Morning was the most important time of day to Gellert. It was so because how you woke up, how you spent your morning could often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. The night before, the days before, the years and decades... They didn't really matter. Morning came, it had no choice. A new morning meant new opportunities that rose with the sun, new things to search and to learn, new adventures to discover and had. A new morning had come to the Villa am Seen and the sun fought to reach the earth in a dull grey light through the clouds they had conjured with their storm. Gellert felt it touch his face and he moaned softly, fighting a bit to stay in slumber. There was wind, tricky and playful from the North. It ran about in the garden, shaking up the water from the rain of the night past, making the flowers bloom and sing in its wake. From his lounging point near the fire side of Tom's room, the older alpha could hear the music of nature, the crackling of a dying hearth, the twitter of brave birds that didn't care about anything outside their safe home.

 Gellert sighed in his slow awakening. He stretched all of his body, feeling his muscles and joints snap and tighten as he worked out the kinks of sleeping in an armchair from his person. His mind wandered back to the night before. The potion, and the boy and the magic. Oh! The magic! That sweet magic that still thrummed in the air even as Tom had lain unconscious in his arms. It clung to them like a phantom, alluring as the sweetest perfume. Such power! It held so much promise. There were still so many things they-- no, he could do. They were all so ripe for the picking. All he had to do was take them. Take Tom and harvest every last drop of him that was left. It was so tempting. So very tempting. A purr rumbled in his chest. It sounded just as wonderful in the morning as it did at night, but he knew better. He had decided to wait until the morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.

 He had taken the boy back to his room and tucked him in. The magic that clung between them made leaving such a hard task that Gellert had no patience to do it. He had stayed, finding a comfortable warm place for himself to protect his brand new toy. He knew fully well he could have taken what was, according to Tom's pledge and his own natural right, what was his. Gods knew his young wolf was more than willing to give it all up. He had thrown all caution to the wind, after all. They both had, in that sacred moment. However, experience told him that that would only get him so far. His boy was so vain. He would awake mortified and shut the warlock out, for sure. And that wouldn't do at all. There were bridges that needed more than dominance to be crossed. They needed trust and consent. And so he took a moment of pride at his own restraint and mellowed back into the covers one of the house elves had certainly thrown over him in his slumber. He, his young cub, had to be guided, not pulled, into making the decision Grindelwald wanted him to make.

 Oh, but that was so hard when Tom could be so tempting...

 Gellert touched his own lips, feeling Tom's ghost over them. He could still taste him, all fire and steam and sweet crippling lust as they devoured one another. He had helped birth a new god into the world. And looking back at the slumbering figure... Oh, he did look like a deity – the perfect balance of danger and charm. He had, of course, honed that charm in his schooling years. He had surely made a note of every quality he should possess and made them his nature. The ritual had merely… enhanced what was already there. His boy now was, at the same time, fascinating and inaccessible to mere mortals; distant because of his demonstrated flawlessness, and possessing such strength, such fire, that he was dismaying and at the same time utterly attractive in an enticing and forbidden way. Gellert felt his teeth ache, longing for a bite. Soon, he soothed himself. Soon.

 Soon Tom would be his in all ways. Gellert smiled at the thought.

 But that would never happen if he spent his day curled in that chair. However, before he could think of summoning anyone, there was a faint pop at his side and Gellert saw an old house elf with pointed ears and dark nut-brown skin. The creature's eyes were wide and hazel colored and they looked up to the warlock in wonder and awe. "Guten Morgen, Meister. Wie kann Holly dir dienen?" It asked in its reverence, doing a very long and low curtsey. Gellert groaned and stretched again, mulling the question over in his mind. What did he want this fine morning? What would be ideal first meal after the storm in Paradise?

 "Kaffee" Slipped from his mind to his lips with ease. He desperately needed caffeine "Brot - geröstete brot - und süße brötchen. Für den englischen Prinzen." Surely a growing british boy would love sweet things. "Marmelade, honig, eier - alle Variationen -, aufschnitt und käse. Der Käse den ich aus der Toskana mitbrachte." He instructed, feeling a strange need to feed his young cub. He had been providing only the best for this estate, bringing foods from all over Europe and northern Africa as the muggles destroyed the world. He killed them and took their shipments. The rabid dogs didn’t need food. Especially when humans needed it so much more. The elves were very grateful to him, they desperately needed to serve on hand and foot; to make a master strong and healthy, and so they did not let anything go to waste. Especially not now, with a new guest. "Die früchte, die ich mitbrachte. Die orangen und mangos, schneiden sie für unseren Prinzen."

 "Ja, mein Meister." The creature curtsied again. "Soll Holly den Tisch am Abend Kammer eingestellt? Oder vielleicht im Solarium?" It suggested and Gellert thought about it. Tradition along suggested that he left the sleeping boy and changed for the day. In the old days of this house, they would all dine in the morning room, the windows open and charmed to keep any leftover weather out. They would be expected to wear their best, in honor of this home and their kind hosts. But they were alone and the mere idea of leaving Tom gave him such discomfort that he shook his head before the thought was ended.

 "Nein. Wir werden hier essen. Bring einen Tisch und bring ihn in die Nähe des Fensters" It would be so much more intimate, eating here. Like savages. Like lovers. Bathed in the silver of the morning, his young wolf blushing—Or maybe nit blushing, but hungry like last night. "Hol mir meine robe und mach ein bad, Holly. Ich möchte sauber sein, bevor der Prinz erwacht" A bath to shake away the cold of sleep and rinse him clean for this new day.

 "Ja, mein Master. Und das Feuer?" She pointed to dying fire. That wouldn't do at all.

 "Entzünde es wieder. Sofort." He ordered, getting up at long last. His order was quickly obeyed and that gave him great joy. He liked getting what he wanted when he wanted it. The elf was soon gone to fulfill his other ones and Gellert felt that this day would be a good one. He began to shed his clothes, one by one as he laid out his best plans when a couple of dark irises caught his glance. Sneaky boy, he caught himself thinking with a slow smirk. How long had he been awake? How long had he been unmoving, waiting for his time? Observing?

Brandenburg had long since been abandoned by their resident wizard population. In his wanderings in the torn, bloody countryside of what used to be Germany; Grindelwald had seen what was left of thriving wizard homes. They still had most of their belongings, their protections, their memories, but their owners had decided to leave them anyway instead of fighting the hordes. They took only what they considered the most precious of objects, some paintings of dear long departed ancestors, some toys, some books all packed up into hasty suitcases as they left like rats in a sinking ship. Some didn't even take their house elves, leaving the poor wretches to their fate as the world around them descended into chaos.

 Gellert had chosen one of these great houses to settle himself in. The old Villa am Seen had been the home of the Strom family for generations. He had always remembered it fondly from his wayward youth, using his summer days to travel all over the continent with Albus by his side. In his memory, the ancient grey stones were set alight by fairy lights as music, the most beautiful music one would ever hear, played softly from all the stain glass windows that told a history that should never be forgotten. The main door was always open to those who sought out shelter. The long gardens filled with beautiful magical plants from all over the world broke the forest around the estate like an oasis of magic and peace that ran down to the pure, blue lake. Gellert remembered it, how proud Herr Strom had been of his legacy. How he adored filling his lake with all sorts beautiful aquatic life and then, in the summer afternoons, watch them jump and frolic in the clear water.

 His children had not shared in his sentiments and stupidly abandoned their father's home to the wild dogs.

 He thought of it as a favor to the man that had opened his home and hearth to a curious teen a lifetime ago. He would keep that oasis safe from the invaders in his name as their war ravaged Europe. He would use it while their own mad society persecuted him for crimes that should never have been crimes in the first place. And he'd use it to protect his young wolf cub, to teach him, to nurture in him the power to do so for all wizard kind.

 It had been easy enough to manipulate and control the few house elves that had been left behind to get them to serve him, he had been a guest of their masters before and he had gained their fickle loyalty by doubling and strengthening the wards around the estate. The elves didn't care about his crimes. They too did not see them as crimes. The muggles that had driven their masters away were the criminals in their wide eyes. They longed to serve and in Gellert they had found their needs met.

 They happily greeted him and his ward back, collecting their blood and rain soaked clothes, preparing them hot baths and meals as the house came back to life with their magical presence. Gellert gave strict instructions that the elves should pamper Tom, telling them that the boy had been attacked by the vile muggles and had no family. That endeared him to no end to the inferior things and they seemed willing to even wrap the whole world up for the young wizard if he so asked. Not that anyone but Gellert could but the thought counted.

 He watched his little prince be bathed and clothed in the finest, warmest clothes left behind. Aristocratic robes that fit his lean frame perfectly. He watched him be fed and watered and pampered until he could eat no more. And then to be taken to a nice, warm and clean room with the softest bed the boy would ever lie in, and be given a mild drought to ease his sleep. He watched over every step Tom took into his new reality, a constant presence even as he drifted away into slumber as the storm they had conjured fell hard on the Earth.

 Gellert touched the boy's forehead once more with his own before tucking him in. Tomorrow, they would begin. Tomorrow, they would trace a new destiny. But tonight, in this moment, as this beautiful, cunning human boy slept, Gellert took a second to allow himself to be weak. He breathed in and thanked the old gods, the ancestors their speech evocated, for putting this child in his path. Thanking them for the new opportunity. Thanking them for not being alone. He kissed that precious forehead and his lips could still taste the blood that had been washed away. This boy was his now. And together they would right and rule this world.

Though not this one. Even though he did not know who he was and obviously held a little too much pride in his own abilities, he didn’t obey. He kept his weapon up like a sword and stared the warlock down with a stealy gaze that made Grindewald almost preen with odd feeling of pride. This was no ordinary child. This was hunter. This was a survivor. What was a child like this doing in a gods forsaken land such as this? And all alone?

The air was stale all around, incredulously paused as the wave of commemorations died and the world stood still, waiting and waiting to find out how it would be put together again.

As he walked among that grey stained devastation, a surge of divination waved over him. Mismatched eyes looked beyond the stillness. The war was over but Europe would fight many others. He prowled old trenches, mass graves and wrecked homes he could see the armies forming already. The armies of cripples, gathering themselves liked wounded sheep; moving in his predator's shadow, huddling and limping together, marching back to places that were no longer there. The armies of mourners wailing like wounded beasts in very town and city, holding to memories tainted by blood and cruelty and despair. And the armies of thieves, who had no longer the shame to come at night as they did in the finals throws before surrender; they shamelessly came in daylight, like amoral crows, picking and pulling and ripping any piece found to have some value.

All of them poised for conflicts, biting at one another now that there was no authority left to keep them in check.

This was what happened when herd animals grew too numerous. They turned on each other. They became a blithe. He walked through sacred, magical forests and found unmarked, shallow pits where muggle bodies polluted the air and magic; tainting the very soul of the earth. He could hear it still, the loud roar of cannon fire, like screams coming defiant throats of doom; shrill battle-cries and bugle-calls, shaking the world's core and upsetting its balance. He could feel in the ground, in the rocks, in the towns; the bleeding wounds that would take forever to heal, always reliving violence that muggles had brought forth. The explosions of bursting shrapnel-shards and metal fire balls that came from their guns, staining the soil with a crimson shroud...

He was disgusted to his core. More so, while remembering those who defended these miscreants, he wondered how could they have any defense? When they treated each other in such monstrous ways? When they killed one another for so little?

They had destroyed not only their heritage but the magical one as well and yet no one spoke. They celebrated and rejoiced they life they had managed to scrounge up from the ashes of their war, happy with scraps. Just like wizards and the half magic they now limited themselves to. The embrace of mediocrity, even when you were allowing yourself to be lower than a worm, was a pathetic effort. It was too much for him, for his pride. He hated all of them and only wished that all of them had managed to kill each other so thoroughly that their stain would be wiped from the surface of the planet.

But pestilence did not disappear so easily.

A flash of light caught his eyes as he walked now in a mostly abandoned town in the south of France. A flash of magic? He tilted his head toward it. A wizard doing magic so openly, even with that stupid statue of secrecy that was enforced even in such dire, life threatening circumstances?

It was forbidden for them to kill; therefore all so called ‘muggle murderers’ are punished. But muggles could kill them. They could kill wizards in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets and nothing would happen.

He followed the light and found a boy in the middle of a burning field of wheat, a circle of dead German soldiers at his feet. He was bloodied, his face had the gleeful madness of Mars, and he gripped his wand like a sword. He looked down at his fallen foes and saw that he was just as disgusted by their existence as he himself. Or even more. Gellert admired him, this boy, that couldn't be older than twenty, that encompassed his vision of the wizarding survival in this world.

The boy turned to him and Gellert saw crimson eyes. Beautiful eyes, set to kill once more as he pointed his wand towards the warlock. He lifted his hands in a show of peace to the boy but his smile was thoroughly pleased. A survivor, he thought. He liked that. "Vous êtes entre amis, jeune sorcier" He called out in perfect French but the boy just stared, not quite understanding what he had said. So he was a foreigner. "You can put that wand down, young man. I'm not your enemy." He tried then, in English.