Hogwarts: Chill, I'm Not That Riddle-Chapter 510: Three Dumbledores & One Grindelwald

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One sentence.

That was all it took for two Century Kings to try to beat each other’s brains out.

By that metric alone, Ariana might be the most influential woman of the century when it comes to reshaping the world’s balance of power. Calling her a femme fatale wouldn’t even be exaggerating.

Don’t believe it? Replace Ariana with Aberforth and see what happens. Odds are old Dumbles and old G would still be arm in arm reminiscing about the good old days.

Tom was having a great time watching.

This berserk version of Dumbledore was something he’d never seen before. His hair and beard bristled like the mane of an enraged lion. The Elder Wand let out shrill, eager cries, as if reveling in its master’s fury.

Honestly, the wand had suffered for decades. A weapon born for battle and slaughter, forced to sit in a headmaster’s office for half a century with a mild-mannered old man.

Now things were different.

Dumbledore was no longer holding back.

The battlefield shifted from sky to ground, from ground back to sky, over and over. No Fiendfyre. No flashy firestorms carving paths across the earth.

Just raw, brutal spell exchanges.

Large-scale spells were great for mowing down weaker opponents. Against someone on your level, they were mostly for dramatic effect.

On the forest floor, towering trees rose upright, transforming into an elite army. A single tree wasn’t particularly sturdy, but stack a Shield Charm on it. Add a Transfiguration reinforcement.

Now try casting multiple spells at once. Try applying them to dozens of targets simultaneously.

For ordinary wizards, that was pure fantasy. Most of them would struggle to stack that many enchantments on a single object.

But Dumbledore simply flicked his wand again and again. No incantations. No visible strain.

And it worked.

Transfiguration master?

No. This was founder-level brilliance.

Tom was already drawing inspiration. The Wisdom of Solomon activated quietly. Runes flickered in his eyes, shimmering like crystal as he dissected Dumbledore’s techniques in real time.

He barely spared a glance for Grindelwald’s increasingly battered state.

Every Century King had a specialty. It was both the foundation of their rise and the direction of their future growth.

Dumbledore was the culmination of modern magic, fusing already terrifying Transfiguration with layered spellcraft to forge a combat style uniquely his own.

Voldemort specialized in dark magic, digging into its potential without restraint or moral limit.

Grindelwald, on the other hand, suffered in comparison. His strengths weren’t as sharply defined as theirs. His talent wasn’t as overwhelming as Andros’s. His dark magic fell short of Voldemort’s.

And to make matters worse, Tom had previously crippled part of his foundation, weakening his dark arts significantly. Grindelwald was still in a transitional phase, though he had begun exploring a new direction through magical circuit compression.

Even so, facing a Dumbledore who had gone mad alongside his equally frenzied wand was exhausting.

The transfigured creatures weren’t just an offensive force. They formed layered defensive walls. Spells weaved between them, and any attack aimed at Dumbledore had to punch through multiple barriers first.

"Tom! Tom!"

The call from the study space snapped Tom out of his tactical copying session.

"I’m here! Wow, they’re really going at it!"

He scanned the area and finally spotted Vinda and Ariana near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Vinda absolutely refused to let Ariana go any closer.

Tom landed lightly in front of them, giving Ariana an odd look.

"What are you doing here?"

"Heehee." Ariana knew Dumbledore wasn’t paying attention to anything but the fight, so she spoke boldly. "I started this fire. Of course I came to watch. It’s too far away here, I can’t see clearly. Take me closer, okay?"

Tom nodded, told Vinda to head back to the castle, then lifted Ariana and flew her to a vantage point with a clear view of the entire battlefield.

The two combatants were fully immersed now, completely unaware that tonight’s leading lady had arrived.

Ariana’s eyes sparkled. She had fully unleashed her inner gremlin, muttering under her breath nonstop, "Hit him, hit him," though it was impossible to tell which "him" she meant.

She had witnessed countless Century-tier battles before. Grindelwald alone had been beaten senseless by Andros dozens of times. But tonight was different.

Both men were fighting with genuine fury.

Dumbledore’s killing intent swept across the field like a cleansing tide. Grindelwald’s anger crackled into black lightning, carving paths through the transfigured army.

Judging by how often green flashes burst from the Elder Wand, an uninformed bystander might struggle to tell who the Dark Lord actually was.

Just then, a streak of blue light shot in from the direction of Hogsmeade.

Aberforth.

He’d received Tom’s message and had been completely baffled.

What do you mean there’s an Ariana here?

Understandable. Who would expect someone dead for nearly a century to show up alive?\

Still, the moment Aberforth heard that those two were fighting again, he didn’t hesitate. He changed clothes and bolted out the door.

He didn’t care who started it. As long as someone was beating up Grindelwald, he was in.

Riding his goat Patronus, Aberforth moved fast. The trip from Hogsmeade normally took over half an hour. He made it in under ten minutes.

The moment he arrived, he knew something was off.

He had never seen his brother this unhinged. The biting killing intent in the air made his skin sting, and the constant flashes of green light were enough to make anyone’s heart skip.

Grindelwald, on the other hand, looked pressed hard, barely keeping up.

Aberforth’s eyes lit up.

Could they finally bury this Dark Lord here and now?

In that instant, he completely forgot why he had come. He didn’t notice the onlookers high in the sky.

There was only one thought in his head.

Kill Grindelwald.

Aberforth leapt off his goat Patronus. The spectral goat surged forward, accelerating violently before slamming straight into Grindelwald. Already busy fending off Dumbledore, Grindelwald was caught off guard and sent flying.

Fortunately, protective magic cushioned the impact. Otherwise, he would have walked away with broken ribs at best.

"Damn you, Aberforth!" Grindelwald roared into the night, swapping wands in a flash.

A faint aura rippled outward. Two incoming spells from the Dumbledore brothers were wiped away instantly. Seizing the opening, Grindelwald steadied himself and fired a curse at Aberforth, who narrowly dodged with Apparition.

"Aberforth..." Dumbledore’s eyes cleared a little. He started to speak, likely about Ariana’s return.

Aberforth cut him off.

"Shut up! Kill him first! Kill him and I’ll listen to whatever you say. I’ll even die for you if that’s what it takes!"

When Dumbledore saw his brother charging straight at Grindelwald, he had no choice but to follow and provide support. The last thing he wanted was to watch Aberforth get slaughtered in a fit of Grindelwald’s rage.

Aberforth was one of the few true masters left in the world. One-on-one, he wasn’t Grindelwald’s equal, but he could trade a few blows. In the past, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Kingsley had managed to stall Voldemort briefly. Maybe a minute or two before they were overwhelmed.

Aberforth was stronger than any one of them alone. If he pushed himself to the brink, he could probably hold out two minutes by himself. Roughly the equivalent of three of them combined.

"..."

Now the battlefield descended into even greater chaos.

Tom glanced at the girl beside him, whose smile was slowly fading, and felt an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

Three Dumbledores. One Grindelwald.

Realization struck.

"So this is a reenactment of the duel in Godric’s Hollow?"

The atmosphere was eerily similar.

At this rate, if Ariana didn’t die again for dramatic effect, it would almost feel wrong.

"Tom!"

Ariana shuddered. Wisps of dark energy began to leak from her body as the Obscurus inside her stirred restlessly.

Fortunately, she was no longer the fragile girl she once was. With sheer willpower, she forced it back down.

"That’s enough," she said softly. "Don’t let them keep fighting. I’m honestly worried Grindelwald might take Aberforth down with him."

Several dark figures emerged from the castle in the distance. It was too far for Tom to see clearly, but judging by their silhouettes, it was probably Professor McGonagall, Madame Maxime, and a few other headmasters and professors.

Tom agreed it had gone far enough.

If those three kept going, they’d hit the acromantula territory next. And that was his money-maker.

He cleared his throat and amplified his voice with a charm.

"Stop! Stop fighting! This isn’t... ahem. Headmaster, calm down!"

No response.

"Aberforth!" Ariana cried out.

A streak of green light had nearly hit him. One of Dumbledore’s transfigured guardians threw itself in the way, intercepting the Killing Curse. The construct exploded on impact, but the shattered fragments slammed into Aberforth’s chest and sent him flying back, blood spraying from his mouth.

Tom laughed in disbelief.

"So no one’s taking me seriously, huh?"

It seemed the three of them were truly seeing red.

He opened his palm. The phantom spellbook reappeared, pages flipping with a sharp rustle. This time the turning was slow, deliberate.

Each spell that emerged, however, struck like thunder, vast and overwhelming.

Now they had no choice but to react.

A powerful sense of danger rose simultaneously in all three minds. Wands shot upward as they worked together to block the descending barrage.

Boom—

Flames soared into the sky.

At the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the approaching professors halted in unison, exchanging uneasy glances.

"Maybe... we should wait until they’re done?" someone suggested.

Going in there wouldn’t be breaking up a fight.

It would be volunteering to die.

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