Albus Dumbledore had once believed the world ran based on his whims. Laws, circles that shape the fate of magical nations, debts that came due, history repeating itself with different banners and cleaner speeches.
Now he lived inside a cell that did not respect any of it.
The cell was small enough to make thinking feel like pacing. Stone on three sides, metal on the fourth. No window. No draught. No smell of sea or mould or the old misery of Azkaban. The air here was dry and clean.
He had tried to count days at first. He had scratched marks into the wall with a nail he found under the bed frame. The marks stopped meaning anything after the first time the hooded ones came with their quiet hands and their careful spells. Time bent in this place. Not with a Time Turner that made sense, but with a grinding uncertainty that turned hours into guesses.
He could not even keep his body as a measure.
His hands looked wrong. Too smooth. Too strong. No liver spots. No tremor. He had woken one day, pressed his fingers to his face, and found skin that held tension like silk. He had seen his reflection in one of his visits to the Muggles with white robes and stared at a stranger with his eyes.
Early twenties, by his best estimate.
He had laughed at that, once. A short sound that had scraped his throat. He had tried to conjure a simple charm to test himself and found the wards ate the magic like it was steam. He had tried again, harder, and the wards bit back. Pain, sudden and sharp, blossomed behind his eyes and left him on the floor with water in his lashes.
That was the lesson. No more experiments.
When the Unspeakables brought him here, they had not explained anything. Their robes hid their faces and their intentions alike. Their movements were professional, almost polite. They never spoke to him unless the words were necessary for a procedure. Sometimes they did not even bother with that. A tap of a wand, a muffled sensation, then darkness.
After the time he spent in the Department of Mysteries, he had expected the damp and the cold of the North Sea. He had expected Dementors. He had expected the weight of that prison to settle on his skin like ash.
Instead, he had woken in this place with light that did not flicker like torch flame. A hum lived in the stone. It made his teeth ache if he focused on it.
At first, he had told himself he would adapt. He had survived worse. He had survived his own choices.
Then the Muggles in white robes began to arrive.
They smelled of soap and something sharp that stung the back of his nose. They carried tools that had no place in the magical world: glass tubes, metal trays, paper packets. Their hands were gloved.
They did not look at him the way a wizard looked at a prisoner. They looked the way a man looked at a problem.
The first time they took his blood, he tried to speak. He tried to demand a reason, a name, a charge.
A hooded Unspeakable lifted a wand, and the world went quiet.
He woke with his arm bandaged and a dull bruise in the bend of his elbow.
It became routine since then. Notes exchanged in a strange language, it was English, but the terms spoken were not familiar to him. A Stunning charm was his answer whenever he asked, even the day of the year. Once, he tried to fake a cough just to make a point. He did not even see the stunning charm.
He was downgraded to an ingredient. Acknowledging that truth more than anything else. Afterward he became numb.
There was one procedure that broke through the numbness. The long needle.
It came with a different tray and a different sort of preparation. The Muggles would angle him on his side, press his knees to his chest, and speak to each other in low voices while an Unspeakable watched as if supervising a classroom.
The needle went into his back, somewhere near his spine.
No spell dulled it. No ward softened it. It was pain that belonged to flesh.
He had learned to breathe through it. Slow in, slow out. He had learned that if he tensed, it hurt more. If he fought, they restrained him with straps that bit into his skin.
He hated the needles, but that long one, he hated in particular. He hated the indignity. His name had a weight once. Now, not even Muggles cared about him. Not even House Elves.
He had never been naïve enough to think he was untouchable. He had always known that power invited knives. Still, lying on stone while strangers drew something out of him with Muggle metal had a particular cruelty. It reduced him. It made him ordinary.
Today had followed the same pattern.
He remembered the hooded figures entering. The soft hiss of wards shifting. The sensation of getting stunned and the darkness.
When he woke, his arms ached. He counted fresh pinpricks, small purple blooms along his forearm. Four on the left, three on the right. He rotated his wrist and watched the skin stretch, too young to be his.
His tongue felt thick. His mouth tasted of copper.
He sat in the corner because the corner gave him a wall at his back. He kept his knees drawn up, not out of fear, but because the posture conserved heat and made his body feel like it belonged to him.
The corridor outside carried sound poorly, but he had trained his attention for decades. He could catch the cadence of footsteps, the faint clink of metal, the murmured exchange of words that were not meant for him.
Today, there were more people than usual.
He heard a door open somewhere down the corridor. A soft sigh of displaced air. A brief scrape, as if a trolley had been turned.
Muggles.
He stood and went to his own door with care. The metal was cold when he pressed his ear to it. He closed his eyes and tried to map the space beyond. At least six sets of steps, perhaps more. Some heavier, unhurried. One in particular was light.
The wards on his cell shifted. He felt it in his core.
He drew back a fraction of a second too late.
The door swung open with speed and force that belonged to ownership, not duty. The edge of it caught him square across the bridge of his nose.
There was a crack. He felt it as a shock all over his skull.
White exploded behind his eyes.
He staggered back, one hand flying to his face. Warmth poured between his fingers. The pain arrived fully, sharp and immediate, bright enough to make him nauseous.
He blinked tears from his lashes and tasted blood in the back of his throat.
The figure in the doorway did not rush to help. He did not even apologise. He stood as if he had stepped into a drawing room, not a cell.
Corvus Black's presence filled the frame. Taller and broader than he remembered. Robes cut clean. Hair in place. Eyes that tracked everything without hurry.
Amusement sat on his mouth like a practised habit.
Albus kept his hand pressed to his face. His palm came away red when he checked.
Corvus' gaze dropped to the blood, then lifted again to Albus' eyes.
"Albus," Corvus began, the tone light in a way that made it worse, "even in your cell, you are not able to keep your crooked nose to yourself."
--
Corvus led them down.
The air changed with every step. Above, the Nest carried the clean bite of wards and fresh stone. Down here, it smelled of iron, old sweat, and the sharp sting of potions that never fully left the walls. The corridor was cut straight, practical, built for custody rather than comfort. Doors stood on either side. Each had runes sunk into the frame like scars.
Every cell hummed with the same array that blocks the core of the inhabitant. If the prisoner tries to push the array will punish the inhabitant accordingly. A clever prisoner would try the edges first. These wards did not have edges.
He walked at an even pace. Elizaveta kept to his right. When she wanted an explanation, she did not interrupt. Her shoulder brushed his. Her fingers touched his sleeve, light and deliberate, then moved away. Corvus answered with a short phrase, just enough to carry her forward.
Arcturus took the lead without trying to take it. Vinda watched everything without moving her head much. Grigori looked around like a man touring a winery, except the barrels were cells and the contents were regret.
At the far end, the last door had a plaque fixed beside the frame.
AZKABAN.
Corvus let them see it.
"As you can see, I was honest, as usual, when I said Dumbledore was moved to Azkaban."
Grigori barked a laugh that bounced off the stone.
Vinda's gaze went to him with that flat, teacherly patience that made grown wizards remember their posture. Carrow and Abernathy mirrored it, less patient, more entertained.
Gellert's mouth curved, restrained and sharp. Something that promised one.
Corvus felt Albus inside the cell without needing to look through the door. Without waiting, he reached for the latch and put some force behind it, and pushed.
The door swung open hard. First came a satisfying crunch. After a moment, a muffled grunt.
Albus stumbled back into the thin light, hand clamped to his face. Blood ran between his fingers. His already crooked nose took a new angle.
Corvus filled the doorway.
"Albus, even in your cell, you cannot keep your crooked nose to yourself."
Gellert, who was behind Corvus, chuckled.
Albus blinked fast, as if that would change what stood in front of him. His eyes moved from Corvus to the corridor behind him. The cursed man was blocking the view completely.
He found none.
Corvus lifted his hand in a small, presenting gesture, like a host showing guests a gallery.
"And now it will be crooked a bit further. Unfortunately, there are no healers here. You will forgive my inhospitality."
"In case you have forgotten, allow me to introduce these upstanding people of our esteemed society." He turned his head slightly.
"Lord Arcturus Black. Minister for Magic of Wizarding Britain."
Arcturus gave a small mocking nod. His expression held a cruel contempt.
"Lady Vinda Rosier. Headmistress of Hogwarts."
Vinda raised one brow. A question without the dignity of being asked. Dumbledore's eyes filled with anguish at her title. All his work, all the sacrifices, the plans. It was all gone. Vinda Rosier was a master of Dark Arts.
"Lord Grigori Volkov. Soon to be Minister for Magic over Wizarding Russia."
Grigori's grin came easy.
"This is gold," he muttered, eyes on Albus like he had found an exotic creature in a cage. "Absolute gold."
Corvus did not comment. He shifted half a step, bringing Elizaveta into Albus's line of sight.
"This is Elizaveta Volkova."
He took her hand and kissed the back of it, feather light. He held it one heartbeat longer than necessary.
"She is my intended."
Elizaveta did not flinch. Her gaze stayed on Albus, cool and measured, as if she was memorising the shape of a man who had once held half the country by the throat.
Corvus moved again, giving the rest space to be seen.
"And this fine gentleman is Lord Gellert Grindelwald." The mocking smirk on Corvn's face was for the books.
Gellert stepped forward with a slow ease that belonged to stages and battlefields. His wand sat in his hand the way a cane sat in the hand of a fashionable man, not because he needed it, but because it pleased him.
"You may have forgotten, but he is a famous lord. He was on a business trip in the Alps of Austria for the last couple of decades." Corvus added, tone light.
Gellert bowed, a flourish that made mockery land like a slap.
"A pleasure, Mr Dumbledore." His voice carried that soft, amused drawl that sounded friendly until you listened to the words. "When my young friend told me he was hosting you, I could not resist. It would have been rude not to meet the great Albus Dumbledore. Butcher of Dark Lords."
His mismatched eyes stayed on Albus.
Corvus kept his smile.
"Lord Grindelwald has companions,"
Gellert turned his head, just enough.
"If you would allow me, Heir Rosier Black, I will introduce my friends."
Corvus's smile did not change.
"But of course. Please proceed."
Gellert opened his hands.
"Meet my friends, Mr Dumbledore."
Abernathy stepped to his right. McDuff to his left. Carrow and Nagel moved with them, forming a line that left no room for a lunge, no angle for a wandless trick.
Albus's breathing sped up. He tried to straighten and failed. His hand left his nose. Blood shone on his knuckles.
Wands rose.
Four voices hit the air at once.
"Crucio."
The cell swallowed sound and then spat it back. Albus hit the stone, body locking, jaw stretched in a scream that did not sound human by the second breath. His heels scraped. His fingers clawed at nothing. The wards took the magic and trapped it inside the room with him.
Gellert watched with calm interest, like a man listening to an old song.
Vinda did not look away.
Arcturus stood still. The only movement came from his hand, tightening around his cane, then relaxing again.
Elizaveta's face stayed composed. Her eyes cut once to Corvus, a quick check, then returned to the cell.
Three minutes passed the way storms pass. Loud, violent, and then suddenly over.
The four lowered their wands.
Albus sagged. His eyes stared into the floor without seeing it. His mouth moved once, but no sound came.
Corvus stepped over the threshold and crouched. He took a vial of Aetherveil from his pocket, uncorked it, and tipped a measured amount between Albus's lips.
It hit Albus's throat, and his body jerked in the reflex of being dragged back from a cliff.
Minutes later, his eyes blinked. Awareness returned in pieces. Fear came first.
Gellert leaned closer, as if they were about to share a private joke.
"That look," his voice softened, almost affectionate, "Do you remember? The moment you betrayed me? The moment when you thought you had won?"
Albus tried to speak. His tongue did not obey.
Gellert's new wand moved the way his hand moved in those old photographs, theatrical without being messy. A lazy wave.
Five chairs appeared in the corridor.
Gellert sat. He crossed one leg over the other with care. He looked to Corvus, and the vengeance in his eyes wore a gentleman's smile.
"I would like to stay here for a while and have a satisfying conversation with Mr Dumbledore, if that is acceptable."
Corvus offered his arm to Elizaveta. His pleasant expression returned, as controlled as a mask.
"Why ever not, Lord Grindelwald. Please enjoy your stay."
He started to turn.
Gellert cleared his throat, polite as a knife.
"If you do not mind, may we have some doses of that miraculous potion?"
Corvus's smile widened into a grin. He reached into his mokeskin pouch and began to hand over vial after vial of Aetherveil.