Still Sailing Challenge
First, let me explain the rules of this challenge. Ok, so AD/GG is canon and AD/MM is not. But lets be reasonable, here. Each of us has our own universe in which we change or add to Jo's fabulous story. She doesn't seem to mind; in fact she seems to read them and enjoy the rather silly things we do. So heres the challenge:
use as much canon as possible! Ariana, 1945, etc all happen! No changing flow of the even leading to the Battle of Hogwarts.
AD/MM, AD/GG, and/or AD/MM/GG, bonus kudos if you stuff MM/GG in there.
May be any time, any place, before the fall of Grindelwald, after Dumbledore's death, anytime!!!
Send me a note if you write one, I'll link em to my AD/MM group.
And now, the rest of the story…….
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Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore knew he was going to die. And it didn't bother him, he'd lived a long time. But something nagged at him still….
His life was full of brilliant days, incredible history, a few good friends, and hope for the future in the form of a young man he wished he'd had the courage to raise himself in spite of the Blood Magick.
But the darkness of his life; his sister's lifeless body in his arms, his mother's screams as their father was led away, his brother's anger and the blow to his nose over their angelic sister's coffin, made the good seem tarnished somehow.
And his love. A part of him had suspected, as a child, that he had an inability to be dismissive. He loved too much, as he'd told Harry. He loved too much to stop the infatuation he had with his best friend from blinding him to that boy's faults, too much to prevent himself from putting a child he wanted to keep in the hands of negligent relatives, the only ones who could protect him, or of letting himself fall again for a young woman too good to be his.
She was asleep now, his wife. He turned back from the window to watch her sleep, her raven hair highlighted by silver at her temples and her worn face still strong and beautiful in his eyes.
Minerva and Albus; He smiled. He'd been terrified to find himself attracted to her, but not because his only previous love had been for another young man in his youth. No, that had not scared him, because he knew loved was never wrong and never cared for menial things like gender, and neither did he. But he had been scared to let his heart out again: Minerva was beautiful, fierce, intelligent, and shrewd; everything Gellert had been once upon a time.
He'd relented, in the end. And they were married two days before he went to face Gellert, because Albus had wanted her to want for nothing should he die.
He'd gone to see Alberforth and told him he'd gotten married. Despite the bad blood between then, his younger brother had smiled and promised he'd treat Minerva like family.
"You're going after him." Ab said to him.
"Yes. It is time to step in. I cannot let my fear about that night stop me. It doesn't matter who killed Ariana; she is gone regardless and he is the one whose darkness threatens to take many more sisters and brothers from their families."
His brother had fixed him with a piercing look reminiscent of their father, but nodded.
"I can't ever let it go, Al."
"I know." He'd said, turning away.
"You and me ain't going to be like we were."
"I know, but I pray that you can live without bitterness."
A hand turned him around by the shoulder, and Ab looked at him without the dark reminder of Ariana's death in his eyes.
"You're my brother. I have to love you."
There was no smile and little warmth, but he'd seen sincerity in every word. So he'd hugged his brother tightly, whispered "I wish I'd been a better brother." and walked out of the Hog's Head. The portrait of Ariana had been beaming at him.
The duel with Gellert had been the hardest of his life. The Elder Wand in the man's hands had tempted him to follow Gellert, but the thought of his young bride, of his broken little brother and his poor dead sister, strengthened him till at last Gellert Grindelwald was wandless and at his feet.
"Do it." Gellert had said, bright, mischievous eyes cold and daunting; betrayed.
He couldn't, because he loved him.
Gellert was then imprisoned, the terror over, and the Elder Wand his to keep out of the world's memory. No one should know the Deathly Hallows existed, that the descendent of the ring now posed the wand of the eldest brother.
And then here he was, the ring of the middle brother his undoing as it had been the brother himself's fate to die for the ring, united with the descendant of the youngest brother against that of the eldest.
"Albus?" Minerva said through the bed curtains, "You need to sleep."
"I'm sorry dear." He said, slipping back into the warm covers, careful to wrap his left around around her waist and pull her to him rather than hold her with his cursed hand, "I was thinking."
Minerva raised an eyebrow, "You think entirely too much on the wrong this, Albus."
He chuckled. She never failed to miss his moods or his thoughts.
"I know."
He kissed her nose, and smiled, letting the beat of her heart ease the tension in his chest and on his mind. He really was thankful for her, his ever practical Deputy.
"Put the past away, Albus." Minerva murmered sleepily. And he did. Behind his closed eyelids a beautiful young man with blonde curls and a melting smile faded away, his past love never to come again. He breathed in deeply, Minerva's shampoo calming him down and bringing the image of a smiling girl in a long white gown, his Minerva in 1945, before his mind's eyes.
He was going to die, but he was going to die in peace.
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short and sweet. Please review!