A/N: I wanted something to commemorate the anniversary of my OTP becoming canon, but Tempus is proving much more work than I anticipated (read: next chapter is 4500 words and still growing). Since reviving the "Friday Fives" on "grindeldore" on LiveJournal (come check us out!) I decided to write a collection of song-based ficlets on the topic of "empty dreams", or as Virgil put it more elegantly, "somnia vana". Now, let's be clear: I'm not attempting to make money out of this and I'm not claiming ownership of Harry Potter, or, in this case, The Man of La Mancha (not going to be copy/pasting any lyrics here). Also, I gave Gellert my friend's birthday, so he turns 17 in Godric's Hollow. AND OH - HERE BE SLASH.
1
GELLERT
"The Impossible Dream"
Gellert dreams of being at the centre of epic journeys, battles, empires and more. It's been this way ever since he was old enough to dream. For the first ten years, people around him laugh, either in amusement or ridicule, at what they deem "impossible". Then, at school, he is scorned and scarred by those who deem him mad. He has decided that by his third decade, he will be revered for his reveries which will have become reality.
According to the myths he falls in love with as a child, Chaos - emptiness and disorientation - has given birth to the universe - to Cosmos, to order and harmony. But his first-hand experiences with the universe show him that Chaos is still everywhere. When his grandparents violently voice their disapproval of their son's marriage to a muggle – a matter surely of no importance to them. When his mother is swallowed in the sea for reasons he will never understand. When his father cannot bear to hear the sweetest sound in the world, that of a violin. When he is scolded for showing off his magic to the muggle children he meets at the seaside and told he must conceal his greatest talent.
The universe simply fails to make any sense; it's a Pandora's Box of Paradoxes.
Gellert learns that you can be full of emptiness, that anger is a part of grief, that Heaven and Hell can be married, that to be great is to be misunderstood, and most of all, that the only absolute certainty is that there are no absolute certainties. Nothing is permanent and no one, not even your own parent, is infallible. All you have to cling to in the sea of Chaos is yourself.
On the other hand, it means that no foe is unbeatable, no sorrow is unbearable, no weariness will not eventually pass and no wrong cannot be righted. It gives him the hope that he can overturn the chaotic, stuck-in-stalemate chessboard that is the world at the present, and start a revolution that will restore reason and order. This is the quest that, prophecy in hand and heart, he devises when he escapes from Durmstrang, and he begins with a journey to Godric's Hollow.
But in that sleepy Wizarding village he finds far more than he bargained for.
Albus teaches Gellert that there is far more logic and elegance in playing a game through to the end, step-by-step, battle by battle, finishing off your opponent completely, and that it is a "mistake" to rush in, tearing up the authority and foundations of your ancestors. Albus, completely unlike Kit, questions him, makes him pause, gives a second opinion without being asked for it, and forces him to polish his plans.
"Is that really necessary? Or is it more than we need..." says the auburn-haired boy.
Albus Dumbledore is a fiery soul too, with a lust for fame and glory, but it only shows in his eyes, set in a face so calm that if it were a pond, it would act like a mirror. Contained within Albus is a different kind of passion – and it evokes a kind of passion in Gellert that he has never experienced before.
The critical difference between Gellert at seven and Gellert at seventeen is that now he knows he's not the only man courageous and worthy enough to reach the unreachable. Perhaps some dreams are meant to be shared after all.
