Fic: The Highest Art Form
Title: The Highest Art Form
Author: bethfrish
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dumbledore/Grindelwald
Disclaimer: Property of JKR.
This summer, like no other before it, is all but unbearable. The nape of your neck shines with tiny beads of sweat as Ariana kneels behind you on the front steps and quietly brushes your hair. Her hand moves in small, awkward motions, pausing mid-stroke for no other reason than to play with it in her fingers. She threads it in a figure eight, laughs and yanks it until you tell her, "No."
The distant glare of the sun fades to orange as it sets. You stare vacantly at the path in the distance as the warm air accosts your face and disrupts the trees. Behind you Ariana stills and watches the deserted cobblestone too, like she can see it in your thoughts.
"Albus will be back soon and then I'll cook dinner. But I can't cook until he comes back with the food, ok? And then we'll eat."
"Yes." Ariana pats your head fondly with her hairbrush.
The sun slips toward the horizon but the heat lingers in the quiet summer air. It curls around your neck and creeps beneath your shoes. You dip your head between your knees and think of the sweltering heat within the cottage that is so much worse, and then you finally hear it.
Footsteps. Your raise your head. Ariana says," Oh good," and happily resumes brushing your hair. And there is Albus, coming down the path with a package tucked beneath his arm. But he is not alone. From behind you, Ariana curls a piece of hair around her finger so tightly that you flinch violently and snap, "No."
Your brother, Albus, is too far away to hear your cry. He is not even looking in your direction, for his eyes are locked on his companion-young-somewhere between his age and your own. They walk slowly but animatedly in your direction, Albus motioning wildly in the air with his free hand. The sun at their backs obscures the features of the other boy, but you watch him over your shoulder as you stand up and restrain your sister's imminent fit.
It does not matter that you cannot tell much about this boy as he approaches your family's house on a muggy evening in the beginning of July. You watch his movements from the corner of your eye. Something in the way he walks alongside your brother, the casual manner in which he touches his arm, tells you that his face will not remain unfamiliar for very long.
Grindelwald's owl hoots forlornly at your window for seven minutes before you abandon the hope that you will be able to sleep before acknowledging its presence. It stares at you as you undo the latch, steps in calmly when you push the glass aside.
"His room is the next one," you say irritably. "You know that, you carry their stupid notes back and forth every night."
The owl pierces you with its beady eyes. Then you remember. Albus must not be in his room. He must be down by the pond with your sister because looking at the water helps her sleep on particularly bad nights. You know this because it's usually you down by the water when the rest of the world is sleeping. Two days ago you snapped at Albus over breakfast, demanding his acknowledgement that familial responsibility was meant to be shared and that their own score was a far shot from even. He smiled grimly at you, infuriatingly, but when Ariana blasted a crater in the ceiling of her bedroom tonight you were surprised to find that Albus had already taken her from the house.
Don't bother him, leave him be, you think at the owl, but all you say is, "He's not here."
It hops sideways across your bed, away from you, and when you make to grab the note banded to its leg it swipes at you and leaves a rude, bleeding gash across three of your fingers.
"He's not home. Leave him alone," you mutter, sucking at the blood trickling over the back of your hand. The owl gives a single hoot, flitting off your bed and out your window.
When you're still awake several hours later, you notice a blur in the darkness flying, every twenty minutes or so, between a neighbor's house and the pond near your backyard. You flop back down on your bed and stare at the ceiling until the sound of the door three hours later indicates the return of your siblings.
When Albus looks at your hand the next morning over breakfast, you retract it into your lap before he can touch the thin red lines with his wand. He pulls back slowly, confused, but finally returns to his eggs. You scoff. "Don't bother. Don't bother with anything," and the next time Ariana rages in the middle of the night it is you who tends to her.
One day you pass Albus' bedroom door as you're sweeping the hall, and from within you hear the noises of fevered excitement that your own childhood only produced on rare occasions. They sound like young boys lost in fantasy and games, draping themselves in blankets from the foot of the bed, each declaring himself the king of the other.
But they are not boys, for Albus is of age and Grindelwald is at least older than you are. But as you clasp the broom in your hand and press your ear against the door you can think only of children, holed up together for hours on end because the imagination of a child never tires.
You want to know what they talk about. You want to know what they spend their days and their nights discussing under their breaths, and sometimes more loudly when they think no one is around. You want to know how it is that your brother has become closer to this boy in less time than you believe the two of you have ever truly shared.
So you throw open the door under the pretense of collecting the dirt from the precipice of his room and take in the sight of them sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Yes?" Albus snaps at you, eyes shining, but Grindelwald just smiles and leans back on his elbows.
"Nothing," you say with a scowl. "Didn't mean to interrupt," but Grindelwald calls you back, nudging one of the many books scattered across the floor with his shoe and nods to your brother.
And to your surprise, Albus finally explains in full detail what you have only caught in snippets, eavesdropped over the course of weeks. He speaks of wizards and Muggles, of fairy tales and immortality, of a utopia which you can see only in terms of inevitable disaster. He recites, "For the greater good," and the way in which his eyes shine disturbs you.
"You are deluded," you finally mutter, but Albus remains cocky. "How do you except to go about this?" you ask while his defiance grinds at your patience. "Well? Where are your resources? What about your other responsibilities? What about your sister!"
You look at Albus, expecting to see shame but receiving only muted fury. "You know very little," he sneers.
It's all you can take. You stalk out, slamming the door behind you. You leave them to their fantasies, rife with implausibilities and Grindelwald's haughty smile.
For nearly a week you've been noticing scratches on the back of Albus' neck. Closer scrutiny reveals bruises on his forearms, small welts not in areas normally affected by everyday injury. After he resurfaces from wherever it is that he and his friend go with a deep purple bruise on his neck you decide that you can no longer pretend to be oblivious.
"What exactly are you doing, Albus? You're in too deep, whatever it is." You motion towards his neck with the jar of tomato sauce he brought home for dinner. "Look at you."
He turns away, exposing, where his hair is pulled back, the thin lines that look almost like owl scratches. "I will remind you yet again," he says calmly, "that what I do has little to do with you."
You slam the tomato sauce down on the counter and grab your brother by the shoulder, pulling him roughly to face you. "Just because I want no part in your insane quest for world domination, does not mean that I don't care if my only brother, blinded by his own raging ego, kills himself in the process!"
Albus opens his mouth to speak, but somewhere in the house Ariana, sensing your quarrel, goes ballistic and you leave the kitchen to tend to her. The next day your sister rages and storms all afternoon, and this is how you finally locate the source of your brother's wounds.
You have not entered Albus' room when his guest is present since your fight three weeks earlier, but this afternoon Ariana darts away as you fix her lunch and shatters the protective spell they use to lock the door. You get there just in time, wrenching the door from her before she has the chance to enter. You pull it shut, but not before looking past her and into the room. Grindelwald's hands are in your brother's hair, pulling so fiercely that you can see the pain mixed with pleasure, in the second before you avert your eyes, on Albus' face as he kneels on the floorboards, the hunger in his eyes as he lowers his head into Grindelwald's lap.
The insides of your stomach churn. All day you wait for a confrontation that never comes, and you see Albus only briefly before he and Grindelwald leave for the night. He carelessly assures you that he'll be back by morning.
"How lovely," you respond, not looking up from your book until their figures retreat from the doorway. Grindelwald's hand caresses Albus' shoulder, almost like he knows you're watching.
You come home one day with a baby rabbit, a present for your sister whose face will shine with delight as she pets its fur and offers it food from her hand. You set its box down on the table and call for her but she doesn't come. You check her room and find it empty.
Albus.
You storm down the hall and wrench the door open, not caring what you might interrupt. Albus is inspecting a wand under an enchanted magnifying glass while Grindelwald sits on the bed flipping idly through a book.
"Where is she," you demand. "You said you would watch her, so where is she."
Albus tosses the wand aside. "She's by the pond. Calm yourself."
"By the pond? Alone?"
"Yes-"
You are the younger one, the mediocre one, always the lesser one, but you loom over your brother in the middle of the room and wrench him by the collar. "Everyone says you're brilliant beyond imagination, but your incredible selfishness makes you truly stupid at times. Go. Get. Her. Now."
Albus stares up at you for a moment before he rises. "As you wish," he says blandly, tipping his nose upward and exiting without further acknowledgement of anyone in the room. Grindelwald chuckles quietly to himself as the back door bangs shuts, still carelessly turning the pages of some ancient text.
You turn to leave, but as you reach the doorway Grindelwald rises elegantly from the bed and meets you there, his eyes bright.
"Why not simply join us, Aberforth?" he asks in his diluted, untraceable accent. "I am sure that if you gave our ideas a chance you would find that you would be quick to forget what, exactly, it was about them you so disliked."
"Perhaps," you say icily as you turn again to leave. "But there is nothing in this world that could make me forget my intense dislike of you."
Grindelwald smiles, his eyes narrowed. And then he kisses you full on the mouth, prying your lips apart with his tongue. Your mind reels. Minutes or seconds pass before you can think enough to push him away. His low, musical laugh follows you through the house as you run.
You lean against the bathroom door, head pounding. Somewhere in your mind you know that he must be a good kisser, but the taste in your mouth is sour and you gag over the sink before rinsing your mouth out over and over and over.
Much like your brother does two weeks later. Except two weeks later there are Ministry officials at the door for Extreme Use of Underage Magic, and you're crying violently in a corner of the room, and Gellert Grindelwald is already far, far away.
Author: bethfrish
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dumbledore/Grindelwald
Disclaimer: Property of JKR.
This summer, like no other before it, is all but unbearable. The nape of your neck shines with tiny beads of sweat as Ariana kneels behind you on the front steps and quietly brushes your hair. Her hand moves in small, awkward motions, pausing mid-stroke for no other reason than to play with it in her fingers. She threads it in a figure eight, laughs and yanks it until you tell her, "No."
The distant glare of the sun fades to orange as it sets. You stare vacantly at the path in the distance as the warm air accosts your face and disrupts the trees. Behind you Ariana stills and watches the deserted cobblestone too, like she can see it in your thoughts.
"Albus will be back soon and then I'll cook dinner. But I can't cook until he comes back with the food, ok? And then we'll eat."
"Yes." Ariana pats your head fondly with her hairbrush.
The sun slips toward the horizon but the heat lingers in the quiet summer air. It curls around your neck and creeps beneath your shoes. You dip your head between your knees and think of the sweltering heat within the cottage that is so much worse, and then you finally hear it.
Footsteps. Your raise your head. Ariana says," Oh good," and happily resumes brushing your hair. And there is Albus, coming down the path with a package tucked beneath his arm. But he is not alone. From behind you, Ariana curls a piece of hair around her finger so tightly that you flinch violently and snap, "No."
Your brother, Albus, is too far away to hear your cry. He is not even looking in your direction, for his eyes are locked on his companion-young-somewhere between his age and your own. They walk slowly but animatedly in your direction, Albus motioning wildly in the air with his free hand. The sun at their backs obscures the features of the other boy, but you watch him over your shoulder as you stand up and restrain your sister's imminent fit.
It does not matter that you cannot tell much about this boy as he approaches your family's house on a muggy evening in the beginning of July. You watch his movements from the corner of your eye. Something in the way he walks alongside your brother, the casual manner in which he touches his arm, tells you that his face will not remain unfamiliar for very long.
Grindelwald's owl hoots forlornly at your window for seven minutes before you abandon the hope that you will be able to sleep before acknowledging its presence. It stares at you as you undo the latch, steps in calmly when you push the glass aside.
"His room is the next one," you say irritably. "You know that, you carry their stupid notes back and forth every night."
The owl pierces you with its beady eyes. Then you remember. Albus must not be in his room. He must be down by the pond with your sister because looking at the water helps her sleep on particularly bad nights. You know this because it's usually you down by the water when the rest of the world is sleeping. Two days ago you snapped at Albus over breakfast, demanding his acknowledgement that familial responsibility was meant to be shared and that their own score was a far shot from even. He smiled grimly at you, infuriatingly, but when Ariana blasted a crater in the ceiling of her bedroom tonight you were surprised to find that Albus had already taken her from the house.
Don't bother him, leave him be, you think at the owl, but all you say is, "He's not here."
It hops sideways across your bed, away from you, and when you make to grab the note banded to its leg it swipes at you and leaves a rude, bleeding gash across three of your fingers.
"He's not home. Leave him alone," you mutter, sucking at the blood trickling over the back of your hand. The owl gives a single hoot, flitting off your bed and out your window.
When you're still awake several hours later, you notice a blur in the darkness flying, every twenty minutes or so, between a neighbor's house and the pond near your backyard. You flop back down on your bed and stare at the ceiling until the sound of the door three hours later indicates the return of your siblings.
When Albus looks at your hand the next morning over breakfast, you retract it into your lap before he can touch the thin red lines with his wand. He pulls back slowly, confused, but finally returns to his eggs. You scoff. "Don't bother. Don't bother with anything," and the next time Ariana rages in the middle of the night it is you who tends to her.
One day you pass Albus' bedroom door as you're sweeping the hall, and from within you hear the noises of fevered excitement that your own childhood only produced on rare occasions. They sound like young boys lost in fantasy and games, draping themselves in blankets from the foot of the bed, each declaring himself the king of the other.
But they are not boys, for Albus is of age and Grindelwald is at least older than you are. But as you clasp the broom in your hand and press your ear against the door you can think only of children, holed up together for hours on end because the imagination of a child never tires.
You want to know what they talk about. You want to know what they spend their days and their nights discussing under their breaths, and sometimes more loudly when they think no one is around. You want to know how it is that your brother has become closer to this boy in less time than you believe the two of you have ever truly shared.
So you throw open the door under the pretense of collecting the dirt from the precipice of his room and take in the sight of them sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Yes?" Albus snaps at you, eyes shining, but Grindelwald just smiles and leans back on his elbows.
"Nothing," you say with a scowl. "Didn't mean to interrupt," but Grindelwald calls you back, nudging one of the many books scattered across the floor with his shoe and nods to your brother.
And to your surprise, Albus finally explains in full detail what you have only caught in snippets, eavesdropped over the course of weeks. He speaks of wizards and Muggles, of fairy tales and immortality, of a utopia which you can see only in terms of inevitable disaster. He recites, "For the greater good," and the way in which his eyes shine disturbs you.
"You are deluded," you finally mutter, but Albus remains cocky. "How do you except to go about this?" you ask while his defiance grinds at your patience. "Well? Where are your resources? What about your other responsibilities? What about your sister!"
You look at Albus, expecting to see shame but receiving only muted fury. "You know very little," he sneers.
It's all you can take. You stalk out, slamming the door behind you. You leave them to their fantasies, rife with implausibilities and Grindelwald's haughty smile.
For nearly a week you've been noticing scratches on the back of Albus' neck. Closer scrutiny reveals bruises on his forearms, small welts not in areas normally affected by everyday injury. After he resurfaces from wherever it is that he and his friend go with a deep purple bruise on his neck you decide that you can no longer pretend to be oblivious.
"What exactly are you doing, Albus? You're in too deep, whatever it is." You motion towards his neck with the jar of tomato sauce he brought home for dinner. "Look at you."
He turns away, exposing, where his hair is pulled back, the thin lines that look almost like owl scratches. "I will remind you yet again," he says calmly, "that what I do has little to do with you."
You slam the tomato sauce down on the counter and grab your brother by the shoulder, pulling him roughly to face you. "Just because I want no part in your insane quest for world domination, does not mean that I don't care if my only brother, blinded by his own raging ego, kills himself in the process!"
Albus opens his mouth to speak, but somewhere in the house Ariana, sensing your quarrel, goes ballistic and you leave the kitchen to tend to her. The next day your sister rages and storms all afternoon, and this is how you finally locate the source of your brother's wounds.
You have not entered Albus' room when his guest is present since your fight three weeks earlier, but this afternoon Ariana darts away as you fix her lunch and shatters the protective spell they use to lock the door. You get there just in time, wrenching the door from her before she has the chance to enter. You pull it shut, but not before looking past her and into the room. Grindelwald's hands are in your brother's hair, pulling so fiercely that you can see the pain mixed with pleasure, in the second before you avert your eyes, on Albus' face as he kneels on the floorboards, the hunger in his eyes as he lowers his head into Grindelwald's lap.
The insides of your stomach churn. All day you wait for a confrontation that never comes, and you see Albus only briefly before he and Grindelwald leave for the night. He carelessly assures you that he'll be back by morning.
"How lovely," you respond, not looking up from your book until their figures retreat from the doorway. Grindelwald's hand caresses Albus' shoulder, almost like he knows you're watching.
You come home one day with a baby rabbit, a present for your sister whose face will shine with delight as she pets its fur and offers it food from her hand. You set its box down on the table and call for her but she doesn't come. You check her room and find it empty.
Albus.
You storm down the hall and wrench the door open, not caring what you might interrupt. Albus is inspecting a wand under an enchanted magnifying glass while Grindelwald sits on the bed flipping idly through a book.
"Where is she," you demand. "You said you would watch her, so where is she."
Albus tosses the wand aside. "She's by the pond. Calm yourself."
"By the pond? Alone?"
"Yes-"
You are the younger one, the mediocre one, always the lesser one, but you loom over your brother in the middle of the room and wrench him by the collar. "Everyone says you're brilliant beyond imagination, but your incredible selfishness makes you truly stupid at times. Go. Get. Her. Now."
Albus stares up at you for a moment before he rises. "As you wish," he says blandly, tipping his nose upward and exiting without further acknowledgement of anyone in the room. Grindelwald chuckles quietly to himself as the back door bangs shuts, still carelessly turning the pages of some ancient text.
You turn to leave, but as you reach the doorway Grindelwald rises elegantly from the bed and meets you there, his eyes bright.
"Why not simply join us, Aberforth?" he asks in his diluted, untraceable accent. "I am sure that if you gave our ideas a chance you would find that you would be quick to forget what, exactly, it was about them you so disliked."
"Perhaps," you say icily as you turn again to leave. "But there is nothing in this world that could make me forget my intense dislike of you."
Grindelwald smiles, his eyes narrowed. And then he kisses you full on the mouth, prying your lips apart with his tongue. Your mind reels. Minutes or seconds pass before you can think enough to push him away. His low, musical laugh follows you through the house as you run.
You lean against the bathroom door, head pounding. Somewhere in your mind you know that he must be a good kisser, but the taste in your mouth is sour and you gag over the sink before rinsing your mouth out over and over and over.
Much like your brother does two weeks later. Except two weeks later there are Ministry officials at the door for Extreme Use of Underage Magic, and you're crying violently in a corner of the room, and Gellert Grindelwald is already far, far away.