the Philosopher's Stone to lure out that filthy rat."
Grindelwald did not answer directly. Instead, he asked the question with clear interest.
"I have to know what final contingency he left behind."
Dumbledore did not hide it. The old man before him was one of the very few people he could still trust.
Even if the two of them stood as enemies.
"You have simpler ways of obtaining information. For example, you could simply ask me."
Grindelwald pushed the manuscript aside, his mismatched eyes still carrying the arrogant pride that time had never managed to erode.
Dumbledore looked at his old friend. In the dim light of Nurmengard, those blue eyes seemed especially deep, like two wells whose bottoms could not be seen.
"That prophecy concerning Voldemort would have come true no matter what we chose."
He quietly rejected the other man's offer.
At that, Grindelwald's mouth twitched.
"If you still haven't forgotten something so basic, why were you asking me such a foolish question earlier?"
His gaze dropped once more to the manuscript on the table.
"Perhaps, Albus, you truly have encountered a gifted seer among the next generation. But I can tell you this: no seer, no prophet, possesses the kind of power that can disturb time itself."
His voice dropped lower and lower, until it sounded like someone confessing a secret known only to himself.
"You ought to understand that better than I do. You tried, didn't you?"
That was a secret very few people in the world could have known.
In the summer of 1899.
Not even Merlin himself would likely have known how many attempts Dumbledore had made.
All the world knew was that in later life Dumbledore had become extraordinarily firm and cautious in his views on time travel.
The room fell silent again.
Wind blew through the open window, stirring the papers on the table with a dry rustling sound. Dumbledore stood in that faint breeze for a long, long time.
Long enough that Grindelwald assumed no answer would come.
And yet,
"Before Ariana died, in the spring, she once asked me a question."
The old man finally spoke, his voice so low that it nearly vanished beneath the sound of the wind.
He remembered that night when Ariana had knocked on the door, and how the girl had asked him the very same question written in ancient script in Iain's notebook.
That memory was perfectly clear.
And yet somehow,
it also felt not entirely real.