The night wind swept through again.
The ruins fell silent, save for the distant wail of sirens.
"Your husband is a Muggle, your parents are Muggles, and your children might be half-bloods. By then, who would still want to wipe out every last wizard?"
She raised a hand and pointed at herself.
"Take me, for example. My parents are both Muggles. Would they try to murder me?"
Grindelwald watched her, saying nothing for a long time.
A powerful wizard strong enough to rival him had actually come from a Muggle family.
That was truly beyond anything he had expected.
Thinking back over what Hermione had just said, Grindelwald was shaken to his core. For the first time, he did not immediately argue back.
He looked at Hermione, and a crack opened in the path that had once seemed so clear in his mind.
Reveal the existence of wizards, maintain their elevated status, exchange their powers for resources, then bind both sides together through marriage and shared interests.
This path lacked the grandeur of war and the glory of pure-blood supremacy.
But it could take them further.
More importantly, it did not require wizards, with their disadvantage in numbers, to challenge the entire Muggle world.
Off to one side, several Aurors exchanged glances.
Someone murmured, "What she said... it actually sounds like it could work."
"Shut up."
The person beside him snapped, yet his gaze remained fixed on Hermione.
The Aurors were stunned as well, and quite a few were deeply tempted by the future Hermione described.
If the Wizarding World remained hidden, they would have to keep risking their lives fighting Grindelwald and his followers for a meager fixed salary. The rest of the wealth was firmly controlled by the Wizarding World's ancient families, and none of it would ever