"I want you to join forces with me."
Hermione smiled at Grindelwald and put the proposal to him outright.
Grindelwald froze for a moment.
He frowned at the inscrutable girl before him.
Only minutes ago, he had politely invited her to join forces, promised her all sorts of benefits, and even offered to treat her as an equal, only to receive a merciless rejection.
How had she turned around and proposed an alliance herself so soon?
"Miss Granger, I personally invited you outside just now, and you were the one who refused," Grindelwald said, looking puzzled. "Have you changed your mind?"
"You've got one thing wrong." Hermione raised a finger and wagged it. "Before, it was me joining forces with you. Now, it's you joining forces with me."
Grindelwald was even more confused. "Aren't those the same thing?"
"There's a world of difference."
Hermione's playful smile faded. She folded her arms and looked at him seriously.
"Before, I would have been joining you. Now, you'll be joining me."
Grindelwald's expression shifted.
He was no fool. The two statements sounded like wordplay, but their substance was entirely different. The girl's meaning was clear: an alliance was possible, but she would set the rules, and she would be in charge.
He suddenly recalled what Hermione had told him in New York not long ago: cooperation between wizards and Muggles, covert infiltration, and even intermarriage on a massive scale.
Even then, he had thought the girl's ideas were rather fanciful.
"So that's it," Grindelwald said, understanding at last. "You want me to abandon my plan and put your theory of wizard-Muggle cooperation into practice?"
She'd turned everything upside down.
To him, her theory was far too idealistic. Quite apart from how difficult it would be to implement, he could not accept it on