Sometimes you meet someone and it feels as if you've been struck by lightning. It's happened to me twice. The first was with a boy named Romulus Archer. I met him at Durmstrang my third year, in an advanced transfigurations class. He was a year above me and he was beautiful in a way I didn't know how to describe. There was a passion that ran through him, a passion he almost seemed to sweat out his pores. I met his eyes and I was struck; I knew it, he knew it, and there was damned near nothing I could do about it. We fucked for a year and thought we loved each other, even as we fought explosively every other day. Like passion always does, eventually it caused us to break apart as violently as a Supernova, ripping us both to pieces but also giving me the chance to rebuild myself into something more stable and impenetrable. Or so I thought.

Then there was the other one. The one that everyone will remember. The one that damned me and redeemed me and loved me so much it destroyed me. Albus Dumbledore. A seventeen year old beautiful boy who lived next to my aunt. He was full of an anger and resentment that seemed to boil up and overwhelm him. I don't think there was anything he desired more than freedom those few months I knew him. I had never met someone so brilliant before. Or so interesting. We could see straight down into each others' souls, even in the beginning. I wanted to have all of him, and I did. He was mine, and a part of him always will be. But if you, dear reader, know anything about history, you'll know that this isn't a happy story. There is no beautiful ending of two boys falling in love and living happily ever after. It was pain. It IS pain. It was flawed. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. I do not write this to redeem myself, but to examine these memories for myself. There is nothing else to do in this cell that I built, besides agonize over my life in my mind. Albus, I hope that you someday read this. I hope that you can one day understand exactly what you meant to me, in spite of my many flaws and destruction of everything that you held dear.

The first moment I saw him still burns to the front of my mind some days. It was summer, June, I think. I was in the village researching the Deathly Hallows, under the pretense of staying with my aunt to regain my confidence after being thrust out of Durmstrang. Bathilda, my great aunt, had sent me over so I could meet someone my own age to associate with in Godric's Hallow. When he opened the door, the world stopped spinning like something out of a witch's bad romance novel. We both froze in place and stared at each other. His big blue eyes could see right through me, drinking in all of my secrets and all of my fears, as if his glasses were charmed to read my mind. He was shorter than me, a little. That crooked nose seemed to be the only imperfection of his face, and one imperfection seemed to somehow make him more perfect. His smile was almost as crooked as his nose, as he flashed it to me for the first time.

"Hello," I'd finally croaked, unable to remember any other words.

"Hello," he'd replied in that deep voice of his, a tone slightly older than it should have sounded. "Are you Bathilda's nephew?"

"Great nephew, actually. Yes, I'm Gellert. Gellert Grindelwald."

"I'm Albus. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore." Albus had always seemed so proud of his full name. I would later learn that he added one of those middle names himself, giving him even more pride at its elegance and length. I fell in love with him a little bit right there.

"Do you go to Hogwarts, Albus?" Something strange and almost dark had flashed across his face at that.

"Not anymore. Do you?" I shook my head at that. Neither of us offered an explanation, and somehow we didn't need to.

"Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?" he had asked, and I remember his voice shaking, just a little, as if he was uncertain whether he wanted me to agree or not. I did agree. I followed that boy into his home and in that moment I would have followed him anywhere.

Over tea we got to know each other. I learned that he had a brother, and an invalid sister that he had been left taking care of, after the death of his parents. The resentment shone through his words at this, and I remember thinking what a waste it was for someone who seemed as bright as the young Dumbledore boy to be stuck in a little village looking after a child. He asked me about Durmstrang.

In the vain ignorance of my youth, I told him exactly what I had thought of it.

"It was an alright school. I knew more than most of the professors, but that was to be expected. They let outdated moral principles stand in the way of progress. They thought I was too radical. I was kicked out last year."

"I'm sorry," he replied.

"Don't be. I learn more on my own than I ever did at that place. I've mastered wandless magic in the month I've been out of school alone, for one thing." I remember him looking a little impressed. I remember because most wizards would be shocked at a sixteen year old mastering wandless magic, a skill many never learn unless they pursue certain career paths. But Albus just raised one eyebrow at me with that half smile on his face. That lit me on fire with the desire to impress him.

We spoke for hours that afternoon. I told him things I had never told anyone before. Things about my family and Germany. I foolishly told him what I knew of the deathly hallows, that first day I met him. He was special and he pierced me from the start. Albus told me of Ariana, and of his anger with being grounded to the village he had hated his entire life. Eventually he confessed something else to me, offhandedly as if not realizing the significance of it; he was gay.

"Not that I've ever been with anyone," he had lamented. "I didn't exactly have anything to offer the boys at Hogwarts."

"I find that incredibly difficult to believe."

"It's true. I cared more for potions and advanced spells, even if they had shown an interest. And my mother would have been displeased. Not that I was very bothered with that."

"Well," I asked slyly, "Have you ever met anyone you wanted to be with?"

"Of course," he replied indignantly. "There were men at Hogwarts that I wanted to fuck."

"Anyone anywhere else?" I don't know how he grew up to be, but at seventeen, Albus Dumbledore was incredibly thick and unable to pick up hints. All I wanted was to be in this beautiful man's bed, being his first, but eventually I had to outright kiss him in order for him to catch on.

That first kiss is so vivid in my old mind. His lips were soft, giving in to my hungry ones pressing against him. He kissed uncertainly, so delicately, even as I wove my fingers through his hair and pulled his face into mine, bumping his glasses against my nose. Behind his softness, there was an ocean of need, and he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him on the couch where we were sitting. I don't recall our clothes coming off, but suddenly they were gone and we were kissing naked on the couch, praying his brother and sister didn't come in. We were both hard, rubbing against each other with desires so intense I could have screamed.

I can feel his cock in my hand, hear his soft moans and his breath against my neck, smell the scent of lemon drops and old parchment. His hands explored my body gently, touching every inch until I was on fire. Finally his cock found its way in between my legs, probing at my ass. He looked to me as if for permission, which I gave with an eager nod, wordlessly casting a preparation spell so that he wouldn't tear me apart with his wide girth.

Then he was inside me, on top of me on the couch, one of his legs hanging over the end. Dumbledore was clumsy and eager, struggling to set a rhythm. His thrusts started out uncertain and shallow, though he, at least was enjoying it given by his panting moans. My hands locked around his waist, guiding his thrusts until he was hitting the right spots and I joined him in moaning. It wasn't the best sex I had ever had. It wasn't even close to that. A young virgin was pounding away at me erratically, and yet when he was inside me I felt like I'd found the missing piece of my soul. He finished first, and jerked me off until I came in his hand. Something about that made Albus look embarrassed, and he quickly stood, pulling on his clothes.

"I should go tend to Ariana and Aberforth." I was disappointed, but accepted being kicked out. I retreated to my room back at my aunt's place, brooding over if I would ever see the blue-eyed beauty again or if I had scared him off.

Later that night, I awoke to hear an owl tapping at my window. Albus had sent me a letter, apparently too eager to wait until the next day. I still have it, as I do most of the letters he sent me. Germany's counsel at least allows me that.

Gellert-

I have been thinking about what you said about the Deathly Hallows. At first I pushed them off as an old silly fairytale, but I have not been able to stop examining the evidence again and again in my mind. I think that it is certain, at least, that the elder wand exists, given its bloody trail throughout history. And the existence of one of the Hallows leads to the others being more likely. Searching Godric's Hollow for more evidence is a brilliant idea and I would love to join you. I have not been able to stop thinking about you since you left.

A.

In the throes of teenage infatuation, I probably skipped around the house elatedly or some other such silly display of joy. I can no longer recall that, but I wrote him back, asking him to meet me at the Old Church the next day. Out of some silly impulse I thought was wit at the time, I wrote his name with the A as the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. This became the way he signed his name when he wrote to me from then on. It was something that was just ours. I wish that I had something more than lines on tattered parchment to remember the greatest man I ever knew, but I am left with that and memories. Memories I must record before I forget.