the one you're trying to save [fic] [hp]

[mewling]

> the one you’re trying to save
> mewling

> { harry potter, M15+, grindeldore, slash}
> { In reality, there were four people Albus wanted to save. }
> { My un-smutty springsmut fic. I should post my other contest fics to this account too. }



Black, your mother’s coffin sinks into the ground. The smell of perfume is thick in the air.

There’s a crowd of honest people gathered here; tears and sad faces.

You wish you could cry.

The priest drops dirt into the grave - thump thump thump, it falls on the lid.

Your brother, thumb and forefinger, clings to your shirt cuff.

It feels heavy.

“You don’t have to do this,” Aberforth scowls, fringe hanging in his eyes. “I can take care of her.”

You pull your trunk through the narrow hallway, and it bumps against the walls. The pictures rattle.

“Education is important,” you tell him. Remember, awed teachers, idolising classmates.

Aberforth snorts. “It’s not for all of us.” His shoulder knocks your arm, and it burns like resentment.

This isn’t a story of love at first sight.

“Grindelwald,” the boy introduces himself. “Gellert Grindelwald.” He’s got a shock of blond curls and the kind of broad mouth that smiles too easily.

“Albus Dumbledore,” you respond, polite. He must be about the same age as your brother.

There’s a moment of still when you can’t think of anything to say. Grindelwald inspects you with interest in his eyes.

“I’ll leave you two to get to know one another, shall I?” Bagshot smiles. She looks relieved. “I’ll just be in the kitchen if you need me.”

You grope blindly for something to talk about. Gesturing to the book tucked under Grindelwald’s arm, you say, “So you’re reading Holloway?”

Grindelwald pulls the book out and waves it lightly. The gold lettering glints A Treatise on the Grass Roots Goblin Revolution in the South of France. “You could say that,” he shrugs, elegant. “It works better than a sleeping draught.”

He turns to you and grins.

And something within you responds; your face cracks open and oh - it’s seems like it’s been a long time, since you last smiled.

Aberforth glares at you every time you cross the threshold.

“When will you be back?” he asks. The book he reads Ariana trembles in his lap.

A shrug; the door doesn’t slam behind you.

Gellert bites his thumb, bored, over dog-eared pages of a history tome.

“This is useless,” he announces, and pushes the stack off the edge of the table. “It will be much easier to get books from the Goldhawk Magical History Private Library in Archway.”

“’Private’ being the key word there.” You pick the books up with a sweep of your wand.

There’s mild contempt amongst the mischievousness in Gellert’s eyes. “And? Have you never used polyjuice before?”

You stare. “Sometimes,” you say, “It’s really easy to forget you’re just fifteen years old.”

You watch his fingers as they drag along rune inscriptions. Parchment rasps.

“Don’t listen to your brother,” Gellert says, “When it’s all over, he’ll be grateful.” Adds, “It’s fine if they don’t understand now. They will.”

When you don’t reply he looks up, catches your eye. “I promise.”

Face burning, you change topics. “What’s this you’ve found?” You tap the parchment in front of him.

“Can’t you read runes?” Gellert asks, an eyebrow raised.

You kick him beneath the table. “Not upside-down I can’t.”

He laughs. The sound rings in your chest.

You keep the letters he sends you, gathered in an unordered pile, shoved in the corner of your closet.

You like the way he writes your name.

You like the way you can hear his voice, in the words.

Bathilda Bagshot’s house smells like wet wool and pot pourri.

Up the stairs, your footfalls soft. Count the steps; twelve. You could climb them in your sleep. It’s become a house you know almost as well as you own.

Gellert’s room is the second door down. Today, it’s ajar. You press you palm gently to the wood and push, his name ready on you lips.

It doesn’t make it out.

His back is taunt muscle, pale and sinew, his spine a knobbed line, curves into and under the edge of his draws. Watch, he slowly pulls over his shirt.

It’s really easy to forget, sometimes, that he’s only fifteen.

Aberforth lets you put Ariana to bed, once, and you tell her stories of a world with no boundaries. Of a future where she could walk proudly together with everyone, and not be afraid.

She holds your hand. Her fingers are small and delicate.

You keep talking long after she falls asleep.

You turn eighteen around a table piled high with notes, hastily scribbled words caught between the pages of stolen books.

“Congratulations,” Gellert says when you tell him. “Although, this is a little short notice for a gift.”

“It’s enough,” you say, quietly, and that’s as close as you think you’ll ever be to making a confession. Gryffindor, but you don’t have that kind of courage.

Gellert shuts his book and smiles. Says, “I’m somewhat broke at the moment, so there’s not much I can give you, but…”

Leans over, thumb against your earlobe, mouth on yours.

Kisses you, almost casually.

“Penny-pincher,” you whisper when you can breathe again.

He laughs against your collarbone.

He calls you Albus, and sometimes Al:

Closer than brothers, they will say - if only they knew.

His fingertips, cold, trace from down your neck to below your ribcage.

His mouth is every where; lips, eyes, ears, neck. Kisses you against your racing pulse; bites, then licks the spot.

You shiver. It must mean something, that you think you could melt into him, in those spots he touches.

You cry out when Gellert reaches into your pants; hoarse, he mutters Shh into your hair; the old bat will hear you.

At some point his hand, which had been very cold - becomes unbearably hot.

His palm burns into your chest and you feel your heart beat, wildly. It’s too hot, you think. I’m suffocating.

His fingers wrap around your cock almost too tightly. He bites your lip, and when you come it’s thick and sticky in his hand.

Panting, you watch Gellert wipe his hand carelessly on one of his great-aunt’s prized wall-hangings.

“It’s not over yet,” he grins, and unbuckles his pants.

“I went to an all-boys school,” Gellert says by way of explanation.

“They’re not all like that,” you say.

Gellert, naked, stares out the window. “Perhaps I’m just irresistibly good looking, then.”

There’s blood in rain splatters on the pavement.

Gellert holds his wand high and his eyes are wide and crazy. The man coughs, doubled over.

You shut your eyes.

“Don’t close your eyes, Albus,” voice cold conviction. “There are sacrifices that must be made. Do not insult them by pretending you do not see.”

You open your eyes. The night air stings, and that must be why you feel like crying.

Gellert slides foreign languages over the cut of your shoulder blades.

Sometimes you can recognise the words. “This isn’t a linguistics lesson,” you gasp as he thrusts into you. “What’s wrong with English?”

He doesn’t even pause, slicks his fingers in your mouth instead. “You wouldn’t let me do this if you knew what I was saying.”

Doge writes you letters, heavy scrolls of excited babble. Today is Incan temples and thick Amazon jungles, words of burning cacao drinks and cities hidden beneath deep rivers.

“He’s so in love with you,” laughs Gellert, looking over your shoulder. He likes to read passages aloud mockingly. He’s that kind of guy. You should probably chide him, but you’re guilty too - because he makes you laugh.

“There’s a difference between love and admiration,” you say. “You wouldn’t understand, but he’s nice.”

Gellert snickers derisively. “’Nice,’” he drawls, dragging a fingernail along your neck, “Since when did you like ‘nice’?”

You knock his hand aside. “Stop that. I’m trying to read.”

Silence cuts and -

Gellert dips his head beside yours, traces thumb under your eyes. “Someday,” he says, voice low, “We we will go there, anywhere, together.”

Throat dry, you don’t manage the reply.

In some ways, he has this amazing self control.

For instance: now, with your mouth over the head of his cock, by his expression you could think he very easily was completely indifferent to the sensation of your tongue, slick on his cock. If you didn’t know better.

Probably, you could do this under the dining table as he sat across from Bathilda Bagshot, and they would exchange pleasantries over meat and potatoes.

It’s like a slap in the face.

Stunned, you’re stock still as the dust settles. You cannot breathe, you cannot think.

Aberforth coughs on the dust as he cries “Ariana!”

You cannot move.

It’s Gellert who crouches down in the wreckage beside your sister’s body, presses his fingertips to her neck. He’s touching her, you think numbly. He’s touching my sister.

“She’s dead,” he says softly, calmly. Like he was reading the words off of paper.

Suddenly, it’s like you’re a complete stranger, like you’re seeing things clearly for the first time in months - in years. Scraps of wallpaper about your feet, plaster pale in the air, and the smell of scorched wood - everything feels so real.

“You killed her! You killed my sister!” Aberforth can barely stand but he shouts, groping blindly at Gellert. He moves easily out of your brother’s reach, still holding Ariana’s neck.

“Don’t be such a fool,” he says scornfully, bright eyes flitting about ruined room. “There’s no way to tell whose curse did it. What a mess.”

He doesn’t, you realise, he doesn’t even care. He isn’t even pretending to.

Laying Ariana back down, Gellert stands, dusting off his knees. He gives you a comforting, offhand smile, and it horrifies you. That you would have fallen for this, once. That he expects you to, now.

“It was just an accident,” Gellert says smoothly, “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

He brushes his hand against your fingers and you jerk away as though scalded.

“Don’t,” you say hoarsely, bile burning the back of your throat and tears hot in your eyes, “Don’t touch me.”

Black, your sister’s coffin sinks into the ground.

Blood drips from your nose and you can taste it on your lips. Aberforth stands across from you, fist still clenched, eyes bright and wretched.

“Look,” he shouts, “Look what you’ve done!”

You lower your face and let the pain in your nose overwhelm you.

Because -

What - what could you say, to that?

What could you do?

You start to call him Grindelwald again, by the time you allow yourself to think of him at all. It hurts to say his name. By then, it’s a name that the whole wizarding world knows, and fears.

It shouldn’t have been this way, you think.

But the alternative cuts even sharper.

A young Tom Riddle stares at you, defiant. There’s ambition at the corners of his mouth.

It curves familiar.

You don’t approve, of course. But you’re not sure that you’re in any position to make judgements.

He could be brilliant, you know. He will be, but it won’t be in the way you hope.

The air stings inevitable. You write history repeats itself with a dry quill.

It’s just another one of those letters you’ll never send.

“I’m afraid,” you tell the night, “I’m a coward.”

“I can’t be honest with anyone.”

Your mouth is dry as you raise your wand; the tears that aren’t there are blurring your eyes, and you think oh, oh, we should have stayed in that summertime.

“Albus” he says, your name an apology on his lips.

“Al,” he says, and you shut your eyes and turn your face away.

Because you don’t, you don’t - you don’t want to hear this.

But, but - you couldn’t kill him.

‘Merciful’, they’ll write in the articles.

They aren’t even close.

Eventually, your fame will eclipse his; and Grindelwald will be just ink in history books, dark under the column of your accomplishments.

It should be under your failures.

You start to speak of him as though he’s dead. Then, not at all.

You’re always smiling in the photographs.