Two hooded figures walked against the wind, climbing a barren hillside.
The boy's voice drifted on the wind.
"Grandfather, I haven't had a chance to ask you yet. How did things go with Mr. Danmas the day before yesterday? You seemed a little unhappy that day."
"I didn't get anything out of him; I guess he's all talk and no action. He kept rambling on about how our relationship was over. He said the next time he'd hear from me would be when he read in the newspaper that I'd died of dragon pox."
The old man spoke unhappily, his face creasing into a frown.
"I suspect he was drunk and talking complete nonsense! Trying to frighten me with dragon pox, of all things—a common old-age ailment. How many elderly wizards haven't died of that?"
"Oh, I suppose most fortune-tellers are just gambling on probabilities," the boy said, reassuring his grandfather in a lighthearted tone.
"You're right, kid. I expect he doesn't know I already have healing potions on hand. It seems he doesn't read Practical Potions Master much."
The old man said, his tone arrogant, "That French charlatan—wasting my good wine and my time. I misjudged him! Had I known, I'd have taken you to Paris to visit that wandmaker instead!"
The boy followed behind him, his brows furrowing almost imperceptibly.
So Mr. Danmas did have some real skill, after all—in his previous life, his grandfather had died of this very illness.
But in this lifetime, that's highly unlikely, isn't it? Draco glanced at his grandfather's straight back with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty, secretly trying to convince himself.
Potions made by Professor Snape, the foremost Potions Master of his generation, were always reliable.
As he was thinking this, he found he had already trekked with his grandfather to the top of the hillside.
At the top stood a towering, dark, gloomy building—massive and awe-inspiring, with a high roof and many small, prison-like windows.
This place had undoubtedly once been a prison. Yet Draco couldn't help but notice it was deserted and empty, without a single guard, and seemed to have been abandoned for a long time.
In the fierce wind, a strand of the old man's platinum-blond hair slipped free of his hood and fluttered in the breeze. Abraxas, leaning on his cane, turned and asked, "Little Dragon, do you know why I brought you to Austria before we leave Europe—why I wanted to show you this place specifically?"
Draco stopped in his tracks. He squinted at the cold, dark tower, so far removed from human habitation.
Above the tower's entrance were inscribed the words "For the Greater Good"—the infamous motto of the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.
This was Nurmengard.
A renowned European wizarding prison, spoken of in the same breath as Azkaban.
"I don't fully understand," Draco said carefully, speaking respectfully to his grandfather, "but I believe you have a deeper meaning behind this."
"Child, you know, the one good thing about getting old is that you accumulate countless memories."
After a moment of silence, Abraxas said softly to his grandson, "I want you to see where Gellert Grindelwald lives now. See the top of that tower? It's said there's only a stone bed and a few tattered blankets inside. The former Dark Lord has lived there since 1945."
"Is he still alive?" Draco asked.
He remembered clearly that the Dark Lord, in his previous life, had gone out of his way to find this "original Dark Lord," and had thus missed Harry, who'd been captured and brought to Malfoy Manor—a delay that had greatly angered him.
"He's still alive—at least, the last I heard, he was," Abraxas said calmly. "But I'm afraid he's worse off than dead. I've heard he's fallen into a terrible state, a far cry from his former, dashing self."
He glanced at the thoughtful boy beside him and continued, "My father, your great-grandfather, once greatly admired him. Not everyone has the courage to raise the banner of overthrowing the International Statute of Secrecy and establishing a global order in which wizards rule openly over Muggles."
"Yes, some books say that was Gellert Grindelwald's ideal."
Abraxas chuckled. "Ideals—maybe. But for all his grand 'ideals' and his loud slogans, look what became of him. Who defeated him?"
"Albus Dumbledore," Draco replied quickly, beginning to grasp his grandfather's purpose in bringing him here.
Throughout their journey, his grandfather had remained calm and unperturbed, never interfering with his behavior or mentioning Draco's arguments with his parents.
Now, with their return home approaching, Draco suspected his grandfather intended to have a heart-to-heart talk with him.
"That's right," Abraxas said. "Everyone knows of Dumbledore's greatness and sings his praises for defeating Grindelwald, but they don't know the dusty past behind that greatness. Child, do you want to hear the truth?"
Draco glanced at his grandfather and said cautiously, "I'm all ears."
A complex look crossed Abraxas's eyes.
He was silent for a while, then suddenly asked, "Good child, do you know what a blood oath is?"
"It must be some kind of ancient oath," Draco said.
He vaguely remembered seeing the term in an old spellbook in the family library.
"The oath is sealed with the mingled blood of two people. Taking it binds them together—they can never become enemies with one another." The old man's expression turned serious. "It is powerful magic. If either of them so much as thinks of betraying the other, they will suffer a backlash."
He went on, slow and solemn. "This magic is extremely dangerous. It's often cast on impulse, and there's no way to undo it once done. Every wizard should be wary of it, and it must never be cast lightly. Do you understand, Little Dragon?"
Draco nodded, somewhat puzzled—why would his grandfather suddenly bring up this kind of magic?
"During the election for President of the International Confederation of Wizards, Dumbledore and Grindelwald clashed in the assembly hall. I was still a Hogwarts student then, and had no chance to witness the scene myself. But your great-grandfather was never short of close friends," the old man said slowly. "One day, over a few drinks, one such friend—someone who had witnessed everything in that assembly hall—let slip some inside information to your great-grandfather—"
Abraxas, noting his grandson's puzzled look, seemed to be deliberately drawing out the suspense, whetting Draco's appetite.
"It's a very interesting story," the old man said softly.
Draco knew his grandfather's temperament all too well.
He would need to feign eagerness now, to indulge his grandfather's fondness for being coaxed.
Abraxas, watching the rare flash of astonishment cross his grandson's face, said casually, "Did you know that the great Albus Dumbledore, praised by everyone, once formed a blood oath with the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald?"
Draco was stunned for a few seconds.
"That's surprising," he said, trying to sound calm.
But Abraxas caught the surprise flickering beneath his grandson's composed expression, betrayed by the rapid blink of his eyes.
Draco's understanding of Albus Dumbledore had come in several disjointed stages.
When he was young, Dumbledore hadn't been the focus of his attention; he was merely a symbol—a Hogwarts headmaster praised by the students, a face on a Chocolate Frog card.
He occasionally came up in his father's conversation. Lucius, who had once sat on the Hogwarts Board of Governors, would complain about Dumbledore to Narcissa at the dinner table, his tone dripping with disgust.
"He has absolutely no ability to lead and manage a school!" he would say, his face twisted with contempt.
Then Lucius would launch into a long rant about Dumbledore's reckless hiring of some unreliable Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, or his introduction of some dangerously unsuitable magical creature into the school; even after Lucius was ousted from the Board, the rant never stopped.
In that family atmosphere of "complaining about Dumbledore," time slipped by, and it was already Draco's sixth year.
Draco received that terrible mission from the Dark Lord, transforming from a carefree child who merely listened to his parents complain about Dumbledore into a desperate Death Eater who attempted to assassinate the man himself.
That year, he had teetered on the edge of collapse while frantically trying to learn everything he could about Dumbledore—studying every detail of his behavior, trying to divine the preferences of the eccentric headmaster, all in a desperate bid to complete that near-impossible task.
Draco had thought he was going to die.
Though on the surface he'd tried, stubbornly and frantically, to assassinate Dumbledore, some part of him had always known he could never accomplish it.
If even the Dark Lord himself couldn't manage it, how could he?
Now, he could finally admit to himself what he'd known all along—that he had, in truth, been walking toward his own death.
He had never wanted to die. But he'd had no choice.
If his moth-to-a-flame recklessness could satisfy the Dark Lord, bring his father home alive from Azkaban, lift the threat hanging over his mother's life, and restore the Malfoy name to respect rather than contempt, he had been willing to try.
Even if it meant dying.
Even if there was no tomorrow.
But in the end, Dumbledore had died tragically atop the Astronomy Tower, falling from that great height.
He could never forget that moment—Dumbledore dying beneath the glow of the Dark Mark. It had become Draco Malfoy's permanent nightmare.
For a long time afterward, Draco couldn't bear to speak of, or even hear, the name "Dumbledore."
In his seventh year, Draco had stumbled across a piece in the Daily Prophet: Rita Skeeter had interviewed Bathilda Bagshot and written a book about Dumbledore based on it—The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.
The book seemed to hold a good number of secrets about Dumbledore and his family, but Draco hadn't dared read it.
Just seeing the name in the paper had brought him to the edge of a breakdown. He'd thrown the newspaper aside almost immediately.
Looking back now, Draco felt a flicker of regret. He really should have read that book.
Rita Skeeter often wrote nonsense and made unfounded claims—but as Hermione had once said, her reporting sometimes surfaced details others had never noticed.
In fact, Hermione had found clues buried in that trivial gossip, and had realized there was something strange about Grindelwald.
Thinking of that girl, he felt a small flicker of warmth, even as he worked to keep his expression calm on the outside.
Abraxas studied his grandson with a curious, appraising eye, secretly pleased with what he saw.
Most people, hearing news like this, would be shocked, their worldview shaken; Draco, though, had stayed composed, betraying only a flash of surprise before regaining himself.
A promising talent, Abraxas thought.
Not everyone could keep their emotions hidden—it was a rare and valuable trait, and Little Dragon was already far better at it than his father.
"Son, do you know what this means?" he went on, guiding Draco to think further.
"That means Dumbledore and Grindelwald were once close friends," Draco said, glancing up at the dark top of the tower. "Kindred spirits."
"Perhaps more than close friends. If you understood the blood oath ritual, you'd know it's far more complicated than that. There are rumors... well, let's not go into them," Abraxas said, glancing worriedly at his grandson.
He steered the conversation back on course, turning to Draco with a serious expression. "In short, Dumbledore is a very complex wizard—far more complex than you think. His mind runs so deep that no one truly knows what goes on inside it."
"Grandfather, don't worry, I know he's not simple," Draco said in a low voice.
"I'm afraid your understanding is too simple. His magic is powerful enough that he even broke a blood oath. Yes—don't look so surprised. He broke it without a scratch," Abraxas said, his tone uneasy. "We must be wary of him. He's a very uncontrollable man, and the kind who will use anything to hand—I can sense that ruthlessness in him."
Draco thought silently that his grandfather had always seemed wary of Dumbledore.
"He comes from an old family, doesn't he?" he asked. "I would have thought you'd think well of such a family."
"His lineage is ancient, but by his generation it had grown quite disreputable. His father, Percival Dumbledore, was a tough man but not a bright one; he was sent to Azkaban for attacking Muggles," Abraxas said dismissively. "There are plenty of bloodless ways to deal with Muggles who've offended you—why be so direct, and land yourself in that mess?"
Draco shrugged.
"As for his mother, Kendra Dumbledore—she died long ago. His sister, Ariana Dumbledore, died under mysterious circumstances. There were even rumors he'd kept her locked away," the old man said, his tone conspiratorial.
"How credible are rumors like that?" Draco asked.
"The more outrageous the rumor, the less likely it's baseless—after all, few people invent something so outrageous out of nothing, don't you think? I'm inclined to believe it," Abraxas said. "His brother, Aberforth Dumbledore, was even more scandalous—accused of using improper magic on goats, of all things. It was quite the talk at the time."
"A goat?" Draco's voice held a note of disbelief. "What could he possibly have done to a goat?"
Abraxas said, unbothered, "Oh, anything you can imagine. In any case, a black sheep like that is an absolute stain on an otherwise promising family."
"Is his brother still alive?" Draco asked, a little surprised—he'd never heard of Dumbledore having a brother in his previous life.
"Of course. But nobody pays attention to what the brother does; everyone's eyes are on Dumbledore himself—even Dumbledore rarely speaks of him. I heard the two broke off relations long ago."
Abraxas wore a nonchalant expression, though his words carried a subtle edge.
"Draco, you see it now, don't you? Albus Dumbledore is, at heart, a complete loner. That alone should make you wary of trusting him. How can you trust a man who can't even manage his own family?"
"But Grandfather, how do you know so much about the inner workings of the Dumbledore family?" Draco couldn't help but ask.
He hadn't expected his grandfather to reveal all this—the sheer volume of it was far beyond anything he'd imagined.
Abraxas's black robes fluttered in the wind.
"Oh, good boy, you've noticed, haven't you? Beneath the Malfoy family's wariness of Dumbledore lies a great deal of interest." He glanced back at Draco. "Your great-grandfather once considered backing a few promising talents, and looked into Dumbledore closely—even investigated him."
That's just like the Malfoys, Draco thought, unsurprised. Watch anyone with potential, infiltrate their circle, offer support, then quietly take control.
"And what was his conclusion?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"Eventually he decided that, talented as Dumbledore was, the variables and risks involved were too great to control, and he let the matter drop," Abraxas said calmly.
The old man studied his grandson carefully, trying to read his thoughts.
"Child, tell me now—what are you thinking?"
Draco kept his expression steady. "That Dumbledore is an unfathomable, unpredictable man."
"I worry about you, son. A Malfoy shouldn't take anyone's word as gospel," Abraxas said calmly. "Your father's attitude may be a bit extreme, but the core of it is sound. He's afraid you'll be used—especially when dealing with a wizard as cunning and shrewd as this one."
A trace of real sincerity crossed his face. "Try not to be too hard on your father, will you? He's only worried, and a little lost."
"I understand," Draco said. "I know he worries about me."
"That's right. Your father worries about you. He's a clumsy, domineering man, but a loving one. Son, I believe you can think for yourself, and that you weigh your choices carefully. Don't take this as nagging—I only want to remind you of one thing: young people are often too idealistic, and that can lead them into fatal danger."
Abraxas's face softened into something gentler. "I won't tell you which path to take—that's yours to choose. But you must understand that you bear responsibility for every choice you make. Consider the long-term consequences for the Malfoy family."
Draco nodded silently.
"Before you commit to a person or a cause, my only request is this: don't follow blindly, and don't place too much faith in reputation alone. Observe. Think it through."
The old man's expression took on a hint of pride. "The Malfoys wear a mask of politeness for outsiders, but that mask means nothing about what lies beneath. Winning a Malfoy's true approval is difficult—don't make it cheap."
"What attitude do you think the Malfoys should take toward Dumbledore?" Draco asked carefully, hoping to draw out his grandfather's true thinking.
"As head of the family, it's understandable that your father dislikes Dumbledore. First, their ideologies clash—associating with the sort of people Dumbledore has taken under his wing would lower our standing and run against the family's interests. Second, Dumbledore offers the Malfoys nothing of real value. Good relations with him won't open doors for our business, nor grant us any privilege. If anything, it invites trouble, and possibly costs us money—an entirely unprofitable arrangement," Abraxas said matter-of-factly.
Feigning eagerness to learn, Draco pressed on. "And you, Grandfather? What's your view?"
"Me? I won't judge him on pure pragmatism. Speaking purely from human nature—I believe a man like Dumbledore trusts no one completely, which means you shouldn't trust him completely either," the old man said seriously. "In fact, by my own philosophy, you can't trust anyone completely. Anyone can turn on you, at any time. Do you understand?"
"Grandfather, I'm not the kind of person who gives his trust away easily," Draco said in a low voice.
"Very good. Keep it that way." The old man stared at the tower, his voice colder than the wind. "A family with as long a history as ours must never forget that."
Draco nodded silently. Together, he and the old man gazed at the lonely tower, and both felt, for a moment, a strange desolation settle over them.
After a pause, Abraxas said, his expression serious, "That said, there is one thing you've handled well. We can't afford to be entirely at odds with Dumbledore. His influence runs too deep—through the International Confederation of Wizards, the Wizengamot, Hogwarts itself. A single word from him can change a person's fate."
Change a person's fate—
Draco thought suddenly of Professor Snape. It seemed it had taken little more than a word from Dumbledore to see a former Death Eater installed as a professor.
"Think about it—he can make friends with anyone, any species. 'Seek common ground while preserving differences' sounds simple enough, but it's difficult in practice. Yet he manages it, to some degree, which tells you how shrewd he truly is," Abraxas said.
"I always assumed it was simply because his talent earned him that recognition."
"I won't deny his skill in magic is considerable. But the more powerful he is, the more wary you should be, and the more distance you should keep. A sensible Malfoy only competes against those of equal or lesser ability—never against someone who can overturn the whole table." The old man's tone grew cautious. "Getting too close to him, whether as friend or enemy, is dangerous either way."
"Remember this saying: magic is power," he said earnestly. "Since you cannot surpass him in magic, you have no real say in his presence. Grow too close to him, and you'll either be used or manipulated—you might even end up somewhere worse than this tower. After all, even a genius like Grindelwald came to this."
Abraxas's gray eyes settled on the top of the tower, unusually cold.
Draco understood, in some sense, that his grandfather was speaking honestly.
It might not be entirely accurate. But there was a kernel of truth in it.
However manipulative Abraxas could be, he was, at least, willing to speak plainly to his only grandson.
His judgment might well be correct. Aligning with Dumbledore would bring the Malfoy family no real benefit; pledging loyalty to him might prove an entirely unprofitable investment—if one set aside the ruthless Dark Lord entirely.
But in the shadow of a Dark Lord with a broken soul, however many dark secrets Dumbledore carried, he remained the only beacon of light Draco Malfoy could see in the endless night and the vast, dark sea ahead.
There was no doubt that dealing with Dumbledore carried risk. But Draco was willing to take that risk, so long as it meant protecting the people he cared about.
The question was whether his grandfather could ever understand that.
The deep-rooted principles of "pure-blood supremacy" and "profit above all" had bred in every Malfoy a certain complacency, prejudice, and arrogance.
In Draco's memory, his grandfather—in his previous life—had never once publicly admitted that "choosing the Dark Lord was a mistake," not even on his deathbed; just as his father, in that same previous life, had shown only the faintest flicker of remorse, and only when facing imprisonment in Azkaban.
Even then, it had been the barest trace.
Back then, the Malfoys had been too deeply entrenched in their ways, too proud to admit fault.
They walked a dark path, Draco thought bitterly, watching his grandfather grip his cane, stubbornly straightening his back to stand taller against the wind.
He could sense his grandfather's wariness of Dumbledore. The words were gentle, the manner conciliatory—but the underlying stance was unmistakable.
He knew he didn't fully agree with much of what his grandfather said. But now wasn't the time for an open break between them—not when it would leave him isolated within the Malfoy household.
He also hoped to use his grandfather's fondness for him, and what remained of his authority, to temper his father's more extreme instincts.
"Little Dragon, tell me now—what are you thinking?"
In the chilly wind, Draco watched his grandfather's gaze settle on him and said softly, "I don't fully trust Dumbledore. I know what I'm doing. I'll act in the Malfoy family's best interest and think of its long-term future. I'll keep your words in mind."
Draco meant every word.
But how a listener chooses to interpret sincerity is another matter entirely.
Abraxas turned his head, studied him for a long moment, and found the boy's eyes genuinely sincere.
He smiled, suddenly. "Very good. Good boy."
He turned and started down the hillside.
"Let's go. The wind's too cold up here—I've had enough of it."
Draco took one last look at the tower before following his grandfather in silence.