Don't get close to William, or you'll end up acting strange.
It was like a sudden epiphany, for some reason, Grindelwald suddenly realized this—though it might have been a bit late, he finally realized—from the former Dumbledore, to now Newt Scamander, and those little wizards who, whenever they had disagreements, would immediately draw their wands in the Duel Club...
Even himself.
Wait a minute...
The night he was released from Nimangard by Dumbledore, what was his plan again?
...How did he suddenly become the "Creative Director" of Starry Sky Corporation?
Wasn't he previously aiming to rule the wizards and the Muggles?
"...What's the matter, Professor Percival?"
Seeing the old man suddenly freeze in place, Newt couldn't help but frown, "We should take this guy to St. Mungo's—unless you have a healer's certificate?"
"...It's nothing."
After a moment of silence, Grindelwald eventually pushed back the emerging thoughts in his mind, coughed, and was just about to speak.
"Are you guys... cheating on me?"
"Why do you always have to say something so misleading whenever you show up?"
"Well, don't do things that are misleading then—what's wrong with him?"
As the words fell, William walked in from outside the door, looking at the poacher leader who was clearly alive the last time he left, but now was more dead than alive. William took out a bottle of green magic potion from his pocket and poured it directly down the other's throat—
After waiting for a moment, until he saw the man regain his even breathing, William nodded and put away the potion, "The cost of this potion will be on you two—"
"Wait, I have nothing to do with—" Newt tried to argue.
"Deduct it from my salary." Grindelwald chose to face reality.
"You..." William's tone was somewhat odd.
"What is it?"
"What does your salary have to do with me? I can't oversee Hogwarts' finances..."
"..."
Grindelwald squinted his eyes, feeling like there should be a streetlight in front of him—then hang someone up there.
"Ahem, that wasn't salary, it's dividends—don't worry about these details."
William finally realized something, coughed twice, and mentally cursed his bad luck—taking advantage for a moment felt good, but constantly taking advantage felt even better. Unfortunately, the path of taking advantage ends today.
"So, what's the situation with this person?"
Grindelwald shook his head, seemingly really not planning to dwell on these details any further, and changed the topic. He walked to the side and stared at William for two seconds—then, with the wave of William's wand, a chair grew out from the floor.
"Poachers—remember those Quintapeds? I think even though you've lived... er, for so long, you shouldn't forget those memorable scenes."
William casually conjured a chair each for himself and Newt, one cannot deny that the Transfiguration technique is truly one of the most practical aspects of the entire magic system.
"Ah, I remember those creatures—the feel was pretty good."
"Quintapeds... feel good?"
Newt squinted his eyes, recalling the two furry, deformed red-haired creatures he once raised, with their face and rump combined, thinking he was probably not talking about the same thing. Let's not even talk about the feel of it, what kind of person would even touch something like that?
He felt like his acceptance of magical creatures' species was already quite high, yet after half a month of raising them, he had to eventually "release" those two creatures.
"Ah, especially when you hit them on the head with a chair, the feel is great—"
Grindelwald added, waving his hands in the air twice, giving a very immersive feeling.
No problem then.
Realizing his misunderstanding, Old Freckles sat back on the chair, expressionless, and re-activated his shut-down mode.
"Then you probably didn't notice, those Quintapeds—their ferocity is a bit over the top."
William patted his sleeve, then his pants, and finally pulled out the napping Kabuda from his hat pocket. He then knocked the potion he found in the Niffler's pocket onto the newly risen stone table in the middle of the group, "This potion can make animals—even human wizards—lose their minds and gain physical enhancements—"
"...That magical?"
"Yes, the last thing I heard about that could turn humans into monsters was the T-virus."
William paused, then continued, "Moreover, I believe these poachers have some methods to control these runaway creatures. Otherwise, those creatures, no different from zombies, couldn't have organized themselves into attacking me—nor would they inject such a potion into those fire dragons, since a berserk reinforced fire dragon would be much harder to capture and con..."
"...Wait, what do you mean by fire dragon?"
Grindelwald quickly reached out to halt the conversation and began asking about the doubts within—William recounted everything that happened yesterday—from Newt discovering the poachers' teleportation array gathering place, Old Man Ge's eyes slowly turned from clarity to confusion.
"This happened yesterday?"
"Didn't you read today's news headlines?"
William waved his hand, a Prophet Daily folded into a paper crane flew in from outside the door, it unfurled and landed in Grindelwald's hand—the old man looked down and read the headline—"Wild Fire Dragon Population Plummets, Who Is the Real Culprit?"
"...So, you didn't plan on directly using Legilimency on him? Logically, with your capabilities, it should be quite easy to pry the answer out, right?"
Attracted by the clickbait title, Grindelwald skimmed through it, then closed the newspaper, asking somewhat puzzled—in his understanding, William wasn't someone who would consider things like human rights movements or animal protection organizations... like Newt (formerly) as a "textbook good guy".
...Even the term "good guy" would be in question.
"Logically yes, but someone placed a brain alarm line in this guy's head. If I were to use a rough approach and cause this line to snap—his head would explode like fireworks—swish—bang!"
William raised his hand, making a gesture of something blooming.
"Yes, that's basically the scene—then his brain matter would splatter all over us, and the taste would probably be like, uh, I don't know if you've ever eaten..."
"Plenty of imagery now, thanks—please stop talking, for goodness' sake. I still want to enjoy my dinner tonight—"
Grindelwald waved his hand, indicating for William to shut his damn mouth.
"Ah, I thought you would handle situations like this well..."
William sighed with some frustration—yes, this idiot author played around with the acting trope (as the actor who played the second Grindelwald also portrayed Hannibal, quite amusingly).