“Gellert?” Albus Dumbledore stood at the lake’s shore, watching his friend pull something out of his pocket. His friend jolted at the sound of his name.

“By Merlin, Albus! I thought you were one of them!” he said in an awkward tone.

“Gellert, put the potion down,” Dumbledore pleaded.

“Oh here we go again! I swear sometimes, Albus, you are like a broken record with these preaching of compassion and solidarity!”

“Gellert, please. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

Gellert looked confused at first. But then his expression gave way to frustration. “It doesn’t have to be like this? What other way can there be, Albus? You use to see things my way. You use to view them like I do. You know Muggles are inferior to the might of wizards. Yet they go around acting all superior! They don’t know that we exist. And they don’t know because the bloody Ministry refuses to lift the secrecy between our worlds!”

“Gellert,” he said in a hushed tone, “please. Not like this.” There was a slight distance between them. Dumbledore opened his arms as if trying to close the gap. “This is not the way, Gellert.”

“There is no other way, Albus!” His tone almost reached a new level of hysterics. “They are responsible for this war that has ravaged our lands. They are responsible for so much death and destruction that is creeping into our world. THEY are with their diseases, and THEIR hate, and THEIR filth! THEY – NOT US! Not Wizards, Albus! We are better then that! We are better then they are! And it is for their good- FOR THE GREATER GOOD- that I do this, Albus. For both our worlds! For us! You remember us, Albus?”

His resolve somewhat weakened for the man. “Don’t do that, Gellert.”

“Do what? You told me how you felt. Do you deny your feelings for me?”

“Do you deny that you don’t feel the same?” Grindelwald shrugged his feelings with indifference. “Do you think my feelings for you would stop me from taking you down?”

“I don’t know. It seems like your feelings have been clouding your judgment these days. It certainly has turned you against me.”

He turned quickly with is hand raised high to throw the bottle into the lake. But before he could let go, bolts of light hit his body.

Yet Grindelwald didn’t go down… not quickly.

“Gellert, please. It doesn’t have to be like this!”

“Oh no, my friend. You’ll have to do much better then that!”

Volleys of different colors lit up the sky. It would be later reported that the war had settled at their lakes shore. But no bodies or troops would be found.

In the end, Dumbledore held the body of his unconscious friend. Two Aurors swooped in to take Grindelwald away, leaving him alone to tremble and mourn for his lost.

“Not like this. It didn’t have to end like this.”