Queenie stood in Grindelwald's beautiful stone-walled bedroom, which overlooked the mountains below, and she scowled deeply as she muttered,
"I, um… I can't do with you tonight what we did at the townhouse in London."
"No?" Grindelwald pulled off his bow tie and tossed it away, and he stripped off his heavy tuxedo robe. "Why not?"
Queenie's cheeks went very hot, and she thought of the Absorbency Charm she'd cast on herself early this morning, after waking with blood in her knickers. She gulped.
"Um… lady problems?" she said, feeling humiliated. Grindelwald was oddly untroubled by her admission. He shrugged and undid the little black buttons going down his crisp white shirt.
"Another time, then."
Queenie searched his face for anger or disappointment, but all she saw was calm contentment. He was still happy from how well his speech and the ball had gone. Queenie nibbled her lip and muttered,
"Goodnight then, sir. Your speech really was amazing. Thank you."
She turned and started to walk toward the door, but his voice snapped from behind her,
"Where are you going?"
Queenie turned round and shrugged. "I… I can't give you what you wanted. Why you brought me back here."
Grindelwald scoffed and scratched at his hair a bit, shirtless now. He unbuttoned his trousers and informed her,
"I brought you here to sleep in my bed, Queenie. You're not too incapacitated to manage that, are you?"
"N-No." Queenie felt wonder go through her then, and she glanced down as she said, "I'll have to Summon a nightgown from my quarters or something. This gown isn't exactly…"
"Here." Grindelwald opened his wardrobe behind him and pulled out a grey flannel tunic. He tossed it to Queenie, and she stared at it in her hands. Was he really offering her his shirt to sleep in? In his bed?
She stripped off her gold sequin gown and pulled on his comfortable flannel tunic, Scouring her face and teeth, and she turned to see Grindelwald in crisp black pyjamas. He went into his bathroom and shut the door for a few minutes, and when he came out, he smelled more like the ocean than ever. Queenie gulped, and she followed him to the plush bed with its black and grey brocade bedding. His bed was so high that she had to practically jump to get up into it, so she giggled a little. He smirked at her as they settled beneath the blankets.
"Your speech made me tingle from head to toe," Queenie said as she lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. Beneath the blankets, Grindelwald reached for her fingers and wrapped his around hers, and he murmured,
"I disliked seeing you with that German boy."
"Who, that Klaus guy that wouldn't go away?" Queenie laughed a little, but when she turned her face to Grindelwald, she saw how serious he was, and her smile disappeared. She cleared her throat and noted, "You were… jealous?"
"No," he barked. "I was…"
There was a very long pause, and finally he whispered,
"Possessive."
He was possessive of her? In what way? Seeking clarification, Queenie nervously smiled and said,
"Well, yeah. You can be possessive, because I'm yours. Just like Vinda and Abernathy and Larsen and -"
"It's different." Grindelwald shut his eyes and reclined further back against the pillows as he murmured, "Du gehörst mir in einer Weise, die mich quält."
"What does that mean?" Queenie asked uneasily, and Grindelwald just shook his head a little.
"You really did look lovely in that gold sequin gown, Queenie."
She was quiet beside him for a long moment, until she finally wondered aloud,
"May I ask you something, sir? If you want Albus Dumbledore dead, why don't you just go kill him yourself? It's for the Greater Good, isn't it? Why do you need Aurelius to do it?"
Grindelwald opened his eyes, and his throat bobbed visibly.
"Once upon a time, there were two foolish young boys," he said, his voice low and steady. "One of the boys, Albus, was very much enamoured with the other boy, Gellert. Together they vowed to save the world. They did other things, too. Touching and more; you can imagine what two excited boys in a summer could accomplish."
Queenie's mind suddenly raced with the idea of young Grindelwald and young Dumbledore, kissing and holding each other, possibly making love, and she gulped. Grindelwald murmured softly,
"He got what he wanted from me, which was attention and affection. And what I wanted from him was loyalty and service to the dream I possessed. Things got complicated later in ways I can not describe to you, but… we made a pledge. A vow. A pact."
"An Unbreakable Vow?" Queenie asked tentatively, and Grindelwald whispered,
"A Blood Pact. We would never move against one another. I can not harm him, nor he me. Not directly." He turned his face to Queenie and narrowed his eyes. "I don't know why I've told you this; I ought to Obliviate you at once."
Queenie's eyes went wide, and she swallowed hard as she told him,
"I will always keep your secrets."
He breathed slowly through his nose and finally said in a quiet tone,
"I almost killed that boy for dancing with you so much."
Queenie wasn't sure why that made her smile. She should be horrified by such a confession. But it was somehow endearing - the idea that his jealousy had been so powerful. She reached to scratch at his scalp gently, just the way he liked, and she murmured,
"He just thought I was pretty."
"You are, obviously," Grindelwald snarled softly, pulling her close, and she started to come alive for him. Suddenly she was profoundly irritated by her inability to have sex with him right now. She wanted it. She wanted it badly. She wanted him. She wanted to give herself to him, to pour herself into him like pouring wine into a glass.
He started to kiss her, and Queenie moaned a bit against his mouth. She held his cheek in her hand and pressed her body against his, suddenly reminded that she was wearing his flannel tunic. She felt his erection against her thigh, and she murmured onto his lips,
"Let me please you."
"I do not require it," he answered her, but he hissed when she reached her hand boldly down into the waistband of his black pyjama trousers and began fondling his mostly-hard cock. She pumped at him a little, and he groaned against her mouth. Their breath mingled as his hand went to her breast and squeezed. That hurt, for she was sensitive this time of the month, but she tried not to let him know that she'd felt pain. She must have failed at that, she thought, for his hand slipped away and he whispered,
"I apologise."
"Yeah. Me, too," Queenie lamented, slithering down beneath the blankets. He seemed to realise immediately what she meant to do. She had done this to Jacob a few times - it didn't require illegal contraceptive charms, and so it had seemed safer. She pulled down on Grindelwald's trousers to reveal his pale thatch of hair and his rigid, throbbing cock. She knelt between his legs and clutched his shaft in one hand, sliding her mouth down over his tip.
He grunted as she moved, and his hands slid into her hair, holding onto her head as she began to bob up and down on his length. She twisted her hand as it moved in the lubrication of her saliva, trailing behind her mouth with every pump. Her tongue moved against him, caressing his tip, and after awhile, she stopped pumping and paid particular attention to the tip. He seemed to like that quite a lot, so much that he mumbled,
"Mmm… Eilen! You had best decide now if you want to taste it or not, Queenie, because it's… mmph…"
His hands tightened in her hair, and Queenie plunged her mouth hard onto him, so hard that his tip bumped the back of her throat and made her gag a little. Then suddenly her mouth was filled with a bitter, metallic taste, and she swallowed it down as quickly as she possibly could. It was awful, the flavour of it, but she tried to rid herself of it by swallowing fast. She pulled off of his cock and gasped for air, dragging the inside of her wrist along her swollen lips, and she watched as he lay in still silence, his chest heaving.
"Dulcis," he wandlessly incanted at last, flicking his hand up to Queenie, and she licked her lip as a sweet flavour took over her mouth, like she'd just licked candy. She grinned her thanks down to him, and as he tucked himself away into his pyjama trousers, she moved to lie down beside him again. He pulled the heavy blankets up around them, and then the two of them faced the same direction so that he was cradling her from behind. He wrapped his arm around her, and she stared out his floor-to-ceiling windows, marveling, not for the first time,
"So many stars here."
"Someday soon, this castle will be the centre of the world," Grindelwald informed her. "From here I will administer everything we are working to build. And you will be here to see it all, won't you, Queenie?"
"All of it," she said back. His hand covered hers, and she remembered the thought he'd let her perceive when they'd been in London. It has never, ever been like this. Not with anyone. Then he'd been profoundly jealous of Klaus Reiner dancing with her at the ball. He was holding her in his bed right now.
What exactly did exist between them? Was there something of note between Queenie Goldstein and Gellert Grindelwald? Or was she just another fling, like Albus Dumbledore had been one summer? Suddenly she had a wild idea, a way to make him adore her, a way to make him care deeply about her, and she impulsively suggested,
"I could do it, if Aurelius won't."
"What, you could kill Albus Dumbledore for me?" Grindelwald asked incredulously from behind her. Queenie stared out the window, but Grindelwald pet her hair and kissed the skin beneath her ear, and he told her, "You are not a killer, Queenie. The boy will make himself known to me. I have other means of accomplishing my goals. You… I want to keep you clean. Murder is a very dirty business, and you are beautifully clean."
She blinked and wondered just how far she'd fallen to even have contemplated the idea. If Tina could see her now, she thought, and she shut her eyes. She began to drift off to sleep, finding herself very comfortable in the arms of the man who wanted absolutely everything.
When Grindelwald woke in the morning, he was on his back, and Queenie had moved in the night to sprawl halfway onto him. She had cradled her face onto his chest, and her hand was up on his shoulder. He lay there, awake, for a half hour while she slept on him, for it was very comfortable.
He'd never even begun to consider invited Vinda into his bed. And when he'd been a boy and he and Albus had held one another, it had felt hollow and empty on Gellert's side. But nothing felt hollow now. Nothing felt empty now. She felt whole and warm and beautiful wrapped up against him.
He craved more than just her body, he realised.
When at last they both dragged themselves from bed, she pulled on her gold sequin gown and muttered,
"Everyone will see me walk through the castle in this and know I slept with you."
"Transfigure it, then," he shrugged, but she smirked a little as she folded his flannel tunic and handed it back over, and she said quietly,
"Maybe I don't mind so badly if they know."
Grindelwald smiled at that; he couldn't help himself. He pulled on his black velvet trench coat and slid on his boots, and he admitted,
"Maybe I don't mind, either."
Twenty minutes later, he was in his office opening mail that had come - owls that had been told by followers to come here with letters of admiration, which he Vanished after reading them, and then a thicker, sealed envelope. He cracked open the seal on that one, recognising the M from the British Ministry of Magic, and he pulled out the letter inside. He instantly recognised the handwriting of the spy he had in the British Auror office - Alva Selwyn, who worked an administrative position in the office but was liable to overhear things.
Sir, the letter began,
The Maledictus Nagini who has been, as of late, quite attached to Theseus Scamander and his brother, along with Porpentina Goldstein from MACUSA, has not been seen in days. Yesterday, I heard Theseus Scamander asking someone whether they had seen Nagini. It seems that she has disappeared. I thought this information might be of note to you. As always, I act in the interest of
The Greater Good.
Alva Selwyn
Grindelwald crumpled the letter in his hand a little. The Maledictus had gone missing from her Auror friends. That meant Credence had found her. Would they just run away together, or would Credence act against Dumbledore? Should Grindelwald go back to England to hunt down the Obscurial and the Maledictus himself, or should he set a trap?
Yes.
A trap. It had worked in Paris. It had worked brilliantly, with the half-elf servant whose death had prompted Credence to explode into a fit of Obscurial rage before being lured gently back into line by Grindelwald.
All he needed was a way to get the Obscurial and the Maledictus brought to him, instead of the other way round, trigger an explosion in Obscurus form, and then ease Credence into loyalty.
And Grindelwald had just the idea.
Author's Note: Hmm! What is this mysterious trap idea? And sorry about all that fluff, but these two are starting to get serious! Thanks for reading. Twenty points to your House if you review! (And I love hearing what Houses my readers are Sorted into, so let me know!)
