Our Captain had to write a humorous story about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, but because we don't have a Captain at the moment, I agreed to write for the Captain's position. I wrote this story late at night, so that I could get it submitted on time.
Enjoy reading!
Late Night Planning
Gellert blinked as the room spun around him. Pretty colours swirled through the air, leaving trails of colour in their wake. The whole room looked as if it was sparkling. He giggled.
The glass of the bottle was cool against his palm.
"Good thinkin' with the coolin' charm, Alb's!" He slurred and toppled back, flinging his arms out to the sides. "I can flyyyy!"
Booming laughter accompanied his landing on something hard and equally cold. Tasty liquid sloshed out of the bottle and over his hand, being wasted on the floor. He frowned, at least he thought it was the floor.
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and opened them almost immediately. Orange shapes flitted over his vision and started to dance with something blue. It was a pretty blue. Like the sky. With birds. Oh, he liked birds. His father had once given him a tiny one for his birthday years ago. His name had been Anthony. Beautiful little fella.
A sluggish grin spread over Gellert's face, as he lay there on the hard, wooden floor. Firewhiskey slowly pouring out onto the ground beneath him and getting absorbed into the soft material of his once clean button up shirt.
His friend, Albus, who was sitting a few metres to his right, right next to the fire, yawned widely. The list they had been working on only an hour before lay next to him, dangerously close to the flames.
Albus agreed that the Greater Good was something that needed to be planned and thus, grabbing their wands, cloaks and a few sandwiches, they had headed off to the Room of Vanishing Things. Where the firewhiskey had come from, he had absolutely no idea.
"You are drunk, Gel," he mumbled and leaned back against the stuffed chair, which appeared at exactly right moment and prevented him from making the same undignified move that his friend had just done.
"I am not!" Gellert exclaimed, indignant, and wiggled around on the floor.
Albus watched calmly as his friend stuck all his limbs, completed by the nearly empty bottle of firewhiskey, into the air and started waving them around, rocking from side to side.
"Y-You look like a tur-turtle," Albus snorted with laughter and nearly doubled over as Gellert started huffing like a Centaur that was about to attack.
Finally, after what felt like at least thirty minutes, the young wizard managed to roll over, get up on all fours and crawled over to the fire. Thankfully, a metal contraption kept him from crawling right into the flames.
Falling back onto his behind, he sighed, relieved, picked up the bottle, put it against his lips and tipped it back. Most of the burning liquid flowed right over his cheeks and onto his shirt, soaking it into a slightly disturbing looking, yellow-ish colour.
Okay, back to business, Gellert thought, determined, as he lowered the bottle and put it onto the floor next to him. He crossed his legs in a serious manner, ignored the fact that it took him four attempts to succeed, and leant forward to grab the list that was resting in the close vicinity to Albus' left foot.
"Now!" He said and hiccupped. "We 'ave t' focus. Focus, Alb's!" He yelled suddenly, causing his long-haired friend to nearly fall into the fire. Gellert snickered.
"We've to do somethin' abo't those Hipp... Hipp... Hippogriffs, Mandrackles an' Weasels," he said in his no-nonsense tone. "We cannot agree with the fact that they're all ov'r the place."
"Who?" Albus frowned and scratched his head. His vision kept going out of focus, and he was having trouble staying in the zone as Gellert had exclaimed earlier on.
"The Weasels, of course! You should be th' only redhead in Br... Brit'n." Gellert made a duh sound and grabbed a nearby quill. In his enthusiasm, he knocked over the pot of ink that he had just been about to dunk his quill in. Staring onto the black puddle on the floor, he frowned.
Albus blinked and watched as the puddle got bigger and bigger.
No-one moved.
"Huh," Gellert mumbled, as he scraped the quill along the floor to pick up some of the black liquid and turned back toward the list, on which Albus could only identify black, blue and pink splotches. He didn't know where the other colours had come from, but it looked pretty, so he didn't ask.
"The fairies!" Albus jumped as his friend yelled, a huge grin on his face.
"What about them?" His vision was starting to get black dots all over it. It was confusing and was making him slightly nauseous. It was as if the ink was crawling into his eyes. But how did it manage to do that? Suspiciously, Albus stared at the puddle of black writing liquid that had just decided that seeping into the pores of the wood would be a marvellous idea. It didn't look like it had any plan whatsoever to make its way over to his eyes.
"They keep vis'ting th' Muggles," Gellert said, raising a finger into the air. He wiggled it. "We cannot have magical creatures to..." He frowned and looked back down onto his list. "To... to just go there an'... an'... an' tell them that we are here."
Albus nodded, agreeing completely. He knew that telling the Muggles was important, but he didn't remember what the fairies had to do with it, exactly. And, to be frank, he didn't give a damn right about now. The soft cushion of the chair behind him dug into his neck and if he just closed his eyes, then he could imagine it being a slightly uncomfortable pillow in a weirdly angled bed on a freaking heard mattress that was making his bum lose all the feeling it once had.
"An' we have to make sure that there'll be enough balloons in... um... in the Great Hall durin' the dance, becaus' that is impo... import'nt, y'know?" Gellert nodded to himself, not noticing or caring that his best friend didn't listen to him anymore and was, indeed, fast asleep right next to him. His quill scratched over the piece of parchment that was lying on his lap, and he didn't notice his eyes closing on their own behalf. He was asleep before he hit the ground with a loud thud.
He didn't wake up.
*~*LNP*~*
A groan was what greeted him back to the land of the living. His eyes still closed, Gellert analyzed his surroundings. He was lying on the floor; weird. It was cold; even weirder. And for some reason he was damp; not only weird, but also slightly disgusting.
He blinked sluggishly and rubbed the sleep out of his burning eyes. He didn't get much sleep, judging from the way he felt. It could also be because apparently he had spent the night on a cold wooden floor in the middle of a foreign room, lying in ink and something that smelled like alcohol, but looked like something he really needed to carry into a bathroom.
He exhaled sharply, sat up and gasped as his head started spinning and pounding. Okay, he thought as the room started to look somewhat normal again. Too much alcohol yesterday. How did I even... oh. Gazing calmly to a spot about two metres away from him, he saw a half unconscious, half awakening Albus Dumbledore lie on the ground. He looked more decent that Gellert himself felt, so he decided to not pity his friend, as he moaned and slowly sat up. He merely raised an eyebrow and waited until his friend managed to focus his glassy gaze onto him.
"What in the name of Merlin himself happened yesterday?" He didn't bother with Good Morning greetings and the other polite small talk you normally do whenever you meet someone throughout the day. The fact that they were both in a very unpresentable shape, feeling like shite and lying in a foreign room gave him the chance to ignore all sort of etiquette and get straight to it.
"No idea, to be completely honest," Albus mumbled and pushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face. "We wanted to talk about the Greater Good, but I guess we were too enthusiastic about the possible future that we got slightly out of hand," he cracked a tentative smile and rubbed his temple gingerly.
Gellert sighed and nodded. Yeah, that was very likely. Not that they did this on a regular basis! Oh, no, they certainly didn't, but last week had been one hell of a week at school. The news was spilling over with articles about magical creatures revealing their existence to Muggles, who reported the sightings. Instead of showing them what this magical world could do and where those Muggles belonged, the Ministry seriously decided on just ignoring everything. They executed those species that were responsible for said articles, waved their wands around with a few Memory Charms leaving their lips, and be done with it.
Both Albus and he had been full of ideas as to what needed to change in the future and what would be a better way of handling happening like the ones that were all over the news, as they had decided to grab some parchment, writing equipment and set out to a quiet place to brainstorm.
Which is probably what we did yesterday, Gellert thought cautiously, as he looked around for the parchment he had carried here yesterday. Finding it dangerously close to the burning fire, he grabbed it, ignored the painful pounding of his head and the uncomfortable stiffness in the rest of his body and gazed onto the, surprisingly, colourful piece of planning.
He frowned. Black, blue and pink splotches of ink decorated the parchment, completed by doodles of fairies, unicorns and top hats. Two moustaches had been drawn into the upper left corner. Scribbles that he doubted meant anything were covering the rest of the page. The first three points were still readable, after that, he guessed, they had had too much alcohol to really control the hand movement that was required to write properly.
Number One: Get every Ministry employee out of the Ministry. No idea how. We will figure that one out later.
Number Two: Convince the fairies to keep to themselves. Nobody wants to talk with them anyway.
Number Three: Change the colours of the British Flag, because that colour combination is so out-of-date.
"What the..." Gellert stared at the plan in his hands, mouth agape, eyes widened. How had that been possible to actually happen? He didn't remember any of those things. That was definitely his handwriting, he could tell that much, but he had absolutely no memory of making those plans, whatsoever.
He groaned, as he let his hand, still clutching the piece of parchment, fall limply to his side. His other hand covered his forehead in a defeated manner.
"What does it say?" Albus asked, his voice subdued. Gellert held the list out for his friend to take, read and digest.
A booming and quite painful laugh echoed through the room a few seconds later. Both boys winced as their heads gave an unpleasant pound.
"What in the name of Merlin's beard is that?" Albus snickered and pointed at the pink unicorn that was making a handstand at the bottom of the page.
"We will never – and I repeat, never – drink firewhiskey ever again!" Gellert said, his eyes glued to the page Albus was still holding. His lips twitched into a small smile. "Ever, do you hear me?"
Albus grinned and nodded, glancing at the moustaches, one in blue, one in pink. "But you have to admit," he said, his grin threatening to split his face in two, "this is pretty hilarious."
Gellert allowed himself to smile, which turned into a hesitant grin as he was soon dragged into his friend's laughter. It only got louder as Albus drew his wand, pointed it at the piece of parchment and made the unicorn dance a waltz with the fairy, the moustaches twirling happily along the edge.
I'm not quite happy with this story, but oh, well...
If you liked it or want to say your opinion about it, please feel free to leave a comment. I always read and answer them (except for when they're really, really rude and insulting *laughs*)
Word count: 2013
Until next time - see ya!