Ownfic: "As Human as to Breathe" (2/2) for jtav
Title: As Human as to Breathe (2/2)
Author: kennahijja
Recipient: jtav
Characters/Pairings: Dumbledore/Grindelwald with a touch of gen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings (highlight to view): may look like AU, a bit of blood
Wordcount: ~ 14 800 words
Summary: Step into a world in which Ariana Dumbledore lived…
Author's Notes: jtav, thank you for picking this prompt. I hope you'll enjoy the result. Inspired in part by this awesome piece of art. Some dialogue has been borrowed directly from PS, the title from Beedle the Bard, and the chapter headings from Albus Dumbledore :).
Part 1
vi. 'It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.'
Gellert did not return to their shared quarters after the theft of the Deathstick. Albus came home to find his possessions gone. It didn’t take him long to find out where he had moved to - the town house of Danilo Carodej, whose grandson had provided Gellert with Gregorovitch's address in the first place.
As always, the quaint little houses of the Golden Lane left Albus homesick for Diagon Alley. The look was different, the atmosphere the same. He shut his eyes for an instant, trying to look inconspicuous on the sidewalk until he could feel the protective veil drawing away. When he opened them again, the spires and townhouses of Magical Prague rose behind and between the rows of small houses, revealing the splendour of the Golden Quarter, the most upmarket quarter of magical Prague, to the wizarding gaze.
The front of Carodej Palace was held up by pink marble pillars carved in the shape of Veela. In the city of golems and gargoyles, Albus was too familiar with the various ways statues could be used in defence to even consider taking the front entrance.
Instead, he slunk through the evening crowds into the narrow closes at the back of the Carodejs' residence, wishing for the third Hallow around his shoulders rather than a handful of invisibility spells which seemed to constrict both his vision and his ability to breathe.
The backyard of the house was considerably less representative than the front, a cobblestoned home to rubbish bins, chopped wood, and cats strewn among weeds. Just as Albus contemplated access, the back door banged open and a series of paper-wrapped bundles, smelling strongly of fish and food waste, floated out. A rotund witch in a huge white apron followed. Directing the rubbish over to the bins, she left just enough space for Albus to slip past her. As the bin lids floated aside, inspiration struck. He lifted his wand a little, delivering a gentle zap to the tail of one of the cats, who eyed the rubbish as mesmerised as its comrades. It yelped, bristled and delivered a slap to the confused triangular face beside it. Hissing with rage, the victim struck back, and seconds later a multicoloured ball of fur was rolling on the dirty cobbles, growling in duet.
"What the hell…" Despite the broad kitchen Czech that almost defied Albus's Translation Charm, the meaning of the cook's words were easy to guess as she took a few steps towards the brawling cats. A smile tugged at Albus's lips as he slid past her into the house.
The family's wealth became evident once he'd cleared the area below stairs: a grand ballroom, picture gallery and potions laboratory with adjacent library on the ground floor alone. The flight of stairs up to the first floor sported ornate marble banisters, and was guarded by two stone Gargoyles that Albus coveted irrationally. Lucky for him, gargoyles went by sight and hearing, so he had no trouble tiptoeing up the staircase wrapped in his Invisibility Charms and with a Muffliato on his boots.
Quiet as a ghost, he slid through the near-empty corridors of the family quarters. He saw the Carodejs' ancient patriarch, asleep in the Master bedroom, attended by a Healer and obviously not long for this world; passed the gold-framed portrait of his late son, Gregorovitch's confidant, posing in warlock's leathers and ermine cloak, wand in one hand, broom in the other. The portrait sniffed suspiciously when Albus passed, but raised no outcry.
Albus heard the voices, a murmur softened by leather-padded wood before he reached the door to the south wing drawing room. To soft to eavesdrop on, unless one was a wizard. Albus cast a gentle Sonorus, just enough to allow the voices drift through to him, and listened.
"… our combined forces will give us a power base to operate throughout Europe."
"A handful of concerted attacks, that's all it will take." That was Gellert's voice, authoritative, merry almost. "Two or three well-aimed assassinations, and the powder keg that is Europe will blow up like a barrelful of Exploding Fluid."
"And it will fall to us after they have finished destroying each other." A female voice, clear as a bell. "And yours to rule, my lord."
Albus's stomach heaved. Anger gave him the boost he needed to pull out his wand and blast open the door without a shred of finesse.
Five heads and wands whipped around to him. Gellert was standing in front of the others, in a floor-length sea-coloured robe.
Refusing to acknowledge him immediately, Albus scanned the group. Immediately, his eye was drawn to the sole woman on the chaiselongue: tall, statuesque, with a mass of black hair piled up on top of her head and wide skirts spreading out elegantly around her feet. Closest to Gellert, on the armrest of a plush chair, sat a young man in fancy embroidered grey, with soft brown hair and a beautifully sculpted mouth. He looked like a softer version of the portrait warlock Albus had just passed. A tall, burly wizard in pure black with a wolf head pendant, who had jumped up at Albus's entrance. And, on the other side of the room, a face that hit Albus like a blow. Older, edgier, but unmistakably Lysander Malfoy in black and silver.
They certainly bred for beauty in the old pureblood families, Albus thought. Just not for honour.
Gellert's eyes found his at last, a little wide with surprise. Then he smiled. "Hold your curses," he told his associates. And then, to Albus, "So you made it back alive?"
"No thanks to you," Albus observed.
"Ah, I have full confidence in your ingenuity, Albus. But I don't think you've been formally introduced." He nodded at the witch. "Medea Le Strange, Doyenne of the Chevaliers de Walburge at Toulouse." Le Strange inclined her head, provocatively low, and licked her bottom lip. "Ernst Höllhammer, deputy leader of the Schattenjägerbund. Lysander Malfoy, representative of the English Chapter of the Knights of Walpurgis-"
"We've met," Albus said curtly.
Malfoy cocked his head, then snapped his fingers. "Oh, of course. The young Dumbledore - I spoke to your father the night before he was taken away to Azkaban." A cruel smile touched his thin lips.
"I know," Albus said coldly. "I was there."
"How delightful," Malfoy murmured. Albus wondered how he could have overlooked the feral nature seething underneath the polished façade as a child.
"And finally," Gellert cut in, placing a hand on the arm of the boy next to him, "our gracious host, Master Danilo Carodej, jr."
The boy stared at Albus as if he was looking at a poisonous spider, pretty mouth pulled into an expression of disgust.
At last, Gellert waved his arm at Albus with a flourish. "Well… meet my stormy friend, Albus Dumbledore."
"Friend might be a tad optimistic," Albus said. "Friends don't use friends as bait and distraction and leave them to face the consequences."
Gellert's lip quirked. "You forgot backup and..." He took a step towards Albus and touched the top button of his cloak. It glowed golden for an instant, then crumbled into dust. "... decoy."
So Albus and his damnable invitation had guided him right through Gregorovitch's wards. And he'd relied on Albus backing him up if worst came to worst.
"Yes, that," Albus said bitterly.
"I offered you England, Albus," Gellert pointed out. "It was you who refused. You who betrayed me first."
"Perhaps your gift-giving skills have deserted you," Albus shot back, and saw a shadow ghost over Gellert's face.
"However," he added with a contemptuous glance at the group, "I don't want to keep you from your cronies for too long, and certainly have no desire to spend more time in their company than necessary." He gave his former 'friend' a hard look. "I've come to challenge you to a wizard's duel, Gellert." Gellert's forehead crinkled, ever so slightly. Whatever he had expected, this hadn't been it. "Your time and place," Albus added dismissively. "Just make it soon."
Gellert laughed. "Dear Albus, if you wanted to find out which one of us is the better wizard, you should have called me out before I obtained the Elder Wand." His fingers slid, lovingly, to the sheath at his belt.
"It doesn't make you invincible, Gellert," said Albus bluntly. "The wizard Gregorovitch took it from could tell you that."
Gellert's eyes narrowed. "Very well then. At dawn on the day after tomorrow at Dévin Hall?" Dévin Hall, the ancient assembly hall of Prague's purebloods, Albus thought, would be the place where Taras Gregorovitch had fought as a duellist.
"Agreed," he replied curtly.
The same mad glint Albus had seen in Gellert's eyes when he'd made his escape from Gregorovitch's study was back. Merlin, he's enjoying this! Albus thought.
Gellert reached out and laid a finger on Albus's cheek as if they were utterly alone. "I am looking forward to seeing you there."
Albus shook off his hand with a brusque gesture, and turned to the door.
"I don't."
***
Albus left the lodging house well before dawn, with over two hours before his appointment. Gellert would be early. He would be earlier.
It gave him time to walk instead of taking the Floo Network shortcuts that connected the quarters of wizarding Prague on either side of the Vltava. Cool air, silence and darkness enveloped him, with only a few lamp-lit windows of early-rising Muggles twinkling at him along the way.
On his way across Charles Bridge he stopped once to wait for a Muggle coach to pass. Walking eased the nervous knot in his stomach, and he pointedly forced himself not to think of Gellert and the upcoming battle. Of Gellert and the Elder Wand. He might not get another chance for a stroll through a sleeping city, so he'd enjoy this one.
He reached the Golden Lane, its toy-like little houses drab in the dark, and ducked through the wall into the wizarding quarter. The cobblestone street on the other side didn't look much different from the one he'd left, although the houses were taller. The main difference was that here, the streetlamps snored softly and occasionally swayed a little.
And then they went out all at once, submerging the road in near total darkness.
Albus took a step backwards. He put a hand against the wall he'd passed through, and felt it melt into a solid whole under his palm.
He drew his wand, not quite surprised to see a ring of figures emerge from the darkness before him. Three, four, six…
Clutching his wand handle, Albus cursed himself. Why hadn't he even considered that Gellert might play foul?
Soundless in the gloom, they formed a half-circle around him. Albus's eyes flicked from black cloak to black cloak, looking in vain for a familiar body language. The tallest of group wore a snarling wolf mask, and it didn't take a genius to recognise Höllhammer, the Schattenjäger.
The smaller figure next to him suddenly threw back its hood to expose a familiar, too-pretty face.
"Why, Master Carodej?" Albus greeted him lazily. "An escort? I'm flattered."
An ugly sneer twisted the pouty lips. "Did you truly believe our Lord thought you important enough to do battle with? He sent us to dispose of you." He raised his wand. "For betraying him. And for infecting him with your perversion."
"Oh?" Albus cocked an eyebrow. "Which one? My preference for male affection? My tolerance for Muggles? My passion for sherbet lemons?"
"You are vile!" the boy snarled, and Albus laughed.
"He told me that you were very young. He forgot to mention that you were a fool."
The boy shrieked with anger and snapped his wand in Albus's direction. "Serpensortia!"
A black-and-red-patterned snake flew towards Albus, fangs bared in an enraged hiss. He raised his wand, spread out the fingers of his left hand, and exhaled a transfigurative incantation.
The snake reared up and twisted, wrapping its sinuous body into coils until its skin rippled, coarsened and pulled even tighter. A knotted piece of rope landed at Carodej's feet.
"Add impulsive and predictable on top of foolish," Albus commented coldly.
Then, still speaking, he whirled around and shot a stunning spell at wizard on the far left. The man gave a huff of surprise and collapsed on the cobblestones, stiff as a board. Adrenaline pounded through Albus's blood. One down, five to go.
"Jealousy is such a regrettable trait in an attractive young man…" Albus sighed in the same indolent manner that Gellert used to inflict spitting rage on a victim. "But then 'Lord Grindelwald' is quite easy to fall in love with, isn't he, Mr Carodej?" There were moments when sheer cruelty was enjoyable.
A tinkle of laughter came from the figure to the right of Carodej. The boy's face went an interesting shade of purple while his mouth moved with soundless rage. Then the tip of his wand turned green.
He'd gotten to "Ava-" when Albus's "Stupefy!" hit him square in the chest.
The boy toppled backwards with a shriek that gave Albus far more satisfaction than it should have, and collapsed in a heap of black cloth.
"Ah, well done Mr Dumbledore," said a familiar voice. Medea Le Strange brushed back the hood of her cloak, and after a moment, Lysander Malfoy followed suit beside her. Albus swallowed. Carodej was too impulsive to consider that showing his face would make him identifiable later through Pensieve memories or Veritaserum. These two… if they revealed themselves, they were determined to kill.
"I do not share young Danilo's prejudices about bedding one's own sex," Le Strange murmured. "It is a pity you'll have do die. You're a gifted wizard - we could have used you."
Albus shook his head and raised his wand in invitation.
Le Strange's wand hissed, and then a griffin with a body of white fire and smoke for feathers flew at him, roaring like wildfire.
"Diffindo!" Albus felt the tips of his hair singe as the creature burst through his first shield. "Protego!" he cried and it shattered into an inferno of molten shards right in front of him.
He threw up his arm to protect his face, his "Reprotego!" an unheard whisper in the roar even as it deflected the shards away from him.
Blinking rapidly, he saw Le Strange safe behind a magical shield in whose middle gleamed a stylised 'W'. The Schattenjäger had hidden inside his ankle-length black cloak with his back turned and not a mark him, while Malfoy had been thrown back several feet by the impact on his shielding charm.
The fourth wizard, however, was on the ground with burn holes scattered all over the front of his robes. Albus watched in horror as his legs twitched once, twice, then stilled.
Bile rose in his stomach. While he was aware of the dangers of duelling in theory, he'd never faced up to the fact that he might kill. First Ariana, barely escaping, then this...
He had no time to mourn, however. Face flushed with rage, Malfoy's wand swished towards him. "Flagello!"
In three poison-green strands, the spell-whip lashed out. Albus flung himself aside, rolling away while the force of the lash cut off half his trailing hood.
"Crucio!"
Albus had the presence of mind to keep rolling. If this caught him, the battle would be over. Even his considerable willpower could not withstand an Unforgivable.
He came up to his feet a bit dizzy, just to see Le Strange's lips move in yet another curse. Too slow to entirely evade it, he felt something invisible brush his left shoulder, soft and painless and disgusting like a cold, wet sponge. Albus braced himself for pain which didn't come.
Then his heart stopped.
It was as if a bell that had always been ringing, too familiar to notice, had just fallen silent. A melody, dancing towards the next tune, and then nothing. A gurgle escaped Albus as he clutched his chest. The edges of his vision suddenly seemed tinged red. Reflexively, he hit his chest with his wandless fist, and the heartbeat it forced cut like a red-hot spear through the middle of his chest.
"Sano!" he croaked, clutching his wand as if to break it. He doubled over and crashed to his knees when his heart stumbled into a few more irregular beats. It slowly normalised even if the new heartbeats still felt like some drummer playing staccato on his breastbone, rushing on as if to catch up with the beats it had lost. Then the unmistakable feeling of a wand tip touching the back of his neck froze him utterly.
"Imperio!"
Malfoy's voice was low, almost loving, and Albus felt his breath on his neck. How had he managed to get so close? The spell meandered through his brain, trailing smears of complacency behind like honey.
"Stop breathing!" Malfoy whispered, and of course Albus did.
Still trembling with weakness, Albus knew there was something he should do to fight back, but then Malfoy's fingers wrapped in his hair as the pressure closed around his aching chest. The urge for air tightened his entire body, his spine bowed as he reared up against the lack of breath and the grip that held him. He felt Malfoy's fist tighten and the magic flowing from Malfoy was infesting his brain.
With a burst of rage that burned away the spiderweb of Imperius, he grabbed on to that poisonous presence and pushed back.
Malfoy took his hand off him and stumbled back. With burning eyes, Albus watched him sway and fall, both hands pressed against his throat. His face went purple, mouth opening in vain as his brain obeyed the order that had been given.
Albus trembled as the man who had seduced his father into his final, foolhardy revenge clawed the sides of his neck in agony. But then, despicable creature as he was, he had done no more harm than Albus himself, hadn't he?
Albus raised his wand, acknowledging the panic that flared in Malfoy's eyes. "Finite!" he cast, and then, with deliberation, "Dorma!" Asleep, the wizard would breathe normally whereas a stunning spell might shock his struggling lungs into collapse.
He rose to face his last two opponents.
As if he'd been waiting to see what his associates could do, Höllhammer stepped forward, monopolising Albus's attention. The Schattenjäger drew his wand in a straight line in front of his chest. Three snarling wolf heads appeared before him, all teeth and matted, coarse fur. A wave of his hand, and they raced towards Albus, growling and slavering. Albus gently brushed the core of power inside him and threw up his wand. The wolf heads shivered in mid-flight, blurred, and fell down around Albus transfigured into fragrant, healthy Gladiator Allium bulbs that showered him in petals.
Höllhammer let out a sound of distress and swayed, as if the loss of his spell-creatures had hurt him physically. Schattenjäger were not known for uttering a sound during their raids, as if the masks they wore infused them with the animal's spirit and robbed them of human speech. They just tortured and maimed and killed.
At the same time, Albus felt exhaustion like lead in his blood. His first instinct was going for transfiguration, but it took a lot of energy, even more so seeing that the Schattenjäger seemed to have an inherent connection to his wolf heads. Rumour associated them with werewolves and other Dark creatures, and if there was a blood link, this might encroach on the Fifth Principal Exception to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration…
Albus shook off the fruitless thoughts and watched another trio of wolf heads materialize and shoot towards him. "Incendio!"
They were caught in the roaring flame that emerged from Albus's wand, and burned in a burst of sparks and a cloud of singed fur.
His posture radiating rage, the Schattenjäger sent out another trio almost faster than Albus could look.
"Expelliarmus!" Albus cried, and, while Höllhammer's wand was torn from him and clattered away on the cobblestones, "Incendio!"
He caught two of the spell-creatures in the flames. The third wolf head swerved down, the tips of its ears singed, and clamped its jaws around Albus's thigh. Albus heard it tear through skin and flesh. He screamed. The teeth - oh god, the thing was all teeth! - snarled and bit deeper until they crunched on bone. A panicked wand flick shattered the head into a cloud of dust before Albus was aware of what he was doing.
He pressed his hand against the wound on his thigh, but blood kept welling up between his fingers, and the pain almost sent him unconscious. Gripping his wand between slippery fingers, he prepared to cast a healing charm when Medea Lestrange's Expelliarmus pulled it from his fingers. He lunged after it, barely grabbing the handle, when another hex struck the wand and snapped it in two.
Albus had never heard a wand break before. It sounded almost as if the phoenix who'd given the feather for its core was crying out. He felt the power drain away and knew that without a wand, the next curse was bound to finish him off.
Channelling all his pain, anger and power, he struck at Le Strange with the remaining energy of his broken wand - whatever it would take to make that final curse impossible. The woman's arms undulated in a way human bone was unlikely to allow, and her fingers around the pale wand… melted together. Her wand slipped from her grip as gaping jaws opened where her hands had been. She screamed, throwing back the long sleeves of her robe to reveal two large white snakes coiling from her shoulders where her arms had been. She screamed again in horror and stumbled backwards, causing the snakes to whip around her.
The sound of footsteps made Albus turn his head. The Schattenjäger had retrieved his wand, and was coming towards him with heavy steps that betrayed exhaustion. Both hands clenched around his blood-soaked thigh, Albus stared up at him in resignation. He was injured, wandless, with every bit of magic burned out of him from the battle. He'd given his best, but now it was over.
He wanted to close his eyes when another trio of wolf heads emerged from the Schattenjäger's wand, but a sharp hiss made him look up.
In the middle of the street stood Gellert Grindelwald. He'd exchanged robes for brown leathers, boots and a black cloak, and his hair was pulled back into a short gold braid. Looking, as always, too perfect, and utterly out of place in a dismal street littered with bodies.
Albus felt laughter bubbling up in his chest. Gellert's killers had almost finished the job. It wasn't necessary for him to deliver the coup de grace, but Albus was glad he'd be there. He'd make a damned better final sight than the Schattenjäger!
The wolf heads were straining forward, slavering for Albus's flesh, when a flash from Gellert's wand threw them back towards their master. One of them made for the Schattenjäger's throat. A hoarse cry was stifled when the teeth closed around Höllhammer's neck and man and creature collapsed together. The metallic stench of blood rose from the ground.
Without giving the Schattenjäger a second glance, Gellert rounded on Le Strange.
"You disobeyed me!"
"My lord, he wasn't worthy of your attention!" Le Strange cried, her transfigured arms coiling in front of her robes.
"That would be for me to decide."
Gellert raised his wand. The magic hit Le Strange just below the belt line. She fell to the ground and shrieked when her legs crumbled and twitched and then tried to crawl away from her body. One, then two large white serpents emerged from under the hem of her robe as the woman crammed her fist into her mouth to stifle any sound of terror.
"More Cleopatra than Medea, I think," Gellert observed cruelly.
Albus shuddered as Le Strange crawled backwards as if to escape her own slithering limbs. At least he hadn't done it on purpose.
Turning his back on his fallen minions, Gellert knelt down beside Albus.
"I'm glad I decided to show up early," he said and pulled Albus's hands away from the wound. Albus hissed, and Gellert put a hand on his cheek. "Shh."
Albus's teeth clicked together audibly when the wand tip touched his torn thigh. He clung to consciousness by clutching at Gellert's shoulders like a drowning sailor to his barnacle-encrusted plank.
"I'm sorry," he ground out.
There was a moment's pause and no way of judging Gellert's expression because his face faded in and out of Albus's vision, a white oval crowned by gold.
Something that felt like a blunt needle stabbed deep into Albus's injured leg just above the bite. He jerked as heat started to build in the torn limb, still unpleasant, but dulling the rending pain. Part of him was glad he couldn't see the damage that the teeth had done.
"You thought I'd ordered them to attack you?" Gellert's voice, cool and smooth like liquid, scented soap.
"For a while," Albus admitted. He squeezed his eyes shut, surprised to find his cheeks wet with tears. "Should've remembered the size of your... ego would've ruled that out."
He felt dull heat pounding in his leg and fingertips, and cold encroaching everywhere else. Shock, he realised dumbly.
Something warm that could be Gellert's mouth or his fingertip touched his icy lips.
"Yes, you should have."
Aching, blindly, Albus squeezed Gellert's shoulder. "I want to go home."
Another shiver of sparks hissed over him, and breathing became a little easier. It also stopped him, if barely, from collapsing when Gellert pulled him upright.
"England?" Gellert's voice sounded very calm. And then, "I understand."
"No, I don't think you do," Albus slurred. He leaned heavily on the body on offer to avoid putting pressure on his shattered leg. "I don't want to go alone," he whispered through clenched teeth and bouts of the shivers.
Gellert's grip on him softened, just a little, before Albus was Apparated away.
vii. 'I am not worried. I am with you.'
"How did it go?" Albus put down his quill when Gellert barged into the Headmaster's study, as always without knocking. The other staff members had been heard to complain loudly about his lack of respect. Privately, Albus knew it could be far worse.
"Not too bad." Gellert shrugged off his cloak and banished it in a flurry of raindrops onto a hook to dry. The humidity made his hair curl even more than usual. "He's an interesting boy, young Riddle. Secretive. Very precocious. Very damaged too - not that I'm surprised, considering that he's been growing up as an orphan among Muggles and all." He poured himself a goblet of Albus's hot pumpkin juice. "And very powerful, for a Muggleborn."
"You've been teaching at Hogwarts for over a decade," Albus remarked. "And it still surprises you to find power in Muggleborns?"
Gellert took a sip and winced, then shook his head. "Oh, I know they can be gifted. They're just not usually this confident, this prepared to show their powers to strangers."
He put down the goblet and waved his wand over the contents. A strong tang of orange and cinnamon replaced pumpkin, and after an approving sip, Gellert cradled the cup that now held mulled wine. "I have shown the way forward to change that forever, you rembember?"
Deciding to change the topic, Albus asked. "Will you be taking him to Diagon Alley?"
"He took the money and said he won't be needing anyone to escort him," Gellert replied with a bemused twitch of his lip.
"I see," said Albus.
"I'm not saying I'll comply with his wishes." Gellert grinned. "He needs watching, this one, or he'll end up touring right through Knockturn Alley."
"Keep your eyes out for Daily Prophet reporters, though," Albus advised, "or we'll have innuendo plastered across the front page about us taking an 'unusual' interest in young male students."
Instead just snorting as Gellert was wont to do, he leaned back in the armchair and crossed long legs in front of him.
"I was going to consider calling out Murdo Bagman for a duel after his latest 'Threat to Wizarding Morals at our Foremost Educational Institution' dig. But it might no longer be necessary." He steepled his fingers. "You see, I went to lunch with Avrilla and Ebenezer Smith after seeing young Master Riddle, and they strongly implied that congratulations might be in order."
Albus kept his face expressionless, although his fingers closed around the armrests and his heartbeat stepped up. The two worst gossips of the Wizengamot, but not, usually, wrong. He'd been prepared for it, of course, but hearing his hopes almost confirmed was still stealing away his breath.
"There has been no official decision yet," he said. "And there are other candidates."
Gellert let out a whoop of derision. "Yes - as if they'll name Ragnelle Nott, who's as anti-Muggle as they come. Or old Marvell Thicknesse, who may not offend anyone, but only because he's got all the personal drive of a phial of the Draught of the Living Death. No, Albus - in wartime, they want someone who's young and brilliant and has proven his leadership qualities at Hogwarts." He lifted his cup in a toast. "This one's yours, Albus."
He took a sip, eyes sharp and intent on Albus's face.
"Which leaves, of course, Hogwarts."
"It quite does, doesn't it?" Albus agreed.
What a paradox that he had worried for years after coming to Hogwarts to teach Transfiguration that Gellert would get bored with students, books and rules, and take off to parts unknown to do whatever Dark Wizards did with the Elder Wand. Instead, he'd cheerfully taught Charms, Defence against the Dark Arts, and then finally settled on History of Magic and Deputy Headmastership after Cuthbert Binns died and his ghost turned out to be the most dreadful bore. And now it was Albus who would be leaving.
"The question is, of course," Gellert mused, "do you trust me enough to name me your successor?"
"A former Dark Wizard, Durmstrang-trained, of 'unsound wizarding morality', who just happens to be one of the most brilliant scholars of the century?" Albus chuckled into his pumpkin juice. "Of course I do. Seeing Murdo Bagman and the Prophet explode in a ball of condensed moral outrage alone would make it worthwhile."
"Even though you know what I will do?"
Albus sighed, hilarity bleeding away. "So you're absolutely certain you've found a way of recasting the charms on the Book of Hogwarts?"
Gellert nodded, a familiar gleam in his eye. "Absolutely. I will be able to reframe them to detect children with inherent wizarding powers not as they enter their 11th year, but at their first sign of magic as toddlers. That's when they become vulnerable among Muggles - rejected by their families, beaten, exorcised or locked up as lunatics at worst."
"If we know about these children, we can send someone along to make sure they're treated well enough, can influence their families' attitudes. Take them away if necessary." He clenched his fists. "I want to make sure that young Tom Riddle is among the last who'll be thrown at the mercy of people who hate and fear him."
Albus rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I've never claimed it's without merit. Just that in the wrong hands it could deal a devastating blow to an entire generation of Muggleborns and their families."
"Quite like the Elder Wand, don't you think?" Gellert threw in.
Albus sighed. "I trust you, Gellert. I don't trust everyone who'll come after us."
Impatiently, Gellert shook his head. "You and I, Albus, are the most powerful wizards in Britain. We are young enough to reshape the wizarding world to make sure that we leave a safe legacy." His lip quirked into a mischievous smile.
"It's not just that we can tweak the Book of Hogwarts to detect magic early. Given a bit more time, I am sure that I can get around the magic shielding Knockturn Alley and the quite medieval interpretation of 'wizardry' that excludes everyone not of pure wizarding or Muggle heritage. So you wouldn't have to cook up, say, conspiracies behind closed doors with the likes of Myrmidon Hagrid to get his son into Hogwarts."
Albus's cheeks turned warm. "You knew?"
"I took him down to the Three Broomsticks for a drink or six after his interview with you." Gellert clicked his tongue. "A giantess… that's one brave wizard indeed!"
Albus took a deep breath. "Very well, then. I will exercise my right to name my successor, even though I think the Board of Governors would rather I'd dropped dead so they can appoint anyone but you." He smiled inwardly at the thought of the outrage his decision would cause on the pro-Muggle and pro-pureblood side alike, the implications that he was choosing a personal favourite and lover against the objection of the Governors. Well, they'd just have to get over it if they wanted him as Minister of Magic.
"Just remember that the Minister of Magic has the authority to supervise magical education," he emphasised. "I will keep an eye on you."
Gellert threw him a low-lidded look. "I rather hope that won't be the only thing you'll keep on me."
Pleasant warmth spreading in his stomach, Albus assured him. "Definitely not."
"Well…" Gellert stood and spread his arms, "at least the Headmaster's quarters are comfortable."
"… as you would know, seeing that you spend nearly every evening here anyway," Albus grinned. "You might want to start moving in your things. I want a few days away to visit Ariana and Miles in Upper Windrush before all hell breaks lose."
Albus still wasn't sure how he felt about his sister settling down with Kneazle-breeding recluse Miles Scamander, but she seemed happy. The Kneazles probably had a lot to do with it.
"I'll leave you Fawkes," he added as an afterthought. "The school will have greater need of him than the Ministry. And you know how he'd pine without you."
Humming his approval, Gellert wandered over to Fawkes's perch and dipped one of Fawkes's hand-cooked insect rounds into Albus's pumpkin juice in passing. Running a finger over the phoenix's magnificent red-golden plumage - the bird was never more magnificent than at his young adolescent stage - he offered it the treat. Fawkes nipped his finger affectionately, then dug in with far less restraint.
Albus watched them, the two creatures who had saved his life that nightmarish Christmas week many years ago. Gellert, bringing home the tiny hatchling, nurturing and coaxing it into shedding its first healing tears while keeping Albus from the brink of death although he was anything but a healer. Albus still carried the scars on his thigh, but without the phoenix tears, injury and infection would have carried him off. And years later, Fawkes's tears had provided the core ingredient for the Draught of the Gentle Power, which had given Ariana the stability to lead her own life.
He reached for his goblet, reconsidered, and conjured two fresh glasses filled with two thumbs' breadths of firewhisky. Walking over to Gellert, he handed him one and raised his own for a toast.
"To our future, my friend."
o. ' Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.'
"So… you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."
Albus looks down at the face of the little boy next to him, who stares back with eyes wide and nervous behind sellotaped wire-framed glasses. There is a part of him that doesn't want to like the child, because doing so will cause him pain - no, not just him, both of them. He knows what the future holds for this boy.
"I didn't know it was called that, sir," Harry Potter whispers in a wobbly voice.
Albus inclines his head. "But I expect you've realized by now what it does?"
"It… well…"
Half lost in thought, Albus helps the boy to work out what the artefact that has been holding him spellbound is able to do. He is bright, is young Harry Potter when his panic at having been caught by the Headmaster out of bed in the middle of the night has abated a little. Realisation dawns, unguarded, in the wary green eyes.
"It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."
"Yes and no," says Albus. He clings to a lifetime of teaching and experience to prevent the pain from strangling his voice. "It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts."
And to those gifted with a knack for enhancing magic, the ancient artefact can do so much more than showing an image. It can offer an entire alternative world of adventure and affection in place of death, sacrifice and a lifetime of loneliness.
"However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth." Especially not truth, Albus thinks, the word dry as ash on his tongue. "Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."
He sees the boy's eyes widen with fear and remembers all too well the night when Professor Marchbanks had surprised him in his rooms, where he'd crouched too mesmerised by the mirror's visions to even note her entrance.
Even now, he can feel the hot blast of shame and horror burning through his body, paralysed by the pity with which she looked on the British Wizarding World's celebrated war hero fleeing into wishful dreams like a hurt child.
Thankfully, she hadn't alerted Headmaster Dippet back then, or even insisted on having the mirror removed. The shock alone had torn Albus out of the morass of despair he'd sunk into after coming back from Nurmengard. He'd returned the mirror to its original location and had never looked upon it again. Not until he'd been coming across this child, as mesmerised before the seductive glass as he himself had been a lifetime ago.
"The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry," he says. "And I ask you not to go looking for it again."
The boy nods nervously, and Albus finds he believes him. There is a steel core in this child, however battered, that he recognises. He will have the strength to resist the lure of dreams.
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that," he admonishes gently, wondering whether he is indeed speaking to young Harry, or rather to himself. "Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?"
The boy nods and his hands disappear as he wads the cloak between them. His eyes flick to the mirror in a last, involuntary gaze, then slide away. He turns his back with a stiff-necked determination that tugs at Albus's heartstrings. He takes a step, two, then hesitates.
"Sir… Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?"
When Albus assents, the boy looks at him and bites his lip for an instant before blurting out, "What do you see when you look in the mirror?"
Albus stumbles, steadies himself against the door frame and hopes the boy is too young to see his shock for what it is. Cut to the quick in one innocent sentence. Not even Tom has ever managed that. Only Gellert has had that particular gift.
He closes his eyes for a second longer than it would take to blink. His thoughts fly back to a long-past memory that was never a memory.
"I?" he croaks. "I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks."
The boy stares at him, mouth opening in a doubtful 'o'.
"One can never have enough socks," Albus adds, smiling to force back the tears. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."
Potter's mouth snaps shut, carp-like. At worst, he probably thinks Albus is more than a little bit mad. At best, pulling his leg. He nods, slowly, then ducks out of the door. Death's Cloak falls around his shoulders, hiding his presence from the world apart from where the footfalls of his trainers leave half-moon imprints in the dust.
Behind him, Albus sinks onto one of the ancient chairs and buries his head in his hands, his face determinedly averted from the Mirror. He will not look into it again for as long as he lives. It is pointless.
Pointless most of all because whatever the boy may think, he hasn't lied to Harry Potter. He knows he would still see socks in the Mirror of Erised - the socks, Gellert's gift, that have never been real.
- end -
Endnote: This fic very badly wanted to be titled "Erised, or Seven Things That Never Happened to Albus Dumbledore (and One That Did)", but that would've sort of given away things :(.
Author: kennahijja
Recipient: jtav
Characters/Pairings: Dumbledore/Grindelwald with a touch of gen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings (highlight to view): may look like AU, a bit of blood
Wordcount: ~ 14 800 words
Summary: Step into a world in which Ariana Dumbledore lived…
Author's Notes: jtav, thank you for picking this prompt. I hope you'll enjoy the result. Inspired in part by this awesome piece of art. Some dialogue has been borrowed directly from PS, the title from Beedle the Bard, and the chapter headings from Albus Dumbledore :).
Part 1
vi. 'It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.'
Gellert did not return to their shared quarters after the theft of the Deathstick. Albus came home to find his possessions gone. It didn’t take him long to find out where he had moved to - the town house of Danilo Carodej, whose grandson had provided Gellert with Gregorovitch's address in the first place.
As always, the quaint little houses of the Golden Lane left Albus homesick for Diagon Alley. The look was different, the atmosphere the same. He shut his eyes for an instant, trying to look inconspicuous on the sidewalk until he could feel the protective veil drawing away. When he opened them again, the spires and townhouses of Magical Prague rose behind and between the rows of small houses, revealing the splendour of the Golden Quarter, the most upmarket quarter of magical Prague, to the wizarding gaze.
The front of Carodej Palace was held up by pink marble pillars carved in the shape of Veela. In the city of golems and gargoyles, Albus was too familiar with the various ways statues could be used in defence to even consider taking the front entrance.
Instead, he slunk through the evening crowds into the narrow closes at the back of the Carodejs' residence, wishing for the third Hallow around his shoulders rather than a handful of invisibility spells which seemed to constrict both his vision and his ability to breathe.
The backyard of the house was considerably less representative than the front, a cobblestoned home to rubbish bins, chopped wood, and cats strewn among weeds. Just as Albus contemplated access, the back door banged open and a series of paper-wrapped bundles, smelling strongly of fish and food waste, floated out. A rotund witch in a huge white apron followed. Directing the rubbish over to the bins, she left just enough space for Albus to slip past her. As the bin lids floated aside, inspiration struck. He lifted his wand a little, delivering a gentle zap to the tail of one of the cats, who eyed the rubbish as mesmerised as its comrades. It yelped, bristled and delivered a slap to the confused triangular face beside it. Hissing with rage, the victim struck back, and seconds later a multicoloured ball of fur was rolling on the dirty cobbles, growling in duet.
"What the hell…" Despite the broad kitchen Czech that almost defied Albus's Translation Charm, the meaning of the cook's words were easy to guess as she took a few steps towards the brawling cats. A smile tugged at Albus's lips as he slid past her into the house.
The family's wealth became evident once he'd cleared the area below stairs: a grand ballroom, picture gallery and potions laboratory with adjacent library on the ground floor alone. The flight of stairs up to the first floor sported ornate marble banisters, and was guarded by two stone Gargoyles that Albus coveted irrationally. Lucky for him, gargoyles went by sight and hearing, so he had no trouble tiptoeing up the staircase wrapped in his Invisibility Charms and with a Muffliato on his boots.
Quiet as a ghost, he slid through the near-empty corridors of the family quarters. He saw the Carodejs' ancient patriarch, asleep in the Master bedroom, attended by a Healer and obviously not long for this world; passed the gold-framed portrait of his late son, Gregorovitch's confidant, posing in warlock's leathers and ermine cloak, wand in one hand, broom in the other. The portrait sniffed suspiciously when Albus passed, but raised no outcry.
Albus heard the voices, a murmur softened by leather-padded wood before he reached the door to the south wing drawing room. To soft to eavesdrop on, unless one was a wizard. Albus cast a gentle Sonorus, just enough to allow the voices drift through to him, and listened.
"… our combined forces will give us a power base to operate throughout Europe."
"A handful of concerted attacks, that's all it will take." That was Gellert's voice, authoritative, merry almost. "Two or three well-aimed assassinations, and the powder keg that is Europe will blow up like a barrelful of Exploding Fluid."
"And it will fall to us after they have finished destroying each other." A female voice, clear as a bell. "And yours to rule, my lord."
Albus's stomach heaved. Anger gave him the boost he needed to pull out his wand and blast open the door without a shred of finesse.
Five heads and wands whipped around to him. Gellert was standing in front of the others, in a floor-length sea-coloured robe.
Refusing to acknowledge him immediately, Albus scanned the group. Immediately, his eye was drawn to the sole woman on the chaiselongue: tall, statuesque, with a mass of black hair piled up on top of her head and wide skirts spreading out elegantly around her feet. Closest to Gellert, on the armrest of a plush chair, sat a young man in fancy embroidered grey, with soft brown hair and a beautifully sculpted mouth. He looked like a softer version of the portrait warlock Albus had just passed. A tall, burly wizard in pure black with a wolf head pendant, who had jumped up at Albus's entrance. And, on the other side of the room, a face that hit Albus like a blow. Older, edgier, but unmistakably Lysander Malfoy in black and silver.
They certainly bred for beauty in the old pureblood families, Albus thought. Just not for honour.
Gellert's eyes found his at last, a little wide with surprise. Then he smiled. "Hold your curses," he told his associates. And then, to Albus, "So you made it back alive?"
"No thanks to you," Albus observed.
"Ah, I have full confidence in your ingenuity, Albus. But I don't think you've been formally introduced." He nodded at the witch. "Medea Le Strange, Doyenne of the Chevaliers de Walburge at Toulouse." Le Strange inclined her head, provocatively low, and licked her bottom lip. "Ernst Höllhammer, deputy leader of the Schattenjägerbund. Lysander Malfoy, representative of the English Chapter of the Knights of Walpurgis-"
"We've met," Albus said curtly.
Malfoy cocked his head, then snapped his fingers. "Oh, of course. The young Dumbledore - I spoke to your father the night before he was taken away to Azkaban." A cruel smile touched his thin lips.
"I know," Albus said coldly. "I was there."
"How delightful," Malfoy murmured. Albus wondered how he could have overlooked the feral nature seething underneath the polished façade as a child.
"And finally," Gellert cut in, placing a hand on the arm of the boy next to him, "our gracious host, Master Danilo Carodej, jr."
The boy stared at Albus as if he was looking at a poisonous spider, pretty mouth pulled into an expression of disgust.
At last, Gellert waved his arm at Albus with a flourish. "Well… meet my stormy friend, Albus Dumbledore."
"Friend might be a tad optimistic," Albus said. "Friends don't use friends as bait and distraction and leave them to face the consequences."
Gellert's lip quirked. "You forgot backup and..." He took a step towards Albus and touched the top button of his cloak. It glowed golden for an instant, then crumbled into dust. "... decoy."
So Albus and his damnable invitation had guided him right through Gregorovitch's wards. And he'd relied on Albus backing him up if worst came to worst.
"Yes, that," Albus said bitterly.
"I offered you England, Albus," Gellert pointed out. "It was you who refused. You who betrayed me first."
"Perhaps your gift-giving skills have deserted you," Albus shot back, and saw a shadow ghost over Gellert's face.
"However," he added with a contemptuous glance at the group, "I don't want to keep you from your cronies for too long, and certainly have no desire to spend more time in their company than necessary." He gave his former 'friend' a hard look. "I've come to challenge you to a wizard's duel, Gellert." Gellert's forehead crinkled, ever so slightly. Whatever he had expected, this hadn't been it. "Your time and place," Albus added dismissively. "Just make it soon."
Gellert laughed. "Dear Albus, if you wanted to find out which one of us is the better wizard, you should have called me out before I obtained the Elder Wand." His fingers slid, lovingly, to the sheath at his belt.
"It doesn't make you invincible, Gellert," said Albus bluntly. "The wizard Gregorovitch took it from could tell you that."
Gellert's eyes narrowed. "Very well then. At dawn on the day after tomorrow at Dévin Hall?" Dévin Hall, the ancient assembly hall of Prague's purebloods, Albus thought, would be the place where Taras Gregorovitch had fought as a duellist.
"Agreed," he replied curtly.
The same mad glint Albus had seen in Gellert's eyes when he'd made his escape from Gregorovitch's study was back. Merlin, he's enjoying this! Albus thought.
Gellert reached out and laid a finger on Albus's cheek as if they were utterly alone. "I am looking forward to seeing you there."
Albus shook off his hand with a brusque gesture, and turned to the door.
"I don't."
***
Albus left the lodging house well before dawn, with over two hours before his appointment. Gellert would be early. He would be earlier.
It gave him time to walk instead of taking the Floo Network shortcuts that connected the quarters of wizarding Prague on either side of the Vltava. Cool air, silence and darkness enveloped him, with only a few lamp-lit windows of early-rising Muggles twinkling at him along the way.
On his way across Charles Bridge he stopped once to wait for a Muggle coach to pass. Walking eased the nervous knot in his stomach, and he pointedly forced himself not to think of Gellert and the upcoming battle. Of Gellert and the Elder Wand. He might not get another chance for a stroll through a sleeping city, so he'd enjoy this one.
He reached the Golden Lane, its toy-like little houses drab in the dark, and ducked through the wall into the wizarding quarter. The cobblestone street on the other side didn't look much different from the one he'd left, although the houses were taller. The main difference was that here, the streetlamps snored softly and occasionally swayed a little.
And then they went out all at once, submerging the road in near total darkness.
Albus took a step backwards. He put a hand against the wall he'd passed through, and felt it melt into a solid whole under his palm.
He drew his wand, not quite surprised to see a ring of figures emerge from the darkness before him. Three, four, six…
Clutching his wand handle, Albus cursed himself. Why hadn't he even considered that Gellert might play foul?
Soundless in the gloom, they formed a half-circle around him. Albus's eyes flicked from black cloak to black cloak, looking in vain for a familiar body language. The tallest of group wore a snarling wolf mask, and it didn't take a genius to recognise Höllhammer, the Schattenjäger.
The smaller figure next to him suddenly threw back its hood to expose a familiar, too-pretty face.
"Why, Master Carodej?" Albus greeted him lazily. "An escort? I'm flattered."
An ugly sneer twisted the pouty lips. "Did you truly believe our Lord thought you important enough to do battle with? He sent us to dispose of you." He raised his wand. "For betraying him. And for infecting him with your perversion."
"Oh?" Albus cocked an eyebrow. "Which one? My preference for male affection? My tolerance for Muggles? My passion for sherbet lemons?"
"You are vile!" the boy snarled, and Albus laughed.
"He told me that you were very young. He forgot to mention that you were a fool."
The boy shrieked with anger and snapped his wand in Albus's direction. "Serpensortia!"
A black-and-red-patterned snake flew towards Albus, fangs bared in an enraged hiss. He raised his wand, spread out the fingers of his left hand, and exhaled a transfigurative incantation.
The snake reared up and twisted, wrapping its sinuous body into coils until its skin rippled, coarsened and pulled even tighter. A knotted piece of rope landed at Carodej's feet.
"Add impulsive and predictable on top of foolish," Albus commented coldly.
Then, still speaking, he whirled around and shot a stunning spell at wizard on the far left. The man gave a huff of surprise and collapsed on the cobblestones, stiff as a board. Adrenaline pounded through Albus's blood. One down, five to go.
"Jealousy is such a regrettable trait in an attractive young man…" Albus sighed in the same indolent manner that Gellert used to inflict spitting rage on a victim. "But then 'Lord Grindelwald' is quite easy to fall in love with, isn't he, Mr Carodej?" There were moments when sheer cruelty was enjoyable.
A tinkle of laughter came from the figure to the right of Carodej. The boy's face went an interesting shade of purple while his mouth moved with soundless rage. Then the tip of his wand turned green.
He'd gotten to "Ava-" when Albus's "Stupefy!" hit him square in the chest.
The boy toppled backwards with a shriek that gave Albus far more satisfaction than it should have, and collapsed in a heap of black cloth.
"Ah, well done Mr Dumbledore," said a familiar voice. Medea Le Strange brushed back the hood of her cloak, and after a moment, Lysander Malfoy followed suit beside her. Albus swallowed. Carodej was too impulsive to consider that showing his face would make him identifiable later through Pensieve memories or Veritaserum. These two… if they revealed themselves, they were determined to kill.
"I do not share young Danilo's prejudices about bedding one's own sex," Le Strange murmured. "It is a pity you'll have do die. You're a gifted wizard - we could have used you."
Albus shook his head and raised his wand in invitation.
Le Strange's wand hissed, and then a griffin with a body of white fire and smoke for feathers flew at him, roaring like wildfire.
"Diffindo!" Albus felt the tips of his hair singe as the creature burst through his first shield. "Protego!" he cried and it shattered into an inferno of molten shards right in front of him.
He threw up his arm to protect his face, his "Reprotego!" an unheard whisper in the roar even as it deflected the shards away from him.
Blinking rapidly, he saw Le Strange safe behind a magical shield in whose middle gleamed a stylised 'W'. The Schattenjäger had hidden inside his ankle-length black cloak with his back turned and not a mark him, while Malfoy had been thrown back several feet by the impact on his shielding charm.
The fourth wizard, however, was on the ground with burn holes scattered all over the front of his robes. Albus watched in horror as his legs twitched once, twice, then stilled.
Bile rose in his stomach. While he was aware of the dangers of duelling in theory, he'd never faced up to the fact that he might kill. First Ariana, barely escaping, then this...
He had no time to mourn, however. Face flushed with rage, Malfoy's wand swished towards him. "Flagello!"
In three poison-green strands, the spell-whip lashed out. Albus flung himself aside, rolling away while the force of the lash cut off half his trailing hood.
"Crucio!"
Albus had the presence of mind to keep rolling. If this caught him, the battle would be over. Even his considerable willpower could not withstand an Unforgivable.
He came up to his feet a bit dizzy, just to see Le Strange's lips move in yet another curse. Too slow to entirely evade it, he felt something invisible brush his left shoulder, soft and painless and disgusting like a cold, wet sponge. Albus braced himself for pain which didn't come.
Then his heart stopped.
It was as if a bell that had always been ringing, too familiar to notice, had just fallen silent. A melody, dancing towards the next tune, and then nothing. A gurgle escaped Albus as he clutched his chest. The edges of his vision suddenly seemed tinged red. Reflexively, he hit his chest with his wandless fist, and the heartbeat it forced cut like a red-hot spear through the middle of his chest.
"Sano!" he croaked, clutching his wand as if to break it. He doubled over and crashed to his knees when his heart stumbled into a few more irregular beats. It slowly normalised even if the new heartbeats still felt like some drummer playing staccato on his breastbone, rushing on as if to catch up with the beats it had lost. Then the unmistakable feeling of a wand tip touching the back of his neck froze him utterly.
"Imperio!"
Malfoy's voice was low, almost loving, and Albus felt his breath on his neck. How had he managed to get so close? The spell meandered through his brain, trailing smears of complacency behind like honey.
"Stop breathing!" Malfoy whispered, and of course Albus did.
Still trembling with weakness, Albus knew there was something he should do to fight back, but then Malfoy's fingers wrapped in his hair as the pressure closed around his aching chest. The urge for air tightened his entire body, his spine bowed as he reared up against the lack of breath and the grip that held him. He felt Malfoy's fist tighten and the magic flowing from Malfoy was infesting his brain.
With a burst of rage that burned away the spiderweb of Imperius, he grabbed on to that poisonous presence and pushed back.
Malfoy took his hand off him and stumbled back. With burning eyes, Albus watched him sway and fall, both hands pressed against his throat. His face went purple, mouth opening in vain as his brain obeyed the order that had been given.
Albus trembled as the man who had seduced his father into his final, foolhardy revenge clawed the sides of his neck in agony. But then, despicable creature as he was, he had done no more harm than Albus himself, hadn't he?
Albus raised his wand, acknowledging the panic that flared in Malfoy's eyes. "Finite!" he cast, and then, with deliberation, "Dorma!" Asleep, the wizard would breathe normally whereas a stunning spell might shock his struggling lungs into collapse.
He rose to face his last two opponents.
As if he'd been waiting to see what his associates could do, Höllhammer stepped forward, monopolising Albus's attention. The Schattenjäger drew his wand in a straight line in front of his chest. Three snarling wolf heads appeared before him, all teeth and matted, coarse fur. A wave of his hand, and they raced towards Albus, growling and slavering. Albus gently brushed the core of power inside him and threw up his wand. The wolf heads shivered in mid-flight, blurred, and fell down around Albus transfigured into fragrant, healthy Gladiator Allium bulbs that showered him in petals.
Höllhammer let out a sound of distress and swayed, as if the loss of his spell-creatures had hurt him physically. Schattenjäger were not known for uttering a sound during their raids, as if the masks they wore infused them with the animal's spirit and robbed them of human speech. They just tortured and maimed and killed.
At the same time, Albus felt exhaustion like lead in his blood. His first instinct was going for transfiguration, but it took a lot of energy, even more so seeing that the Schattenjäger seemed to have an inherent connection to his wolf heads. Rumour associated them with werewolves and other Dark creatures, and if there was a blood link, this might encroach on the Fifth Principal Exception to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration…
Albus shook off the fruitless thoughts and watched another trio of wolf heads materialize and shoot towards him. "Incendio!"
They were caught in the roaring flame that emerged from Albus's wand, and burned in a burst of sparks and a cloud of singed fur.
His posture radiating rage, the Schattenjäger sent out another trio almost faster than Albus could look.
"Expelliarmus!" Albus cried, and, while Höllhammer's wand was torn from him and clattered away on the cobblestones, "Incendio!"
He caught two of the spell-creatures in the flames. The third wolf head swerved down, the tips of its ears singed, and clamped its jaws around Albus's thigh. Albus heard it tear through skin and flesh. He screamed. The teeth - oh god, the thing was all teeth! - snarled and bit deeper until they crunched on bone. A panicked wand flick shattered the head into a cloud of dust before Albus was aware of what he was doing.
He pressed his hand against the wound on his thigh, but blood kept welling up between his fingers, and the pain almost sent him unconscious. Gripping his wand between slippery fingers, he prepared to cast a healing charm when Medea Lestrange's Expelliarmus pulled it from his fingers. He lunged after it, barely grabbing the handle, when another hex struck the wand and snapped it in two.
Albus had never heard a wand break before. It sounded almost as if the phoenix who'd given the feather for its core was crying out. He felt the power drain away and knew that without a wand, the next curse was bound to finish him off.
Channelling all his pain, anger and power, he struck at Le Strange with the remaining energy of his broken wand - whatever it would take to make that final curse impossible. The woman's arms undulated in a way human bone was unlikely to allow, and her fingers around the pale wand… melted together. Her wand slipped from her grip as gaping jaws opened where her hands had been. She screamed, throwing back the long sleeves of her robe to reveal two large white snakes coiling from her shoulders where her arms had been. She screamed again in horror and stumbled backwards, causing the snakes to whip around her.
The sound of footsteps made Albus turn his head. The Schattenjäger had retrieved his wand, and was coming towards him with heavy steps that betrayed exhaustion. Both hands clenched around his blood-soaked thigh, Albus stared up at him in resignation. He was injured, wandless, with every bit of magic burned out of him from the battle. He'd given his best, but now it was over.
He wanted to close his eyes when another trio of wolf heads emerged from the Schattenjäger's wand, but a sharp hiss made him look up.
In the middle of the street stood Gellert Grindelwald. He'd exchanged robes for brown leathers, boots and a black cloak, and his hair was pulled back into a short gold braid. Looking, as always, too perfect, and utterly out of place in a dismal street littered with bodies.
Albus felt laughter bubbling up in his chest. Gellert's killers had almost finished the job. It wasn't necessary for him to deliver the coup de grace, but Albus was glad he'd be there. He'd make a damned better final sight than the Schattenjäger!
The wolf heads were straining forward, slavering for Albus's flesh, when a flash from Gellert's wand threw them back towards their master. One of them made for the Schattenjäger's throat. A hoarse cry was stifled when the teeth closed around Höllhammer's neck and man and creature collapsed together. The metallic stench of blood rose from the ground.
Without giving the Schattenjäger a second glance, Gellert rounded on Le Strange.
"You disobeyed me!"
"My lord, he wasn't worthy of your attention!" Le Strange cried, her transfigured arms coiling in front of her robes.
"That would be for me to decide."
Gellert raised his wand. The magic hit Le Strange just below the belt line. She fell to the ground and shrieked when her legs crumbled and twitched and then tried to crawl away from her body. One, then two large white serpents emerged from under the hem of her robe as the woman crammed her fist into her mouth to stifle any sound of terror.
"More Cleopatra than Medea, I think," Gellert observed cruelly.
Albus shuddered as Le Strange crawled backwards as if to escape her own slithering limbs. At least he hadn't done it on purpose.
Turning his back on his fallen minions, Gellert knelt down beside Albus.
"I'm glad I decided to show up early," he said and pulled Albus's hands away from the wound. Albus hissed, and Gellert put a hand on his cheek. "Shh."
Albus's teeth clicked together audibly when the wand tip touched his torn thigh. He clung to consciousness by clutching at Gellert's shoulders like a drowning sailor to his barnacle-encrusted plank.
"I'm sorry," he ground out.
There was a moment's pause and no way of judging Gellert's expression because his face faded in and out of Albus's vision, a white oval crowned by gold.
Something that felt like a blunt needle stabbed deep into Albus's injured leg just above the bite. He jerked as heat started to build in the torn limb, still unpleasant, but dulling the rending pain. Part of him was glad he couldn't see the damage that the teeth had done.
"You thought I'd ordered them to attack you?" Gellert's voice, cool and smooth like liquid, scented soap.
"For a while," Albus admitted. He squeezed his eyes shut, surprised to find his cheeks wet with tears. "Should've remembered the size of your... ego would've ruled that out."
He felt dull heat pounding in his leg and fingertips, and cold encroaching everywhere else. Shock, he realised dumbly.
Something warm that could be Gellert's mouth or his fingertip touched his icy lips.
"Yes, you should have."
Aching, blindly, Albus squeezed Gellert's shoulder. "I want to go home."
Another shiver of sparks hissed over him, and breathing became a little easier. It also stopped him, if barely, from collapsing when Gellert pulled him upright.
"England?" Gellert's voice sounded very calm. And then, "I understand."
"No, I don't think you do," Albus slurred. He leaned heavily on the body on offer to avoid putting pressure on his shattered leg. "I don't want to go alone," he whispered through clenched teeth and bouts of the shivers.
Gellert's grip on him softened, just a little, before Albus was Apparated away.
vii. 'I am not worried. I am with you.'
"How did it go?" Albus put down his quill when Gellert barged into the Headmaster's study, as always without knocking. The other staff members had been heard to complain loudly about his lack of respect. Privately, Albus knew it could be far worse.
"Not too bad." Gellert shrugged off his cloak and banished it in a flurry of raindrops onto a hook to dry. The humidity made his hair curl even more than usual. "He's an interesting boy, young Riddle. Secretive. Very precocious. Very damaged too - not that I'm surprised, considering that he's been growing up as an orphan among Muggles and all." He poured himself a goblet of Albus's hot pumpkin juice. "And very powerful, for a Muggleborn."
"You've been teaching at Hogwarts for over a decade," Albus remarked. "And it still surprises you to find power in Muggleborns?"
Gellert took a sip and winced, then shook his head. "Oh, I know they can be gifted. They're just not usually this confident, this prepared to show their powers to strangers."
He put down the goblet and waved his wand over the contents. A strong tang of orange and cinnamon replaced pumpkin, and after an approving sip, Gellert cradled the cup that now held mulled wine. "I have shown the way forward to change that forever, you rembember?"
Deciding to change the topic, Albus asked. "Will you be taking him to Diagon Alley?"
"He took the money and said he won't be needing anyone to escort him," Gellert replied with a bemused twitch of his lip.
"I see," said Albus.
"I'm not saying I'll comply with his wishes." Gellert grinned. "He needs watching, this one, or he'll end up touring right through Knockturn Alley."
"Keep your eyes out for Daily Prophet reporters, though," Albus advised, "or we'll have innuendo plastered across the front page about us taking an 'unusual' interest in young male students."
Instead just snorting as Gellert was wont to do, he leaned back in the armchair and crossed long legs in front of him.
"I was going to consider calling out Murdo Bagman for a duel after his latest 'Threat to Wizarding Morals at our Foremost Educational Institution' dig. But it might no longer be necessary." He steepled his fingers. "You see, I went to lunch with Avrilla and Ebenezer Smith after seeing young Master Riddle, and they strongly implied that congratulations might be in order."
Albus kept his face expressionless, although his fingers closed around the armrests and his heartbeat stepped up. The two worst gossips of the Wizengamot, but not, usually, wrong. He'd been prepared for it, of course, but hearing his hopes almost confirmed was still stealing away his breath.
"There has been no official decision yet," he said. "And there are other candidates."
Gellert let out a whoop of derision. "Yes - as if they'll name Ragnelle Nott, who's as anti-Muggle as they come. Or old Marvell Thicknesse, who may not offend anyone, but only because he's got all the personal drive of a phial of the Draught of the Living Death. No, Albus - in wartime, they want someone who's young and brilliant and has proven his leadership qualities at Hogwarts." He lifted his cup in a toast. "This one's yours, Albus."
He took a sip, eyes sharp and intent on Albus's face.
"Which leaves, of course, Hogwarts."
"It quite does, doesn't it?" Albus agreed.
What a paradox that he had worried for years after coming to Hogwarts to teach Transfiguration that Gellert would get bored with students, books and rules, and take off to parts unknown to do whatever Dark Wizards did with the Elder Wand. Instead, he'd cheerfully taught Charms, Defence against the Dark Arts, and then finally settled on History of Magic and Deputy Headmastership after Cuthbert Binns died and his ghost turned out to be the most dreadful bore. And now it was Albus who would be leaving.
"The question is, of course," Gellert mused, "do you trust me enough to name me your successor?"
"A former Dark Wizard, Durmstrang-trained, of 'unsound wizarding morality', who just happens to be one of the most brilliant scholars of the century?" Albus chuckled into his pumpkin juice. "Of course I do. Seeing Murdo Bagman and the Prophet explode in a ball of condensed moral outrage alone would make it worthwhile."
"Even though you know what I will do?"
Albus sighed, hilarity bleeding away. "So you're absolutely certain you've found a way of recasting the charms on the Book of Hogwarts?"
Gellert nodded, a familiar gleam in his eye. "Absolutely. I will be able to reframe them to detect children with inherent wizarding powers not as they enter their 11th year, but at their first sign of magic as toddlers. That's when they become vulnerable among Muggles - rejected by their families, beaten, exorcised or locked up as lunatics at worst."
"If we know about these children, we can send someone along to make sure they're treated well enough, can influence their families' attitudes. Take them away if necessary." He clenched his fists. "I want to make sure that young Tom Riddle is among the last who'll be thrown at the mercy of people who hate and fear him."
Albus rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I've never claimed it's without merit. Just that in the wrong hands it could deal a devastating blow to an entire generation of Muggleborns and their families."
"Quite like the Elder Wand, don't you think?" Gellert threw in.
Albus sighed. "I trust you, Gellert. I don't trust everyone who'll come after us."
Impatiently, Gellert shook his head. "You and I, Albus, are the most powerful wizards in Britain. We are young enough to reshape the wizarding world to make sure that we leave a safe legacy." His lip quirked into a mischievous smile.
"It's not just that we can tweak the Book of Hogwarts to detect magic early. Given a bit more time, I am sure that I can get around the magic shielding Knockturn Alley and the quite medieval interpretation of 'wizardry' that excludes everyone not of pure wizarding or Muggle heritage. So you wouldn't have to cook up, say, conspiracies behind closed doors with the likes of Myrmidon Hagrid to get his son into Hogwarts."
Albus's cheeks turned warm. "You knew?"
"I took him down to the Three Broomsticks for a drink or six after his interview with you." Gellert clicked his tongue. "A giantess… that's one brave wizard indeed!"
Albus took a deep breath. "Very well, then. I will exercise my right to name my successor, even though I think the Board of Governors would rather I'd dropped dead so they can appoint anyone but you." He smiled inwardly at the thought of the outrage his decision would cause on the pro-Muggle and pro-pureblood side alike, the implications that he was choosing a personal favourite and lover against the objection of the Governors. Well, they'd just have to get over it if they wanted him as Minister of Magic.
"Just remember that the Minister of Magic has the authority to supervise magical education," he emphasised. "I will keep an eye on you."
Gellert threw him a low-lidded look. "I rather hope that won't be the only thing you'll keep on me."
Pleasant warmth spreading in his stomach, Albus assured him. "Definitely not."
"Well…" Gellert stood and spread his arms, "at least the Headmaster's quarters are comfortable."
"… as you would know, seeing that you spend nearly every evening here anyway," Albus grinned. "You might want to start moving in your things. I want a few days away to visit Ariana and Miles in Upper Windrush before all hell breaks lose."
Albus still wasn't sure how he felt about his sister settling down with Kneazle-breeding recluse Miles Scamander, but she seemed happy. The Kneazles probably had a lot to do with it.
"I'll leave you Fawkes," he added as an afterthought. "The school will have greater need of him than the Ministry. And you know how he'd pine without you."
Humming his approval, Gellert wandered over to Fawkes's perch and dipped one of Fawkes's hand-cooked insect rounds into Albus's pumpkin juice in passing. Running a finger over the phoenix's magnificent red-golden plumage - the bird was never more magnificent than at his young adolescent stage - he offered it the treat. Fawkes nipped his finger affectionately, then dug in with far less restraint.
Albus watched them, the two creatures who had saved his life that nightmarish Christmas week many years ago. Gellert, bringing home the tiny hatchling, nurturing and coaxing it into shedding its first healing tears while keeping Albus from the brink of death although he was anything but a healer. Albus still carried the scars on his thigh, but without the phoenix tears, injury and infection would have carried him off. And years later, Fawkes's tears had provided the core ingredient for the Draught of the Gentle Power, which had given Ariana the stability to lead her own life.
He reached for his goblet, reconsidered, and conjured two fresh glasses filled with two thumbs' breadths of firewhisky. Walking over to Gellert, he handed him one and raised his own for a toast.
"To our future, my friend."
o. ' Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.'
"So… you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."
Albus looks down at the face of the little boy next to him, who stares back with eyes wide and nervous behind sellotaped wire-framed glasses. There is a part of him that doesn't want to like the child, because doing so will cause him pain - no, not just him, both of them. He knows what the future holds for this boy.
"I didn't know it was called that, sir," Harry Potter whispers in a wobbly voice.
Albus inclines his head. "But I expect you've realized by now what it does?"
"It… well…"
Half lost in thought, Albus helps the boy to work out what the artefact that has been holding him spellbound is able to do. He is bright, is young Harry Potter when his panic at having been caught by the Headmaster out of bed in the middle of the night has abated a little. Realisation dawns, unguarded, in the wary green eyes.
"It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."
"Yes and no," says Albus. He clings to a lifetime of teaching and experience to prevent the pain from strangling his voice. "It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts."
And to those gifted with a knack for enhancing magic, the ancient artefact can do so much more than showing an image. It can offer an entire alternative world of adventure and affection in place of death, sacrifice and a lifetime of loneliness.
"However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth." Especially not truth, Albus thinks, the word dry as ash on his tongue. "Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."
He sees the boy's eyes widen with fear and remembers all too well the night when Professor Marchbanks had surprised him in his rooms, where he'd crouched too mesmerised by the mirror's visions to even note her entrance.
Even now, he can feel the hot blast of shame and horror burning through his body, paralysed by the pity with which she looked on the British Wizarding World's celebrated war hero fleeing into wishful dreams like a hurt child.
Thankfully, she hadn't alerted Headmaster Dippet back then, or even insisted on having the mirror removed. The shock alone had torn Albus out of the morass of despair he'd sunk into after coming back from Nurmengard. He'd returned the mirror to its original location and had never looked upon it again. Not until he'd been coming across this child, as mesmerised before the seductive glass as he himself had been a lifetime ago.
"The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry," he says. "And I ask you not to go looking for it again."
The boy nods nervously, and Albus finds he believes him. There is a steel core in this child, however battered, that he recognises. He will have the strength to resist the lure of dreams.
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that," he admonishes gently, wondering whether he is indeed speaking to young Harry, or rather to himself. "Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?"
The boy nods and his hands disappear as he wads the cloak between them. His eyes flick to the mirror in a last, involuntary gaze, then slide away. He turns his back with a stiff-necked determination that tugs at Albus's heartstrings. He takes a step, two, then hesitates.
"Sir… Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?"
When Albus assents, the boy looks at him and bites his lip for an instant before blurting out, "What do you see when you look in the mirror?"
Albus stumbles, steadies himself against the door frame and hopes the boy is too young to see his shock for what it is. Cut to the quick in one innocent sentence. Not even Tom has ever managed that. Only Gellert has had that particular gift.
He closes his eyes for a second longer than it would take to blink. His thoughts fly back to a long-past memory that was never a memory.
"I?" he croaks. "I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks."
The boy stares at him, mouth opening in a doubtful 'o'.
"One can never have enough socks," Albus adds, smiling to force back the tears. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."
Potter's mouth snaps shut, carp-like. At worst, he probably thinks Albus is more than a little bit mad. At best, pulling his leg. He nods, slowly, then ducks out of the door. Death's Cloak falls around his shoulders, hiding his presence from the world apart from where the footfalls of his trainers leave half-moon imprints in the dust.
Behind him, Albus sinks onto one of the ancient chairs and buries his head in his hands, his face determinedly averted from the Mirror. He will not look into it again for as long as he lives. It is pointless.
Pointless most of all because whatever the boy may think, he hasn't lied to Harry Potter. He knows he would still see socks in the Mirror of Erised - the socks, Gellert's gift, that have never been real.
- end -
Endnote: This fic very badly wanted to be titled "Erised, or Seven Things That Never Happened to Albus Dumbledore (and One That Did)", but that would've sort of given away things :(.