Strange Group Members

Ron came back to life.

Life still had to go on, and classes still had to be attended, but Defense Against the Dark Arts was enough to give people heart attacks. On the first day, Lockhart handed everyone a test paper, and every question was about him.

There was no telling what any of it had to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Their suffering had come early. Harry and the others weren't supposed to go through this until their second year, but now it had arrived in their first.

Lockhart also wanted to give everyone a welcoming gift, so he staged that damned Valentine's Day stunt from the original too. He looked like he did in the movie; there was really no need to copy the original story.

The worst part was that this guy liked to pick people to act out the books he'd written!?

Every year had one or two poor, unlucky winners who fell victim to him.

Those who knew, knew. There was no need to say more.

Group chat: The Midsummer of That Year.

Little Badger Stunned by Angst: I got one!! Teacher Di's latest GGAD artbook, hahahahahaha! (Going crazy)

Will Dumbledore Mourn You: Aaaah, damn it!! My internet lagged and I didn't get one, aaaah!

Will Dumbledore Mourn You: /crying Ron face

Salazar Grindelwald: Ha! I stayed on the page until midnight and got one!

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Everyone, c-calm down...

[Admin] Oh My Mother: /trembling seal

[Admin] Oh My Mother: There's another presale coming

Bug Ming: How the fuck did you guys get one, shit! They were gone as soon as I got in

Voldemort's Rumored Girlfriend: Hehe, I used my phone and computer at the same time.

GGAD's Blood Pact: Teacher Di's illustration collection is godly!

Snape's Runaway Rejoice: Thanks, I'm already shipping them like crazy

Sherbet Lemon: ? What sort of artbook is it?

Black Magic Fairy Ced: Why, of course! The officially confirmed ship! My beloved GGAD!

Gellert and Albus's Marriage Certificate: Hehe, it's the Grindelwald and Dumbledore ship. They're so good! And so heartbreaking!

Kerun: [GGAD illustration.jpg]

Kerun: Hahahahahahaha! Mine arrived, hahahahahaha!

GGAD's Blood Pact: ? Fuck, mine's still on the way

Bug Ming: I'm so jealous. @Kerun, you'd better sleep with one eye open tonight.

Kerun: ?

Dumbledore fell silent for a moment in front of his screen, then saved the picture.

Sherbet Lemon: It's a beautiful drawing. It reminds me of my younger days.

Slytherin's Little Wizard Snake: ?!

Voldemort's Rumored Girlfriend: Friend, you've had quite the life!

James-Brand Shampoo: Holy shit, I checked your profile. Grandpa, you're 110 this year!? And you like Harry Potter too!!

Bug Ming: ???

Gellert and Albus's Marriage Certificate: Holy crap

Little Badger Stunned by Angst: Th-this, does that make him the oldest person in our fan group?!

(Fun fact: Dumbledore lived to be 115, so he should have been only 110 during Harry's first year.)

[Group owner] Holy Crap: Holy crap.

[Admin] Yan: Good health to you, Grandpa!

Dumbledore couldn't help laughing as he watched them all call him Grandpa in unison. To think he could be called Grandpa too. It felt rather nice, though. He had no children, but having a whole bunch of little fans seemed much the same.

But Dumbledore was truly curious: what did his relationship with Gellert look like in their eyes now?

Sherbet Lemon: That's right, Grandpa doesn't know much about it. Could you tell me more about Grindelwald and Dumbledore?

Dumbledore discovered he rather liked being called Grandpa. It felt cute.

GGAD Forever: Damn, are we getting Grandpa to ship them with us?!

Dumbledore was amused. Fans were getting the real person to ship himself with someone.

Not every group member believed the age on his profile was real. Some thought "Sherbet Lemon" had changed his age to match Dumbledore's because he was a fan, but they still called this group member Grandpa, even though they didn't know if his age was real.

Maybe they were playing along with the joke, or maybe it was out of respect, lol

Salazar Grindelwald: I really can't forget that classic line: "Who will love you now, Dumbledore?"

GGAD Forever: Their love was breathtaking, but we knew the ending from the very beginning

The Old Bee and His Gas Stove: They're a ship J. K. Rowling personally confirmed had been lovers in an interview. Fantastic Beasts 2 made me cry so hard

The Old Bee and His Gas Stove: (Volume turned all the way up: I'll try to cry quietly.jpg)

[Admin] Oh My Mother: GGAD was actually my first ship. The first Dark Lord kicked me straight to the bottom of the BL rabbit hole.

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Their love was so beautiful!!!

Bug Ming: What stuck with me most was that line Harry said in HP7: "Maybe to stop Voldemort from breaking into your tomb." It was so sweet and so heartbreaking!

GGAD's Blood Pact: My love and I both died at a tower /crying

GGAD's Kid: When I read that part, I really couldn't stop sobbing.

Dumbledore's heart couldn't help trembling when he read that, but he was old now, and all he felt upon seeing it was wistfulness. He had long since lost the passion and madness of his youth. Now he seemed to have let go of his obsession with love, perhaps from the moment he defeated Grindelwald with his own hands...

It was now after Christmas, and the snow outside was still falling heavily.

The one thing Dumbledore was grateful for was that they hadn't said any of this in the other large group, because it had already exposed his original plan. He didn't dare imagine what Harry would think if he saw it.

The old man he trusted above all others planned to die just like that.

Dumbledore continued reading.

GGAD Correspondence Collection: Say no more. I'd call the Correspondence Collection the best and most heartbreaking fanfic ever! Heaven knows how long I cried after reading that last line, "Don't leave me."

The Old Bee and His Gas Stove: They met that midsummer, that most wonderful summer.

Gellert and Albus's Marriage Certificate: Grindelwald is the most handsome pair of woolen socks I've ever seen /bursts into tears

Bug Ming: Woolen socks...

[Group owner] Holy Crap: Help, I was about to cry, but seeing your woolen socks made me swallow my tears.

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Young Albus looked into the Mirror of Erised, and what he saw with that radiant smile was himself. Because he had Gellert then, Albus felt he already had the most wonderful thing in the world. He was already the happiest person in the world.

[Admin] Oh My Mother: So all he saw was himself

Voldemort's Rumored Girlfriend: To this day, we still don't know what Dumbledore actually saw in the Mirror of Erised that day

GGAD Forever: Teacher Di is so good at shipping...

Little Badger Stunned by Angst: This ship is killing me /crying

Bug Ming: When I read the Correspondence Collection, I was still naive enough to think it took a lot to make me cry.

Bug Ming: By the time I finished, the angst had left me numb!

Grindelwald's Favorite: The final battle in 1945 was heartbreaking too!

Does Dumbledore Mourn You: One thought he could bring himself to do it; the other thought he couldn't.

Ariana the White Lord Can't Have: After that midsummer, all that remained was winter.

Kerun: I'm broken, everyone

Kerun: Time for a performance: exploding into tears while spiraling up to heaven.

Dumbledore's Wand: In Fantastic Beasts 2, they all thought no one but Dumbledore could stand against Grindelwald, but Dumbledore himself said he couldn't do it.

[Group owner] Holy Crap: Two months of infatuation, a century of things left unspoken.

[Group owner] Holy Crap: When Grindelwald ruled the Wizarding World, Britain was the only place he didn't touch, because Dumbledore was there.

GGAD Forever: They're so good together, I'm crying my eyes out

GGAD Correspondence Collection: I recommend everyone read the Correspondence Collection. It's an officially approved fanfic with guaranteed quality, unbelievably good!

Sherbet Lemon: The Correspondence Collection? Where can I read it?

Bug Ming: There's a translated version on Zhihu. You can also find it on Lofter or Tieba. It's so good! Really!

Slytherin's Little Wizard Snake: Hahahaha, they're so sweet I'm dying, sob...

[Admin] Oh My Mother: GGAD will forever be the heartbreak I can't get over

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Albus went to his death believing that love was false.

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Gellert only understood that love was real when he died.

Bug Ming: If you truly love someone, how could you possibly let them go so easily?

Had that love been real or false?

Dumbledore no longer agonized over it. Now, no matter what, he could never return to that summer, never return to the barn of those days.

How high-spirited they had once been. How had they taken that one wrong step, only for every step after it to be wrong too?

Dumbledore spotted Harry sitting in a daze before the Mirror of Erised.

He remembered the question in the group: what had the elderly Dumbledore seen in the Mirror of Erised?

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Albus at different points in his life might have seen the same person, but I think when Dumbledore was old, what weighed more heavily on his heart was guilt toward his sister and family.

[Admin] Oh My Mother: When Harry asked Dumbledore what he saw, do you think Dumbledore saw his family, or was it still that high-spirited blond boy?

"Perhaps you can look a little longer today. The Mirror of Erised will be moved away in a few days."

Dumbledore said this to young Harry. At that moment, he did look rather like a kindly old grandfather.

"Professor Dumbledore." Only then did Harry notice Dumbledore standing behind him. A little embarrassed, he hurriedly stood up from the floor. The main thing was that the mirror was simply too captivating.

"What did you just say this mirror was called?" Harry looked at Dumbledore in confusion. The latter was looking at the mirror. What would Dumbledore see? Harry wondered that too.

"This is the Mirror of Erised. It shows a person what they desire most deeply in their heart," Dumbledore explained.

"Then what did you see?"

Young Harry asked the question on his mind outright, and Dumbledore answered him with a smile:

"Well, I saw myself receiving a pair of woolen socks."

Bug Ming: Would the old bee see his gas stove or not?

[Group owner] Holy Crap: If Grindelwald hadn't escaped through the window back then, would they have come to a different ending?

Harry was puzzled. Even young Harry suspected that Dumbledore hadn't told the truth, but perhaps only Dumbledore himself could know what he had actually seen.

When Harry left and returned to the common room, he wanted to use his phone to ask everyone what Dumbledore had seen, but then he felt that wouldn't be quite right. Dumbledore was in the group too, and wouldn't it be awkward if Dumbledore himself saw it?

Dumbledore waited until Harry had left before taking out his phone. He stood in the empty room facing the Mirror of Erised, while moonlight spilled across the floor, looking rather cold.

In the short time he hadn't checked, quite a few messages had appeared in the group.

Dumbledore read through them one by one.

GGAD's Blood Pact: The only place Grindelwald didn't touch was Britain, where Dumbledore was.

Bug Ming: And then Voldemort went and wreaked havoc there

Voldemort's Rumored Girlfriend: Damn, for some reason I really want to see what would happen if Grindelwald and Voldemort faced off.

[Admin] Oh My Mother: Lol, it'd probably go like this: Grindelwald: I hear Dumbledore used to look after you quite a bit too. Tom Riddle: ?

Sherbet Lemon: That scene could indeed be rather interesting.

GGAD's Kid: One reason Voldemort lost so completely was that he had no love.

Kerun: That's why Dumbledore said Voldemort would never understand the reason he failed.

Dumbledore's eyes darkened involuntarily as he read that.

"It was love."

Sherbet Lemon: It was love.

Time for some brainless OOC skits.

Brainless skit ⑦

(During a battle between Grindelwald and Voldemort, Grindelwald's red dudou was exposed.)

Voldemort: (Scornfully) I didn't expect someone as refined as you to wear a red dudou

(Voldemort used ridicule. It was barely effective.)

Grindelwald: Hmph, Albus embroidered it for me.

Grindelwald: (Showing off smugly) Do you have one?

(Grindelwald used the lovey-dovey technique. It was highly effective.)

Voldemort: (Humiliated and furious) You're asking for death! What's wrong with you?!

Brainless skit ⑧

About a funeral.

Fred discovered that his fans were attending a funeral.

He quietly went over and discovered his own name written on the tombstone.

*Fred decided to give his fans a surprise

So he dug a tunnel to a spot beneath the tombstone.

Fans: Sob-Fred!

*Fred popped out of the ground and shouted, "Surprise!"

Then the startled fans pulled out diamond swords and hacked Fred to death.

"The corpse came back to life, aaah!"

Fred, after reviving at the respawn point: ?

Was that how this game was played?

The fans, after coming to their senses: ? What did we just do

I was stuck on this chapter for a long time. No matter what I did, I felt I couldn't get the interweaving of group messages and reality right.

As for GGAD, I really want to use every beautiful sentence in the world to describe them, but I realized my writing isn't good enough for that, so this chapter may be a little messy. I apologize.

Also, Correspondence Collection is really, really good!!! I refuse to let anyone miss out on it!!

The premise for the out-of-character funeral skit came from Minecraft, a sandbox game, lol. You could set a respawn point and come back to life.

About the time the fans were messing around in the game, got caught by the real person, and ended up killing him once, too.

Fantastic Beasts 2 mentioned in the story meant the second season of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

ggad was god!!!