(The run-ons are intentional, guys.)
An eighteen-year-old Albus Dumbledore- not yet used to thinking of himself as a man, though surely he must be one by now- employs a shaking hand to push damp golden curls away from the face of the boy lying beneath him. He is nervous- giddy and terrified all at once- and every increasingly daring touch feels like fire on his skin. Gellert leans up and whispers in his ear, reckless, egging him on, promising power, promising companionship only he can give, and there's truth in the words because he wants all these things as much as Albus does. Albus reaches up to adjust the pale leg draped over his shoulder, allowing awed fingers to linger for an extra moment; he sucks in a shaky breath and wills himself to let his painstakingly maintained self-control go.
When it is over, they sink back into the sheets like sandbags, aware of the near-suffocating heat but unwilling to rearrange suddenly leaden limbs. Gellert's lips curve into a smile that is tiny but somehow more genuine than any before it. "You do love me, then?" It is barely a question.
Albus doesn't need to answer.
An older and more worn version of the same man stands in the sudden, disconcerting silence of victory, hand shaking as he keeps the Wand- the prize of his youthful ambitions he no longer wants- trained on the twisted, mud-splattered figure lying at his feet. Grindelwald struggles to roll over and coughs weakly, spits red. Wild eyes meet Dumbledore's and there is cold fury in that gaze, and behind it, defiance, disbelief, hurt, genuine betrayal. He seems, for all his atrocities, like a child who has been whipped for something he does not believe- or perhaps understand- is wrong. He is Gellert again then, and the pitch-less rasp of his voice is almost lost to the wind.
"How could you?"
Albus doesn't have an answer.
As usual, feedback is much appreciated. :)