A/N: I think we're a little bit beyond apologies now, aren't we? I know it's obscenely late, you know it's obscenely late, so let's just forget about it and enjoy ourselves, okay?

Please don't leave me ._.

Chapter 7

"Hey Albus, have you seen my left shoe? I coulda sworn I left it in the hallway, but… Albus?"

Aberforth stared at his brother, who was sitting in his chair with the vacant surprised look of someone who had just been slapped in the face and not quite gotten over it.

"Albus? Wha- Alllllbussss?" He prodded him in the temple.

"What? Huh? What?" Albus shook his head like a wet dog and tried to get his bearings.

"That has to be the most ineloquent thing you've ever said," Aberforth said, laughing. "Seriously, what's up with you?"

"Oh, er, I was just… thinking…"

"Whatever. Are you ready to go yet?"

"Go where?"

Aberforth squinted at Albus, and moved so that their faces were inches apart. "Hmmm, your pupils look fine, so you're probably not high or anything… still, what the hell is up with you this morning?"

Albus, not in the mood for any close scrutiny, made a non-committal reply and made to pack his schoolbag. As he jammed in his exercise books, bending the corners significantly, all he could think about was the night before. What the hell was Gellert playing at, kissing him? To say it weirded Albus out would be an understatement; it left him so paralysed in shock he hadn't moved from his chair since eleven thirty-four the previous night.

Mmm, looked like he would be sleeping through English for the first time in… ever.

The two boys arrived at the school gate forty seconds after the bell had rang. While they could still get to class in time without being considered late, they were never this late. Aberforth had had to practically drag a half-asleep and more than just a little distracted Albus out of the door. But now that they were at school, all of Aberforth's obligations went out the window and he ran off before his maths teacher could scold him for being late.

"Albus, you're late," Albus' English teacher, Mrs Entwhistle, said as he walked in the room. It wasn't so much a scolding as a statement of surprise; Albus was never late.

"Sorry…" he replied quietly and made his way to his desk. Before Mrs Entwhistle had even picked up her piece of chalk, Albus' head was on the desk and he was halfway to Dreamyland.

Unfortunately the express train to Dreamyland was hijacked and promptly derailed by a parade of cheeky blonde Oh-My-God-Last-Nights, and Albus found himself thinking way too hard about it again.

Gellert had kissed him. Gellert had kissed him. Gellert had kissed him. Gellert had kissed him. No matter where the emphasis was placed, the situation didn't get any less confusing.

There were too many questions and they all wanted to be answered at the same time, despite how much Albus forced them into a theoretically effective queueing system.

Of course, the question that kept elbowing the rest in the ribs to get to the front was why? Did Gellert like him, or was he just messing with him? The latter was just as likely as the former, which made the question nigh unanswerable for the meantime. Back of the queue.

Clinging to the shirt-tails of Why? was So what did you think of it?, and this was a goddamn tricky one. Did Albus enjoy it? It certainly wasn't not good, though he was hardly the expert on kissing. He'd only been kissed once before, and he was pretty sure that it didn't count; he was eight and she had chased him halfway across the playground before tackling him to the ground and slobbering on his face. So really, this had been his first proper kiss, and it was certainly alright.

And he was certainly avoiding the question.

Would it have been just as good if it had been someone other than Gellert who had kissed him? Or better? Or horribly worse?

The little niggling feeling at the back of Albus' head that was shouting at him that it had a logical answer to why he was so able to overlook Gellert's faults was swiftly ignored. In the same manner, the What did you think of it? Question had just been pushed to the back of the queue, and the vastly less uncomfortable-self-honesty generating question of Why? found its way back to the front.

Surely if he was joking around he wouldn't have been so… gentle. Knowing Gellert, his approach to messing with him would have been to stick his tongue as far down his throat as possible.

Unless he was trying to double-bluff him by doing his best to convince him it was genuine, and then laughing his head off when Albus believed him.

The more Albus thought about it, the more it looked like Gellert could very well have been playing a prank on him. But why would he jeopardise their friendship now? Surely they were actually friends… unless that was part of the elaborate ruse as well.

Of course, all this elaborate plotting could be disproved in the event that Gellert actually found him attractive. But just how likely was that?

"Albus?" Albus was roused from his deep fretting by Mrs Entwhistle, who was looking at him as if she had been trying to get his attention for quite a while.

"I, uh, I think it very well shows the contrast between the… um…"

Obviously this was not the answer.

"Albus, the bell already rang; why are you still here?"

And, lo and behold, there was no-one else in the room.

"Sorry, I was a bit distracted…"

"Is everything okay? Are you having any problems at home or anything?"

"No, not really. Well, nothing major."

"Well, if you are having problems you can always come and see me and we'll try and sort it out, okay?"

"Okay then…"

Mrs Entwhistle shot him an 'I'm showing that I care' smile, which he awkwardly reciprocated before shuffling out of the room and heading off to chemistry.

xxx

The rest of Albus' day continued in a blur of not-paying-attention which refused to go unnoticed by his teachers, friends and fellow students. Nevertheless, they didn't get a coherent explanation as to his behaviour, and Albus continued to fret in peace.

In fact, the first proper shock back to reality came when he came face-to-face with a rather pissed-off Aberforth glaring at him from the front gate. Although it's very difficult to take someone seriously when they're wearing a big floppy hat, gumboots and gloves and being followed by about half a dozen escaped goats trying their best to investigate the bucket of oats that is mysteriously not being fed to them, Albus could tell that something was wrong and it was most probably (directly or indirectly) his fault.

"What's going on?" Albus asked, wanting to get to the root of the problem before he was subjected to a half-unintelligible rant.

Aberforth merely pointed to the roof, where a pair of heavy-looking boots were just visible. Recognition, followed by understanding, washed over Albus, and he went to go find the ladder.

"Hello Gellert. Fancy meeting you here," Albus said genially when he reached the rooftop. Well, as genially as possible after hauling an awkward and heavy ladder against the wall and climbing up to the roof of the two-storey house. It didn't help that Albus was a little bit afraid of heights.

"So what's the deal with the goats, anyway?" Gellert asked, distracted by the marauding brown and grey goats in the garden below as they tried to hijack Aberforth's bucket of oats.

Albus shrugged. "We milk them, as well as keeping them as pets. Sometimes we loan them out to petting zoos and such. Aberforth likes them. Ariana likes them."

"Who's Ariana."

"Our sister."

"Is she hot?"

Albus frowned at him. "She has Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva."

The was a pause.

"The fuck is that?"

"It's a rare bone disease which causes damaged fibrous tissue to be turned into bone."

"That sounds like a pretty badass disease."

"if by 'badass' you mean 'very bad', then yes, yes it is. There's no cure."

There was another, more awkward, silence in which Gellert played with his shoelaces and Albus continued to watch the goats.

"Can I ask you a question?" Albus asked after a while. It was time to bite the bullet.

"Go for it."

"Why did you kiss me yesterday?"

Gellert shrugged.

Albus waited for a more elaborate response.

Albus did not get one.

"Well? Were you playing a joke on me, or do you actually, uh…"

Their eyes met, but before Albus could figure out what was going on in the blonde's head, a pair of surprisingly strong arms wrapped themselves around his waist and pulled him close to Gellert.

"Which would you prefer?" he felt Gellert whisper dangerously close to his ear.

Albus couldn't not turn purple. Unable to think of a clever response, he resigned himself to being gently cuddled. It was worryingly nice.

"Can I ask you another question?" Albus asked after sitting in silence for a few minutes.

"Of course youcan," Gellert purred in response.

"How did you even get up here? The ladder was still in the shed."

"It's a secret."

My chapters are getting shorter and I'm not sure why. Oh well, I should probably let them; that way I don't keep angsting the fuck out about not having enough shit to post.

And Ariana's disease is totally real, if you were wondering, and obscenely rare. Huzzah for Wikipedia-snooping (or rather, getting Legs to do it for me :P).

Tata for now, and I'll try and update again within the next four and a half months. (The key word being "try".)

Feel free to review and shit,

- Lacrima