Austria, Nurmengard.
Grindelwald stared at Shawn's letter in his hand, his eyes thoughtful.
Shawn had already come into contact with the oldest, most rotten ruling class in the world.
It was far earlier than he had anticipated!
Grindelwald was an exceptionally patient man.
Back when he had sought to overthrow the United States Congress, he had been willing to spend years undercover.
Thus, in their exchanges, he had always taken a steady approach to cultivating Shawn.
Shawn's letter seemed merely to mention in passing whether the Pure-blood Associations in various countries had obstructed the First Wizarding War.
But Grindelwald guessed that Shawn must already have clashed with them.
Those pure-bloods were hardly softhearted people, and they posed a serious threat to Shawn's early development.
Grindelwald picked up a pen and some paper, carefully composing a reply in the voice of an ordinary old man with no particular knowledge of those powerful elites, hoping to persuade Shawn not to dig too deeply into the Pure-blood Associations for now.
Halfway through the letter,
he recalled the questions Dumbledore had confronted him with last time. That was another troublesome matter.
Tenderness and ruthlessness mingled in Grindelwald's eyes.
"Ah, I'll just have to keep finding trouble for you."
Hogwarts, the Headmaster's Office.
Dumbledore, who was about to have more trouble sent his way, was also busy writing and sketching on a sheet of parchment.
Intelligence gathered through various channels lay spread across his desk.
A dark Pensieve engraved with intricate runes floated beside him, several exquisite little memory vials resting on its rim.
Dumbledore alternated between leafing through the intelligence and plunging his head into the Pensieve to review his own memories or those of others.
Gradually, the intelligence chart branching out from the name "Shawn" at the center of the large parchment