After they finished shopping in Diagon Alley, Dumbledore took Isaac home.
Side-Along Apparition again.
Dumbledore politely declined Isaac’s offer of a late-night snack, dropped him at the door, and vanished with a soft crack.
Grindelwald’s figure appeared beside Isaac almost the instant the Headmaster was gone.
Isaac had long since gotten used to the old man popping in and out like a ghost.
“I’m guessing you watched the whole show today, Gellert.” Isaac kept talking while his hands stayed busy.
He let Cuckoo out of her cage, asked the butler to prepare food and find her a favorite perch, then started sorting his brand-new first-year textbooks.
Grindelwald didn’t deny it.
Which meant he really had spent the entire day spying on them through prophecy.
Whether he’d been watching Isaac or Dumbledore the whole time was anyone’s guess.
At his age and power level, Grindelwald had long stopped bothering with lies.
When Confucius turned seventy he could follow his heart without overstepping.
Grindelwald was well past a hundred.
Why would he start acting like some nervous virgin now?
He wanted Dumbledore.
Plain and simple.
“How was the day?” Grindelwald asked.
The question had no clear subject, but Isaac understood.
“Pretty great.
Professor Dumbledore is respected and admired everywhere.
His standing in British wizarding society is nothing like yours.” Isaac kept organizing books as he answered.
Grindelwald suddenly burst out laughing—loud, theatrical, the kind of laugh that made you picture an anime villain throwing his head back.
He actually bent at the waist.
When he finally straightened he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at eyes that weren’t even wet.
“You’re not wrong.
Dumbledore is respected, yet that little British Minister still schemes against him in public and private.
They’d love nothing more than to drag him out of Hogwarts.” “Meanwhile I’m public enemy number one across Europe, yet no Minister would dare let another wizard near me.
The difference is night and day!” “And compared to that savior boy Harry Potter, Albus—the previous generation’s savior—gets treated like dirt.” Isaac heard the old bitterness in Grindelwald’s voice.
At the end of the day, the dark lord was still defending his old rival.
Grindelwald and Voldemort were nothing alike, even though both had been defeated by Dumbledore.
Grindelwald had been the “exiled” dark lord.
Because of Dumbledore he’d deliberately kept his war away from Britain.
The rest of Europe had been turned upside down while Britain stayed untouched.
Voldemort had wanted the same grand conquest, but Dumbledore and the Order had ambushed him before he could even leave the country.
He’d been boxed into Britain from the start.
And the final victory over him had been handed to a newborn baby.
So no matter how loudly Voldemort preached blood purity or how many people he terrorized, the actual destruction he caused never came close to Grindelwald’s.
Yet the man who defeated Grindelwald received far less glory than a clueless infant.
“Whatever happened back then was over a hundred years ago,” Isaac said, carrying the books into his study.
“What Voldemort did in Britain looks like a schoolyard scuffle next to your record.
Besides, a powerful wizard beating a strong enemy is expected.
A baby beating the Dark Lord?
That’s living legend status.” He set the textbooks on the corner of his desk and turned back to Grindelwald.
“If you decided to walk out of Nurmengard tomorrow, half the wizarding world would be begging Dumbledore to come out of retirement.
So… are you planning to leave?” Grindelwald’s righteous anger vanished.
For a moment he was completely still.
Then he smiled.
“Kid, you really want me to break out that badly?” Isaac shrugged.
“This kind of thing isn’t really up to me, is it?” He hadn’t said yes.
He hadn’t said no.
But sometimes not denying something said plenty.
“Don’t lean too hard on your prophecies,” Grindelwald said quietly.
“Time loves nothing more than teaching people like us—people who think they can play with it—a lesson.” He stared at Isaac for a long moment, then disappeared.
Once the old man was gone, Isaac got to work.
He was going to speedrun the entire first-year curriculum.
Ordinary first-years had two options: ask their parents (only possible if they came from magical families) or stare at the books and hope for the best.
Some talented kids—like Hermione—managed to learn a spell or two before term started.
The less talented ones just waved their wands and mumbled.
Isaac was different.
He could watch actual Hogwarts classes through prophecy.
He found the exact moments when professors taught the material, then sat in as an invisible observer.
Thanks to every mistake the real first-years made, he learned the fastest, cleanest way to do everything.
If he wanted, he could even compare how Dumbledore taught Transfiguration versus how McGonagall taught it.
In less than a month he had “watched” the entire first-year syllabus.
Part of it was because first-year content wasn’t that hard.
Eleven-year-olds learning magic for the first time needed introductions, foundations, and basic adaptation.
None of it challenged Isaac.
He was already a prophet.
What part of magic could possibly intimidate him?
Add an adult’s focus and willpower—both far beyond any normal child—and the material melted away.
Once he finished, Isaac made a decision.
He was going to pour his prophetic gift into Transfiguration.
Even without the discovery, he probably would have chosen it anyway.
Dumbledore had once been Hogwarts’ Transfiguration professor.
Following in the footsteps of a master like that was never a bad idea.
Sometimes walking the same path as the greats led straight to an open road.