{Thirty-Five Owls}

XI

July 11th, 1956

Mister Supreme Mugwump Sir, and of course I heard about that particular commendation--

The rest of our lives, you say? Forever, you say? Are we wedded by owl, then? Am I bound to your sanctimonious pronouncements as permanently as the lichen on my walls? The orange spot is becoming particularly magnificent. There is green like scales, green like little leaves. They grow unimaginably slowly. My whole life has become glacial. It's been more than ten years, hasn't it? More than ten years in one single little room. I thought I'd go mad. Maybe I have.

Headmaster. Bollocks. Schweinhund. Look at you. Look at you, the great Albus Dumbledore, International Mugwump of the Grand Posh Scheisse-Swarm, hunching over your New Year's ale because you fucked a German boy decades ago and can never love again or some nonsense--and you still blame me for her death, don't you, Albus? It was an accident, you drunken idiot, an accident, it wasn't me, I swear, I only fled in fear--

And look at me. Gellert Grindelwald. There was a time when every child in Wizarding Europe cheered for my name or shrunk from it. There was a time when I cast curses that stripped the leaves from every tree for thirty feet with the mere wind of their passing--there was a time when I was on the verge of establishing, truly establishing, a new world order, a bright new future, and I would have done it for you and me--and here I am, rotting, lonely enough to care what some poncy old British git thinks of me. You must have enjoyed the thought, yes, that I might be haunted by the screams of my victims? Does that fit your idea of how things work, that I lie awake at night tossing and turning from the ghosts of my past? And do you, Albus? Little Ariana held you back from hunting me down for years, didn't she?

News. NEWS, Dumbledore? News from this oubliette you left me in? Four years without a letter--the charms on my watch are holding perfectly well, thank you, I know how long it's been--and then only to brag that you're Headmaster? [a dark, indecipherable blotch of ink]
It's sweet, really, your bewilderment. You can't understand how I could possibly be angry at you, can you? Because you mean well, because you approach me in friendship, I couldn't really be upset, now could I? Just sulking again, right?

Gertrude is a crazy bitch. What lesson are you trying to teach me? What game of yours am I playing in now? We already finished one, the one where you spend every day with me, give me your body and your mind, and then blame me for an accident and betray me and leave me to do our work alone? And then the next, where you set me upon my path, share my plans, hunt the Hallows with me, give me the very words by which I forged my philosophy, and then, at your leisure, when you've watched enough, wander over from England in the name of truth and justice and bat me out of the sky?

You forged me, Dumbledore. You forged me and formed me and let me loose in the world. And I think your little brother would agree that you have a habit of ignoring uncomfortable truths.

But enough about you. Let's talk about me, your haunted and broken pet Dark Lord, your misbegotten experiment, who used to spin sweet spells round your body and smile as you begged him to bugger you? And who, I wonder, knows that? Is that one of those things you must ever hide? Poor Albus.

Yes, we go around in circles. Here I am back to mocking you until I can barely breathe for anger.

I have a new pen pal, Professor Dumbledore, aren't you proud? Never think that you're the only one I write to--god knows if you were, I would've bashed my head out on the wall years ago. And it's lovely, sometimes, to talk to somebody who doesn't disapprove of everything one is, a fellow Dark wizard, ambitious with abandon. British boy, very clever, a little stiff, silly made-up name--owled me out of the blue a few years ago looking to talk shop, as you'd say. Great mind, but no sense of humor. He seemed rather startled when I mentioned that I knew you.

I told him that you were a user and a hypocrite, and to stay well away from you. Of course, he was already frightened of you. You might want to keep an eye out for him though. He could be a dangerous lad. And how could you possibly handle a Dark Lord who isn't your lapdog?

Be well uncertain of your decency, Albus Dumbledore. And Gertrude is a crazy bitch.

Gellert