‘And that was how it ended.
I eventually persuaded the others not to send Grindelwald to Azkaban.
Instead, he was imprisoned in Nurmengard—the prison he had built himself.’
Having finished his account of their history, Dumbledore took a sip of tea.
Something about the little room felt familiar.
Many years ago, he had visited another orphanage.
There had been a room much like this one.
Its occupant had grown up to leave a terrible trail of bloodshed.
Dumbledore glanced at Black and silently resolved that this boy would not follow the same path.
‘I see.’
Black already knew the history, but he listened as though it were new to him.
He had asked Dumbledore to explain, after all.
Now, perhaps, they could reach the part he didn’t know.
‘Then how am I related to Grindelwald?
And why was I left at the orphanage?’
Dumbledore sighed.
For a moment, he seemed unable to find a way to begin.
‘You heard what I said about Grindelwald’s efforts to find Credence Barebone.’
Black nodded.
Credence had been a member of the Dumbledore family, though a series of cruel misfortunes had left him with a miserable life.
He had become an Obscurial, then a weapon in Grindelwald’s hands.
At least he had eventually turned against him, abrupt though that change had seemed to Black.
‘Your story begins when Credence—my nephew, Aurelius Dumbledore—left Grindelwald.’
‘He had something to do with it?’
‘His departure did,’ Dumbledore said.
‘Grindelwald needed another weapon.
And he decided to create one: sharper, stronger and better suited to his purposes.’
His fingers rested against his teacup.
‘It had to be the most powerful weapon he could make.
‘So he established a research institute.
He brought together master alchemists from the magical world and leading biologists from the Muggle world.’
Black began to feel distinctly uneasy.
‘He intended to draw upon the most powerful wizards alive at the time.
Forgive the lack of modesty, but those two wizards were Grindelwald and myself.’
Dumbledore paused.
‘He had taken a drop of my blood many years earlier.
Using that, together with his own blood, he had them combine their most advanced alchemy and biological research to create a new life.
‘A life that would possess all the magical gifts of both.’
When Dumbledore had first read the experimental log, he had needed a long time to compose himself.
For the boy at the centre of it, the revelation could only be harder.
The experiment had been madness.
Grindelwald had attempted to create life.
Black understood now.
Unfortunately, understanding did nothing to make it less bewildering.
‘That was me?’
Dumbledore nodded.
For a moment, Black could do nothing but stare.
‘So… I’m not actually human?’
He looked down.
‘I’m something they made.
A monster?’
His voice tightened.
‘A killing machine to help him achieve his grand vision?’
‘No.’ Dumbledore shook his head.
‘You are human, Black.
You are not a monster.’
‘But I don’t even have a mother, do I?’
Dumbledore had no immediate answer.
Black had developed inside an incubation vessel.
There was no mother to tell him about.
‘You are still human,’ he said at last.
‘The Muggles have a term for something of this sort.
Cloning, I believe.’
Black knew he was trying to comfort him.
He also knew this was hardly ordinary cloning.
‘What happened next?’
He looked up again.
‘If the experiment worked decades ago, why wasn’t I born until eleven years ago?’
That was the important question.
Judging by his present condition, the experiment had succeeded.
He seemed to have inherited the gifts of both wizards perfectly well.
Even without the system, he was confident he could eventually surpass them.
So why hadn’t he been born all those years earlier?
‘It didn’t work, Black.’
Dumbledore’s voice was quiet.
Black stared.
A failure?
Then where had he come from?
‘The unborn child they created was physically perfect,’ Dumbledore continued.
‘But he had no soul.
Only an empty body.’
He paused.
‘And an empty body could not become the weapon Grindelwald wanted.
‘By then, our counteroffensive was well under way.
The researchers evacuated the institute.
They considered you a failed experiment, so they left you behind.
‘You remained sealed in the vessel.’
Now Black understood.
The experiment really had failed.
Then his soul had arrived from another world and, by sheer accident, supplied what was missing.
‘Wait.
If they thought I was a failure and left me there, why did someone come back decades later and take me out?’
He leaned forwards.
‘Why leave me at an orphanage?
Who altered the tag and scratched out the rest of Grindelwald’s name?
Who wanted me to find out where I came from only after I’d grown up?’
Dumbledore regarded him with approval.
‘You are a perceptive boy.
Those are precisely the questions we must answer.’
His expression grew grave.
‘Someone has been acting behind the scenes.
It seems they intended you to reach adulthood and become a weapon they could control.’
Black remembered the wizard who had abandoned him.
Unfortunately, he had never seen the man’s face properly.
The bulky clothes had concealed even the shape of his body.
‘But how would he have known I was alive when everyone else thought the experiment had failed?’
That troubled Black most.
Without his arrival from another world, there would have been nothing but a soulless body in that vessel.
No one could have raised it into a weapon.
Could whoever was responsible have had something to do with his arrival?
‘Perhaps he didn’t know,’ Dumbledore said.
‘Perhaps he simply decided to try, without much hope of success.’
He paused.
‘And then, against his expectations, you came to life.’