It's the old fallen angel idea in some ways, isn't it? It's God and Lucifer.
— J.K. Rowling

Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful.
— Arthur Miller

You meet him in a graveyard.

Later, this will seem prophetic.

Your mother died a month ago, and your dreams are as dead, now, as her. You visit the grave at sunrise to Conjure flowers at the tomb—mourning your mother, mourning your father, mourning your own lost potential. It is only upon standing that you see the fair-haired stranger at the other side of the graveyard, kneeling before a different tomb.

You know exactly which one.

He rises, sunlight sparkling across the back of his golden hair—framing it like a halo when he feels your gaze on him and turns. His whole angelic face lights up with a brilliant, blinding smile as his blue eyes meet yours, and this is how it starts: two boys, locking eyes across a sea of tombstones.

"You must be Albus Dumbledore," he calls, in a light, almost musical voice, with a light, almost imperceptible accent. "I have heard so very much about you."

You know nothing about him, this dazzling boy, this pilgrim to the Peverell tomb, this angel of Death who has appeared before you in a small church graveyard. You want to know everything. You feel, quite suddenly, alive.

"Good things, I hope," you reply. He laughs. It's a wild, exhilarating laugh. It makes your bones hum and your blood sing. It makes you forget how to breathe.

"Great things." He's stepping closer, over graves. His eyes have not left yours. "You and I, I think, will be great friends."

When he is directly in front of you, close enough that you could reach out to touch him, if you dared, the golden stranger raises a single graceful finger, trailing it through the air with spell light glittering in its wake. It is done in an instant, and the symbol he's drawnsparkles between you for a moment before vanishing: the wand, the stone, and the cloak. The sign of the Deathly Hallows.

When you look back at him, there is a startling intensity in those bright blue eyes, half a shade lighter than yours. His gaze is questioning—challenging—and you could never resist a question or a challenge. You arrange your features into their most unreadable mask. "You're on the quest."

He nods, seeming pleased and entirely unsurprised: this one wears his feelings on his face, with no need for masks. "The quest, yes. The very greatest." He gestures toward the village; past the church, past the Peverell grave. "Will you walk with me?"

Yes, you think at once. Yes, you will walk with him back to the village. Yes, you will walk with him anywhere. You swallow the words. "Who are you?"

"Gellert," he says simply, with another merry, transfiguring grin. "Gellert Grindelwald." Already, his name is your new favorite spell. He leans closer, and speaks yours like a prophecy: "Someday, Albus Dumbledore, all the world will know our names."

Gellert, of course, changes everything.

Gellert descends upon your quaint, quiet town like a lightning storm—transfiguring tradition, challenging convention, uprooting everything ordinary. His past is mysterious, his backstory vague: he seems to have sprung into being overnight in Godric's Hollow, a wild burst of almost superhuman beauty and charisma, made up of sunbeams spun with gold. The Muggle girls are smitten; the magical girls even more so. They follow him down the narrow village streets, crowd around him, preen and jostle for his attention, but Gellert invariably looks past them. Gellert, invariably, finds you.

Gellert is the sun, and you revolve around him from the start, trapped in his gravitational pull like so many other planets, but you are brighter, you are brightest, and he shines most brightly on you.

Shine, perhaps, is too dull a word.

Gellert doesn't simply shine—Gellert blazes, casting all around him into shadow with sheer dazzling force of being.

When he turns that beatific gaze on you, your whole body comes alive for him: heat flaring up from within, blood in your veins turned to light.

"Albus," Bathilda Bagshot informs her grand-nephew over tea, as Gellert listens with a fond, amused smile, "was last year's winner of the Barnabas Finkley Prize for Exceptional Spell-Casting."

"Yes, I know, Aunt Bathilda," says Gellert, flashing a grin your way. "You have already told me all about your most notable neighbor and his many, many charms." His eyes trail over to where you're seated, and he adds with a slow once-over, "Most of them, I should say. Some you did not see fit to mention."

"Did I mention," asks Bathilda, oblivious to the slight flush in your cheeks, and your white-knuckled grip on your teacup, "he was selected as Youth Representative to the Wizengamot?"

"Professor Bagshot, please," you interject, feeling rather too warm, "while your appreciation is appreciated—"

"You did indeed," says Gellert, laughter in his voice. Bathilda pats you affectionately on the leg. Gellert's gaze, you notice, lingers.

"Albus is far too humble. It falls to me to brag of his accomplishments. You know, Transfiguration Today awarded him their Most Promising Newcomer Award after publishing his paper on—"

"Subverting the Principle of Artificianimate Quasi-Dominance through Trans-Species Transfiguration," finishes Gellert, shifting the force of his full attention from his great-aunt to you with the narrowed, concentrated focus of a spell-beam. It's dizzying. "I have read it. Fascinating insight on the Conjuration of rare magical beasts, though I question the theory in practice. Surely if Conjuring a creature like the phoenix were possible, someone would have done it already."

You have the distinct feeling that he's challenging you. Again. "I am not particularly interested in what has previously been possible. Impossibilities are much more interesting." You smile pleasantly, taking another sip of Bathilda's sugared tea. "But that is only my humble opinion."

The corners of Gellert's mouth tilt upward. "No opinion of yours should be humble," he says, fingers tap-tap-tapping on the teacup, on the chair, on his leg. Gellert is always moving. Gellert does not know how to stop. "I am not particularly interested in humility." Before you can reply, he raises his teacup as if for a toast, saying grandly, "To pursuit of the impossible."

"Oh, Gellert," Bathilda chuckles, indulgent. "Albus, you will be a good influence on him, I think. If he spent half as much time as you do reading my history books—"

"I don't want to read history," interrupts Gellert, downing the rest of his tea in a single sip. "I want to make history."

You meet his eyes, and the challenge, this time, is yours. "Why not both?"

Gellert's graceful fingers dance over your bookshelves as if summoning up a spell—passing over Waffling's Magical Theory, Pyrites's Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science, Karuzos's New Theory of Numerology, and finally his great-aunt's History of Hogwarts and History of Magic with a slight half-smile flickering across his face. "Do you read anything besides magical history and theory?"

You stroke your chin as if considering. "Do Muggle writers count?"

Gellert's mouth twists as if he can't decide whether to laugh or frown; as if he can't decide whether you're joking. "For very little, I expect."

You bend to select a book on the bottom shelf and flick to a bookmarked page. "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history," you read lightly, "is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." Gellert arches one blond eyebrow, and you smile. "Oscar Wilde. I dare say you'd quite like him."

"Wilde," repeats Gellert. "That Muggle writer I have heard of." He gives you a sharp, searing look. "He was imprisoned."

"Yes," you say evenly. Your heart is beating fast—but then, it is always is, around Gellert. "He disobeyed. He rebelled."

Gellert's piercing blue eyes are boring into your own as if they can see straight into your mind. (They can't, you reassure yourself. You asked. You are the only Legilimens between you, and you would never intrude on his thoughts unless he invited you in. He has not.) "The Muggles," he says quietly, "would have preferred him to live in hiding—unable to be his true self, unable to express his talent, unable to love who he loved." He studies you, that penetrating gaze roving over your features with a strange, pensive expression. "Can love be wrong? Love, the only magic Muggles are given?"

"No." You swallow the heart rising up in your throat. "Love is never wrong."

"And neither is magic," Gellert says with startling intensity, his own voice raised with growing passion. "Secrecy, however... Secrecy is wrong. Being forced to hide who you are, for fear of exposure, fear of punishment—that is wrong."

Magic practically crackles in the air around him as he paces the length of your room. It's impossible to look away from him when he's like this—hyper-animated with relentless energy; a forceful, frenetic blur.

"You and I, Albus..." His smile is so disarming you half expect your wand to fly across the room. "...are going to set things right."

You watch, irritated and impatient, as Aberforth avoids your gaze after calling you down to the kitchen, picking at the dirt beneath his fingernails with a consternated expression. "If you have something to say, dear brother, say it plainly."

"I don't want him around her," he finally says—looking up to level you with a deliberate, insinuating stare. "I don't want him in this house."

"Why not?" you snap. "He already knows what happened, from Bathilda—"

"It's not that," Aberforth says gruffly. "He's dangerous." You blink, taken aback. Whatever you expected him to say, it wasn't that. "I heard them talking, in the village—he was expelled. From Durmstrang. Now, what in Merlin's name would a wizard have to do to get expelled from Durmstrang?" He pauses, having registered your fleeting look of surprise. "What, you didn't know?" He lets out a short, scornful scoff. "Don't you two tell each other everything? Always holed up in your bedroom, whispering secrets in each other's ears like giggling girls—"

"Ariana is a girl," you cut in icily, "and she's more dangerous than you or I combined." You give Aberforth your most pleasant, most infuriating smile. "I'm quite sure she could handle Gellert Grindelwald."

You spin on your heel and march up the stairs toward your room without another word, flinging open the door with perhaps slightly more force than necessary.

The sight of Gellert lounging on your bed—tousled gold hair on your pillow; long limbs sprawled over your sheets—sends the air sweeping out of your lungs. Loose scrolls and sheets of parchment are spread out all around him, and he holds one up as you enter, a thrilled glint in his eye.

"The International Alchemical Conference wants you to present your work in Cairo?"

He's found your correspondence.

"It's not polite to snoop," you say evenly, waving your wand to gather the papers and levitate them back to the open drawer in your desk. Gellert gives an elegant snort.

"It's not polite to keep the greatest wizarding mind of the past three centuries waiting, either, and yet, you have ignored Nicholas Flamel's invitations to come to Paris for the past two months." He leaps off the bed and strides toward you in excitement, still brandishing Flamel's latest letter. "You must go, we must go—"

"I can't," you tell him flatly, ignoring the way your heart flares up at we. "I can't go to Paris... I can't go to Cairo... I can't leave Godric's Hollow."

"Of course you can," scoffs Gellert. "This town is too small for a mind like yours—this country is too small—"

"I can't," you say again, louder—wincing at the sharpness in your voice.

Gellert studies you with a furrowed brow. "Why not?" He sets down the letter and steps closer. "You can tell me, Albus," he says softly, placing a tentative hand on your shoulder and seeming not to notice as you tense. "You can tell me anything."

He's so close you can feel his warm breath on your lips, sweet as Bathilda's tea. You take a steadying breath of your own. "Perhaps it would be simpler to show you."

Ariana shrinks back when Gellert enters her room, dropping her toys and drawing her knees up to her chest—staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

You go to her at once, pulling her into an embrace. (She stiffens, as she always does. Aberforth is better at embraces.) "This is Gellert, Ariana," you tell her, soothing. "You'll like him. I like him." Gellert flashes you a grin, and you flush without daring to think why.

"Hello, Ariana," says Gellert, bending down with a sweet, sad smile. "My Aunt Bathilda is very fond of you."

Ariana takes him in with a hesitant, probing expression. "Gold," she murmurs softly, reaching out an unsteady hand to touch Gellert's curls.

A strange stab of jealousy runs through you at the way he lets her run her fingers through his hair before reaching out to touch hers in turn, winking, "Red-gold is better."

"Ariana," you say pleasantly, "Aberforth is downstairs." Your sister's big, bright eyes light up at once at the name. You try not to let it sting. "Why don't you go help him feed the goats?"

"Goats," Ariana says happily, letting you pull her up and lead her to the door. She looks back at Gellert when she's halfway through the doorway, then up at you with a shy smile—tugging you down to whisper in your ear, "He likes you, too."

You close the door behind her, and wait for the blush to fade from your cheeks before turning around.

Furious tears have welled in Gellert's eyes.

"She was powerful—is powerful," he says in a harsh, hushed voice. "I could feel it—all that repressed, restrained magic—simmering just underneath her skin." He stares at the scattered toys around the room and shakes his head. "It's consuming her, Albus. It is burning her alive, from within."

He picks up a discarded toy, a doll, and touches its faded blonde hair. "What has happened to Ariana is what always happens when Muggles do not understand something, cannot control something." With a snap of Gellert's fingers, the doll's head snaps off. "They break it."

"Now you see why I have to stay." You flick your own fingers to fix the doll, feeling that dull, leaden emptiness that threatened to devour you before Gellert arrived and sparked you back to life starting to close in once more. "I cannot leave her—not now, perhaps not ever. She and Aberforth are my responsibility."

"I won't let this place steal your genius the way it stole her magic," Gellert says fiercely. "I won't let you both stay here, trapped."

"There's nothing you can do, Gellert," you say quietly. "There's no way to change this."

"Oh, there is a way." Gellert's hard gaze finds a book by Ariana's nightstand, old and worn from years of reading and re-reading: The Tales of Beedle the Bard. "There are three ways." He looks back at you intently, alight with passion and purpose. "And we will find them all."

Gellert uses magic like an artist.

In his hands, spells are paint, and the brushstrokes of his wand shape masterpieces out of the air, blending and blurring into a vivid composition of light and color.

Dueling practice, between the two of you, is less a battle than a waltz. Gellert duels as if he's dancing: every movement set to music only he can hear, every motion imbued with the precise, fluid grace of choreography. You match him step for step, spell by spell, and the woods are your illuminated ballroom.

After, breathing hard, you lean back with him on the grass as your blood settles back into stillness, looking up at the sunlight sparkling through the trees. "That's the first time," you tell him without thinking, "anyone has ever tied me in a duel." You glance over with a grin, still heady with magic; with the intoxicating thrill of throwing out your best and having it—for once—thrown back at you. "It's certainly nice to finally have a challenge."

Gellert props himself up on one elbow and fixes you with one of his mesmerizing stares. "To finally have an equal." He traces the sign of the Deathly Hallows on the swath of chest just visible above the open collar of your shirt, spell light shimmering in the wake of his fingers—making your skin his canvas. You hardly dare breathe as he finishes with a magnetic smirk, "I share the sentiment."

He leans back again before you can reply, tilting his head up to gaze at the apple tree shading you both from the sun. He is magnificent in profile: the fine, classical curves of his face rendered almost ethereal in the soft afternoon light. When he beckons with one lazy finger, a ripe red apple releases itself from the branches and soars into his waiting hand.

You watch, spellbound, as Gellert lifts it to his lips and takes a bite—entranced by the juices glazing his mouth; by the movement of his throat as he chews and swallows.

When he offers it to you, you bite.

Gellert smiles and eats another piece from where you've bitten, blue eyes searing into yours, and between you, you finish the apple.

He Vanishes the stem without a word and licks his fingers as you sit very still: hyper-conscious of your shoulder touching his; of the crisp, tangy sweetness on your tongue.

"Tell me a secret," you say suddenly—Aberforth's scoffing laughter echoing in your head. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Something you don't know?" He nudges you, teasing. "That is a very short list indeed." You answer with a smiling nudge of your own, and wait. "Here is something," he says finally, sitting up to fully face you. "Do you know why I began the quest?"

"No." You realize, now, how badly you want to know. Why have the Hallows inflamed Gellert, the way they've inflamed you? What has inspired his burning need to master Death?

"I have a mission," says Gellert, lowering his voice as if speaking something sacred. Righteousness is radiating from him in a way that makes you think of an avenging angel, or a prophet. "To fulfill it, I need the Hallows, I need—" He pauses. "You." You catch your breath. "I cannot do what I must do alone, but with the Hallows, with you at my side... your talent, your gifts, your brilliant mind..." He leans almost imperceptibly closer, seeming to pull you toward him as if with a spell. "We must complete the quest—together." That tug of inevitability between you tightens. "Together, we're unstoppable."

When you've found your voice again, you speak. "What is this mission?"

"Muggles," Gellert says in a clear, sharp voice. "They must be stopped, Albus, and we must be the ones to stop them. If we don't, they will destroy us, destroy everything—end all life on this planet." He gives you a significant, portentous look. "I have Seen it."

"You are a Seer?" You simply stare at him a moment as he nods. "What have you Seen?"

"War," he answers plainly. "A war to end all wars, and a worse war, after that. Years and years of worldwide slaughter and destruction..." A visible shudder runs through him, and he breathes deeply, closing his eyes. "So many starving, burning corpses." His eyes snap open as he speaks your words: "Perhaps it would be simpler to show you."

At your questioning look, Gellert nods, and you swallow hard.

"Legilimens."

The world bursts open.

Waves of soldiers slaughtered with new, inescapable weapons; throngs of women and children massacred by unstoppable armies. Explosions falling from the sky and rising from the oceans. Skeletal wraiths, piled up in ditches; walls and fences trapping withered prisoners with the dead. Furnaces full of bodies, burning burning burning. The obliterated expanse of an entire city, detonated into smoke and ash.

By the time you wrench away, you're shaking.

"How many dead?" you hear yourself ask in a voice that sounds faint to your ears. "Thousands—hundreds of thousands—?"

"Millions," Gellert says flatly, "and many millions after." He shakes his head at your look of abject horror. "The century to come will be the bloodiest in human history, but it will be nothing compared to what will follow. When Muggles tire of killing themselves, you see, they will kill the planet. Their smoke, their waste, their gases, the remains of long-dead creatures they dig up to fuel their machines—it will devastate the Earth on a scale you cannot possibly imagine." He looks past you, at the green expanse of trees around you: gaze fixed on a ghastly future you can't See. "Untold disaster, Albus—utter and complete annihilation. The seas will rise. The air will turn to poison. They will burn themselves alive, and burn us with them."

"Unless..." It comes out as a desperate, whispered question, and Gellert nods.

"Unless we stop them."

"Save them from themselves," you say urgently. "Guide them, lead them, show them a better way—"

"Contain them," corrects Gellert. "Control them, since they can't control themselves."

"Rule them," you say slowly, "with magic." His eyes light up as you finish: "For the greater good."

Several long, taut seconds pass before Gellert speaks. "It is not all death and darkness. I have Seen much more than that."

"What have you Seen?" you ask again, holding your breath as he answers with hypnotic fervor:

"Us. The two of us together, lighting the way with magic—most loved, most feared, most powerful. We will be great, Albus. I have Seen it. The greatest wizards who have ever lived." Gellert's hand locks onto the back of your neck before you even register the movement, and you lean into the touch, caught in his thrall. His lips are inches from your own as he breathes out, "We're going to save the world."

You fall into the waiting ocean of his eyes, this time, without even speaking the spell.

The two of you together, creating the world anew: unlocking all the secrets of the universe. You rule as kings—as gods—as masters of Death. Benevolent and beloved: resplendent with wisdom, incandescent with power. Crowds cave and curve as they bow to you both. Gellert slips a ring onto your finger—a Stone, engraved with the sign of the Deathly Hallows.

You're shaking again when this vision ends, trembling in Gellert's grip.

"Here is my secret," he says softly. "I didn't only come to Godric's Hollow for the Hallows." That luminous gaze flickers down from your eyes to your mouth. "I came for you."

He's kissing you.

His mouth presses gently onto yours as his tongue slides over your lips, tasting of apples, and something buried deep inside you blooms, blossoms rapidly to life.

He's kissing you, and you—you're kissing him back. Deeper, harder, hungrier; as if you've done this before, as if you know exactly what you're doing, as if you always take exactly what you want... and right now, all you want is him.

Gellert moans into your mouth, one hand entwining in your hair as the other grasps at the front of your shirt to pull you closer. His golden curls are soft as silk between your fingers, and desire scorches across your skin like fire: Gellert's warmth seeping inside you and igniting into flame. His hand tightens in your hair as he bites at your lip, and you're seeing swirling stars.

This is magic, this is real magic.

This is a revelation.

There is no spell more powerful than the elation exploding in your chest at the sound of Gellert's breath hitching on your name; no charm more captivating than the feeling of his skin on yours; no enchantment more enthralling than your heads together on the grass: amber and auburn, intertwined.

There is nothing—nothing—but this.

It's gray, today, in the graveyard, but you feel no need for sunny skies with Gellert's arm slung around you: your heart feels lighter and the skies feel brighter than they've ever been.

You Conjure flowers at the tomb as you always do, but laying them on the grave, this time, feels less like mourning than like closure—less like the end of your dreams and more like a new beginning.

Gellert's hand squeezes yours, then reaches out to trace the engraved inscription. "Where your treasure is," he reads quietly, "there will your heart be also." His fingers pause on the verse. "From their Bible," he murmurs, turning to you with a searching look. "She was religious, your Muggleborn mother?"

You nod. "When I was a child," you find yourself telling him, "my father read me Beedle tales and my mother read me Bible stories. Somehow hairy hearts and Hallows inspired far less terror in my young heart." You feel the force of Gellert's gaze shift from the tombstone to you. "Magic, for my mother," you clarify calmly, "was a divine gift from God, an awesome, fearsome thing." You trace the wand sheathed in your pocket. "We mortals must be wary, when blessed with so much power."

"She feared her own nature," says Gellert, mouth in a tight line, "and seeing that nature in you." You glance at him, surprised, and think of your mother kneeling by your bed at night with the cross she wore around her neck clutched in her hands—speaking prayers like spells.

Your mother, fear you?

You, with your mother's careful, calculating skill and your own boundless ambition: your own voracious hunger for more and more knowledge, more and more magic, more and more godlike power. Not simple, forthright Aberforth, with your father's love of farming spells and firewhiskey by the fire. Not little Ariana's lovely wonders—Healing wounded animals; Transfiguring dead leaves into butterflies. Until...

Until.

"But you, Albus," Gellert is saying, "you and Aberforth and Ariana..." He points to the tombstone, then to your chest: laying a hand over your heart. "You were her treasure." A sharp jolt of pleasure runs through you as Gellert's magical fingers follow your heartbeat, moving up to trace the sign of the Deathly Hallows on the pulse point of your throat. He presses his lips to the skin, leaning to breathe into your ear: "And when we bring her back—when we resurrect her, like the son of her Muggle god—she will know at last what it means to have a son who can work miracles."

He drags you to the Peverell tomb and presses you down on the grave with an incendiary kiss—Disillusioned to all eyes but Death's. You kiss until the morning church bells ring, until the rest of the village stirs itself awake, then kiss some more at the kissing gate, Gellert's invisible laughter filling your mouth.

You could stay like this forever, you think: you and Gellert, entwined. Rebelling against Death; disobeying laws of Muggles, God, and nature; delighting in magic and in each other.

All the world is suspended.

All the world will be yours.

Aberforth says nothing when Gellert walks downstairs at your side and joins for breakfast, only stabs at his eggs with particular viciousness. Ariana watches with bright, canny eyes as Gellert—winking at her from across the table—refills her glass of juice with a non-verbal Levitation Charm while helping himself to a sausage.

"Your brother," he tells your siblings between bites, "has been showing me how best to use my wand."

You very nearly choke on your bacon.

"He is as gifted with positioning and wrist movement as he is with everything else," Gellert continues, smiling brightly, "but in Europe we prefer a looser, less disciplined style of spellwork, so I am struggling with these English... restraints. In fact, I cannot remember finding anything quite so hard."

Aberforth is staring daggers. You focus on buttering your toast, looking for all the world like nothing could possibly be more fascinating.

"And when, exactly," Aberforth asks through gritted teeth, "will you be returning to Europe?"

"Soon, I hope," Gellert answers at once. "Adventure awaits, and I have already found all I hoped to find here in Godric's Hollow." He gives your leg a squeeze under the table, adding slyly, "Perhaps Albus will be coming with me."

Ariana makes a noise of distress as Aberforth slams his fork down with such force that the table shakes. "What?"

You shoot Gellert a warning look. "Gellert, as always, is full of wild ideas." You turn to Ariana and place a calming hand over hers, telling her seriously, "I would never leave without taking you with me."

Ariana nods vigorously. "Adventure."

You smile, reaching for the jam—and Aberforth, incensed enough for a rare display of wandless magic, waves a hand to turn it over, spilling strawberry preserves all over you.

No one moves for a tense second, until—locking eyes with Aberforth—Gellert raises your hand to his lips and licks off the jam: sucking a finger all the way into his mouth without breaking eye contact.

Your skin, all of a sudden, feels scorching hot.

Aberforth stands up so suddenly that he knocks over Ariana's juice, causing her to wail. You Scour away the juice and the jam both as he rushes to comfort her until she's merely whimpering sullenly; until she stomps upstairs to her room and slams the door.

Gellert, who has continued eating breakfast all the while, finishes the last of his eggs and leans back, wiping his mouth. "Wonderful cooking, Aberforth," he says with cheerful relish. "I do believe you've found your calling."

The butter knife is shaking on the table, and for a single breathless moment, you're certain Aberforth is about to send it spiraling into Gellert's eye.

"Albus," he bites out, still glaring at Gellert, "a word." He storms out the back door into the garden, and with an exasperated look at Gellert—who shrugs—you follow.

As soon as you step outside, Aberforth practically shoves you back into the door. "Are you mad? Have you completely taken leave of your senses, you selfish, arrogant git—"

"If you called me out here to insult me," you say coldly, "I think I'll go back inside."

Aberforth snorts. "Oh, to Gellert, who would never insult you because he's too far up your—"

Your wand is drawn and pointed at his chest in a perfect dueling stance in less time than it takes you to draw a breath. Aberforth steps back, eyes wide. "What, precisely," you say in a cool, measured tone, "is your problem with me and Gellert?"

Aberforth shakes his head, staring at your wand. "The two of you together..." He shrugs, not quite able to meet your eyes. "It's not natural."

"Natural." You keep your voice steady and calm, but there's an undercurrent of restrained rage beneath that's threatening to flood your senses, threatening to drown you and your brother both. "Natural, Aberforth? Perhaps mating with the goats would feel more natural to you."

Aberforth takes two steps forward, stopping when your wand meets his chest. "Ariana isn't going to Europe," he says, voice thick with disgust, "and neither are you."

You turn around without a word, sheathing your wand before you may regret not doing so.

"Did you ask him about Durmstrang?"

You pause with your hand on the door, but don't look back.

Behind you, Aberforth gives a low, humorless laugh. "Didn't think so."

You leave him in the garden, and find Gellert at your desk in your room: poring through your first edition Beedle manuscript as if everything were perfectly ordinary. When you enter and close the door, he beckons you over and points to a page. "Look. The most accurate translation of this rune is overpower, but the later Latin version has it as defeat, which could mean—"

"Why do you provoke him?"

Gellert looks up at the interruption, staring at you a moment before slamming the folio shut. You wince. "Why do you endure him?" He stands, throwing out his arms in aggravation. "You give up everything for him, so he can finish his schooling, and how does he thank you? With ridicule, disrespect, contempt." He touches your cheek, saying softer, "I cannot bear to see you unappreciated. Not by anyone."

"Why did you not finish your schooling?" Gellert's hand freezes on your face. "You didn't graduate from Durmstrang," you continue, heart pounding. "You were expelled. Why?"

Gellert's widened eyes flicker back and forth between your own before he sighs, lowering his hand. "No secrets between us, Albus." He moves to sit on your bed, pulling you down with him, and says in a strained voice, "I did not tell you, because I did not want you to think less of me. You, the golden boy of Hogwarts—and me, a Durmstrang dropout." Gellert laughs, short and bitter. You take his hands in yours—patient, reassuring—and his eyes well up with tears. "I used a curse," he says flatly, wiping at his eyes. "One of my own invention. Dark." He meets your steady gaze with matter-of-fact grimness. "Very Dark." A pause. "I don't regret it."

You open your mouth, but no words come out. Gellert shakes his head. "They were tormenting a boy—a friend of mine. They made his life a living hell." A sharp smile you've never seen him wear spreads over his angelic features, hardening the edges of his jaw and cheekbones in a way that makes you shiver. "So I gave them hell in return."

You think, for a moment, of what you might do if someone hurt Gellert.

You think, for a moment, that your blood might be boiling in your veins at the very thought.

"I understand," you say quietly. Gellert eyes you, apprehensive, and you press a kiss to his forehead—still reveling, somehow, in your newfound ability to touch him as you please. "Of course I understand. My father did the same." You raise a brow at Gellert's surprised intake of breath, saying dryly, "You knew he was gone—did you not know why? I suppose Bathilda would leave out that part of the story." You find the family photograph propped up on your desk, and feel Gellert follow your gaze. "He is in Azkaban, for life—for what he did to the boys who attacked Ariana."

"Albus," Gellert whispers, "I am sorry."

You lean your head on his shoulder, watching your father pick up laughing little Ariana, kind eyes twinkling, then set her down again and again and again.

She was his favorite, of course, and Aberforth after. Your father never quite knew what to do with you, his precocious eldest son who preferred rare books and foreign treats and exotic magical creatures to domesticated farm animals and homemade Butterbeer. Who preferred conversing with his sophisticated, famous mentors over spending time with his ordinary, plain-speaking father; hearing the same old stories, again and again and again.

Would he have done it for you, too?

Did he think of you at all, before he did it—his precocious eldest son, imprisoned in his own way, after?

There are some questions, your mother would always say when you asked too many, that you're better off not knowing the answers to.

A soothing sort of bliss flows over you: Gellert is running a gentle hand through your hair, massaging your scalp—settling your racing mind. You think of those skillful fingers and confident mouth, the way he always knows precisely how to make you moan. "Your friend," you say hazily, "the boy you were defending—was he… Were you and he—"

"No, Albus," Gellert interrupts with a fond smile. "He was only a friend." He tilts your chin up, leaning in to kiss you. "It has only ever been you."

There's something sacred about the way your hearts beat in time when your chests touch. Something hallowed.

You collapse onto the bed in an embrace, and it's the most natural thing in the world.

You have become so used to Gellert being at your side that when he isn't—when he has obligations with Bathilda or you have obligations with Ariana; when you are alone in your own rooms at night, owls tapping at each other's windows through the early hours of the morning—you feel hollow.

He was supposed to meet you at the village square nearly an hour ago, to Confund the clerk in the mayor's office into letting you access the town's historical records in search of Peverell descendants, and there's no sign of him.

Did Bathilda find one of your racier owls that Gellert failed to burn or Vanish, and finally discover the true nature of your friendship? Did a villager see the two of you in one of your less careful moments and report you both to the Muggle authorities? Did he leave town without telling you? Did he die?

You may be coming slightly undone.

You walk toward the Bagshot house.

Rounding the corner to Bathilda's street, a sight ahead stops you dead in your tracks: Gellert, pulling someone else into his orbit; leaning close to whisper in that someone's ear as she nearly swoons.

She. Evelyn Swain, a pretty, curvy Muggle girl. The vicar's daughter.

"Albus!" She's seen you. Gellert turns with a slow, lazy smile. You cannot even fathom what expression might be on your face. "I was inviting Gellert to church," Evelyn's rambling nervously, smoothing down her dress and hair. She's flustered at being caught flirting—she, the vicar's daughter. "You and your brother are welcome as well, of course. We've missed you, since—" She flushes, faltering under your cold stare. "I just mean to say, we've missed you."

"How very kind," you say tightly, staring at Gellert—who grins.

"Unfortunately, Evelyn," he teases, ignoring your slight flinch at hearing him purr her name, "Albus is an incorrigible sinner." He raises her hand to his lips: she smiles, blushing. "I shall do my best to drag him back into God's light."

He slings an arm around your rigid shoulders and leads you away, waving back at Evelyn as she laughs.

As soon as she's out of sight, you twist away. "I waited for you," you say—voice sounding louder and higher than you mean it to—"for an hour."

"I know." Gellert presses his hands together apologetically. "I am sorry—Bathilda wouldn't let me go until I'd listened to a lecture on her latest research, you know how she is." He lowers his voice with a slow, seductive smirk. "Give me another hour, and I promise I will more than make it up to you."

"Perhaps you'd rather spend that hour with Evelyn Swain," you can't help saying, still sounding far too shrill to your ears.

"Evelyn?" Gellert blinks. "Whatever for?"

"You tell me, Gellert," you say, seething. "Whatever you were whispering in her ear seemed quite appealing."

Gellert stares blankly for a moment before his face lights up with one of his most radiant smiles. "I wasn't seducing her, Albus," he assures you, laughter in his voice. "I was cursing her."

For a single shocked second, you are certain you misheard him. "What?"

He waves a nonchalant, dismissive hand. "Nothing too Dark, don't worry. I only took the opportunity to ensure she won't be breeding a litter of Muggles into the world."

You process this with dawning horror. "You—"

"Sterilized her, yes." Gellert shrugs. "A flirtatious, fertile girl like that—she would have been pregnant by winter, and every winter after, mark my words." He quirks a brow, amused. "You might say I did her a favor. I am certain her father would agree."

"Why," you manage to say evenly, "would you do that."

"Why?" Amusement shifts to incredulity. "Why would the world be better off with fewer Muggles?"

"We're trying to save them, Gellert!" His unwavering gaze unsettles you, makes you demand, "Are we not?"

Gellert is silent a long moment, toying with his rings. "I have been thinking about your phrase, your philosophy," he says finally. "For the greater good." You eye him uncertainly, and he launches into that impassioned, intoxicating rhythm you now know so well. "In the long run—in the grand, global scheme of things—might it not be better for us, for the planet, to let my first vision come to pass? To stand back as they cull themselves... perhaps even pull a few strings, from behind the scenes... then step in to build a magical new world from the ashes of their old one? Might that not, in the end, be the greater good? Perhaps we are prophesied not to be the saviors of their broken world, but the creators of a better one."

"Creation through destruction," you say, pained, "is not creation at all."

"Destruction," scoffs Gellert, "is what they do. They cannot truly create, without magic—they can only destroy."

"They can create life," you counter sharply—adding softer, "Life, and love."

"Then perhaps it is you who should be seducing Muggle girls." He throws out his arms, gesturing to the Muggle houses all around you. "Go on, Albus. Overpopulate the Earth with all of Evelyn's friends! I won't stop you." There's a sardonic edge to his voice; a mocking tinge to his tone that sounds all wrong coming from his lips. "I suppose if one of the children is a half-blood, it will all be worth it."

Your chest feels painfully tight. "You're being unkind."

"I'm being truthful," Gellert says fiercely. "I have shown you what they're capable of. You know what they're capable of—look at broken little Ariana. You know what those Muggle boys did to her, Albus. You know!" You look away, feeling ill. "Ariana will never bear children," he presses on, savage. "They took that from her, along with her magic."

"Evelyn Swain is innocent—"

"None of them are innocent." Gellert moves closer, lifting his mouth to your ear: "And neither are you." He brushes back a stray hair from your face: thoughtful, tender. "You don't have to pretend with me, Albus—to act as though what I am saying is so shocking. I know you see my point. You always do." You fall back into the hypnotic cadence of his voice like he's speaking a spell. "Existing on a higher plane than others—being gifted, being chosen—means making choices that the ordinary masses will never have to make. It means seeing deeper and farther and clearer than others, and doing what you know is right accordingly: trusting in your instincts, in your purpose." A pause, heavy with the weight of his next words: "It means that sometimes bad must be done, for the greater good."

The street is still and quiet. The only sound, it seems to you, is the clamoring drumbeat of your heart. You search in vain for words, but Gellert is already speaking again.

"We are alike. We are equals. We are together in this." He pulls you to him, burying his face in your hair. "You cannot leave me on that higher plane alone."

"Gellert..." You can barely speak, barely think straight; your mind a jumbled blur of Gellert's words, Gellert's scent, Gellert's touch. "People will see..."

A muscle clenches in Gellert's jaw as he releases you with what looks like phenomenal effort. "Why is it that I can embrace Evelyn in public, but not you?"

"You know why."

"Yes," he practically snarls. "Muggles. Muggles, and their inability to tolerate anyone different from themselves. Muggles, who you say are so well-versed in love."

Your breath catches in your throat at the word: love.

Is that what this is, then?

"Sneaking around in the shadows. Hiding, just as with magic." Gellert seems almost feverish with passion and conviction. "Do you think I am ashamed of you? Do you think I don't want to shout my feelings for you from the rooftops, worship you right here in these streets? Do you think I won't?" You inhale sharply as he lowers himself to his knees, looking up you through golden lashes. "I want all of you," he breathes, fingers dance-dance-dancing down your chest and creeping toward your trousers. "Every inch of you."

"Get up," you whisper, exerting every last ounce of self-control within you not to look around to be sure no scandalized observers are watching at the windows—not to seize Gellert's gold curls regardless and—"Please."

Gellert stops unfastening your trousers. "Perhaps," he says softly, still kneeling, very still, "you're the one who is ashamed of me."

Something—Gellert's name, or a sharp, strangled sob—is burning in your throat. You swallow it down and say nothing as he rises in one quick, graceful movement and walks down the empty street toward the Bagshot house.

You don't call after him until he's already stepping inside, and if he hears you, he does not look back.

Three days pass in a listless blur.

Life in Godric's Hollow without Gellert is dimmed and shadowed, devoid of light and color. You lay alone in bed and let that heavy emptiness consume you; let the ghosts of Gellert's looks and laughter torment you day and night; let that last conversation play out again and again in your mind, ending differently each time.

No owl taps at your window; no knock sounds at your door.

When a figure does appear in your doorway, it is small and slight, wearing a white gossamer dressing gown: Ariana, clutching The Tales of Beedle the Bard to her chest.

"Read to me?" she asks, hesitant. Guilt floods your body at the sound of her placid, precious voice.

You have barely seen Ariana in three days.

"Of course," you say at once, pulling her onto the bed with you and carefully stroking her red-gold hair—feeling close to tears when she does not tense, does not flinch, does not pull away.

With Ariana leaning calm against you, you open the old storybook to a page you know by heart. "There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight..."

She goes so still, as you read, that you think she might have drifted into slumber, but you press on anyway, refusing to lift your eyes from the page until the very end.

"...and then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and they departed this life as equals."

There's a slight movement beside you: not asleep after all. Ariana has reached up to touch something at her throat—a necklace.

Your mother's cross.

Before you can speak, Ariana places her delicate hands on either side of your face and says intently, "Gellert." She taps the side of your head with one light finger. "In your mind."

"Yes." You almost smile. "Yes, he is." Ariana's intent, focused look never wavers as you set down the book to gently kiss her hands. "I suppose I should speak with him, shouldn't I?"

Ariana gives a slow, serious nod and stands.

"Ariana?" She pauses at the doorway, looking back with a wary expression as you think of all that you could say.

You'll be safe. You'll leave this place. We'll be invincible. You'll see her again. Gellert and I—we're going to bring her back.

"You're not broken," you finally tell her firmly. "You're perfect."

Ariana closes the door smiling bigger than you've seen her smile in months, cross glinting in the faint light.

You look to the Beedle book still beside you on the bed, and Summon a quill and parchment.

The following morning, Gellert is waiting at the door at precisely the time you suggested. His widened eyes meet yours when you open it, and then each of you break the breathless moment of suspension between you with two simultaneous words:

"Forgive me."

You laugh, and Gellert laughs, and you fall into his waiting arms with a sigh of relief—feeling his mouth at your neck and nearly weeping with the sensation of his skin once again touching yours.

"I could not bear it," you murmur, running your fingers through his hair. "Having you think me ashamed of you." You pull back to look at him full-on, heedless of the open door or the streets beyond, heedless of anything else in the world but him. "I don't care who sees us, or who knows. I want the world to know. I want us to change it, change everything—tear down every Statute of Secrecy there is. Together."

You kiss him.

When you pull away, Gellert's eyes are glittering with tears.

You take his hand and lead him into the living room, onto the chaise lounge, and kiss him some more. Aberforth is upstairs, sleeping—and even if he were not, you find yourself not caring very much at all.

After, rising from your knees with the taste of him still on your tongue, you curl up on the chaise lounge at his side and trace the sign of the Deathly Hallows on his chest as he catches his breath. "You're magnificent," he manages, and you smile.

"I know."

You lie there together for seconds, or hours—the concept of time has faded to irrelevance now that you are back in Gellert's presence—simply breathing each other in. When Gellert speaks, his voice is quiet and firm.

"It was wrong, what I did to Evelyn—to take her choice away. I see that now." He sits up to look at you, full of righteous certainty. "Everyone—everyone—should have free choice." He reaches out a hand to touch your hair, your cheek, your lips. "We have chosen each other. Now we must make another choice."

You sit up, too, as Gellert rises and begins to pace the room: crackling again with that frenzied energy you know so well.

"There are places in Paris," he tells you, "where we could be together in the open, where we would not have to hide—we could go there." He smirks. "Like Wilde."

You let out a short, surprised laugh. "Gellert—"

"Where better, to start a revolution? We could go there," he repeats, "tonight." Your mouth falls open, and Gellert nods. "It is time. Write to Nicholas Flamel. He is there, waiting for you. Three centuries of life and knowledge, Albus. Who's to say what he might know, about the Hallows? Who's to say his Philosopher's Stone isn't also another Stone entirely?" You let Gellert take your hands and drag you to your feet in a slight daze. "We'll be in Paris, searching and planning, together. We'll be free."

Red-gold hair appears in your racing mind. "Ariana—"

"We'll take her with us. Ariana will be free, too." You stop short, staring, as Gellert says intently, "I have been reading Bathilda's books. There are other young witches and wizards, throughout history, struck with the same—affliction. I think I may know what truly ails her, and how to save her. How to give her back her magic."

Your lips barely move as you breathe out, "How?"

"I cannot be sure, but..." He grips your arms and stares into your eyes with blazing faith. "There are Healers on the continent far more learned and daring than those in your dreadful St. Mungo's. They will know."

"But... until we find the Cloak... how will we keep her safe?" you ask, adding silent—and keep others safe from her.

"Between the two of us," Gellert smiles, "I feel certain we will manage." His hands move from your arms to your face. "We'll give her freedom, Albus—freedom, and adventure, and love." You sink into the blue skies of his eyes and feel like soaring as he leans in, lips almost touching yours—then you both freeze at the sound of slow, sarcastic applause.

"Wonderful plan," says Aberforth, stepping down from where he's standing on the staircase and looking to Gellert with cold disdain. "Wonderful performance." He turns that contemptuous look on you. "I see you've gone from delusions of grandeur to plain and simple delusion." He snorts. "The Hallows, Albus? Really?"

"I wouldn't expect a mediocre mind like yours to understand," you snap unthinking, and cringe—wishing at once that you could take it back.

"You know, Albus..." Aberforth laughs without humor. "This is why people don't like you." Gellert tenses beside you, radiating fury, and Aberforth rounds on him, scornful. "You don't like him, either—not really." You've never seen your brother's gaze so piercing. So like yours. "You like the version of yourself you see in his eyes."

"Fetch Ariana, Albus," Gellert says in a low, hard voice, "and pack your things." Burning blue eyes never leaving Aberforth, he presses a searing kiss to your cheek. "We leave tonight."

"Ariana isn't leaving this house," says Aberforth, still locked in Gellert's gaze as he draws his wand. "But you are."

You draw your own wand and step in front of Gellert without having to think—without thinking at all.

Aberforth slowly shakes his head.

"What would Ariana think, seeing you defend him over your own brother? What would Mum and Dad say, if they knew how willing you'd be to put her at risk—to throw away their sacrifice?" He lowers his wand, voice cracking. "She should have killed you instead."

You take a throbbing, winded breath as though he's punched you, and in the next instant, Aberforth falls.

"Apologize to your brother," orders Gellert, stepping around you with his wand out, forcing Aberforth to his knees. Power is peeling off him in almost palpable waves: you can feel it physically, the scalding force of his wrath and his magic. This is not artistry or choreography, the raw strength of this spellwork. This is divine retribution. You are frozen. Mesmerized. "A better wizard, a better man, than you could ever hope to be—apologize!"

Aberforth's features twist in obvious pain. "Go to hell," he winces out—then tilts his head up to spit straight into Gellert's face.

Gellert—very slowly—reaches up to wipe it away. Something savage sparks in his eyes, and a word spills out of his mouth that you'll hear in your nightmares for as long as you live.

"Crucio."

The room fills with your brother's screams.

He's writhing on the ground, contorting, incoherent with agony, and you're screaming, too, throwing yourself on top of him and taking his convulsing body in your arms.

As soon as you do, it stops.

Aberforth is shaking, shoving you aside, and Gellert is staring down at you with a look of ashen dread.

"I did not want to do that, Albus," he whispers hoarsely. "I did it for you." He stumbles backward, gasping out, "Forgive me."

You can't, you realize in a nauseated rush of disbelieving horror and despair. You can't forgive him.

Some things are Unforgivable.

Aberforth has staggered to his feet and has his wand pointed at Gellert's chest. "Get out," he rasps, advancing toward him with what looks like murder in his eyes. "Get out!"

Gellert doesn't move. His eyes flicker desperately between you both.

"Abe?" comes a quiet, fearful voice from the staircase. Soft, tentative footsteps move down the stairs. "Al?"

Your heart sinks in your chest.

"Go back upstairs, Ariana," you say in a voice that shocks you with its steadiness. "Go back to your room and shut the door."

Ariana isn't listening: she's stepping closer, looking from Aberforth to Gellert with narrowed eyes.

"Now, Ariana," you say louder.

You move toward her just as Aberforth sends a bright, blinding spell toward Gellert, who lifts his wand.

You raise your own wand at once, but it's too late: the room is already lit up with magic. Spells are searing and soaring in a shining eruption of color and light.

When it clears, your wand is smoking.

You're unsure which spells just exploded out of you, unsure whether you meant to hit your lover or your brother or both, unsure of anything but the guttural, inhuman scream torn out of Aberforth as he rushes to bend over a slight, unmoving figure on the ground.

Ariana, bright eyes open and unseeing: clutching your mother's cross necklace.

Aberforth looks up—shoulders shaking—and finds your gaze. "You," he gasps out through tears, every syllable soaked in loathing. "You did this."

"Ariana," is all you can whisper, backing away. Ariana Ariana Ariana.

This is a nightmare, or one of Gellert's nightmare visions. You're going to stop it from happening. You're going to wake up.

"Albus..." Gellert's voice drags you back to reality, seeps beneath your skin and compresses your heart. "Albus," he says again, slow and careful—stepping around your brother and sister, stepping toward you—and then he's flying backward, flung across the room and into the wall.

You drop your wand.

You turn.

You run.

"Albus, stop—Albus, listen—" He's stumbled to his feet and is racing out into the entryway behind you, slamming the door on Aberforth's sobs. You don't look back. "Albus, please!" He rushes forward and throws himself in front of you, blocking your way to the front door: eyes wild. "We can bring her back. You know we can. The Stone, Albus—all we need is the Stone—"

It comes out quicker than you ever would have thought possible, a cold, harsh truth that spills out of you as easily as if you'd just swallowed Veritaserum: "The Stone is a child's fairytale."

Gellert's mouth opens and closes several times before he speaks, low and anguished. "You know that's not true."

"It is." All your shock and pain and rage are suddenly crystallized into clarifying calm. "It is, and always has been. The Hallows are a fantasy." A vision to bind you to him; an illusion to keep you blind. Just like all his dazzling smiles and dizzying kisses; just like all the things he's whispered to you in the dark. "Fantasy," you repeat slowly. "That's all this ever was. I see that now." Your voice turns cold. "I see you."

Gellert's lips are trembling as if he might cry. You wonder dimly if he has been this good of an actor the entire time. "That first day, in the graveyard," he says in an imploring, unsteady voice, "you said you would walk with me anywhere." He seizes your hands—his are hot, and slick with sweat. "Anywhere, Albus."

That first day, in the graveyard.

When Gellert had known exactly when to expect you at your mother's grave; when Gellert had looked at you and known you—better, already, than you knew yourself.

His fingers are digging into your palms. You feel as though you might hurl.

"I never said that." You force yourself to look at Gellert, to meet those light blue eyes—knowing yours are now hard as ice. "I thought it. I never said it out loud."

"You did," he insists. "I asked if you would walk with me, and you said—"

"I thought." You wrench away your shaking hands. "You are a Legilimens." He lied. About that, about this, about everything. "You have used Legilimency on me, from the start."

No secrets between us, Albus.

You're lightheaded, reeling with the violation of it. Intimate, invasive access to your thoughts, before he had gained access to your body.

Ariana—Ariana—taking your face in her hands and warning gently, Gellert. In your mind.

The hallway is spinning.

Ariana is dead.

Gellert reaches toward you, desperate, pleading. "Albus—"

"Don't touch me!" Wandless magic explodes out of you in a burst of furious instinct, sending him staggering backward, and you repeat in a low, deadly voice, "Don't touch me, ever again."

Gellert's beautiful mouth twists at last into a sneer, a leering, ugly thing. It is like the taking off of a mask.

"Yes, Albus," he says, slow and scornful, "I know your precious thoughts." His voice has turned cruel—all that warmth and feeling gone now, transformed into vicious malice. "Your secret jealousies, your pathetic fantasies… You thought I could love you." He laughs his loud, ringing laugh, and you wonder how you ever could have found that sound lovely. "You, Albus… Weak and foolish as you are. So fearful of your own potential, so afraid of being bad that you'll hide your true self to convince the world you're good." His sneer expands into another transfiguring smile, and you're haunted by a vision of a mask melting onto a face—becoming one with it. "I, love a coward like you?"

You can't speak a single word or spell.

You may have forgotten how to breathe.

Gellert is pacing around you now as you follow him with wide, frozen eyes. "What happened in that room," he says in a light, lilting voice, "had already been imagined. You secretly imagined being free of her. You wished for it." You draw a shuddering breath, and Gellert pauses his pacing to lean closer. "Now, did I do you a favor?" He tilts his head with a slow smile. "Or did you finally find the nerve to do it yourself?"

Your wand is in the living room. You could Summon it. You could make him—stop.

"I know you, Albus Dumbledore," he reminds you—voice lowering an octave, soft and sharp. "I've been inside you." He leans still closer, eyes lit up like blue flame. "I've seen every hidden corner of your dark and desperate heart."

"Leave," you manage to choke out. "Leave me!" The front door flies open without a wand or word, and Gellert's lips quirk upward.

"Oh, I'll leave you, Albus. Why would I stay? Why would anyone?" He shakes his head in a mocking parody of sadness. "I was a fool, to think that we could ever be a pair. You belong alone." Hot tears are welling up within you, threatening to overflow, but Gellert isn't finished yet. "Your mother feared you, with good reason," he continues, each word striking at your heart with the same skillful precision as his spells. "Your father abandoned you. Your brother hates you. And your sister... Well." His gaze slides deliberately toward the doorway to the living room, then back to you: pitiless and piercing. "Look what happens to those you love."

You cannot bear to look at him. A tear escapes as you close your eyes.

"Know this, Albus," you hear him say softly, moving at last toward the open door. "All that happens now, all the chaos and carnage to come—know that you could have stopped it." His footsteps pause. "And all that I do now..." You can hear the smile in his voice. "I do for the greater good."

The door slams shut.

When you open your eyes, Gellert is gone, and you—you're empty, you're eviscerated.

You're alone.

Gellert, you know, will go on shining without you.

He'll blaze brighter and brighter and hotter and hotter until he has illuminated his rebellion and ignited his revolution; until he has obliterated the old order and fashioned a new future at any cost.

He'll light up the world.
He'll light it on fire.

Eventually, someone is going to have to put him out.

When you were a child, a bright-eyed little half-blood boy, your father read you Beedle tales and your mother read you Bible stories.

You preferred the Beedle tales by far, but one Bible story sticks in your head: Lucifer, the rebel angel, falling.

Lucifer, God's favorite—full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

Lucifer, whose name means light bringer in Latin—Latin, the language of spells.

"Light doesn't always mean good," your mother told you once with a long, hard look. "Remember that, Albus. Dark spells release light, too."

Alone in the graveyard at a new tombstone near your mother's, you look up at the sun, the morning star, and shut your eyes—remembering too late that light can blind and burn.