The night wind blew across the vast Quidditch field, fluttering the banners of the four houses in the empty stands.
Albus Dumbledore stepped onto the stadium's grass with steady strides, his wand held high. And there he found him.
Gellert Grindelwald was standing exactly in the center of the field. With his hands elegantly clasped behind his back, he gazed at the imposing Hogwarts castle silhouetted against the full moon, waiting with the patience of a predator.
Sensing the disturbance in the air, Gellert slowly turned his head. Upon noticing his old friend, a charming, almost nostalgic smile spread across his face.
"Why so tense, Albus?" Gellert asked, his voice echoing throughout the stadium with a casual and painfully amused tone. "Being so serious and frowning like that is extremely bad for your face. It accentuates the wrinkles—you should know that by now."
Albus Dumbledore did not smile. He remained unmoved by his former companion's charisma. Instead, he unleashed his magic in full force.
An aura of pure, dense, and overwhelming power erupted from the headmaster's body, causing the ground to tremble and sending wisps of grass flying around him. His blue eyes glowed with restrained fury.
"Why?" Albus demanded, his voice vibrating with the force of a storm. "Of all the atrocities you've committed, why cross this line? Why attack a school full of children, Gellert?"
Grindelwald wiped the smile from his face and tilted his head, looking at him with confusion.
"It's not personal, Albus. Absolutely none of this was ever personal," Gellert replied, taking a step forward. "I'm only trying to save you all. I'm trying to free you from the chains you've imposed on yourselves; I'm trying to give you the world that is rightfully yours by birth… but it's tragic. All of you insist on seeing me simply as the villain of the story."
Dumbledore could no longer stand the rhetorical excuses. With speed that defied the eye, he closed the distance until he was face to face with the Dark Lord.
"You don't save anyone by murdering innocents under the cover of darkness. There is no freedom in the terror you sow—only tyranny. Your ideas are an excuse for your own thirst for power, and nothing more," Albus retorted with absolute harshness, spitting out every word with contempt for the ideology that, long, long ago, had nearly seduced him.
Grindelwald looked him in the eyes in silence for a long second. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh of disappointment. It was useless to speak to a blind man.
Without another word, Gellert raised his wand and attacked with a blue fire so hot it evaporated the moisture from the air.
Dumbledore blocked the blow with a shield of white light that made the stadium's foundations rumble, and returned the strike with a devastating bolt that split the ground between them.
"This time, Gellert," Albus declared, his voice rising above the roar of magic, "this time, it will all end once and for all!"
As the colossal clash between the two Archmages lit up the sky outside, Aurelian raced at full speed through the castle's corridors, trying to reach the grounds.
As he passed through the doors and entered the Great Hall, he came to a sudden halt. Amid overturned tables and broken plates, he saw Professor Pomona Sprout in serious trouble. The plump Head of Hufflepuff was cornered near the teachers' table, barely defending herself against the coordinated assault of two witches who were forcing her to retreat with a barrage of explosive curses.
Aurelian, walking calmly toward the attackers' backs, made a quick, sharp motion with his right hand.
Two bolts of purple energy shot from his fingers. They struck the witches directly in the back before they could even turn around. The effect was instantaneous; Aurelian's magic incinerated them from within. The two intruders were charred in a fraction of a second, dropping their wands—now reduced to ashes—and falling to the ground like two sacks of freshly mined coal.
Pomona Sprout lowered her trembling wand, staring with horror and relief at the charred remains before her.
Aurelian approached her with his hands in his pockets, stepping on the ashes without a care.
"Are you all right, Professor?" the young Slytherin asked in a polite, casual tone, as if he were asking about the weather.
Professor Sprout pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady her rapid breathing.
"I… yes, Aurelian. I'm so grateful for your help," said Pomona, still shaken, but her teacher's instinct quickly kicked in when she saw a student out of place. "But by Merlin, Gaunt! You shouldn't be outside your common room in the middle of all this chaos!"
Aurelian scratched the back of his neck, feigning an innocent and contrite expression.
"I went to the kitchens to get something to eat at midnight when everything suddenly started to spiral out of control, Professor. I got caught in the crossfire."
Professor Sprout let out a sigh, running a hand through her tousled hair.
"Be very careful, boy. Stay close to me, and for heaven's sake, don't stray from my side under any circumstances."
Aurelian nodded obediently, hiding an amused smile as he began to follow the Hufflepuff Head of House through the halls of Hogwarts to clear the areas near the Great Hall.
As they moved forward and encountered scattered groups of Grindelwald's followers, the dynamic between them became clear. While Professor Sprout cast only disarming spells and summoned thick magical vines to bind and immobilize the wizards without causing them lethal harm, Aurelian acted as an executioner.
At every ambush, Aurelian responded by precisely shredding the bodies of his attackers, sending out slicing curses that severed the hands holding wands, or smashing the intruders against the walls with excessive violence.
"Gaunt, please!" Professor Sprout scolded him sternly after seeing Aurelian hurl a wizard through the air, breaking three of his ribs upon impact. "Enough of this brutality! You don't have to hurt them that much!"
Aurelian simply shrugged in response, brushing a bit of dust off his robes and hopping over to the side of a pool of blood.
"They came into the school to kill us, Professor. I'm just returning the favor in kind."
Pomona snorted, shaking her head as they moved forward. Deep down in her kind heart, she could perfectly understand the boy's cold pragmatism—they were in the middle of a battle, and those wizards had come to harm her students. She understood the Slytherin's logic of survival… but still, as she looked into the young Lord's cold, dark eyes, she couldn't help but think sadly that this was definitely not the way to go about things.
Aurelian and Professor Pomona Sprout arrived just as Minerva McGonagall was finishing securing the entrance with multiple sealing spells.
Turning to see the young man walking calmly alongside the Head of Hufflepuff, the vice principal's expression hardened to an unexpected degree.
"Mr. Gaunt!" McGonagall exploded, approaching him furiously. "In Merlin's name, may I ask what on earth you're doing outside the Slytherin common room in the middle of an invasion?! You were given a direct and strict order not to leave!"
Aurelian, knowing that arguing with the furious Gryffindor lioness was a lost cause, simply bowed his head slightly and remained silent, listening to the deputy headmistress's reprimand without changing his expression.
Salvation came a few moments later. From the stairs on the lower level, Newt Scamander appeared, somewhat battered, looking for the other teachers to report on the situation in the dungeons.
"Minerva, Pomona!" Newt called out, immediately catching both witches' attention. "We have injured students on the lower level and a couple of petrified prefects. We need to secure the entrance to..."
Taking advantage of the fact that the three adults' attention was focused elsewhere, Aurelian—like a shadow—took a step back, blending into the darkness of the adjacent hallway, and slipped away without making the slightest sound toward the grounds and the Quidditch stadium.
The night air hit him as he left the castle. He ran, shielded by the darkness, guided by the flashes of light illuminating the sky above the field.
Just as he was about to duck under the wooden pillars to enter the stadium stands, something slammed violently into him from the side, knocking him backward onto the grass.
Out of pure instinct, Aurelian was about to unleash a burst of magic, but he stopped short when he felt two pairs of arms wrap around him and press him forcefully against the ground.
"Aurelian!" two voices gasped in unison.
Upon recognizing them, Aurelian's heart skipped a beat. He sat up halfway on the grass, clinging to them.
"Hestia! Flora!" Aurelian exclaimed, his voice tinged with deep concern. "What the hell are you two doing out here?! The castle is full of assassins!"
"We were looking for you for the very same damn reason, you fool!" Flora replied, clutching his tunic. "You disappeared from the common room!"
Aurelian closed his eyes for a second. He cupped both their faces in his hands and placed a protective kiss on each of their foreheads.
"You have to go back. Go find the professors and stay with them right away. That's an order," he instructed them quickly, trying to stand up.
"No way!" Hestia retorted, clinging stubbornly to his arm. "We're coming with you!"
"I told you to leave!" Aurelian shouted, losing his temper.
The shout was so harsh that Hestia and Flora jumped, letting go of him for a moment, their eyes wide with shock.
Seeing their reactions, Aurelian's anger vanished as quickly as it had come. His expression softened completely. He knelt down in front of them, cradled their faces, and leaned in to kiss them tenderly on the lips, savoring the fear and love they shared.
"Please," Aurelian whispered against their lips, his tone pleading, betraying his concern for them. "Please, my loves, don't get involved in this. You'll be safe inside."
Hestia and Flora looked him in the eyes, feeling the weight of his words. The Carrow sisters snorted.
"You're a complete imbecile and a total idiot, Aurelian Gaunt," Flora scolded him, stroking his cheek.
"But we love you anyway," Hestia added.
They both stood up, knowing they couldn't stop him once he'd set his mind on something, but before running back to the safety of the castle walls, Hestia turned and pointed an accusing finger at him.
"Don't you dare die today, do you hear me?!" Hestia shouted fiercely.
Flora stopped beside her, backing up her sister's words with a smile.
"And if you do… I swear we'll find a way to bring you back so we can kill you ourselves!"
Aurelian gave them a smile—the last one they would see before he disappeared into the darkness.
Free from worry about his fiancées, Aurelian turned and slipped quickly across the stadium floor, crawling between the pillars of the lower stands to hide his magical signature. From the shadows, he peered out onto the field and watched the exchange clearly.
He was fascinated. It was a spectacle fit for the gods.
The clash of power between the two Archmages surpassed anything he had ever read about in books. The air was ablaze. Grindelwald cast an immense and terrifying Protego Diabolica—a ring of fire that consumed everything around it and sought to char his enemy. Dumbledore, with overwhelming mastery, transfigured the stadium's earth into columns of glass to reflect the flames.
They were very, very evenly matched in skill and raw power… but Aurelian saw the imbalance. Dumbledore had an advantage—subtle but undeniable—thanks to the wand he wielded. The headmaster's magic was faster, denser, and regenerated with ease.
And Grindelwald, of course, knew it. Aurelian sensed the Dark Lord adjusting his tactics, aiming directly at Dumbledore's right hand in a desperate attempt to disarm him.
Aurelian clenched his teeth and raised his right hand in the shadows of the stands. He began to cast a spell in silence. His magic began to swirl in the palm of his hand. A flash of purple electric light illuminated his face. It was his fastest and deadliest creation, a close-combat spell of his own devising that he had named "Zero."
The purple electricity crackled and sizzled in his hand. To push the spell to its most destructive and fastest limit, Aurelian began to whisper hissing sounds in Parseltongue, infusing the attack with even more power.
His eyes were fixed on Dumbledore's hand and the Elder Wand. His heart pounded against his chest as he waited for the perfect moment when the clash of titans would leave an opening.
If anyone was going to get that wand that night, it would be him. He would never again have such a perfect opportunity to obtain the Elder Wand.
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