Old Voldy knew his dear professor all too well. He'd guessed right: Dumbledore really was watching everything from the sidelines.
Beside the entrance to the Azkaban cells, above the underground cavern.
But the old man no longer had that cold, scrutinizing look. All that remained was a weary, fragile sorrow as he pressed his lips together and stared at the images shifting in the mist before him.
"Gellert, sometimes I really think I made the wrong choices."
With his hands clasped behind his back, Grindelwald watched the chaotic battlefield in the mist. The old Saints were being downright crafty, secretly slacking off while casting all sorts of flashy, explosive spells amid billowing smoke. His lips curled in amusement.
"What do you mean?" He turned to look at Dumbledore, his mismatched blue eyes unnerving.
Clearly, he was using the battle unfolding before them to peer into the future.
"I don't know..." Dumbledore pressed his lips together, then wearily closed his deeply wrinkled eyes and let out a soft sigh.
"Sometimes I wonder what would have become of the world if you'd succeeded back then. If Tom had succeeded."
"Maybe everything would have turned out as badly as it possibly could. Or maybe it wouldn't have been so bad after all."
Dumbledore opened his eyes and looked at the images in the mist. He shook his head. "When I look at this Tom, I think of myself. Maybe we have abilities others don't, but in the end, we're both dragged into an endless quagmire."
"Tom doesn't seem to be slaughtering people recklessly, just because he can, the way I thought he would."
Using murder as a means to an end and taking pleasure in murder were two entirely different things.
The former kind of killing could be subdued by power.
It made