In the northern part of Scotland, the small seaside town of Durness lay quiet under the night sky.
The sound of waves striking the shore was sharp and clear, the sea wind carrying their rhythm inland.
Tonight, there was no fog, only countless faintly glowing stars scattered across the dark heavens.
A knock came at the door.
Ron opened it.
"Good evening, Ron," said Anne, stepping inside. She closed the door behind her, removed her earpiece and ring, and shook the rain from her cloak.
"Evening, Anne," Ron replied, raising his wand to dispel the defensive charm guarding the sitting room.
They crossed the room together. Among the scattered furniture, a tent stood pitched in the center.
"How are your injuries?" Anne asked as she lifted the flap. "Are they all healed?"
"Mostly," Ron answered. "Except for the spots hit by curses, those are still tender."
"Curse wounds do take longer," Anne nodded. "Three to five days, usually."
Hermione was sitting in an armchair by the window, wrapped in a long-sleeved cardigan.
Spread before her were piles of notes gathered from Godric's Hollow. Harry was on the opposite sofa, reading through more papers.
"Anne!" Hermione called, smiling.
Anne crossed the room, bent down, and hugged her. Their lips brushed briefly, a small, familiar gesture that neither Harry nor Ron reacted to anymore. Ron calmly sat back down beside Harry, pretending not to notice a thing.
Anne pulled a small box and a book from her pack and handed them to Harry.
"A temporary wand," she said. "Unicorn hair core, ten inches, blackwood. And Rita Skeeter's book. Ollivander says your wand will take ten days, he'll do his best."
"Thanks," Harry said, accepting both items.
"My girlfriend," Anne grinned, "where's my dinner? I'm starving."
"In the kitchen," Hermione laughed. "Just finished. Perfect timing."
Anne arched her brow, strode into the kitchen, and found a large bowl set neatly beside the pot, noodles, topped with a fried egg, a few leaves of green lettuce, thin slices of carrot, and several pieces of fish.
What caught her eye most was the pair of chopsticks resting across the bowl's rim.
Carrying it out, she took a bite of the egg, soft and golden inside. Her eyes lit up. Three bites later, the egg was gone, and she sank into the armchair beside Hermione with the bowl in her lap.
Ron was reading through Hermione's museum notes, while Harry flipped through The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.
"Is it good?" Hermione asked.
Anne nodded vigorously, slurping another mouthful of noodles.
"Slow down," Hermione said, laughing. "No one's going to steal it from you."
Swallowing, Anne asked curiously, "How did you know? About the soft yolk, and the sauce in the broth?"
"You wrote an entire page of notes on this dish in your recipe journal!" Hermione teased. "I was dying to find out what it actually tasted like."
Anne was too busy eating to reply.
"Slow down—" Hermione handed her a napkin.
"Found it!" Harry suddenly exclaimed, flipping open a page and laying the book flat on the table.
Hermione and Ron leaned in at once. Anne, mid–noodle slurp, craned her neck to look too.
In the moving photograph, a young Dumbledore was laughing with a handsome companion, as though at some long-forgotten joke.
Their eyes moved to the caption beneath it.
Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother's death, pictured with his friend Gellert Grindelwald.
"Grindelwald?" Harry read the name slowly, disbelief in his voice.
Hermione and Ron both stared in astonishment. Even Anne looked shocked.
Harry began flipping frantically through the surrounding pages, hunting for more.
He found another section, a chapter titled "For the Greater Good."
His voice dropped as he read aloud:
Approaching his eighteenth birthday, Albus Dumbledore left Hogwarts wreathed in glory, Head Boy, Prefect, recipient of the Barnabas Finkley Prize for Exceptional Spell-Casting, the Wizengamot's Youth Representative, and winner of the Cairo International Symposium on Alchemy's Gold Medal for Groundbreaking Achievement.
He and his loyal, if somewhat slow-witted, school friend Elphias "Dogbreath" Doge planned to tour the continent. They were lodging at the Leaky Cauldron, ready to depart for Greece the next day, when a letter arrived, bearing news of his mother's death.
Harry kept reading, the words spilling out faster as disbelief turned to shock.
Hermione and Ron listened in silence, expressions darkening with every line.
Dumbledore, brilliant, noble, untouchable, and yet the text painted a different image.
It spoke of ambition, secrecy, and a friendship with a boy who would one day become one of history's darkest wizards.
…Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for dangerous experiments in the Dark Arts, arrived in Godric's Hollow that same summer. He stayed with his great-aunt Bathilda Bagshot, and there met Albus Dumbledore. Two brilliant minds, two restless souls. They became inseparable.
Anne set her chopsticks down, her appetite gone. The room felt smaller, heavier.
Harry turned another page.
…Dumbledore wrote late into the night, sending letters to Grindelwald by owl. They dreamed of overturning the Statute of Secrecy, of wizards ruling Muggles "for the greater good."
Hermione's hand clenched around the edge of the table.
"When we meet opposition," Harry read softly, "we must use only the necessary force, no more. We seek power for the greater good."
The room was silent except for the sound of the sea outside.
No one spoke. Even Ron, usually quick to blurt something, sat frozen.
Finally, Anne exhaled. "So that's the truth he never wanted anyone to read," she said quietly.
Hermione closed the book. "Maybe," she whispered, "but the truth isn't always the whole story."
The wind outside picked up, rattling the windows.
In the faint light, the four of them sat together, silent, thoughtful, as if the shadow of the past had crossed their path and refused to leave.
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