Love From Nurmengard

Evita anxiously settled into Nurmengard. Luckily, she had brought her suitcase along. This place was practically a ready-made study spot, and for her upcoming fifth-year O.W.L. Examinations, she was determined to get straight O's!!!

Nurmengard had no guards. It stood high atop a vast, snow-covered mountain range, like a deserted, deathly silent island. Luckily, Adele had provided food, though it was nothing but an assortment of dry bread and ingredients. Otherwise, Evita wasn't sure whether hunger might drive her to blow the place up.

She even had to describe delicious food to Lily in her letters. It was torture.

Yes, after a week of effort, Evita had managed to make the window in her cell open and close, allowing owls to cross the endless snowy mountains and deliver letters to Lily.

Because the place was so remote, Adele had also temporarily given her access to the system shop.

Evita bought a number of identical owls and rotated them on letter-delivery duty.

Adele had also added some more animals that had yet to be born to the suitcase, and life suddenly became much fuller.

These animals were all kept outside the suitcase. She had to layer two Undetectable Extension Charms on her room to make space for them, and they had become one of only three sources of enjoyment in her dreary life of study.

The second was writing to Lily. She sent her letters to Hogwarts, while Lily, having been led to misunderstand, sent hers to a small town somewhere in Austria. As a result, they corresponded about twice a week.

Evita didn't know whether Durmstrang was anywhere near Austria, since the only information about the school's location was that it was somewhere in northern Europe. But that was all right. Lily didn't know either.

As for why she had chosen an address in Austria... Nurmengard was nearby.

The third was bothering her neighbor. Evita had spent nearly half a month installing a window in the wall. Whenever she happened to remember, she would say a few words and enthusiastically invite her neighbor to eat with her.

Grindelwald ignored it all, as cold and silent as Bulgaria's never-melting ice and snow.

Having failed to find another conversation partner, Evita buried herself in her studies again.

Until-

"Lily's letter the day before yesterday said the Vanishing Spell is very likely to come up in this year's O.W.L. Transfiguration exam..." Evita flipped through the piles of books on her desk and found the relevant material. After silently reviewing it twice, she waved her wand, and the wall beside her vanished.

Grindelwald, contemplating life: ???

Evita, who had just landed herself in terrible trouble: QAQ

She looked at Grindelwald and greeted him cautiously. "How are you? The weather's really nice today, isn't it? Would you like something to eat? Something to drink? Would you like to have a chat?"

Grindelwald looked out the window at the wind and snow raging together. He said nothing.

Evita sighed, crouched in front of the vanished wall, and tried the Reparifarge over and over.

It didn't go smoothly. She even felt as though the whole of Nurmengard was connected, and adding something to it was far harder than taking a piece away.

By nightfall, she still hadn't managed to restore the wall that had vanished into thin air. She and her large group of animals stared at Grindelwald, and neither of them got any sleep.

The scene shifted to Hogwarts.

The weather was unusually sunny. A teenage Lily took a letter from the Owlery and walked all the way to the library, a cheerful smile reaching her eyes.

Softly humming a slow tune, she sat down across from Snape.

Snape asked as calmly as he could, "That person wrote to you again?"

"Yes, Severus," Lily said quietly, unable to keep the cheer out of her voice. "She sent me a package too."

"You'd better give something from an unknown source like that to a professor," Snape said stiffly.

Lily grew a little unhappy. "Headmaster Dumbledore protects Hogwarts. If there were any Dark Magic on it, he'd definitely notice. Besides, she's the same age as me. How could she have learned any excessively advanced Dark Magic?"

"But she hasn't even told you her real name, has she? How did she know you have an older sister? From some nonsensical Divination?"

"I told her myself," Lily said heatedly. "I trust her, all right?"

Madam Pince, the librarian, looked over with a hint of displeasure in her eyes. Lily turned her head away and opened the letter on her own.

"Dear Lily:

I hate the weather here. There's nothing but endless snow and storms, and the sun hardly ever comes out.

I made a mess yesterday. I used a Vanishing Spell on the wall between my neighbor and me, and I couldn't bring it back no matter how many times I tried the Reparifarge. Now I have no choice but to face my neighbor's icy, cutting stare (just kidding, my neighbor ignores me). It's a little upsetting. I've included some gifts with this letter. I hope you like them."

Lily carried the package back toward her dormitory, and the two parted unhappily.

The scene shifted to Grindelwald.

He gazed at the narrow window, through which he could just make out a flash of lightning tearing across the sky. It rarely rained at Nurmengard, and weather like this was uncommon. Then his gaze slowly moved forward, to where a wall should have stood between them, but had now vanished.

Grindelwald didn't know why he had been given a neighbor. After all, she looked so young and full of life, and could study happily even in prison. He had not wanted to pay attention to the neighbor who had appeared so abruptly, but-

He noticed that the scarf wrapped around the girl's face as she bent over her desk to study was black and yellow, and heard the words she occasionally muttered to herself.

"Dumbledore... Dark Magic Defence Class..."

Together, they brought back an unpleasant memory for Grindelwald.

He closed his eyes again to pass the time.

Bang! A tremendous explosion forced Grindelwald to open his eyes. He saw his neighbor standing solemnly before a floor covered in debris, shielding a large group of animals behind her. She said hi.

Evita hadn't expected her Dark Magic studies to go so badly either. Although she had learned how to use it, its power was always strange.

Adele made a suggestion. "How about changing wands? Acacia wood isn't suited to magic that produces a lot of noise and smells."

"I think that'll work." Evita ordered an Elder Wand from the shop without hesitation—a replica, though—and marveled at how capable the system was. With a casual wave, her spell exploded, leaving her covered in soot and coughing for quite a while. Embarrassed, she said hi to Grindelwald, whom she had startled awake.

The once-famous Dark wizard finally spoke his first words in months. "Where did you get that wand?"

Evita looked at the wand in her hand and silently thought, a beat late.

Ownership of the Elder Wand passed through "defeat." Its last recorded owner was Grindelwald, and Dumbledore had defeated him.

Evita: Haha... Her instincts told her she was doomed...