The atmosphere inside the case fell into a standoff once more. Snape took another step back without speaking, merely looking at Dumbledore with an exceedingly complicated expression.
"You weren't dead..." His voice was dry, carrying the fury of betrayal. "So that funeral was fake too. You deceived everyone, including me."
Grindelwald frowned, displeased by Snape's disrespectful tone...
"I don't like that professor."
"Albus is far too merciful. At Durmstrang, no teacher would ever dare speak to the headmaster in that tone."
If anyone else had been here, they would surely have been surprised by Grindelwald's words.
He was actually speaking up for the enemy who had defeated him, rather than Snape, the one who had let him leave Nurmengard.
Kyle, however, found nothing strange about it.
The last time he had visited Nurmengard, he had found an unsent letter in a corner on the top floor, written on a scrap of bedsheet.
"You know I will reply when you want me to reply, just as you know I have loved you since the day we first met."
It was clear there was a reason that letter had never been sent... though perhaps Nurmengard simply lacked owls.
That was also why Kyle had been able to make Grindelwald wary with just a few photographs.
What he had brought out were precious moments he had carefully selected over the past few years.
For instance, the photograph of Dumbledore weeping when he met Ariana was an exclusive shot only Kyle possessed.
Overwhelmed with joy, Dumbledore had revealed his vulnerable side before outsiders for the first time. Its value needed no explanation; apart from Kyle, no one else might ever see Dumbledore like that.
There were also precious memories of friendship in Godric's Hollow: the spirited young headmaster of 1899 and the ambitious Grindelwald.