Together We Will Take the World Apart
Chapter 1: The Delicate Art of Breaking
They are dueling. They have always been dueling, in a sense, whether the battle was of wits or of tongues and teeth and skin. Now it is of deadly wands and reflexes, of power and humility. For every spell Dumbledore sends at him, Grindelwald has a counter; his curses are new, the result of painstaking research he's done alone in the intervening years between their summer and now. The wizarding world sees two geniuses struggling for the Greater Good: one who will relinquish power back to the unwashed masses, and one who would set up a kingdom with himself as a god.
Dumbledore shouts, "Put down your wand and all will be forgiven!" A noble gesture, but expected, really, from him (or from the person he's become, which amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?).
"You don't mean that," Grindelwald replies, casting an arc of deadly fire toward the other man: blood magic. The Dark Arts. It is elegant, as all his work is elegant, and Dumbledore's seems crude in comparison. Dumbledore puts up a shield to bounce the flames off as Grindelwald continues,
"There are some things that wound too deep to forgive." He dances in closer and whispers low, meant only for Dumbledore's ears:
"Why did you wait so long to come after me?"
"I had hoped..."
"What? That I'd change? Give up our quest for the Hallows, for the Greater Good?" He shakes his head and a flash of silver at his ear swings back and forth. "You're the one who changed, Albus. You betrayed us, everything we worked for. I never did."
"Remember that day by the lake?" Dumbledore's mouth purses into a thin line. "You said you loved me. Fool that I was, I almost believed you. And then you killed Ariana."
Grindelwald's eyes flash a dangerous ice blue.
"I didn't kill your sister. It was an accident." He leans closer still, releases a puff of acrid smoke around them to conceal his hand reaching up, stroking Albus's cheek as the other man closes his eyes and leans into the touch, even now. For they are Albus and Gellert in that moment, just two men who dreamed together as boys and have, after all this time, an undeniable attraction-
"I meant what I said that day. I still do. More fool you, not to know it." Tears prick Albus's eyes and he wipes his glasses on the sleeve of his robe. The smoke has almost gone.
It is a hard thing, to want too much. He could call down the lightning from the sky and have his skin crackle with its power, every hair on his body standing on end; he could say the word and the very rocks themselves would leap to do his bidding. Part of him longs for that kind of power again. It is a drug— Gellert is a drug— and he is an addict who, having been clean for years, is now confronted with his favorite intoxicating poison. His head bows under the weight of his choices; he feels ill at heart. Gellert sees it in his eyes and pities him for it, though he does understand. He never did anything by halves, never had to live with the guilt and the doubt and the fear that haunt Albus even now, in what should be his moment of greatest triumph.
Time to be Dumbledore, defender of the wizarding world again. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian… can wait. Must wait. He takes a step back from the other wizard and composes himself once more.
"I know you," Grindelwald says, in a voice spelled to resonate for miles. "You expect me to raze this place to the ground, destroy everything in sight, and make the dramatic gesture so you can make a single flower bloom. But let's be honest. You don't have the finesse." His eyes narrow. The resonating charm dissipates. "And I have the Elder Wand."
All of Dumbledore's concentration has been thus far on defending himself from Grindelwald's attacks while looking for an opening to cast a spell of his own. Now his eyes widen in shock and horror as he realizes that the man has in fact found the Elder Wand at last, without his help. The dark exultation is in Grindelwald's eyes. A cold wind whips around him, blowing his unruly blond locks around his ecstatic handsome face (for though they are both in their sixties, they look perhaps half that number: wizards age slower than Muggles- or rather, they do when they have performed the kinds of youth-preservation magic he and Grindelwald did long ago). He rises into the air without aid of broom. The part of Albus that must always stay hidden and smothered itches to join him, to bury his fingers in that silken hair and cry aloud with the feelings that threaten to overwhelm him whenever the heady combination of Dark magic and Gellert are near. He closes his eyes on the sight, but now casts a spell of his own, one that encompasses and calls upon the powers of Light, of wizards and witches who have laid down their lives to stop Grindelwald, who would have loaned Dumbledore their strength had he only thought to ask for it. But this is a battle he must fight alone, as he has always planned, and he presses forward. Grindelwald drops from the air like a stone, laughing as he hits the ground.
"Good show," he calls, wiping the blood from his lips where Dumbledore has hit him with a metaphysical punch. Dumbledore refuses to use the magic he learnt in their time together against his old friend, though he could so easily best Grindelwald with one well-placed Dark spell. The knowledge gnaws at him. Should he, for the safety of all, for the greater good...? But no, that is no longer the course he has set himself. Not the Greater Good, but the individuals he seeks to protect, and yet Grindelwald's "good" is neither good nor great if Albus assumes right and oh, it sets his head to spinning.
What a task they have set him, those who do not know what is between them, the summer when good and great and wonderful were all blurred and meaningless terms in the light that hit Gellert's face and that one glorious kiss they shared that turned the world upside down. Albus no longer knows what the greater good is.
The irony is almost too much to bear.
Grindelwald smiles. He forgets, the self-righteous prat, that Dark wizards can love too, and that love conquers all.
At the last, he doesn't even need the Elder Wand or the esoteric knowledge he's accumulated over the years. At the last, all he needs is himself and wandless magic. They are close enough now, locked in unending combat, that they could touch again, or kiss. Albus tilts his head and Gellert's lips part; he drops the Elder Wand and Albus's eyes flicker up to meet his in hope and disbelief for an instant, only an instant. It is enough. Grindelwald murmurs a command and Dumbledore falls unconscious onto the ground.
"Rest, Albus", Gellert says, cradling him to his chest in the aftermath of their battle. Albus has staved off the duel for so long, every year hoping never to come to this, always knowing in the back of his mind that Gellert was the stronger. He won in the end. He always did.
"We'll be princes, Kings. We'll set the world to rights, just like we promised. You'll see. We were meant for greater things. It's time to take up that mantle and join forces, as we always intended. Together, we are unstoppable." He sighs, taking in the half-moon glasses, the short reddish beard and Albus's perpetually ink-stained hands.
"I've missed you," he confesses, "but you'll come back to me now." He strokes the dreaming man's hair in a tender gesture, then scoops him up andLevicorpuses him. They are going home to his fortress. "Rest now," Gellert tells him. "I'll take care of you." In his sleep, Albus mutters something that might be Gellert's name.