Saying the Words by flax
Albus Dumbledore was a hard for me to write as a main character. Just saying.
All things Hogwarts belong to J. K. Rowling. I'm just playing with the characters and plots.
This was written after Fantastic Beasts 2: Crimes of Grindelwald
CHAPTER 1
In the land outside of the tiny town center there were forests and fields, hills, and tiny rivers snaking around and connecting the world above with the world below, the world to the east to the west, and north to south, and then all together. The rivers ran and chortled, singing, and twinkling at the humans who lived along them.
But not today. The rivers couldn't tell the people what happened, but they did not sing or twinkle. They just ran along in their hushing way, as people moved about in groups, nervous. There had been two murders in the woods. Grisly enough that the aurors sent for the older aurors to see if this was somehow related to old sensational cases that had never been solved.
Albus came home to where Ariana was spinning and Aberforth was working the garden. He waved and weeded, making the mess of vines and stems into clear spots for vines and clear spots for stems. It was spring, but the chaos had started poking its way through the dirt. Watching the sorting of spaces for the fast growing beans and the slow growing lettuce, and the still underground sunflowers was a joy, not that Albus would tell Aberforth. Their mother had done it, and either doing it or seeing it done brought peace to his soul.
But Aberforth had spotted him, and finished up his corner of the garden. Albus was smiling but Aberforth was not.
"You're late," said Aberforth. Albus had stopped on his way back to talk to his former school friend who was in town, but he wasn't ready to tell Aberforth. He couldn't imagine telling Aberforth. So he didn't.
"There was ugly news in town and I did wait in order to make sure it was true."
"How close this time?"
"Two murders, in the town limits, in the Listening Forest. It's ugly."
"Too ugly to tell?"
Albus thought and then said the details quickly and softly so that there would be no way Ariana would hear. You'd think they'd be ready for anything what with one parent dead and one in jail, and their sister touched with insanity and uncontrolled magic. But this was bad.
Aberforth thought about it for a moment, wiped his wand, put it away, and went to sit at a table in the side enclosure of their house. Albus followed him and they drank water.
"We're not telling her," said Albus.
"She'll find out eventually," said Aberforth.
They looked at each other and shrugged.
"We can't leave her alone," said Aberforth. Albus nodded.
"The dance tomorrow, we'll both go," Aberforth continued. Albus looked pained. Aberforth just looked at him. Albus nodded.
"What is with you?" asked his brother but Albus shrugged, picked up his packages, and started putting away what he'd bought and brought from town. When Aberforth went around to the goat pen to talk to his goats, Albus quickly wrote a note to his school friend, saying he'd be at the village dance at the Whitscomb Hall in town that night, and wouldn't meet him later as they had hoped.
CHAPTER 2:
The dance was underway. A band of gnomes played the dances on their violins, violas and cellos. They varied between the quick moving dances where the patterns had to keep up in order to stay in the dance and the sedate ones where people were able to sway and pause more. Aberforth and Albus both were uninterested in this but they had brought Ariana who loved to dance. She had two village friends, and Albus and Aberforth both thought it was good for her to have some sense of friendship and reality. They also watched like hawks in case she became upset. Her friend Caleb was dancing with her right now, and she was simply happy. Her other friend Selene was busy putting out additional foods. Everything was peaceful.
"Who are you looking for?" asked Aberforth.
"No one," Dumbledore lied, smiling his truthful smile at Aberforth. Aberforth was the one person who didn't believe Dumbledore's smile and just glared into the room.
"I'm going to go see Sawyer Farlance over there. Keep an eye on Ariana until I come back?" he said, not much of a question.
Albus nodded and smiled, annoyed as always that he couldn't move his brother as easily as he thought he deserved. He watched his sister, who seemed happy, the gathered parents who seemed worried, and the two security guards that the village had hired to help people get home. They looked like wispy elves, half smoke and half shadow, but in truth, they could pull a person home and confuse whatever wanted to attack, so they were security.
Men talk to men, but men don't dance with men, Albus thought. We can dance with each other if we're also dancing with women. I like the dancing, but what would it be like to dance with Gellert here? Albus had hoped Gellert would show up but wondered what he would say to his brother.
Gellert showed up. He looked crisp and fine, his coat like a military uniform and just as cleanly arranged. Gellert had a flop of hair that argued against the clean angles of his person, and somehow made the sharpness more appealing. Albus thought about how before Gellert he hadn't known he could appreciate a person so much, and now, he could understand a language of eyes, mouth, shoulders, hips. Gellert flirted with a whole room at once and Albus loved him.
And he could now say that to himself. Albus loved him. This was what he was waiting for. And Gellert had been right—there was no waiting for people to understand, there was only love.
Gellert talked to the families as he moved through the room, and Albus went back to watching his sister. She looked happier than she had in a while, her eyes bright and her laugh gentle. Maybe she was calming down a little.
Gellert was suddenly in front of Albus with two cups of punch. He handed one over and said "Hello old friend," making eye contact through the toast. "Old friend," murmured Albus, feeling the connecting and warmth, toasting him back. They spoke happily together.
It ended when Aberforth grabbed Albus' arm and Albus felt cold all of a sudden. "Where's Ariana?" Aberforth asked angrily.
CHAPTER 3
The hosts had opened the outdoor terrace and the dancers went out there en masse and danced. Though the parents disapproved, all the dancers did it, and the ocean is hard to hold back. Ariana had done it too, and dancing outside was even more beguiling than dancing inside. She could see the stars if she looked away from the lights, and they seemed to be dancing with her. She put her hands in the air to reach out to them. Selene tried to pull her hands down and they walked together around the edge of the terrace. Then Caleb seemed to be calling them from the woods and Ariana ran off toward him. Selene called for them to come back, but not wanting them to get in trouble, did not call loudly.
Ariana was free and running in her starry woods. She could see patterns of magic that wove around the trees and connected the living things in the spring time, finding new ways to grow and push out of their last season shapes. She laughed at a tree that seemed funny and smiled at a rock that seemed friendly, and tried to touch a bunny that ran away. She never found Caleb, but he seemed to be out here somewhere.
She could here other people in the woods as well, talking and laughing. It was like when they were on the terrace, breaking the rules, and making something new. Aberforth and Albus would just have to understand. She threw her arms in the air and enjoyed the freedom. A shadow approached. It was a swirling mass of a person who would not show himself.
"Don't you think you should go back," said a blonde haired man in very old style clothes, sitting on an old stone wall.
"They'll find me. They always do," she said.
"Why not help them out this time?" He asked, smiling. She'd seen that smile before. Albus had that smile. People called it charming.
The black shadow pulled further back into the trees where it spun away and was gone. "The fog is coming in and you should go home," said the young man again.
And she looked around and the mist was coming up. It curled in her fingers as she ran them through it, pulling up from the ground as it did. The young man ran a little, and turned to look at her. The mist showed where he had run in it, the currents and eddies still circling. Ariana laughed and joined him. They ran back up a hill and Ariana found herself at the edge of a wood, looking at the meeting hall.
"Who are you?" she asked him. He smiled, fluffed her hair, and said no one would believe it if he told.
"No one believes me about anything," she said.
"I'm Arthur," he said. "Now off with you."
Ariana went back into the hall to be grabbed by her brothers and hugged tightly. People had disappeared right out of the hall and everyone was scared. A fog had come up and the youngsters were coming out of the woods slowly and telling the same story that some spirit had told them to go home.
Ariana was surprised that Albus and Aberforth seemed to agree immediately, and she was sad to be packed off to go home, but everyone was done too.
CHAPTER 4
Albus rode his horse into town the next day and went to meet Gellert where his message had said Gellert would wait. And there, in pub was Gellert in a back booth. Albus smiled and walked over. He had never before realized he could feel OK and real. The pieces of himself that he'd kept hidden, he could let them out. For the first time in years, Albus felt like he was alive and growing, too.
"A far cry from school days," he said to Gellert who snorted.
"You've got murders and people who need to dream bigger," said Gellert.
"Dreaming bigger. Yes," said Albus. "But murders? That's an ugly one."
"There was another last night," said Gellert. "Albus, come away with me. It's not safe here."
Albus waved down the young man taking orders and then addressed Geller's question.
"You know I can't. You know why I came back here. It has to be this way for now. Until we sort out Ariana's situation."
"That's not your job. You've already lived too long to other people's standards."
"Ariana can't be independent."
"Why do you have to be her servant for life?"
"Gellert, that's not how it is."
"Isn't it? We can't do anything, go anywhere, set up a life, because you have this commitment to your sister who will never get better. At least she's pretty. Maybe we can get her married."
Albus had had versions of this argument before and was forming his response when Gellert touched his finger to Albus' lips gently and said, "Yes, I know, you're doing what has to be done. Please find a place in your life for me, also?" He took his finger from Albus' lips and watched as Albus licked his lips. They smiled at each other.
"I'm working on it."
They were walking out to Albus' horse. Gellert's was in the stable across the hamlet. News came in of another murder last night, not after the dance, but early in the morning, a cowherd out in the fields. He was only found because the security teams had started checking on everyone every day. Albus slumped to think, leaning on his horse.
Gellert put his hand on Albus' chest, over his heart. "Make a new life with me. It's not safe here. We could bring your sister."
Albus looked at him and smiled. "Go. I'll meet you in London when I can—I have Aberforth watching my back here, you have no one." Albus touched Gellert's cheek gently, pushing his hair and then bringing his hand back to his side and Gellert dropped his own.
"I don't want to leave," said Gellert.
The horse neighed loudly and a slosh of water fell out of an overturned watering tub at their feet, splashing them. "Whoops," said a blonde man, who had stumbled and somehow knocked over the whole watering trough. Even the horses whiffled in confusion.
Gellert glared and called out the young man for being so clumsy. "And you are lucky I am in a forgiving mood today," he finished.
The young man smiled and said OK. Gellert walked off and the blonde man got Albus' attention. He stood closer and said, "I saved the kids yesterday, but that's because those are my woods. Don't be stupid yourself." He wiped Albus' lips as if to clean off where Gellert had touched, and swiped his fingers over Albus' breast as if to move away dust.
"Who are you?" asked Albus, looking into eyes that seemed too old for a young face.
"Arthur. Can I give you advice?"
"What are you?"
"The memory of a person who sleeps in the woods around here."
"Are you the killer?"
"No. I'm here about your heart. You've fallen in love. When this is over, remember that love is a good thing." The man smiled and Albus realized how handsome he was, and then the man walked away. Albus would have called out, but the man waved good-bye with his hand, never turning around, going around the building and disappearing. Albus was certain that he wouldn't find the man behind the building.
That was unexpected, Albus thought.
CHAPTER 5
Albus had gotten Aberforth to watch Ariana while he went to town. He would answer the auror's questions and also see his "friend from school." Gellert had refused to go. At the same time, Albus found he couldn't tell Aberforth. He had gotten used to not telling Aberforth.
The aurors had asked him to meet them in a rooming house where they had taken rooms. It was the same rooming house Gellert was staying in. Albus went to the door and presented himself, and was shown into the parlor. The aurors and Gellert were drinking tea. They were sharing war stories: Gellert could charm anyone.
As he entered, the aurors stood and invited him to sit. Albus was confused that Gellert was being allowed to stay during the questioning. Everyone had come to tell them what they had seen that night—everyone. That they had such a wide net meant they had no clues. There had been weird guides in the forest that everyone had talked about, but no clues or directions they could follow. So, the aurors asked everyone where they had been during the now five different murders.
"Why is Mr. Grindelwald staying for this discussion?" Albus asked.
"You don't want me to?" asked Gellert.
"I always like to spend time with you, but why are you here in my questioning?"
"Mr. Grindelwald is an advisor helping us with our investigation," responded one of the aurors.
They looked like regular boring aurors. They had three piece suits made of boiled wool and nothing was out of place. Their shirts and hair looked like they had been straightened to a punishing extent and they sat in right angles to their chairs and the floor. Albus did not slouch, but this was uncomfortable to look at. Their eyes seemed a little glassy.
"What can I help you with?" said Albus.
The next half hour was questions about where he had been during the five murders and who could vouch for him. The aurors seemed robotic, but with a whole town to question, perhaps that is how it was.
Gellert said he could vouch for Albus during the fifth murder, the cowherd's death.
Albus tried not to react. Gellert? he tried to project into Gellert's mind.
Yes?
You weren't there.
That's another delightful secret we have. Delicious!
Out loud, Albus said, "I think Gellert got his mornings mixed up. I was not with him that final time. I was home with my sister and brother, and we had warded our home."
"We don't like when stories contradict," said one auror.
"Why are you lying?" asked the other, his wand beginning to move up in his hand.
"Poppycock," said Gellert. "Hush now. Sleep there."
The two aurors seemed to freeze and fall asleep while sitting up.
"Gellert, what are you doing?" said Albus, shocked and beginning to realize this was a real problem. "This isn't a game."
"We could have them find your sister guilty if you'd like? She could have a prison cell next to your father!"
Albus was standing with his wand in his hand but he could do nothing with it. There had been an oath between them to never fight.
"Oh, don't be silly, I'm joking. Maybe one could marry your sister?" Gellert said.
"Stop this at once!" said Albus, realizing that if Gellert didn't respect his sister… "You'd do this to anyone, wouldn't you?" he asked.
"Not anyone, Albus. The strong cannot be pushed around. Only the weak." He twirled his wand and said, "obliviate" to the aurors.
"People notice spells put on aurors," Albus hissed.
Gellert laughed. "They haven't yet. They don't really think in practical ways. Just about what they expect to be true. Albus, we can be free."
Albus backed up.
Gellert looked at the aurors, and commanded them, "When you are three miles out of town, shoot each other dead. Don't talk about it or think about it before then. Just do it. Make sure you both do it." He looked at Albus. "See? Problem solved. They weren't cracking the crime anyway."
Albus lost control and started to weave words together that he had not said before. He called Gellert a posh piece of human refuse and a lording who should be in Azkaban. Said if he wasn't a friend to people who were just doing their work, that what was Albus to him but a bug to eventually step on? Did he feel love?
"Albus, really," said Gellert, who stood and disappeared.
The two aurors woke and began to question Albus as if none of this had happened. He answered their questions and realized separately how wrong he had been. His heart was broken. In their notes the aurors recorded that he was white faced and distracted.
On their way out of town, they rode through some forced-laughing prank by the children and then wiped themselves down of curses before going home. They arrived in London safely and Albus felt relieved that he had no hand in murder.
One night Albus sat down and asked Aberforth to not judge what he was about to say. The sun had already gone down but bright colors were still all over the hills and clouds.
Albus didn't know where to start.
"That Gellert dirt seems to be gone," said Aberforth.
"You didn't like him?"
"Seemed too pressed and proper. Stuck up."
Albus took a deep breath and said it. "I loved him."
Aberforth still looked out to the valley. "Was that so hard to say?"
Albus replied, "Yes. And he is also very evil."
"Do you still love him?" asked Aberforth.
Albus put his head and heart back together, and could answer his brother, "No."
"You'll find someone better," said Aberforth.
Albus had no answer yet.
They looked out over the valley for a while and then went in.
THE END.