He listened to them leave with satisfaction. Footsteps echoing down the spiral stairs, growing fainter, more distant. The boy and Albus, descending from his tower, carrying away their burdens and certainties.
One last tantalizing gift before they'd gone—A man, in fine clothes and the stature of a warrior, face severe and one eye missing. "You said to return if I needed it. I have a need."—an offer for the boy to remember. A thread unlikely to amount to anything, but he had long since learned that placing another iron in the fire, given his circumstances, was never to be passed up.
The future was probability, not certainty. Even for a True Seer.
He stretched on the stool, bones creaking in the silence. Old bones. Prisoner's bones. He was nearly ninety now, though the years in this tower had worn on him differently than they might have elsewhere. Time moved strangely when you could see it branch and fork, when every moment contained a thousand possible next moments.
That boy, though. David Price.
It was like looking at Albus, who in turn looked at him. A mirror reflecting a mirror, distorting and clarifying in equal measure. David was their heir—"I have lived long enough, dear boy. Allow me to do this. It is time for you to truly spread your wings."—in all but name. The best and worst of both of them, combined into something new. Something dangerous.
Something necessary.
Gellert smiled at that. The boy had chosen his word well, even if he didn't fully understand why yet.
The visions came easier now that David had left. Without the anchor of present reality—the boy sitting across from him, solid and real and now—the timelines flowed more freely. Past, present, future, all tangled together like threads in a tapestry too vast to comprehend all at once.
Truly, in a world where David had no rival, he would have conquered the world before the turn of the century. Gellert had Seen those timelines. Rare, beautiful in their simplicity. David, unopposed, reshaping reality with the certainty of a sculptor working clay.
But there were always rivals—"A being more monster than man, his face twisted in fury. "You dare to stand as if you are my equal!"—Tom Riddle. Lord Voldemort. Whatever name the creature chose to wear. David would have a rival so very different from his own nature. A vampiric being that satiated himself on power alone, that drank it down like wine and was never, ever filled.
Where David burned with conviction, Tom burned with hunger.
Where David sought to save, Tom sought to possess.
Where David would sacrifice himself for his ideals, Tom would sacrifice anyone for his own preservation.
It would be an uphill battle—Men in masks and dark cloaks, each casting green lights at one another as a grey-eyed wolf watched from his throne. "Your mind cannot distinguish my illusions from reality. And if you can't tell the difference, does the difference matter?"—of that he had no doubt. Death Eaters turning on each other. Killing each other. Screaming as they saw enemies where allies stood. And David, calm in the center of the carnage he'd orchestrated, speaking philosophy while men died.
Gellert laughed softly in his empty tower. Oh yes. The boy would learn. Would adapt. Would become exactly what he needed to become.
But Gellert knew David could succeed. Knew it with the certainty of Sight, of having watched it happen across dozens of timelines. And his success would be his own—not Gellert's legacy, not Albus's teachings, but something forged in the fire of his own conviction.
The timelines shifted. Branched.
Wizards would stand at the top of the world as if gazing down like Gods from Mount Olympus. That much was constant across nearly every future where David won. The Statute would fall. The integration would happen. Magic and Muggle technology would intertwine.
David might wish for integration—"We can do what you cannot, allow us to do so!"—but he misunderstood Muggles on a fundamental level. A blind spot, born of his Muggle birth, his Muggle childhood, his love for a Muggle sister.
They did not want the world to be better. Not really. Not deep down in the places where human nature lived.
They wanted to be powerful. They wanted to stand above their neighbor and proclaim themselves superior. They wanted to matter, and if the only way to matter was to diminish someone else, then that's what they would do.
Gellert had learned that lesson decades ago. Albus had learned it too, though he pretended otherwise. David would learn—"How could you do this?! They were your people!"—of their nature in due time.
Betrayal. Always betrayal, in one form or another.
It would not break him, though. Only burden him further. Add another weight to shoulders already straining under the load of his convictions.
Still, he would endure.
That was David's gift, his curse, his defining quality. Endurance. The ability to continue when any sane person would stop, when the cost became too high, when the price demanded too much. He would face pain—"NO! Not her!"—and suffering and continue on.
Loss. Always loss, woven through the timelines like a red thread. Someone he loved, someone he needed, torn away. The visions never showed exactly who—futures were funny that way, protective of certain details—but the grief was constant.
And still David would continue. He didn't know any other way.
It would take a lifetime—"Ex Necessitate! Ex Necessitate! Ex Necessitate!"—of war. Of conflict of every kind. Political, magical, ideological. The battle wouldn't end with Voldemort's defeat. That was only the beginning.
But it would happen. David Price would win—"This day is for all of us! Today we declare peace for us all!"—of that Gellert had no doubt.
Victory. Integration. The new world born from the ashes of the old.
His vision. His dream. Achieved by someone else's hands.
Gellert found he didn't mind. Pride was a luxury he'd surrendered along with his freedom. What mattered was the outcome, not who claimed credit for it.
He would see it all. He would sit in his tower until the end—"You knew this day would come."—watching timelines collapse into reality, watching possibilities become fact, until finally the reaper came to take his soul.
He would watch and wait.
For the Greater Good.
o–o–o–o