History books certainly hadn't ntioned that.
"When did you even notify Dumbledore?"
Ian was astonished. He hadn't seen Grindelwald cast a spell, send a Patronus, or make any other visible move.
"Just now," Grindelwald replied simply, smiling. "We are old friends, after all. There are… special ans of communication between us. Perhaps one day, I'll teach you."
Ian didn't quite know how to respond to that. He had planned to involve Dumbledore anyway, so he could only wait.
And so, in the quiet, abandoned girls' bathroom—
Two wizards, one tall, one short, stood before the sink.
The air was heavy with silence.
Then, suddenly—
"Perhaps you could start by telling about so of the other… peculiar things you've encountered."
Grindelwald's calm, piercing gaze settled on the young wizard beside him.
"…"
Ian hesitated. That question had co out of nowhere.
What was it with old wizards and their ability to sense things?
"I have run into… unusual situations, and not just with Professor Ronnie Ehrlich's so-called resurrection," Ian admitted after a pause.
He had originally planned to explain his ti-loop dilemma only in Dumbledore's presence. Of the two, he trusted the older wizard more than Grindelwald.
However—
Since Grindelwald had asked so directly, refusing to answer felt like it would only make him more suspicious. Ian still couldn't figure out how the man had picked up on his predicant so quickly.
"I wasn't asking about that." Grindelwald's eyes flickered with interest. "But… intriguing. Salazar Slytherin's legacy, is it?"
His gaze dropped to Ian's raised hand, his tone not one of doubt but genuine curiosity.
"You know sothing about this?"
Ian tensed. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was far too composed for soone who had just learned about a potential curse tied to Slytherin.
"I've neither seen nor heard of this exact phenonon before," Grindelwald admitted. "Which makes it all the more fascinating, doesn't it?"
Before Ian could react, Grindelwald grasped his wrist. A faint pulse of magic shimred in the professor's eyes as he examined the mark.
"Hah."
Grindelwald's smirk widened. "As I suspected. I can't see the pattern on your hand at all— not as it appears to you— nor do I sense any active magic emanating from it."
With that, he pulled a small vial from his robes, uncorked it, and poured the liquid over Ian's hand.
A reaction.
The flickering Ouroboros curse mark sharpened into clarity, glowing ominously. But that wasn't all—
A fiery red sigil, the one Ariana Dumbledore had left him, flared to life. And beneath them both, another unfamiliar marking began to take shape.
"Just as I thought."
Grindelwald's eyes lingered on the red sigil rather than the Ouroboros mark.
"It seems so of the castle's old rumors aren't entirely unfounded." His voice was quieter now, more serious than before.
Ian, still staring at his own hand, finally shook himself from his shock.
"What kind of potion is this?" He recognized the scent of certain familiar ingredients.
"Bloodline potion," Grindelwald said, tucking the empty vial away. "It reveals traces of ancestral magic or latent inheritances."
Ian stiffened. He stared at the markings with wide, uncertain eyes.
"I— does that an I've been tainted by Slytherin's bloodline?"
His first thought wasn't about what it ant for his magic, his identity, or his future—
No, Ian was preoccupied with sothing else entirely.
"Then I've completely wasted my ti learning Parseltongue!"
His voice rang with sheer exasperation.
"Perhaps you already carry Slytherin's bloodline within you. Intermarriage among wizarding families isn't exactly rare," Grindelwald remarked, studying Ian's hand with a knowing look.
Ian frowned. The way he said it made Ian feel as if he were being branded a half-blood, an idea he had never considered before.
"I'm certain I didn't inherit any of Slytherin's blood," Ian said firmly. He recalled the struggle he'd gone through to learn Parseltongue, an effort that hardly aligned with being a natural-born descendant.
"That may not be such a bad thing," Grindelwald chuckled, as if attempting to lighten the mood.
Ian, however, wasn't amused. "I don't care about that. I just want to get rid of this mark. I'm convinced it's the reason I was sent back to this ti."
He spoke with determination. As a student of the legendary witch Morgan, he considered Slytherin a re trickster— one unworthy of leaving his mark on him.
"That can be dealt with," Grindelwald assured him, his tone unnervingly casual.
Ian let out a slow breath, sowhat reassured, before shifting his focus back to the potion Grindelwald had just used.
"Professor, would you be willing to share the recipe for that potion?" Ian asked, eyeing the empty vial in Grindelwald's hand. He was certain he had never co across anything like it in the Hogwarts library.
"Ask your Potions professor," Grindelwald said dismissively.
"Bit stingy, aren't you?" Ian muttered, a hint of disappointnt creeping in.
Grindelwald rely smirked. "I don't have the recipe. You'd be better off asking your Potions professor— he's brewed more than a few of these. I simply took a bottle on a whim."
"Wait, what?"
Ian was caught off guard.
So it wasn't just the students and Quirrell sneaking supplies from the "good uncle"— even Grindelwald was in on it!
"I wouldn't have expected that from you," Ian admitted, unable to hide his surprise.
Grindelwald chuckled. "Your dear 'uncle' has insulted publicly more than once, and yet he still walks around with all his limbs intact. That's not just because I've grown more patient over the years."
Ian had a feeling it was best to change the subject before this conversation led sowhere uncomfortable.
"When Dumbledore arrives, you both need to examine Professor Ronnie Ehrlich's condition," he said, bringing up the real reason they were there. The professor's fragnted mories… his unnatural state… There was more at play than just a simple ti loop.
Grindelwald, however, seed more focused on Ian himself.
"I thought you'd be more interested in the significance of the other two patterns on your hand," he mused, eyeing Ian curiously. "But it seems you already have an idea of what they an."
Ian suppressed a sigh. The old man's perceptiveness was truly sothing else.
"Uh…"
How was he supposed to respond to that?
The first pattern he had seen was undoubtedly tied to the Prince family's bloodline— after all, every generation of that lineage produced a potions master for a reason. As for the fiery red sigil, the one Ariana had left him…
That was sothing he couldn't explain without revealing the Twilight Zone.
As he deliberated over how to shift the conversation, Grindelwald unexpectedly gave him the perfect excuse.
"I always thought I knew Dumbledore's house better than he does," Grindelwald murmured, almost to himself. Then he tutted, shaking his head. "But now it seems… tsk tsk."
His attention suddenly snapped toward the entrance of the bathroom.
And then—
Albus Dumbledore entered.
Dressed in deep purple robes, his usually composed face was marred by bruises. In one hand, he held a small vial from which he was sipping a potion. Perched on his other arm, a fiery-red phoenix ruffled its feathers, looking equally weary.
Upon seeing him, Ian instinctively opened his mouth to speak.
But before he could—
"Young one, forgive my slight betrayal," Grindelwald murmured, leaning in conspiratorially. "Retrieving our dear headmaster from his relatives was no simple matter."
Ian barely had ti to process that cryptic remark before Grindelwald strode toward Dumbledore.
"Albus, I assure you— I'm not joking this ti," Grindelwald said, standing before the headmaster.
Then, with a dramatic gesture, he pointed back at Ian.
"That little brat over there— I saw him in my crystal ball, running through the eighth-floor corridor with Ariana's soul!"
He turned back to Dumbledore, eyes alight with excitent.
"He must be hiding so grand secret I haven't uncovered yet!"
It was almost impossible to reconcile this animated figure with the Dark Lord the world feared.
In this mont, Gellert Grindelwald wasn't the ominous sorcerer history rembered—
He was genuinely thrilled.
Like a wizard eagerly sharing the latest gossip, he practically relished reporting the young wizard's predicant to Dumbledore.
(End of Chapter)
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