Chapter Text
Eudora Felicity Grindelwald sat in the uncomfortable silence that came with being on the Hogwarts Express for the first time, when all the students her age had already know each other for 5 years. Her nails bit into the pink flesh of her palms as she started out the window. Her gaze never really fixing onto the rolling fields of Scotland outside, more just the wandering eye movements of someone when their mind was completely somewhere else entirely.
Durmstrang.
The cold, unforgiving, gray, ruthless institute she had spent the first 5 years of her education at. Until that letter. A letter from a man she knew by name, by story. The man, the only man, to have been able to apprehend her great-grand father. And even that story was debatable.
Albus Dumbledore’s letter found her behind the impenetrable stone walls of Durmstrang institute at the end of last year. The parchment had been a rich golden colour, so at odds with the stark white ones of the Institute. A piece of parchment she had kept folded in the pocket of her skirts every day since. She had been suspicious of the letter at first. This man, this relic of the wizarding world, she had been instructed, over and over by her family, to hate. Yet, Dumbledore’s words had lodged themselves into the back of her mind, and she had, without a trace, without a note to a family that didn’t really care about her, left for a country she knew nothing about, except perhaps, the language.
So here she was on a train bringing her to a castle in the highlands of Scotland, surrounded by compartments full of students, who would not approach her without at least a careful moment of deliberation. She knew the reputation her old school had. But some part of her hoped, however futile, that someone would open her compartment door, and sit in front of her with an outstretched hand. She, however, was a deeply realistic cynic, so she gave up that small glimpse of hope as quickly as she was trained to. Years of growing up in a cold house that she never felt at ease in.
Images of her father’s rash, aggressive actions towards who ever had the misfortune of running into him at the wrong moment, which was much more frequent than the good moments, flashed across her mind. Aleksander Grindelwald was not a kind man, and neither was his wife. Eudora’s mother had come from France, specifically to marry her father, a man she didn’t know, a man she quickly learnt to avoid, forging her own cruelness. Augustine Lenoir was meant to marry a Grindelwald and continue the family line since the day she was born.
So, how dreadful it was when she nearly died giving birth to Eudora, so close had she come to death that the doctors forbade her from having any more children. It would have been better if they had let Augustine and the tiny pale baby that was Eudora die. It would not have doomed the family name to a singular daughter. Aleksander would now never, ever, have a son. To him, Eudora was but a spot, a stain, on the family lineage. And he had come close, deliberately close to erasing her completely a few times. Every time, though, he had stopped. Pulled back by the strange love parents carried for their child, even one they so deeply resented.
So, truly, the choice to pack her things and find this train was not hard. Yet, she still felt incredibly guilty, and most of all terrified of would happen if her family ever found her again. That hadn’t happened.
For now.
Eudora was a careful, calculating girl, the kind of character that was forged from spending sixteen years learning to avoid certain parts of a manor so big she thought it might swallow her whole.
She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Dumbledore was inviting her to Hogwarts out of pure kindness for the great-granddaughter of his worst enemy. No. Dumbledore was, in any regard, more calculating than she was. He wanted something from her. She didn’t know what and that made this whole situation infinitely more terrifying.
She laid her palm against the warm window of the compartment, surprised that, like everything else on this train, it was warm. A decade and a half of being completely utterly frozen caught off guard by finally feeling something that didn’t sting.
…
When the train finally stopped, she stayed seated, as she had been instructed to, waiting for a professor named Snape to fetch her. Eudora was normally good as following orders, from where she came it was necessary for survival. Perhaps, this new country, this warmth, woke something in her, some silent part that she had never been able to express, because when she heard commotion tow compartments down, she got up and closed the door behind her as if some spell had fallen over her, making her feel brave for once.
In the hallway she crashed into a a tall blond boy with beautifully cruel eyes, his wand in his pale hand. She back away quickly, out of reflex, her hand twitching for her own wand. A habit she had fallen into in the last months, it came from dreading the worse constantly.
His sneering face found hers. He was at least a foot taller than she was, but Eudora didn’t feel small for once. She stared at him with a defiant glance she would never have used a month ago. She wondered what would happen. She had never ever been the kind of person to chase confrontation head on.
His eyes kept pouring into hers, the scorn plastered on his face for what fell like an excruciating long time. Eudora held her ground. Her hand still ready, by her side, to pull out her wand. Finaly, he bared his teeth and sneered "Get out of my way." His left hand pushed her violently to the side and Eudora crashed into the wall of another compartment. Even then, she kept her gaze steady, a trick she had become an expert at after years of living with Aleksander Grindelwald. When the boy was no longer in the wagon, Eudora finally straitened herself.
The other side of the door, the boy had come in from was silent, but something in Eudora itched to open that door and find what was on the other side. Her curiosity got the better of her. It always did.
Whatever she expected to find, it wasn’t a boy with messy dark hair, pleading green eyes and a bloody nose, paralyzed on the train’s carpet floor, his twisted spectacles by his side. She crouched down, and picked up his spectacles carefully, and with a tap of her wand returned them to their original form. Then, with the same surgical precision she always used while casting magic, she brought up her wand to his forehead to deliver him from the curse. As her wand brushed his forehead she noticed it.
A scar. Harry Potter.
A name she had only ever heard either whispered with disdain, growled, or sneered all her life.
However, as he stood up in front of her, she didn’t feel like that was the appropriate way to say his name. Where she came from, he was the number one most undesirable wizard, but here he was the nation’s greatest hero. She still backed up away, the reflex of a girl who had spent sixteen years of her life trying to make herself smaller. She watched his questioning green eyes survey her, and she deeply wished to know what he was thinking of her. She stood there, in her gray Durmstrang cloak from which she had torn the armory off, for a beat to long after he had outstretched his hand.
"I’m Harry" he said, in a calm cool voice. Just that, no mention of his last name whatsoever. A boy who wore the burden of his last name, just like her. It made Eudora smile. And she offered him her own hand.
"I’m Eudora."
Before Harry could ask her the question that she dreaded, a tall man with dark greasy hair and an awful, crooked nose burst in. He had a cruel face, and she instinctively stepped away.
"Miss Grindelwald", he sneered, "Already disobeying instructions?"
Eudora swallowed hard, excepting to be told to return to Durmstrang, to a family that would rather her dead. But before the man, who she guessed was Professor Snape, could say something else, his face registered who was standing behind her. His gaze flicked from her hand, holding her wand tightly, to Harry’s bloody nose. "And beeting up this school’s number one celebrity. "The way he said ‘celebrity’ sounded sarcastic and condescending and made Harry’s eyes darken. Eudora felt a cold shiver run down her back. Professor Snape simply turned around and walked away, beckoning for them to follow.
The woods outside of the train bore trees so tall, Eudora though, for one terrifying second that they might come down onto her, trapping her in this dark forest. The trio started a slow walk up to the castle. Each step forward brought an increasing amount of dread Eudora tried her hardest to push away. As she silently tripped on a gnarly root. Harry’s fingers wrapped around her wrist, steading her footing.
"Don’t worry," he whispered from behind her, "I’ll tell Dumbledore it was Malfoy who busted my nose."
Malfoy. That must have been that cruel blond boy’s name.
She gave him a curt nod of her head but pushed through the woods in silence.
Finally, they made it to the front steps of the castle. Hogwarts stood, ancient, imposing, but not one bit terrifying, if not for what Eudora feared she might find on the other side. Whether the unkind remarks would be whispered around her or plainly thrown into her face. Years of facing poisonous words did not make one more resistant to the particular poison that was disdain.
"Mr. Potter, I believe it isn’t beyond your capabilities to make it to the Great Hall?" Snape said without glancing back. Harry nodded and started to break away from the group. Eudora pressed her handkerchief into his palm before he could completely walk away. "For your nose." Harry thanked her quietly and turn away heading towards the large oak doors that contained the loud bustling of students all too familiar with each other.
"This way Ms. Grindelwald." Snape said without an easy bored tone.
He led her through a number of curving corridors decorated with talking paintings and staircases that were constantly moving. The walls of Hogwarts were warm, welcoming, with memories etched int the castle’s brilliant past. So opposite to the bare, icy stone walls of Durmstrang.
He led her through a number of curving corridors decorated with talking paintings and staircases that were constantly moving. The walls of Hogwarts were warm, welcoming, and full of memories etched into the castle’s brilliant past. So opposite to the bare, icy stone walls of Durmstrang. Eudora wondered if she would ever learn how to make her way around this castle without taking a wrong turn. Finally, Snape stopped at the top of an imposing marble staircase that went right into a wall. He bent down towards one of the gargoyle statues at the entrance of the staircase and murmured something Eudora strained her ears to here. She didn’t catch a single syllable, and that made her fear increasingly more important. The wall turned, revealing the rest of the sparkling stairs. Snape started walking up the stairs with the allure of a man who had been up these stairs a hundred times. Eudora had not been up these stairs a hundred times, not even once. So, she stood, completely transfixed at the imposing grandeur in front of her. Snape turned, visibly impatient. "Are you planning on ogling every single slab of stone in this castle, Ms Grindelwald?"
She met his gaze and willed some of the fleeting courage she had had on that train into her eyes and started up the stairs.
Dumbledore’s office was large but filled with so many curious artefacts it felt too small to hold Eudora, Snape, Dumbledore and a silent witch with small sleek glasses that revealed inquisitive eyes. Eudora let her eyes sweep over all the precious pieces of magic in this room and felt the peculiar rush that magic left coursing through her blood, before finally settling her gaze on the tall man who stood behind an imposing mahogany desk. Dumbledore was a thin, ancient man with half-moon spectacles and a long white beard. He was a man who had mastered the complicated balance of being at once imposing and welcoming. He had eyes that couldn’t contain the immense wisdom that came with years of life. Right now, though, those eyes were fixed on the young witch standing in front of him, bearing a name that carried far too much weight for such a young girl. A girl he knew possessed an incredible gift. A girl whose eyes reminded him of a friend, a brother, a love, turned enemy before either one of them could even face the fact that their story would end with the death of another. But that was a long, long time ago, and it wasn’t Gellert standing in front of Albus, it was Eudora standing in front a man she feared and yet was curious about.
She felt the steady, rhythmic pulse of magic she had felt on a few different occasions across her life. The faint signature of some ancient, strong magic. Dumbledore’s office was full of these small pulses, but one was much stronger, much more imposing beat against her temples. Her gaze was drawn towards a small ring on Dumbledore’s finger. She felt the headmaster’s eyes watching her gaze go from the ring back to him with an amusing smile.
"Ms Grindelwald, it is a pleasure meeting you." He said with a jovial tone that did not fit the heavy atmosphere of the room. Eudora said nothing, she looked at him with a look of quiet terror that had become part of her natural look.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled behind his half-moon spectacles, unbothered by her silence. He turned slightly, gesturing toward a small wooden stool in the corner of the office where a frayed, patched leather hat rested. "Professor McGonagall, if you would." The older witch stepped forward, lifting the ancient relic with practiced care.
"Before you join your peers for the welcoming feast, Eudora," Dumbledore said gently, "we must settle where you will lay your head tonight."
Eudora held her breath as McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat upon her pale blonde head. She braced herself, instinctively hardening her mind behind the cold mental shields she had perfected at Durmstrang. She expected Slytherin—she demanded it of herself, really. Slytherin was logical. It was shadow, self-preservation, and the cunning survival tactics her bloodline required.
The hat stirred against her hair, humming thoughtfully. “Ah... remarkable,” a dry, whispering voice echoed directly inside her mind, making her flinch. “A Grindelwald, indeed. Pride in the veins, cold discipline in the mind... but what is this underneath? A deep, desperate hunger for warmth? A willingness to bleed just to do what is right?”
No, Eudora thought frantically, her fingernails biting into her palms. Put me in Slytherin. Put me where I belong.
“Belong?” the hat chuckled softly. “No, child. Slytherin would keep you in the shadows, but you have walked through fire to come here. You possess a silent, terrifying courage...”
"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted aloud to the quiet office.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Eudora’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Gryffindor. The house of heroes, of reckless bravery, of light. A Grindelwald surrounded by lions. It felt like a sick, cruel joke, an impossible target painted plainly on her back. Snape’s mouth curled into a subtle, disgusted grimace, while McGonagall offered a stiff, solemn nod. Dumbledore merely smiled, his eyes gleaming with quiet satisfaction.
Minutes later, Eudora found herself standing at the grand double doors of the Great Hall. The air inside smelled of roasted meats, melting wax, and autumn spices—a wave of comfort that almost made her choke. As McGonagall led her down the center aisle, the loud chatter of hundreds of students withered into a sea of sharp whispers. Heads turned, eyes tracking her gray Durmstrang cloak and pale face like wolves spotting a stray lamb.
She kept her chin raised, enforcing the iron composure her father had beaten into her, but her hands trembled beneath her sleeves.
When she reached the Gryffindor table, the silence was deafening. Red-and-gold banners hung above her head, an agonizing contrast to her very existence. No one offered a seat. No one moved—except for Harry Potter.
Sitting near the middle of the long bench, Harry looked up, his green eyes cutting through the sea of staring faces. Without a moment of hesitation, he slid over on the wooden bench, patting the narrow space beside him.
Eudora sat down, her shoulder brushing lightly against his. Across the table, a red-haired boy stared at her with wide, terrified eyes, holding a chicken leg mid-air, while a girl with bushy brown hair watched her with intense, analytical curiosity.
"Rough sorting?" Harry murmured softly under the noise of the hall, leaning in so only she could hear.
Eudora looked down at her plate, her voice a low, frail thread. "I think the hat made a terrible mistake."
Harry let out a small, breathless laugh, nudging a plate of warm rolls toward her. "Join the club. It wanted to put me in Slytherin."
She turned to look at him, caught off guard by the honest simplicity in his gaze. There was no judgment in his eyes—only the quiet recognition of someone who knew exactly what it felt like to carry a burden too heavy for his shoulders. For the first time in sixteen years, as she reached for the bread and felt the warmth of the hall settling over them, Eudora felt the ice around her heart begin to crack.