Nurmengard Castle

Nurmengard Castle stands in the Austrian Alps and serves as a wizarding prison. Gellert Grindelwald built it to hold those who opposed him, and it doubles as the base for him and his followers. From outside it is a stone fortress at the edge of a mountain, with a cone-topped tower, a narrow windowed building joined to it, and a gated courtyard where outsiders are questioned at wandpoint by Grindelwald's acolytes. Cells with black bars line both sides of that courtyard, houses built above them, and steps climb the mountainside behind the castle. Inside, a velvet-carpeted hallway leads to a room behind heavy wooden doors, fitted with tables and chairs, cabinets of books, a stove and a gold chandelier, its patterned red and yellow walls carrying six heraldic symbols. Within half a decade the castle grows into a towering structure of black rock behind high walls, forbidding by any account.