Educated at Durmstrang,

   The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric’s Hollow,
now an orphan and head of the family, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept into
her home her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.
   The name of Grindelwald is justly famous: In a list of Most Dangerous Dark
Wizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because You-

Know-Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown. As Grindelwald never
extended his campaign of terror to Britain, however, the details of his rise to
power are not widely known here.
    Educated at Durmstrang, a school famous even then for its unfortunate
tolerance of the Dark Arts, Grindelwald showed himself quite as precociously
brilliant as Dumbledore. Rather than channel his abilities into the attainment of
awards and prizes, however, Gellert Grindelwald devoted himself no other
pursuits. At sixteen years old, even Durmstrang felt it could no longer turn a
blind eye to the twisted experiments of Gellert Grindelwald, and he was
expelled.
    Hitherto, all that has been known of Grindelwald’s next movements is that he
“traveled around for some months.” It can now be revealed that Grindelwald
chose to visit his great-aunt in Godric’s Hollow, and that there, intensely
shocking though it will be for many to hear it, he struck up a close friendship
with none other than Albus Dumbledore.
    “He seemed a charming boy to me,” babbles Bathilda, “whatever he became
later. Naturally I introduced him to poor Albus, who was missing the company
of lads his own age. The boys took to each other at once.”
    They certainly did. Bathilda shows me a letter, kept by her that Albus
Dumbledore sent Gellert Grindelwald in the dead of night.
    “Yes, even after they’d spent all day in discussion --- both such brilliant
young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire --- I’d sometimes hear an owl
tapping at Gellert’s bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An idea
would have struck him and he had to let Gellert know immediately!”