Disclaimer: I am not JKR and I don't own the characters, locations or situations depicted hererin.
Author's Notes: Sort of the second in a series (mini-series?) covering post-death experiences for some of the characters I find the most interesting. Now, who can tell me why this takes place where it does?
Warnings: Character death. Mild implied volence. Mild implied slash.
Review, please?
To pay for his various, and mostly secret, sins, he had long ago devoted his life to Light, and doing good for wizards and witches — and Muggles, he always reminded himself sternly — everywhere.
Over the years, of all the many and difficult things he ever had to do, there was one particular duty to the Wizarding public which, above all others, he did not relish.
He put it off until he absolutely couldn't any longer.
When he left, trying to convince himself that this was something he could do, it was with a heavy heart which beat too hard and too fast.
It was not hard to find who he was looking for — at least, not for him — but somehow, he hadn't expected it would be. Some part of him, at least, still thought — hoped? dreaded? — that the individual he was after would not hide from him.
Why should he, after all?
Whether or not they were alone when he finally reached his goal, it didn't matter, for they might as well have been.
Grindelwald did not seem surprised by his visit, but greeted him with a delighted look that rattled him more than he would like to admit. The curly blonde hair was longer now and it's gleam hid any trace of white; whatever lines that had developed on the face were covered by a wide, wild smile; and the eyes, though guarded and somewhat remote, were gleaming brightly.
On the whole, Grindelwald's appearance was an echo of the magnificence of his youthful self, and for several moments, he and the man who sought him neither moved nor spoke.
You're here, the Dark Wizard eventually said, a note of something in the voice that he couldn't read. At last.
Yes, he replied, and strangely couldn't make the rest of what he needed to say leave his throat.
I was wondering when you'd show up.
He winced, for Grindelwald's smile had grown larger. I haven't come to join you, Gell.
The pleased expression didn't falter, even with the whisper, I didn't think you had.
He wasn't sure he'd really heard that, though, for he didn't see the lips move, only the eyes flash.
I've come to stop you.
I know, the blonde said, and for an instant it looked as if Time had not been kind at all — yet the joy in those eyes was even fiercer, shadowed by something else.
They might have stood there forever, drinking each other in, had he not somehow gathered the will to raise his wand against the Dark Wizard.
It might have been his imagination, but he thought for a moment that Grindelwald hesitated.
It was done. There was nothing left of their battle — so long, and so much harder than anything he'd ever had to do before — but a few scorch marks on the ground, and some smoke. It didn't seem real to him, and though he had won, it did not feel like a victory.
He walked, slowly, to where Grindelwald lay, vanquished and nearly broken, and stopped while he was still out of reach.
The defeated wizard somehow — he would never understand where the strength had come from — lifted his head. Gellert looked up at him, eyes no longer remote, but clear and blazing and perfect, and a weak smile twisted his face.
It was good to see you, Albus.
He had not seen the Dark Wizard again. Not until the night he stood on top a tower, his school a battleground beneath him and the sky glowing green above him, and looked into the cold, tortured black eyes of the man who was about to send him on his way, into adventure for the last time.
Then he couldn't stop the face that floated to the top of his mind, though he hoped Severus wouldn't notice.
He wondered, in the split second before the green light of death reached him, if that — a memory-fogged image almost lost to the intervening years — would really be the last.
If it would, he had not savored it nearly enough…
For just an instant, after he crossed into his next great adventure, he was falling. Or it might have been longer, a day, a week, a year — all in that instant.
He did not so much land as stop, with something that felt suspiciously like an arm beneath his shoulders, which seemed rather strangely to be bare. Then he was on his feet, with no idea exactly how he'd got there, and a loose purple robe was fluttering about his legs.
He looked to the side.
Some distance away, a young redheaded girl waited patiently, sitting on a bench outside a little house he thought he might have lived in once, a smile on her face and forgiveness in her eyes — but it was the boy at his side, the owner of the arm around him, who held his attention.
The gleeful look lacked wildness, the expression a hard edge of ruthlessness that he had grown to dread in all his memories, and the face— the face lacked years… years and years… until it was a face that he had not thought to ever see again.
Through a mist of what he hoped were not obvious as tears, he smiled.
"Here you are," the boy whispered, "at last."
"Yes," he replied, as the first drop fell.
The arm seemed to draw him closer. Not close enough, but definitely closer. "I was wondering when you'd show up. It's good to see you."
"Gellert—" but that was all he managed, before the words died, as he watched the boy pull forward a few strands of red hair, weaving them between long fingers.
"Have you come to join me?" the boy asked, softly, the gleeful eyes hopeful.
He couldn't find the words.
He nodded.
That face, the one he had never quite managed to forget he loved, beamed and blazed and then inched closer. "Albus, I…"
To shut Gellert up before he said something that really made him cry, Albus hugged him — and hugged him and hugged him and didn't stop until he realised that they didn't need to breath.
Actually, he didn't stop then, either, only paused a moment to do something even better.