Two Months of Insanity
T
The ingenious minds of Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore come together at the age of seventeen. Now beta-read by the wonderful Tree of GAFF.
Disclaimer: Not mine, naturally. Owned by J.K. Rowling, though I hope to do them justice.
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Chapter One
The Meeting of the Minds
The year was 1894, at the height of what the Muggles called the Victorian era, named for the Muggle queen at the time. For the most part, as it had been for centuries, the major Wizarding communities were sheltered within Muggle communities, just out of sight of non-magical eyes. Over the past half-decade, however, Muggle fashion had begun to infiltrate the Wizarding world, which appalled many of the older generation. Some of the more traditional members of the Wizarding world understood the necessity of dressing like a Muggle if one had to wander into their parts of communities, but most were at a loss to explain why their children were increasingly adopting Muggle attire even when surrounded only by those in the Wizarding community. One such community where this blending of cultures was occurring was called Godric's Hollow, though the Muggles undoubtedly had a different name for it.
The home of Bathilda Bagshot was to be no exception to this strange, newly acquired taste for Muggle garments.
Bathilda Bagshot had recently answered a request, though she might have called it a plea if she had not tried to explain the situation away as civilly as possible to a few neighbors, from a distant family member to take in a young man of somewhat close relation to her that had nowhere else to call home. She had been a little reluctant, hearing that the young man had been expelled from Durmstrang, of all schools, but she had decided that it would be a relief to have a young presence in the house again. After all, it was her brother's grandson, so she wrote back saying that the boy was welcome in her home.
He had arrived late at night on a warm day in early July. Bathilda had been surprised, since she had assumed, like any other normal visitor, he would have had the decency to call upon her in the morning or afternoon. A reasonable hour, at the very least, that was not an hour past midnight. Still, she had opened her door to him and welcomed him with as much enthusiasm as she could muster after having been dragged from her bed. He had brought with him only a single trunk and an iron cage with a small tawny owl, whose head was tucked under a wing, undisturbed in its sleep, even as the cage swung just slightly.
Without much said to one another, they parted after she had shown him to the room he would be staying in. There would be plenty of time to talk together in the morning, Bathilda had decided. Surely the boy must be tired.
When Bathilda had awoken, it was to the ever-so-faint smell of food. She checked in on her new charge's room, but it was empty. The cage was open, the window pushed out to allow the owl to hunt, come, and go as it pleased, and the trunk was open, but everything neatly packed. A traveling cloak was folded on top of everything now. She made her way downstairs and into her moderate kitchen, and her eyes widened at what she saw.
There was enough food weighing down her sturdy chestnut table to feed a small army, and the food prepared was diverse enough that no complaint would be raised by even a single member of that army. Eggs were made in every style that she could imagine, and plates of pancakes, bacon, and ham were all laid out. Various kinds of spreads were available in jars, many of which Bathilda knew were from her cabinets. A nice stack of toast, cooked to a golden brown without a hint of being burnt in the slightest, was in the center of the table. Two places were set, a cup of tea at each, with a small pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar near each cup.
The young man that had arrived the previous night was standing at the stove, his wand out and pointed at it while a brush cleaned the stove seemingly of its own accord. When he was finished cleaning the stove, he lowered his wand, slid it up his sleeve, and turned to face the woman that had entered the kitchen.
"Great-aunt Bathilda," he said warmly, smiling at her, "good morning." His curly, golden hair was in need of a trimming. It was long, long enough that the ends reached slightly past his collarbone, and there were several split ends. He seemed conscious of her notice of this, and perhaps conscious of that one 'off' part of his appearance, because he ran a hand through his hair, almost as if trying to push it back and out of her view. With that one alteration, Bathilda decided, he would be very handsome indeed. He was a built enough youth, though she should have expected that from a Durmstrang boy, and those hazel eyes seemed to announce a perfectly sweet disposition. It was a bit jarring to see his clothes, though: the trousers and shirt that he wore were undoubtedly Muggle. Had she seen them last night, Bathilda would have assumed that they were worn for the sole purpose of going through the Muggle community, but to see them now surprised her. "I wanted to apologize for waking you so rudely last night," he said, voice still heavily laden with his German accent, "so I thought you might like some breakfast. I may have made too much, though." The way he said it seemed to suggest that this was the first time that he had even considered the possibility, despite the fact that it was nearly impossible to spot a bit of the table beneath the plates of food.
"Oh!" Bathilda smiled, and she felt a touch of heat come to her cheeks at the sweetness of the gesture. "That is very sweet of you… Gellert, right?" He nodded. "You'll have to forgive me for that. I'm afraid my brother and I lost contact. I never did hear from your mother about your birth, so I never really got the chance to learn your name!" He gave a noncommittal shrug, and it seemed that he was not in a mood to discuss his parents. "If there is too much," Bathilda continued on, taking her seat at the table, after which Gellert finally seated himself, "I can always take some over to Albus."
"Albus?" Gellert asked out of politeness alone. As far as he was concerned, the neighbors were of no importance. All that mattered was that this woman was… kind enough… to leave him alone in his room and not go snooping through his things. It would be even better if she could keep her curiosity and her questions to a minimum. Gellert had resigned himself to the fact that he would have to answer certain questions, most of which he had anticipated, and had prepared an adequate answers to.
Bathilda nodded, the smile never leaving her face as she took some of the food that was on plates in front of her. "Yes, Albus Dumbledore. He lives down the way, not too far at all. Poor, poor dear." Gellert knew he didn't have to ask. He cut a piece of the slice of ham he had taken and waited, chewing the meat. Whatever made his great-aunt call this Albus a 'poor dear' was coming. "His mother died only a month ago. His father--" she hesitated, "well, he's not able to be at home." Gellert made a mental note that he and this Albus had at least one thing in common. "Has to support his younger siblings. A brother and a sister. The youngest, his sister, is a frail little thing, terribly ill I think. Not even able to attend Hogwarts, poor thing. Imagine," she gave a sigh and shook her head, "seventeen and all ready with the weight of a family on his shoulders."
"Seventeen," Gellert echoed. Obviously, Bathilda took it as a question, since she nodded her head, and her smile widened.
"Yes, seventeen. Oh! Aren't you just about that age?" Gellert could see where this was going, and he fought the urge to groan. He gave the slightest of nods, though. "I should introduce you to him. Albus really is remarkably brilliant." The young man at the table knew what that meant. The boy would be utterly infuriating by referencing books every other sentence and expecting him to know the same books word for word like he did. "I should introduce you two-- In fact, I think I will!"
"Wonderful." Bathilda did not seem aware of the dry tone in her great-nephew's voice as he responded, or of the way that his eyes rolled the slightest bit before he resumed picking at his ham, eventually eating an egg as well.
For several moments, they ate in silence. Or, at least, Bathilda ate. Gellert took a bite or two of various things, sometimes sipping on the tea that had gone cold in its cup, never altered with milk or sugar. He didn't even bother to warm the tea. His mind was not on food. His thoughts were on his room, on the books that were stored just under the few changes of clothes-- a mixture of Muggle and Wizarding garments-- on the sheets of parchment that held designs for the future, such grand designs that would make the world what it was supposed to be.
"You must pardon my curiosity," Bathilda said after a moment, and her voice jarred Gellert's mind back to the kitchen. He looked at her, unsurprised by the request to answer questions. "Why would such a sweet boy like yourself possibly be expelled from Durmstrang?"
Gellert heaved a sigh, heavier than he might have under normal circumstances. His hazel eyes looked at the woman, a wounded look nestled in them, and she almost felt ashamed to have asked him such a painful question. "My dear great-aunt," he said quietly, as though admitting some secret shame, "I am not proud of my actions. You are aware, of course, that Durmstrang encourages students to sort their problems out by means of a duel? Naturally, no duel should ever go to the death," he hastened to explain, holding a hand up to stop the exclamation that he had seen coming. "But they encourage us to settle our differences quickly and efficiently. A fellow student was spreading the most horrible untruths about me, so I challenged him, to clear my name. We fought, and I wounded him badly. Unfortunately for me, the boy was the Headmaster's nephew. I was brought before the professors and was judged to have used unnecessary force. I do not blame them, not in the slightest. Had they defied the Headmaster, they would have lost their positions. So, as it was, I was forced to pack my things and leave." He gave a small smile after these words, and Bathilda could not help but admire the bravery of the young man to recount such an experience to her.
As the woman stared at him, torn between admiration and pity, Gellert mildly bowed his head. He excused himself with a few quiet words, offering warmly to clean up the plates once Bathilda had decided what to take to the Dumbledore family, and exited the kitchen. He mounted the stairs in silence and climbed them as quietly as if he was not even on them. Only when he was in his room and his door was securely shut did he allow himself to chuckle a bit. Women, especially as they got older, would believe any story.
Three hours later, the kitchen entirely spotless and the leftover food delivered long ago to the Dumbledore household, Gellert Grindelwald was once more in his room. It was a little less neat than when his aunt had first checked in on him this morning to find him all ready downstairs, but it was nothing that could be called messy. Two pieces of parchment were crumpled up on the floor, an inkwell had been magically stationed on the writing desk in the room so that it would not spill, and the books he had brought with him were arranged on two high bookshelves so high that a Muggle would have had to stand on the trunk he had brought to reach them. The quill in his hand raced across the new piece of parchment that he had spread out, the ink creating first two lines then six as he continued, gradually beginning to take the sketchy shape of a building that was perfectly clear in the young man's head but would not translate onto parchment.
He growled, frustrated, at the parchment, deposited the quill back in the inkwell, and then crushed the parchment into a ball and threw it over his shoulder onto the floor, as he had done with the other discarded sheets. Something was wrong, yet he could not name it. The building loomed in his mind, perfect, complete, but there was something that would not work when he tried to transfer it to the parchment, to record the vision in his head into a more solid form. Something about it did not work. The knocking at the door downstairs that had suddenly started did not help either. He rose from his chair, went into the hall, and was on the stairs by the time his great-aunt opened the door. He stopped where he was, halfway down the stairs. He could not see who was there, and, in his annoyance at having come down thus far only to finally have the door answered, had not heard whatever the visitor had said. He heard his great-aunt clearly, though.
"Hello, Albus! I'm glad you came over. Come in, come in, my boy! I'll fetch Gellert. I'm absolutely sure you two will get along."
"Thank you." Something in the young man's tone made Gellert want to chuckle. They were in the same boat, at least. They had been trapped into meeting one another, not wanting to be rude, yet they had the same low expectations. They were not children who automatically wanted to be friends with anyone who was remotely near the same age as they were anymore.
Bathilda led the young man into the library, and Gellert craned his neck for a better look, but his great-aunt continued to block his view unknowingly. When she returned to the entranceway, ready to call upstairs for him, she seemed pleasantly surprised to see him already at the bottom of the stairs.
"Gellert! I was just about to call you!" she announced, seeming to be under the impression that her intent was not obvious.
As sweetly as he could manage, Gellert responded, "Oh? Were you?"
"Yes, yes, my dear boy," she said with a grin. "Albus has come over, and you simply must meet him." There was to be no arguing with her, so Gellert nodded and allowed himself to be shown into the library.
It was the room that first caught his attention. Gellert had not yet bothered to explore the house, but he made a note to himself that he would have to do so. The library was aptly named; its books, some in states of near collapse, were of an amazing range of subjects. Some were written by Bathilda herself, but not many that he saw in his quick glance around. Anything he could ever want to read about was contained in this library to at least some degree. After the sweep of the room, his eyes came to rest on the other person there, seated upon a couch with one of the many ancient volumes contained here open in his lap. He looked up when he became aware of Gellert standing near the door, silently watching him.
He was, as Bathilda had said, young, around Gellert's own age. Gellert had to admit that the first thing that struck him was this young man's hair. His own had been trimmed after breakfast, as he had wanted to rid himself of the split ends that had accumulated from the lack of care his hair had received during his travels. However, the length of his own hair was nothing compared to this young man's. His was darker than Gellert's, auburn rather than blond, and the ends reached his elbows. Gellert would admit to himself that he quite approved, since the other Durmstrang boys had given him more than a little trouble about how long he'd let his own hair get. Bright blue eyes met his own, and Gellert would admit to seeing in them what Bathilda had mentioned. He was meeting a brilliant mind.
The other rose, with the air of someone much older than he was, and held out a hand to Gellert. "Albus Dumbledore. Pleased to meet you."
"A pleasure," he replied, shaking Albus's hand. Perhaps this young man was not quite so bad. As their shake was broken, he supplied his name, "Gellert Grindelwald."
They stared at one another for several moments, a mutual discomfort hovering between them. They had been told things about one another, things that left questions in the air, but there was the likelihood that Bathilda would come to see how they were, so they were not eager to offend one another. Finally, Gellert decided that the silence had to be broken.
"Please," he said, motioning to the couch Albus was still standing in front of, "have a seat." When Albus had seated himself again, Gellert took to the armchair not far from the couch. "What book is that?" he inquired politely, nodding to the volume that had been set down and, so far, ignored since his presence in the room had been noted.
"The Chronicle of Blood by Suzette Hasgin and Odil Mongrave," Albus replied. His voice had the same kind of hesitancy as Gellert's and, after a moment, he seemed to decide that Gellert was waiting for an overview of the book's contents. "It's very old, from the seventeenth century. Hasgin and Mongrave examine the attempts of integration and cooperation between the Wizarding and Muggle communities. Hasgin is a very decisive separatist. She feels that Muggles and Wizards are to be kept apart to go about their lives without any interference between the two of them. Mongrave is very much for integration, for educating Muggles about our world and asking for their help when we need it."
"Why in Heaven's name," Gellert said suddenly, "would we ever have the need for Muggle help? The only thing matter in which they are superior to us in is fashion." He glanced at the mirror on the wall and fixed the collar of his Muggle shirt. Albus nearly laughed at this display of vanity, but he leaned forward slightly instead.
"Then you think we are equals with them?" he questioned, in a too-casual voice that Gellert knew at once.
"Of course not." The response was almost dismissive, and Albus frowned sharply at the tone that had been used. Gellert raised a hand, and Albus had the distinct impression that the gesture was to signify an apology. "Of course Muggles are not our equals," Gellert murmured, his tone softer now, particular about the words he chose. "We, that is to say magical folk, have been gifted with magic." He held up a hand to stall Albus's coming protest. "A few in the Muggle world are given this honor as well, but do we not immediately induct them into our ranks?" Albus could not argue. "Thus, they become part of our world. Those of us gifted with magic can do much for those without magic, and we should. There are countless Muggles that we could help if we could share some of our gifts with them, but to call them our equals is incorrect. We are the ones who can master magic, who can brew potions. We would have to give them what they needed, and there is nothing they could give us of equal value. No-- any magic used to help a Muggle would be charity that could never be repaid. Therefore, we are the superiors. Why should we have to hide away or try and lower ourselves to be the Muggles' equals," he posed, "when we should be asserting our rightful place? We deserve to be their superiors, and in that place, we could help them beyond what they might ever imagine possible."
Albus hesitated, watching Gellert. It had surely been his imagination, he told himself, but it had seemed to him that, as this young man spoke, he swayed, almost like a snake. There was something hypnotic in the way he spoke, so calm, so self-assured, although he must be joking. "And the Statute of Secrecy?" Albus questioned, sure that Gellert would merely smile, shrug, and say that his previous words had just been the child of an idle, curious mind.
"It would have to be overturned." Gellert's voice was serious, and his eyes widened a little. Even when he had stopped speaking for a moment, his mouth remained slightly open. "To assert the rightful place of Wizards above Muggles," his voice lowered even more, and he leaned in. Albus did the same, breathless as he caught every word, "one would have to conquer the Wizarding world first." He paused, looking at Albus, and he saw the look. Deep in those blue eyes, something he had said had hit the mark. There was a keen intelligence about this young man, yes, but other things struck Gellert as well. There was a need for companionship, Gellert saw. Even if Albus had been hesitant at first to be forced into the company of someone new, that was gone. There was also something about him that Gellert had never felt before. It seemed to him that there was something about this young man that invited confidence. It was a strange feeling, and Gellert was not sure he liked it. He had never before discussed this in so much earnestness, yet he was taken in by the feeling. There was no going back. "We could do it."
"What?" Albus was startled, as though awakened out of some spell that he had not known was cast.
"My great-aunt sang your praises earlier today." He had not believed everything that she had said to him as he cleaned the plates after she had returned from the Dumbledores'. He had been sure that either she or the boy who had told her all of the achievements of Albus Dumbledore had been exaggerating. Having met the young man, though, Gellert had been assured of the truth of every word that Bathilda had said. "You are extraordinary. Intelligent and skilled, she says, and I am inclined to believe her." Albus seemed briefly embarrassed, but that disappeared as Gellert went on. "We could do it," he repeated. "We are what the Wizarding world needs: you and I, side by side. We can take this world and we can shape it, improve it, help Wizards, Muggles, and Squibs alike." Something his great-aunt had said made Gellert sure that Albus had great sympathies for the latter group. He was not disappointed by the dawning look in Albus's eyes. "We could do it, to help them. To help everyone."
Anything else he might have said was cut off when Bathilda came into the room, carrying a tray with three teacups, a pitcher of milk, and a bowl of sugar cubes. She smiled at the boys, unaware of everything that had passed between them.
"Well! I'm glad the two of you seem to be getting along!" she announced, grinning broadly. Her expression wavered when Albus stood up.
"I'm afraid I have to get going," Albus said, his voice a little strained.
"You won't stay for tea?"
"I really have been gone long enough. I don't want to keep Aberforth waiting," Albus responded. His excuse was weak, but Bathilda did not argue with him. She seemed to know that it would be pointless.
Gellert rose, despite the discomfort Albus seemed to show at his movement, and he escorted the other to the front door.
"I hope you'll return," Gellert said, earnestly.
"I--" Albus hesitated, looking into those hazel eyes, as if trying to deduce exactly what was going on in the other's mind at that very moment, "I am not sure. I think-- I think you frighten me a little."
Nothing more was said between the two young men as Albus left the house. Gellert left the door open, leaning on its frame, and he watched Albus until he entered a house across the street and four houses down. Then, once the auburn-haired young man had gone inside after a last look toward Bathilda's house and the other youth still at the door, Gellert retreated into the house, closed the door, and returned to the library to join his great-aunt for tea.