The Tenth Weasley - CH - 100

Durmstrang, as winter slowly melted into a bone-chilled spring, became a hive of restless ambition. The long shadows cast by the mountain peaks seemed deeper this time of year, as though the very stones of the castle walls could feel the things its students were doing behind closed doors.

Inside the dragon class wing, the elite group was more fractured than ever—but not in spirit. They were simply... busy. Each had plunged headfirst into their chosen path.

Sonja barely slept anymore. The sound of her boots echoed through the halls at all hours as she moved from the training chambers to the dueling arena. Professor Navarro had taken a special interest in her, knowing full well how high the dueling circuit’s standards were for newcomers.

"Again!" Navarro barked, sending a silver bolt of energy that cracked like a whip through the chamber.

Sonja dove to the side, rolling, and snapped her wand upward. "Parietem!"

A curved, disc-shaped barrier formed, absorbing the next hit—but only barely.

"You're still hesitating when under pressure," Navarro said, walking toward her with the slow, deliberate stride of a predator. "If this were the professional circuit, you'd already be unconscious. Or worse."

"I’m trying!" Sonja snapped, sweat soaking her neck. Her wand hand trembled from hours of sparring.

"Try harder. Because when you're out there, no one cares that you're seventeen. They care that you're in their way."

From the benches above the dueling arena, Harry watched quietly. He was used to Sonja losing duels against him, but this was different. She was training for war, not just school glory. And she was getting stronger.


Meanwhile, Viktor Krum was never in one place for long. Most days, he left before dawn via international portkey to Bulgaria, where the National Team was preparing for the coming World Cup season.

"I vill be back on Sunday," Viktor said one evening in the common chamber, stuffing his broom maintenance kit into a leather trunk. "Coach says ve need more coordination drills."

“Do you ever sleep?” Marek asked, glancing up from a book.

Viktor shrugged. “After ve vin.”

Harry gave him a thumbs-up. “Don’t break your broom again.”

“I only broke it once,” Viktor grinned. “It was a very large Bludger.”

Antonin was the most reclusive of them all. Ever since their discovery of Grindelwald’s vault, he had barricaded himself in his private room, his door sealed with wards even Harry struggled to decode.

When they did manage to catch glimpses of him, his eyes looked sunken, and his robes smelled faintly of alchemical reagents.

“I think he’s trying to recreate the Lattice spell,” Erik whispered one night, flipping through a new book in the lounge.

“What’s that?” Ingrid asked, curious.

“A magical network system Grindelwald theorized—connects the minds of all its users. It was abandoned. Too dangerous. Too... intrusive.”

Harry didn’t comment. He had read the same theory in one of the deeper volumes. But Antonin had always been obsessed with the impossible.


And then there was the book.

The one that came from the vault—small, bound in gray-scaled leather, sealed with a cursed lock. It had taken Harry two weeks to open it. Inside were rituals. Not the usual curses taught in hidden corners of Hogwarts or whispered in Knockturn Alley. These were the old rites—the ones that shaped mountains, bent fate, drew power from pain and time.

Harry sat alone in his chamber late at night, the book spread before him like a forbidden altar.

“Ritual of Severance: For cutting soul bonds.”

“The Binding of Oaths: Magic that ensures absolute obedience, at a cost.”

“The Mirror Communion: To speak with a memory beyond death.”

He stared at the final one for a long time.

“Why did you write this, Grindelwald?” Harry muttered under his breath. “Who were you trying to reach?”

The voice that answered was not real, not audible—but it stirred in his mind.

Because some powers are worth any price.


He didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. Not Sonja, not Viktor. Not even Professor Navarro.

Instead, he returned to the basics—trying to control it. Understand it. Master it. He read through Defensive Dark Arts Vol. III by Valerius Graves, a text Grindelwald had scrawled through with red ink and notes of contempt.

“Too passive. Defense without intent to retaliate is failure.” – G.G.

The Grindelwald style of magic wasn’t about casting. It was about dominance. About instinct. It wasn’t just technical—it was emotional.

Harry found himself writing new spells in his notebooks—things no professor had ever taught him.

And he began testing them. Late at night. Alone.


In the meantime, one cheerful surprise came in the form of Ingrid, Marek, Eryk, and Louis, who had, without telling anyone, written and published a book.

Harry was walking past the library when he saw a student—one of the younger years—flipping through a thick book with an illustrated cover. His eyes caught the title:

“Fire Born: A Study of Dragon Hatchlings and their Maternal Bonding”

And on the cover was… a drawing of Harry and the others standing beside the dragon.

“What—” Harry blinked, then practically ran to find Ingrid.

He found her in the common chamber with Marek and Louis, signing a few copies for students.

“You published this?” he asked, both surprised and slightly amused.

Ingrid looked up, grinning. “We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d insist on editing it.”

“You wrote about the hatchlings?”

“And how they behaved. How the mother dragon raised them. How their instincts work. It’s not a spellbook—it’s a creature behavior study. Eryk’s diagrams are amazing.”

Eryk beamed. “We even submitted it to Beasts and Beyond, the journal. They’re printing excerpts next month.”

Harry picked up the book and flipped through. The writing was clean. Academic. But also poetic.

There was a small dedication on the first page:

To our dragons—who taught us fire need not always burn.

Harry smiled. “You didn’t even ask me for a foreword.”

Marek laughed. “We’re saving that for the sequel.”


But even in the light of their accomplishments, Harry felt the shadow growing inside him. The more he read from Grindelwald’s materials, the more he understood why the wizard had become what he did.

It was addictive.

Not because of the darkness, but because of the possibility.



Harry sat alone in the lower library chamber of Durmstrang, its walls lined with the oldest tomes of forgotten magic, illuminated only by the glow of flickering enchanted lanterns. Before him lay the brand new copy of the journal of Gellert Grindelwald. The cover bore no title, only a sigil—a swirling knot of flame and eye. He had read it once. Then again. Then five more times.

Each time, it whispered more.

Each word burned deeper into him.


"They forced us into shadows—not because they feared our evil, but because they feared our light."


Harry ran his finger over that sentence again and again. He had underlined it, circled it, etched it into the edges of his notebook. The words were heavy with truth—or, at least, with belief. And belief had power.

At first, he thought he was only reading out of curiosity.

But it became more.

He watched the pensieve memories late at night. Alone. Over and over.

Gellert Grindelwald wasn’t just some dangerous lunatic as the magical world painted him. He was brilliant. Magnetic. A revolutionary.

The way he stood when addressing a crowd—hands behind his back, chin lifted, pacing like a general and philosopher.
The cadence of his speech—low, deliberate, every word weighted and clear.
The way he looked directly into the eyes of his audience, never wavering.

Harry started mimicking it unconsciously. First in private—standing in front of the mirror in his room, shoulders back, voice slow, accent slightly shaped. Then, when he spoke to others, his words carried more gravity. His silences grew heavier.

He noticed the change in Sonja first.

“You talk different these days,” she said one evening, wiping sweat from her brow after another sparring match. “Like you’re giving a speech.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Yeah. Like you’re trying to convince a room full of people instead of talking to me.” She tossed him a water bottle. “It’s not bad. But it’s new.”


He didn’t respond. Not directly.

Because she was right.

But he didn’t care.

He liked how he sounded now.


In one memory, Grindelwald stood atop a crumbling stone tower surrounded by a dozen loyal followers. They were silent, spellbooks open, staring at him.

“The ritual will burn. It will scar. It will show you who you are,” Grindelwald said. “And you must want it. Not because you fear weakness. But because you refuse to let it rule you.”

That ritual—Enhancement of Form and Will—was one Harry had read about obsessively.

A dark, dangerous ritual, buried in old records, designed to push a wizard’s body and mind beyond its mortal limits. It was Grindelwald’s attempt to create the ideal magical body—resilient to pain, faster in reflex, sharper in thought, harder to curse.

Not Immortality. Just... better.

And Grindelwald had succeeded.

The journal recorded it in precise detail—his ingredients, preparation, and even the changes he noticed over the weeks that followed.

Harry had already started collecting what he needed.

Nightshade ash from the dark greenhouse near the cliffs.
Phoenix feather—burned and powdered, purchased discreetly.
A single drop of Harry’s blood on a stone of obsidian, buried for three nights beneath a waning moon.

He kept it secret, even from his closest friends. It wasn’t just the darkness of the ritual—it was what it meant. To want more. To reshape himself.

To step beyond the limits Dumbledore had so carefully tried to place on him.


In dueling practice, it showed.

The Harry of months past had been a fluid fighter, sharp and unpredictable. But now he was precise. Calculated. Brutal.

Sonja noticed first.

“You’re not casting Protego anymore,” she muttered, panting on the mat after being disarmed again.

“I don’t need to,” Harry replied calmly, lowering his wand.

“You’re fighting like Grindelwald.”

Harry smiled faintly. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Sonja blinked. “No. It’s... different. But I’ve never seen you this focused. It’s like you’ve already decided you’ll win before the duel starts.”

Harry turned away, wiping his brow. “Maybe I have.”


One evening, Antonin came by while Harry was copying runes for wand enhancements.

“I heard you’ve been practicing new spells,” Antonin said, leaning against the doorframe.

Harry didn’t look up. “Everyone’s practicing something.”

“But not everyone is walking and talking like Gellert Grindelwald.”

Harry finally raised his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Antonin shook his head. “Not at all. But I want to know—do you think he was right?”

Harry closed the journal and tapped it once with his wand, locking it. “I think he saw something the others were too afraid to admit. And I think the world punished him for being brave.”

Antonin nodded slowly. “Then maybe you’ll succeed where he failed.”


That night, Harry stood in the mirror again.

He wore darker robes now—sleeker, more formal. His hair was combed back, his stance tall and confident. He stared into his own eyes and repeated one of Grindelwald’s speeches.

“We will no longer lower our heads in fear of lesser minds. We are wizards. Born not to kneel, but to rise.”

His reflection didn’t smile.

It didn't need to.

He was becoming who he was meant to be.



It was just after a late transmutation class when a quiet knock echoed across the long, echoing hall of Durmstrang. Harry, who was walking back to his chamber with a stack of scrolls under one arm, turned to see a tall student in the House of Wolves uniform.

“The Headmaster wants to see you,” the boy said simply, then turned and walked away without waiting for a reply.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

Igor Karkaroff didn’t summon students often. And when he did, it was never without reason.


The headmaster’s office was high in the tower above the Hall of Ice. Its stone archway was flanked by two rune-inscribed gargoyles that never blinked. The heavy iron doors opened with a metallic groan as Harry approached, as though sensing his arrival.

Inside, Karkaroff sat behind a curved desk of black oak, a goblet of steaming mulled wine in hand. Behind him stood a tall bookshelf filled with volumes in unfamiliar languages—heavy tomes bound in serpent-scale leather, horned beast hide, even petrified wood.

“Mr. Weasley,” he said, motioning to the seat across from him. “Please. Sit.”

Harry obliged, setting his scrolls carefully aside.

There was a long pause before the headmaster spoke again, studying Harry over the rim of his goblet.

“I have been watching you,” Karkaroff began in his soft, deliberate voice. “Not with suspicion. With curiosity.”

Harry remained silent.

“You walk a path I have seen before. One foot in the light, one foot in the dark. And yet, you walk it without stumbling. Most lose themselves. You... adapt.”

Harry finally spoke, “Magic is magic, sir. It doesn’t care what name we give it.”

Karkaroff smiled faintly. “Spoken like a true Durmstrang student. And yet, you are a Weasley.”

Harry flinched just a little at the name.

The headmaster leaned forward. “The Weasleys… they were torchbearers of the light during the last war. Champions of Dumbledore. Enemies of Voldermort’s philosophy. But you… you are different.”

Harry said nothing.

“I know your family,” Karkaroff continued. “I knew them during the war. Your father—Arthur—he would have recoiled at the spells you now practice.”

“I’m not my father,” Harry said evenly.

“No,” Karkaroff agreed. “You’re not.”

He turned behind him, reached up, and drew down a narrow stack of worn tomes wrapped in dragonhide. He placed them gently before Harry, the gold clasps glinting in the lanternlight.

“These are not for the average student,” he said. “Nor even the average professor. They are books I collected in the darker corners of Eastern Europe. Some were banned. Some were stolen. A few… are entirely unique.”

Harry’s fingers hovered over the top tome. It pulsed faintly, as though aware of his touch.

“I want you to read them,” Karkaroff said. “You may borrow them for one month. But you must return them, exactly as they are.”

Harry nodded. “Understood.”

Karkaroff stood and paced slowly around the desk, his cloak trailing behind him. “You are powerful, Harry. But power alone is not what drew my attention. You are discerning. You learn, but you do not leap. You study, but you do not worship. I believe you are capable of understanding what others fear.”

He stopped and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“Be careful. But do not be afraid. That is the path of a master.”


Back in his chambers, Harry placed the tomes one by one on the enchanted copying pedestal he had built beside his bed. The copying spell wasn’t duplication. It was transcription—replicating the contents, not the magical protections or the bindings.

He began with the first book: Binding Through Blood. The cover was stitched from trollskin, the ink within smelled of iron. The text covered rituals so ancient they required chants in the lost language of the Druvani—the death-singers of the North.

The next tome was worse: Echoes in the Corpse. A necromancer’s field guide. Anatomical illustrations. Summoning diagrams. Theories on consciousness and magical residue after death.

Harry copied it all.

Not because he wanted to raise the dead—but because knowledge was power.

The final book in the stack was the thinnest, and the most ominous. It had no title. Only a symbol burned into the cover: a serpent devouring a sun.

Inside were rituals. Dark ones.

Sacrifices of magical beasts. Ritual poisoning. Spells designed to strengthen the soul by confronting the mind with horror.

He read it. Slowly. Word by word. Each line like swallowing ice.


The next day, Harry met Karkaroff in the hallway near the glass greenhouse.

“I’m reading them,” Harry said. “They’re… difficult.”

Karkaroff turned to him. “Difficult is the mark of truth. And you will find, Mr. Weasley, that the most forbidden truths are often the ones that built empires.”

Harry nodded. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me yet,” Karkaroff said, his tone unreadable. “Knowledge is a blade. The sharper it is, the more it cuts you first.”

He walked away, his cloak catching the wind like wings.

That night, Harry returned to his chamber, lit the candle with a flick of his wand, and opened the untitled tome again.

He was no longer afraid of what he read.

He was ready.