Chapter Text
“Hello, granddaughter. It’s been a long time.” Anton Vogel, former Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, smiles, the very picture of a kindly old civil servant.
The blonde woman in question barely restrains from an irritated scowl as she takes in his pose. “I need your help.”
“And what could my dear, beloved granddaughter possibly need from an old man such as myself?”
“Cut the games, grandfather. We both know I am neither dear nor beloved, as you and my mother have made clear in the past. I’m only here because I need you to help my daughter.” Therese Vogel chokes out the words, knowing how much it hurts her pride to ask anything of the man. But there is little she will not do to save her daughter, her precious Katarina, and she had exhausted all her other leads long ago.
He nods, acknowledging her words for the carefully sharpened knives they were. For the first moment in a long time, Anton Vogel’s warm, good-natured smile slides smoothly from his face like a favorite mask, no longer needed. It is replaced by cold calculation and intricate knowledge of his opponent’s weaknesses. “Why approach me? Surely you could have gone to your - ah, former - wife?”
Touché. “One would think that the bonds of family would mean more than a dissolved bond of matrimony,” Therese replies.
The German politician narrows his eyes. “But we both know,” he echoes her earlier words, “that those ‘bonds of family’ mean little to you. You showed that when you practically disowned yourself twenty-five years ago. You spouted your pretty little ideals, your moralist rhetoric, your delightful reasoning for… what did you call it? Your ‘clean break’… only to take up with a rising Dark Lady with an ideology that practically succeeded Grindelwaldism.”
“Jasmine was not a supporter of that… that man, unlike you! Even she never went so far as to become a terrorist!” Strands of pale, white-blonde hair escape Therese’s previously-impeccable updo as they fly about her head, charged with the power of her indignant fury.
Anton scoffs. “Your precious Jasmine is a Dark Lady well known for her control of the British muggle government, with an influence that spans continents! And what would you call her usurpation of the British magical government, the democratic process? Hah! At least Gellert Grindelwald was open with his aims, rather than hiding behind a façade of legitimacy.”
His granddaughter’s wrists tremble, and Therese dis her nails into her palms to force them to still. She takes in a deep breath, and sighs.
“Yes, I was a hypocrite,” the blonde witch admits. “Yes, I scorned the family because of your ideals just to fall in love with a woman who turned out to be just like your Dark Lord. Is that what you want to hear? I’ll say it - I’m sorry. I was young and foolish, I made mistakes. Turning away from the family was one of them. But I don’t care about any of that, because my daughter is dying and I will do anything to make sure she survives.”
Anton smiles, slow and snake-like. She knows he knows he has her, but Therese is too desperate to care. “And if I can… what will you give me in return?"
Three weeks later, a girl wakes up in the New York City Spell Damage Recovery Ward. The Healers call it a miracle, this spontaneous recovery from exposure to unknown spellfire that had been thought to be deadly. But no one sees the old man leaving the hospital room, nor the elegant woman with long, blonde hair, a German accent, and a politician’s smile.
And certainly, no one knows of the deal struck by a mother with a man who might as well be the devil himself. But what the wizarding world does see are the headlines the next morning: GELLERT GRINDELWALD ESCAPES NURMENGARD PRISON!