They were a tangle of awkward, misplaced limbs, entwined and knotted in the shades of evening. The chaste kisses fluttered over each other with flush, bitten lips. Hands were grasping in the dim light plucking at sheets and at each other, translucently pallid skin flinching at brushes of un-intended contact. Gellert whispered in riddled broken German, slipping between languages with a swift tongue. Albus thought them all eloquent even when uttered in such circumstances. Gellert's flaxen hair fell in golden coils on the cotton pillows, Albus peering over him, auburn strands laying over, the colours of bravery and brashness out before him.
The Greater Good - such a proposal relaxed Albus's previous doubts, over-riding his own morals and ethics. Just one glance from his poor dear sister, just that sentence spoken with such exclamation in that thick accented, youthful voice. The sheer excitement of it all, him and Gellert, leaders and lovers; the scribbled plans and extravagant ideas would surely come to something. Gellert convinced him with the simple actions, subtle brushing of fingers, lingering gazes bewtween their bright lit eyes.
Albus never did get over Gellert. First love remained poignant and fresh, wounds that refused to seal, continued to weep even after months, years, decades.
He had watched him slip away, slowly but surely, the gravity like pull of Hallows, of power, the clear corruption in his bright brilliant eyes. The night Ariana had died was one Albus would never forget, nor did he want to. A shameful part of him refused to allow memory modification charms to be performed. These would all ultimately block of the memories of Gellert, of his golden cascading curls, reddish lips and the exchanges between them.
The Hallows prayed on his mind long after Gellert's fleeing. Part of his subconscious spent many a waking moment concocting impossible plans, attempting to locate the seemingly elusive Hallows. No matter what Elpahis insisted, Albus was sure they existed, though, on reflection, some part of him might have just been attempting to retain the memories and thrills of those three unparalleled months.
Becoming Headmaster of such a fine institution gave Albus a much needed feeling of relief. He lacked the time to ponder on the past among the heaving hustle and bustle of school corridors and the immense responsibility of controlling a school. It had the sense of power enough to fulfill him, but not enough to get out of control. The Minister of Magic job now seemed to have been offered to more willing candidates, and Albus Dumbledore was left to his own devices.
Championing the rights of the disadvantaged, poorer and those from non-Wizarding families always gave him an infalliable gut feeling of guilt. The thoughts of what could have been haunted him as he looked into the eager faces of young children. This gradually dissolved over the years, but was always there in the back of his mind, ready of leap up on him as he sat alone in his study, staring at the intricately patterned dome above.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was something else entirely.
Never in his years of teaching had he met someone so eager, so brilliantly intelligent, so mysterious. Albus held a certain level of suspicion in the boy, somewhat unfairly at first. The older he got the more justifiable Albus's doubts in the boy's brilliance became. His fascination with the Dark Art's was clear, yet another young impressionable human being who could easily slip into the folds of evil.
He certainly had the qualities of a true Slytherin, somewhat comparable to Salazer Slytherin himself. Pure blood lineage traced with pallid slender fingers in the library of an afternoon, the dusty tomes of Dark Art's stacking up in the emerald tinted Common Room as "study". Albus was reminded of himself as a young adult, the lust for power and domination. Of Gellert, and the tatters of Wizarding society in the grip of both a corrupt Muggle government and a ravaged, sinister Ministry.
Albus saw the inhumane plans he and Gellert had once stored in tattered notebooks one Summer long ago come vividly to life in the form of Lord Voldemort.
There was little personal fear in this beast of a man, if he could even be considered that, but an inescapable aprehensive sense of horror for the Wizarding world around him. The less human Riddle was becoming was visible on the surface, if not just in his treatment of those he considered to be below him.
Seeing this horrific excuse of a human being face to face was almost as tragic as having seen Gellert in his final battle. The traces of the beautiful, elegant face had been just visible behind a gaunt stranger, the lips that had once exclaimed such exciting prospects thin, only opening to shout curses and awful memories, recounted in that once irresistible Germanic tongue.
Seeing a once handsome teenager become such a monstrosity engulfed Albus in another wave of guilt - he could have stopped this, surely. All he prayed was that Lord Voldemort never came into possession of the Hallows, items with such a strong pull of any wizard, even one like the great, seemingly perfect Albus Dumbledore.
His death had been necessary and somewhat eagerly awaited.
If he could have possibly done anymore, overthrown just one more oppressive burden on the world, he would surely have been more satisfied, but the deal with Snape was surely done.
A faintly King's Cross type of place awaited him, disturbingly silent and calm after the heat, stress and noise of the battle being fought in Hogwarts. It reminded him of his own office. He was almost unsurprised by this glittering glass arena. He had spent the first portion of his now seemingly infinite existence working his way through the muddled backlog of logic in his mind - how such a place could exist? Was it all his own imagination? Did the dead even have imaginations? He knew he was certainly dead, an exciting prospect.
The first person he had seen come through to the other side had been a recognisable, agonised looking face by the name of Charity Burbage. She had, apparently, noticed him, which assured Albus that he was quite material enough to interact with other souls. She had asked him impossible questions, broken down over the horrific details of her own death, and had stayed by Albus's side until feeling finally together enough to cross over.
Albus was waiting, simply remaining in this strange misty limbo until the right person came along, which he was sure he would.
Harry had come and gone, had pressed Albus for information. They had both exclaimed at the horror of the writhing, raw thing under the bench. He had returned instead, something Albus had assured him was right, under the presumption that, in accordance with that fateful prophecy, letting Harry pass over would have been a grave mistake for all those living souls.
The ethereal King's Cross did, quite tragically, become much like the train station it so much resembled.
Albus greeted the students and adults, comforting and answering curious questions, helping the distraught, distressed persons board the train. It was only when he saw Remus Lupin materialise alongside two tragic figures he recognised as Nymphadora Tonks and Fred Weasley that he decided to finally go.
Remus greeted him as an old friend, curiously unphased by this depature from the world of the living. The journey was a strange phenomenon, their presences split from each other, only to rematerialise a brief splinter of a second later.
It was a most curious feeling, being young again, in the prime of his drawn out life on Earth.
Once again his auburn hair lay on his shoulders in a cascade of rich autumnal tones. His eyes, he had been informed for the apparent lack of mirrors, had regained their brightest blue, though the same distinct twinkle remained ever the same. He had sought out every person he had wished to meet, and some he most certainly had not, the great tragedy of their brief lives almost too much to handle. Some had been shocked by his appearance, and him equally of theirs. Each soul was embodied, it seemed, in a material shell of themselves at the happiest times of their lives. Albus had greeted a handsome youthful Sirius Black, laughing airily with a golden haired, innocent Remus Lupin. James and Lily had been eager to meet him, the horrors of their deaths not visible on the face of those in their early twenties, carefree and handsome.
Gellert Grindelwald had been a thought that both drew Albus in, and repulsed him. What if the Gellert he met had that gaunt, horrific face that still pierced Albus's joyous memories of him?
It was after he realised he could not put it off any longer when he finally took to the challenge of tracking Gellert down. He had only briefly glimpsed at the travelling wreck of a body that the man held before it got on the train, no recognition of Albus. He was almost sure that Gellert would not have seen him even if he had been at the age of their youth.
He found Gellert with an irrepressable rush of warmth. The boy he recognised from that Summer was idly gazing into nowhere, his golden coils of hair hanging down his hunched back.
"I was wondering when you were coming," He uttered as Albus sat to rest next to him, then he asked in his almost musical voice with a hint of angst, "What did I do to deserve this?"
Albus sighed, riddled between the truth and a more cryptic, hazy answer, "The 'Greater Good' idea got out of hand, Gellert, there is a distinct difference between what is good and what is bad. Our ideals were ultimately wrong."
"The greater good," Gellert spat bitterly, "You were never with me, only obsessed with those Hallows. You always did hold other ideals, did you not?"
A frown creased Albus's forehead as Gellert turned to look up at him, "It was for the good of the world. A hundred years is enough time to form my own opinions. I have met too many decent people to pursue the evils that you did."
Gellert did not answer, but simply lay back, allowing his back to come to rest with the ground. Albus joined him; this was too great an opportunity to keep the bitter memories of this man. A wipe of their past and a fresh start over was in need, with no tragic ending in sight.
Author's Notes - Part of me feels guilty for writing this crap while I should be revising, but I'm trying to kid myself that it might benefit my English GCSE. I know it's choppy and probably ignores a few canonical details for sheer easier writing, but it was basically a way of channeling my own fangirl slashy version of Wizarding Heaven. Believe it or not this started out as a short AD/GG drabble and sort of snowballed from then on. (No Voldemort because, um, he ruined his soul! Yes, of course it makes sense. . .)
Current Music - Burn Your Life Down by Tegan and Sara (I love whoever made the great AD/GG fanmix that I got this from.)