A/N:
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this below belongs to me. I am not making any money from it.
~Tenshi
"Expecto Patronum!"
A silver doe sprang from the tip of the dark man's wand, and Dumbledore sagged into the couch behind him and said, "After all this time?"
And Snape answered, "Always."
And it was revelatory, really, that Albus be so stunned in the face of something so simple – eternal love. Could it truly be that he had forgotten ever hoping for such a feeling, when the throes of passion overtook him and his heart appeared to be beating an enchanted symphony? It was true that it had been a long time – too long, in fact – but he had always believed himself capable of withstanding such an amount of time. As it now appeared, he had failed himself.
It had been ten decades since Albus Dumbledore last held hands with the object of his thoughts; half of that time since he had finally and ultimately taken the irrevocable decision to rob his lover of his glory and bear upon himself the burden of their shame – his own, too, not just his opponent's. For there was much, in Albus Dumbledore's life, to be ashamed of. He had lived long and hard, succeeding debauchery and excess with abundance and wealth and a forged sense of justice. It was not by choice that he had stayed with his family when their father was taken away when he was but a child; nor by choice that he had left them.
It had been an urge, an inextinguishable want for discovery and worldwide recognition, one instilled by none other than the man whose name was the talk of the decade years and years later, when they had long parted ways and walked their own dwindling paths; an urge that was by then indistinguishable from his perfect character. For what did he know of imperfection? What did he know of those whose lives were led in luxury and style, and who believed themselves above everything and everyone? What did he know of those people who looked down upon him – upon them – for everything that had been accomplished by those as lowly and impoverished as those of his 'condition'? What did he know of scorn and rancour, of terror and pain, of humanity and malice, or of the difference between mercy and pity?
But that was just the thing. He knew everything. He knew all of those things, and more besides, and thus was brought by his own definition of the human nature and of human beauty to look upon himself and his accomplice as models of perfection.
Where was the harm in believing oneself without default? Where was it that he had gone wrong – between raiding a library at night at his youngest age because his family had no money to afford works of art, and burning up a craft in some street or other so that its rival could prosper across from town? Where had he changed?
When had he stopped caring?
When had he stopped remembering?
Snape's words rang in his hand, ominous. A predictable outcome, clichéd, nearly, and yet for this unfathomable reason that single-worded answer shook him to the core. Gellert Grindelwald's name resonated endlessly in his head, a terrible gong that rang the end of his period of obliviousness and the beginning of interminable melancholy.
If unending and unbending love had brought this man, this dark man, to light, then Albus Dumbledore was sure, without the shadow of a doubt, that Gellert Grindelwald had never loved him. And that when the young Albus stared at the wand that had been stolen, and when his soul screamed to him to return it to its rightful owner, if only as a pretext to remember him – and to see him –, the older Gellert pestered upon his name and set all the world's curses and damnations upon his childhood friend.
Was it ironic that Albus now be the prey of such restlessness? That only now he thought about pondering the things that Gellert might have been doing as he fought and spared and urged some more justice into the world – under false pretences? For if the world adored him then, and still now, Gellert did not, and never would, and young Albus knew that his elder friend had far outreached his capacities, and thus realized that the only way that he would ever remain close to him was by becoming his fated rival – the only man that could stand against him, for they had grown up together, and knew each other's ways better than their own. Perhaps it had been his undoing, in fact, that Albus knew his instructor and abettor so well – better than himself. Not just the way he fought, but the way he learned how to spar, too; the way he adored it; the way he slept; the way he smiled – rarely –; the way he loved – never –; and the way he lived – always and forever.
Or so it seemed. For yes, Gellert Grindelwald, the older student, the teacher, the mentor, the partner in crime, the encourager, had appeared eternal to Albus Dumbledore, and who could blame him for seeing eternity where death had long burrowed its place?
Again, ironic that Albus himself should have been Gellert's final undoing. An equally eternal glory going to waste – when it dies you die with it. Cruel, spiteful, vengeful.
But Albus was not. Though he had longed tended to believe it – or rather, had convinced him that he did – he did not, could not hate the only person he had ever loved.
But did that – that powerlessness in the face of his own inability to scorn the one who had destroyed his life as he knew it – did that necessarily indicate love? No. It could have been mercy; it could have been pity; and it could have just been fatigue. But it was none of these, none of these and yet no other. It was something too old to be felt, too ancient to be explained, too terrible to be named.
Snape was right. Only one other word could correctly encompass all the things meant by four letters; not even the word itself could have been enough. Not even the world.
Always. Forever and forever, forever after, until the skin wither on my bones and I stand not on this Earth that crumbles and tumbles below my feet, unstable motherland which borne us that fateful day. Forever and forever, forever after, until the dust of my last remaining memory of you becomes another atom of air among precious others in the milky way and this speck of dust is blown away by the inexistent breeze of our space to visit other universes and tell them of your existence. Until it is proven that you were to me what time is to place and what the sun is to the moon. Until you end, and I end, and everything in between has ended to nothingness, and nothing solid has withstood to ever again bear my memories of you.
Always.
No; Albus Dumbledore had not failed himself.
He had failed the rest of the world, and the rest of the world had never noticed it.