Chapter 192: Prisoner Life in Nurmengard

In the past few decades, this castle had been inhabited by Grindelwald alone — but today, it welcomed another person. This newcomer might bring a trace of life back into this place.

After teaching Eda how to enter and leave the castle, Grindelwald turned and went upstairs. The first Dark Lord had nothing more he wished to say to Eda.

Taking her in and allowing her to stay here was already a favor for Dumbledore's sake — this was Nurmengard, not some therapy institution, and Grindelwald had no intention of counseling a troubled girl.

After the master of the castle left, Eda explored the ground floor. Besides the extremely spacious main hall, the rest of the ground floor consisted mostly of reception rooms and similar spaces — none suitable for living in.

Following the staircase upward, Eda finally found a bedroom that satisfied her.

Though it was called a bedroom, Eda thought "loft" would be a better description. Pushing open the door, there was first a small sitting room, and climbing a short set of stairs led to the sleeping area.

What pleased Eda the most was the suite's huge floor-to-ceiling windows — leaning on the railing and gazing through them at the distant snow-capped mountains filled her chest with a sense of grandeur and freedom.

Since she had decided to choose this loft, the first thing to do was clean it up. The floor was covered in dust, motes of it floated in the air — it was nowhere near livable.

The hard bed had lost its mattress, the bookshelves that had once been full now stood empty, the carpet's original color was indiscernible, and there were portraits left with only their frames — all of it would need Eda's careful tidying.

Luckily, Eda had once helped the house-elf Winnie clean the Shrieking Shack, so she was quite handy at putting this loft in order too.

During the cleaning, Eda felt that this room must have once been lived in by a woman — or at least arranged by a woman's hand. There was nothing pink or overly feminine about it, but it had been made especially warm and cozy.

It took Eda the entire afternoon to get the room cleaned up properly, and only then did she finally have time to see what Professor McGonagall had packed for her.

Eda rummaged through her handbag, which had been enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm, and pulled out three sets of clothes, a set of pajamas, two pairs of shoes, a few books she'd been reading lately, and some snacks to stave off hunger, along with tea bags, cocoa powder, and cream.

It wasn't until she pulled out a full set of bedding that the handbag was finally empty. Eda had said she was being "exiled," but with everything Professor McGonagall had prepared, it looked more like she'd packed Eda for a vacation.

No wonder it had taken her so long to return to the Headmaster's office.

If this weren't the deep mountains of Austria but instead a tropical island, Eda thought, then all she'd need to pull out next would be a bikini and it would feel exactly like a holiday.

As night slowly fell, Eda, stomach growling with hunger, squinted her eyes as she appeared in the castle's basement storeroom.

There, she found only bread and some vegetables for soup. Seeing that there wasn't even a steak in sight, Eda, a dedicated carnivore, was very dissatisfied — she immediately took back her earlier thought about Grindelwald being a "banished monarch." What kind of exiled king lived on vegetable soup every day? Even a rabbit couldn't stand that!

Eda first filled her own stomach, then prepared a simple dinner and carried it up to the top floor of the castle. She knocked on the door, set the tray down, and left without another word.

Whether Grindelwald ate it or not was his business — it had nothing to do with her.

Back in her own room, Eda used a Fire-Making Charm to light a fire in the fireplace. The warm magical flames chased away the chill in the room.

She then found a large copper kettle, boiled a big pot of water, and made herself a cup of hot cocoa. Eda sat by the railing, quietly flipping through the Guide to Medieval Witchcraft in her hands.

But she couldn't focus on the words in front of her at all — what she really kept thinking about was another book, one she'd once seen at the Burrow, titled The Magic of Toasting Bread.

How she regretted not flipping through that book back then — if she'd read it, maybe her days here in Nurmengard would be a lot easier now.

Putting away the Guide to Medieval Witchcraft and cupping the hot cocoa in her hands, Eda leaned lazily against the railing and admired the bright moonlight.

Her life of exile in Nurmengard began on this silver-white night, but when it would end, she did not know.

Eda could have chosen to escape from Nurmengard and just leave. She knew how to get in and out of the castle, and Grindelwald wouldn't stop her from going. But if she fled like this, she would probably never be able to return to Hogwarts.

And so, Eda settled down in Nurmengard. She and Grindelwald kept out of each other's way and minded their own business. Aside from coming downstairs for meals, Grindelwald spent all his time on the top floor of the castle and went nowhere else.

Compared to the shut-in Grindelwald, Eda lived quite freely. During the day she would either read or rest in the castle, or wander around outside — she had even found a quaint little village nearby with honest, simple folk.

At night, Eda stayed inside the castle, doing some light cleaning — not because she was so industrious, but because the place was simply too dirty to bear.

This peaceful routine lasted until the fifth day, when it was broken — not because Eda violated any of the previous agreements, but because Grindelwald broke them himself.

That morning, Grindelwald came downstairs for breakfast as usual. Ever since Eda had arrived, he no longer had to prepare breakfast and dinner himself, since Eda — who needed more energy — always got hungry first.

Eda tore off a piece of bread and greeted him without looking up. "Good morning."

"Good morning." For the first time in days, Grindelwald actually responded to Eda's greeting.

After sitting down, he suddenly noticed that besides the bread and vegetable soup on the tray, there was actually a piece of smoked meat.

"Where did this smoked meat come from?" Grindelwald asked. The people responsible for delivering supplies hadn't brought any meat in years, not that Grindelwald cared much about that.

"Of course I traded for it with the villagers down the mountain," Eda explained. "There are some old handicrafts in the castle — the villagers really like them."

After choking down dry bread for several days, Eda simply couldn't stand it anymore. Wanting meat, she had sought out the honest villagers below the mountain.

Although she didn't have any Muggle money, there were some finely crafted old ornaments in the castle, so Eda used the most primitive barter method to trade them for some meat products from the villagers.

The simple, kind villagers hadn't treated Eda like a naïve child bringing gold nuggets to town, nor did she need to pretend to be some kind of fraudster to fool them — although at first, she had indeed planned to get something for nothing.

In the beginning, Grindelwald had believed that Eda wouldn't be able to endure the monotony of Nurmengard, that within a few days she'd be crying to go back to Hogwarts. But Eda had stayed without a single complaint for five days, and had even managed to improve the castle's meals in her own way (though technically at Grindelwald's expense).

The castle was gradually becoming clean and orderly. Though Eda was simply living quietly, she had undeniably brought the vitality of youth to Nurmengard.

"What do you think is the reason you came here?" Grindelwald suddenly asked.

Swallowing the last bite of bread, Eda replied, "I don't think I did anything wrong. I just returned what others did to me. If I must say I was wrong, maybe it's because I shouldn't have such talent? Or maybe because I'm not satisfied with my place?"

"Magic only ever blooms in a rare few souls — that has never been a mistake, but your birthright," Grindelwald said. "Your mistake is that you're still too weak — and that you lack an unwavering will."

"Even now, do you still think you were not wrong?" This time, Eda asked.

"I admit my failure, and I admit that I brought pain to countless people, but I have never believed that my ideals were wrong — only that the way I tried to realize them was," Grindelwald said. "I foresaw that Muggles would one day possess power greater than that of wizards, and that foresight has already become reality. You come from the Muggle world — you should see that more clearly than anyone."

Planes, cannons, missiles, nuclear bombs — Muggles were no longer something wizards could just toy with at will. Muggle society advanced day by day, while the wizarding world clung stubbornly to the past, even regressing in some ways.

If the wizarding world were ever fully exposed and wizards and Muggles went to war, Eda had little faith in the decaying magical community.

The Grindelwald before her had once nearly destroyed all of Paris with a single spell, but among the already tiny wizarding population, how many could truly do such a thing?

Unless wizards used the Imperius Curse to control the highest levels of Muggle society — and still managed to hide it from everyone else — victory would eventually tip to the Muggles.

But all of this was just empty talk. To go to war with the Muggle world, you would first need to unify the entire wizarding world's strength — an almost impossible feat. If you didn't believe it, you could just ask Grindelwald: did he manage it?

"Because your convictions are not firm, you hesitate when you act. If I were you, I would have unified that group of ignorant students — and if they were still beyond saving, I would have given them an unforgettable lesson," Grindelwald continued. "Instead of ending up like you — all bluster and no follow-through."

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