Wading through weeds as high as his waist, Grindelwald slowly approached the old house. But the moment he reached the doorway, he stopped.
He lifted his head and looked at the battered front door. A dead snake had been cruelly nailed to it.
The Gaunt family were heirs of Slytherin. By pure-blood standards, at the very least, they ought to have had a dozen or twenty snake carvings or statues to show off that identity.
Unfortunately, by the time the Gaunts had ended up living here, they were already as poor as the Weasleys. They clearly had no money for elaborate reliefs or statues, so they could only use a simple dead snake instead.
But in a magical family, even a dead snake could still guard the door.
The instant Grindelwald approached, the snake, dead beyond doubt, suddenly raised its head, flicked a black tongue, breathed out a rotten stench, and let out a hissing sound.
It was obviously Parseltongue, probably meant to identify whoever came calling.
Grindelwald did not understand Parseltongue, so...
He blew out a breath, sending a faint gust toward the dead snake.
That slight wind stirred up a tremendous amount of magic in the air. More and more magic gathered, condensing into a terrifying storm focused on a single point, shredding both the door and the dead snake, curse and all, into pieces.
When the gale faded, Grindelwald did not immediately enter. He stood at the entrance and swept his gaze over the shack's interior.
He saw a dried corpse sprawled on the floor, its hands curled tight, the ground around it covered in scratch marks.
Grindelwald pondered for a moment, and pity filled his eyes.
Most of the surviving members of the Gaunt family had died in public view. The only one who had vanished was Marvolo Gaunt, who had once attacked Ministry officials who came to his door and ended up imprisoned for six months.
After that, he disappeared completely.
And now it seemed he had simply starved to death in his own home.
"How pitiful." Grindelwald shook his head.
A wizard starving to death at home sounded unbelievable, but wizards could not conjure food out of nothing. If someone could not move properly and had no one to look after them, dying such a miserable death was hardly impossible.
Grindelwald stopped paying attention to the corpse and stepped over it into the shack.
A faint glow flickered in his eyes as he searched the entire hut, and in the end he found a cellar hidden away in one corner.
Even a decayed wizarding family, one that had fallen so far it starved to death, would always have a cellar or some similar space for experiments. Magic cost nothing, after all, so people used it as wastefully as they pleased.
Grindelwald went down into the cellar, violently dismantling curse after curse until he reached the far end.
He glanced back at the destruction he had left behind, a hint of puzzlement passing through his eyes.
Those curses looked troublesome, but for Dumbledore they would not have been especially difficult. He certainly would not have died because of them.
So the curse was on the Resurrection Stone?
Grindelwald walked to the end of the cellar, where a raised stone platform stood.
Clusters of flame floated in the air, lighting the dim underground room. Grindelwald stepped up onto the platform and frowned.
It was empty.
"How can it be gone?" He reached out and touched the groove in the platform, and he could feel a lingering aura there.
It was the aura of an Eternal Wizard.
That was no surprise. The Resurrection Stone had belonged to Death himself. It contained the power of endless rebirth, so naturally it also carried the power of an Eternal Wizard.
Then suddenly, a mass of black aura surged up from the groove, climbing along Grindelwald's fingers as it tried to invade his body.
Grindelwald lowered his gaze calmly to the snake-like aura. "So this is the curse?"
It truly was well hidden. If even he had failed to notice it, Dumbledore certainly would not have. And the curse was vicious. Just this little remnant carried such terrifying corrosive force. A complete curse would only have been far worse.
But to Grindelwald, it made no difference.
The surrounding magic flowed like water and washed away the curse trying to enter his body, while Grindelwald looked as though he had done nothing more significant than brush dust off his sleeve.
"The Resurrection Stone was taken?" Grindelwald's face darkened.
His first instinct was to assume Dumbledore had taken it.
If that were true...
The magic in the cellar began to tremble, driven wild by his violent will.
The cellar shook. Great sheets of dust rained down, only to be shredded apart by the magical storm. The rock walls around him and above him quivered under the assault of magic.
At last, the old cellar collapsed under the storm, and the entire Gaunt shack caved in with it, throwing up clouds of dust and smoke.
When everything settled, Grindelwald stood in the center of a round crater, the surrounding rock walls so smooth they looked polished.
After venting his temper, Grindelwald calmed down, and in that calmness he noticed details he had overlooked before.
"No. That's not right. There are no signs of anyone entering from outside. Whoever took the Resurrection Stone knew this place very well."
He had found the crucial point.
"The person who took the Resurrection Stone Apparated directly here. So... was it Voldemort?"
Normally, Apparition only worked to places one had been before, unless there was an extremely detailed map. Wherever Voldemort had hidden the Resurrection Stone, it certainly would not have been opened up like some tourist attraction.
"But why would he take the Resurrection Stone?"
...
On a lonely island in the middle of the sea, Cappadocia looked at the ring set with the Resurrection Stone on his hand, then at Voldemort writhing on the ground in agony, and sneered.
...
The arm wearing the ring had turned pitch black, yet the savage curse did not get the chance to display its terrible corrosive power. Instead, it was being forced out of his body by another power.
"Even like this, you still tried to set me up?" Cappadocia said.
The Resurrection Stone. A crystallization of Death's power. A shortcut to becoming an Eternal Wizard.
A pity it was not a path meant for him.
In the end, that power would have to go to Voldemort, his dog.
And a dog liable to bite its master at that.
Cappadocia stared greedily at the ring on his hand, then looked in disgust at the curse being expelled from his body.
Voldemort had no idea just how strong Cappadocia's body had become. After gaining Titan blood, his physique had long since crossed into the inhuman.
Curses fatal to ordinary wizards posed no challenge to him at all.
Trying to use a curse to ambush Cappadocia had only brought trouble onto himself.
Soon the curse was fully expelled. Cappadocia stamped his foot, and the earth churned, burying the writhing curse underground.
"Stop whining. Go fetch your other Horcrux."
Cappadocia kicked Voldemort. Even as a soul, Voldemort was sent flying three meters by the blow.
To control Voldemort completely, Cappadocia needed every last Horcrux in his possession. Only after that would he feel safe resurrecting him and letting him wield Death's power.