Chapter 9 Landing On Your Feet

"The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless; Love is eternal!" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Tales Of A Wayside Inn (1863).

Let me start by saying that I had no way to procure transportation, but I was a bit tired of feeling impotence; I decided that, even if I was not going to infringe wizarding laws, I was going to sidestep Muggle laws."

He laughed: "Don't tell me you have done train hopping?"

"I might have. I was in an odd mood. I think the only reason why I didn't try train hopping was I didn't have knowledge of it. I decided I was going to get a ticket by using other skills."

He rose an eyebrow: "What skills?"

I laughed softly: "Skills I'm not proud of and which I began learning when I was six. When I was little no wizard nor witch of my town would play with me. You see, my family descends from Merlin through the worst possible branch of the family tree: Dumbledores are supposed to be descended of Viviane's daughter Nimue. Everyone in Mould-on-the-Wold knew it and we were shun by respectable wizards based on a story hundred of years old. I suspect that they also know it in Godric's Hollow, though they are less open about their suspicions towards us. They like to think themselves as more open minded as they are of a somewhat more scholarly bent, though accumulated knowledge does not necessarily open your mind."

"You don't say!"

I looked at him through narrowed eyes: "So you already knew."

"I researched you beforehand. And not only small wizarding hamlets like Mould-on-the-Wold and Godric's Hollow are hotbeds of malicious tittle-tattle. You are notorious enough to have garnished attention from the rumormongers in other places. Some of the articles that have been published about you, even in the Daily Prophet, have pointed towards the connection of your family to Merlin, and some of them do so in a dark light."

"I've done my best to ignore all of it. I'm with Marcus Aurelius, my friend: choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been. As he points in his Meditations: there is emptiness both in applaud and derision. For both praise and condemnation are oft capricious and arbitrary; and both will be swallowed in the endless abyss of time like the matter of little consequence they truly are."

"You are too young to be a stoic, Albus."

I smiled sadly: "All the time travel I have done before meeting you has been in one direction; but the voyage has left me with enough experience to make me a stoic by choice as well as necessity." Inhaling deeply I said: "Back to the story: Mine is a heritage of betrayal, if you care to listen to those who would like to think Merlin is not dead like a mere mortal, but imprisoned by the guile of an evil witch. An evil witch who is my ancestor and, so infamous that she still casts a shadow over her descendants. Most of my family both on my father's and mother's side -at least those magical- have been Slytherins."

"My friend, all those stories are half legends."

"But the half-truths they contain are enough to make pariahs of my kin and me. The fact that my mum comes from a family that produces squibs doesn't help our reputation… We are suspected both by pure bloods and straitlaced wizards. My father's imprisonment seems like poetical justice to some."

He looked at me worriedly

Before the silence could turn awkward I said: "That is more than enough self-pity. The point is that, even before my father's arrest, no wizarding children would play with me and my four year old brother was a somewhat boring companion; so I decided to go play with the Muggle kids in town."

"You got to be joking. Weren't you afraid to be exposed?"

"I wasn't. I was inured to being around those without magic. My mum was never much of a caregiver, her life hadn't turned out like she wanted it and so she had taken to using dream inducing potions to give herself the life she thought she deserved. My dad was too self-involved in his own great schemes that never came to fruition to deal with us children when he was sober, which, as time went by, became a rare occurrence. Faced with failure his frustrations grew and he found solace in the bottle."

"Who took care of you while your mother dreamt and your father drank, my friend?

"We were left in the care of grandpa Abercrombie who was a squib, but he was the most wizarding man I've ever known. He had more understanding of true magic than most pure bloods I know. The only catch was he couldn't harness that magic through a wand." I laughed bitterly: "People talk, my friend, but they often leave out important information. My family has a reputation for being composed of pure blood zealots, but the fact that I was raised by a squib who I love dearly to this day, well, that is seldom, if ever, mentioned."

"People talking are like dogs barking, Albus, you are only to listen to the noise they make if the door is open and the dogs are out. You are wise to follow Marcus Aurelius, he also points out in his Meditations that the meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly lot cannot hurt you or implicate you in their ugliness as long as you don't let them."

I smiled: "Of course, you have read Marcus Aurelius."

He smiled back: "Of course, Opa's library wouldn't be of any worth, if it didn't include the good emperor."

"My grandfather had been educated by the wind blowing through the moor and up the highlands. But he was a really smart man. Can you believe he was the one who taught me how to control my magic when I was six? He said: Albus, I've been watching you boy and with you the gift is like a temper… And if a body should be mindful of a temper that is a redhead. 'Cause we have some big tempers, ma boy. Here are some words worth more than gold to you: temper can be like a horse, if you let it, it'll run out on you. Leave you lying on your bum hurt and ashamed. So when you feel that temper tugging at the reins, give it a good yank to stop it, then you calm it by humming or singing a tune until you are in control. That is the first part of it…You are wiser than your years and that's why I'll tell you the other part too: A redhead's temper like a fine horse can become your best friend. If you learn to ride with it, it'll carry you to the ends of the earth and back. Magic is will and will is magic, ma boy. We redheads are a willful lot."

"Your grandfather was really insightful."

"He was insightful. I actually tried his advice about using my temper to channel my will with a spell that could give me gills to breathe underwater, which I had found in my father's scarce library -mostly composed by textbooks.- I went to the quarry and I focused hard, gave myself gills, dived and swam until I could swim no more. I almost went into a panic when I couldn't take them off, but I remembered what grandpa had said, I sang myself a song and then I cast the counter spell and breathed air again."

"You cast your first human transmutation spell wandless at the age of six? I'm impressed!"

I leaned towards him and said confidentially: "It made me foolishly confident that I could pass myself for a Muggle. I won't go into the specifics now, but I did pass myself for a Muggle. I kept the charade for almost four years. Four happy years until the very end when they went sour…" I sighed: "While I kept the pretense I made Muggle friends and some of those friends were not all that commendable; among other things, they taught me how to pick pockets."

"Az istenit! You can pick pockets?"

I handed him back his pouch he hadn't even noticed I'd taken: "The short answer is yes. Incidentally, your Vladislav is a sorry excuse for a pickpocket. You did more than consider taking my pouch from me, you actually instructed your valet to try. But I saw him coming from a mile away." I chuckled: "Since we are into full disclosure now. Let me tell you he wouldn't have been able to take my pouch off me without me noticing. Not even if he had hit me with a hammer on the head first. And I do consider the non-magical solutions to problems too. With you being so adamant that we dined at your table, I even considered that you were trying to dose me with something more than a sleeping draught." I took a bezoar from my pouch and showed it to him.

"Who carries a bezoar around? You are one suspicious wizard, Albus!" He said while showing me his own bezoar: "Birds of a feather..."

I smiled at him and, as he put his away, I played with my bezoar. I rolled it between my fingers; making it appear and disappear like an illusionist might do: "Back when I was a child, I liked performing small feats of illusion for my Muggle friends. The irony of a true wizard pretending to be a fake magician gave me a perverse pleasure. At times I can have a dark sense of humor. The short of it is I played the Muggle for a few years before going to Hogwarts."

He smiled wide: "Oh Albus, you know I can't be satisfied with the short version now. Not after this demonstration of skill. I have to know the full story of your days pretending to be a Muggle."

"It has a sad ending, my friend, one that left scars deep enough that I carry them to this day. Though I feel compelled to share it with you and that is something I feel for the first time. For now you will have to be satisfied with just a part of it, in order to finish the tale of the occasion this map commemorates, we'll have to leave the rest for later."

"As long as you promise to tell me the rest later. There is no strategy involved in me wanting to get to know you better."

I cocked an eyebrow: "Have you so little regard for my intelligence, Monsieur Grindelwald? You can't possibly expect me to believe that."

He chuckled: "Perhaps there is a bit of strategy involved, but, against my better judgment, I honestly want to spend time getting to know you better. For the more I know of you the better I like you. Though how can that be when I already like you so much is something I don't very well understand. You must promise to tell me the whole tale later on."

That echoed my feelings and I decided that, against my better judgment, I was going to make him my confident. So much for not wanting to address my family situation. Gellert Grindelwald had a very strange effect on me.

"Promised. I'll tell you all about my scars, later on. Back to this story: I walked to King's Cross, stole a railway ticket and began my ride towards Baker St. Station, which was only a couple of stations away. When the ticket collector came at Gower Street, I showed him the ticket. Unfortunately, I showed it to him inside a monogrammed wallet which was evidently not mine. He made as if to grab me and I made a run for it."

He laughed boisterously: "Why did you steal a monogrammed wallet?"

I sighed: "I figured that if I was going to break the law, at least I should travel in a first class carriage. I simply stole the wallet of the best dressed man that came near me while I leaned in a column watching the crowd to pick a mark. I admit it was a mistake, since I didn't steal clothes that looked first class too. I managed to get off the train in Great Portland Road. I thought that I was safe because the chubby ticket collector couldn't get off, but he yelled at a uniform through the window that I was a thief. Which I guess I was."

He nodded: "Technically you were."

"I had to make yet another run for it."

He chuckled.

"The Muggle bobby was harder to outrun than the chubby ticket collector. This chap was trained to catch thieves. But the friend who had taught me the trade had said that the true skills of the successful pickpocket were: a lightness of the fingers and a lightness of the feet. He was adamant that both were of equal importance and that both could only be acquired and sustained by training. To this day I swim and run daily… I often find myself playing with a coin or a pencil to keep my fingers deft without even thinking about it. I'm not exactly sure why I've chosen to preserve those skills, though, oddly enough deft fingers and a good physical condition allow you to do things with a wand most wizards can't."

He smiled his devilish grin: "And you claim not to be proud of those skills."

I shrugged: "That day escaping the Muggle police I didn't run, I flew on Hermes sandals. But still Bob wouldn't relent. He followed me out of the railway station. I chose to run to Regent's Park almost instinctively."

"Wild boy runs towards the woods."

"Perhaps there is something to that. I ran right into the Zoo. But it was a good thing because I ran into the group of boys and girls that had been at the Leaky Cauldron who were being as rowdy as before in front of the hippopotamus exhibit, making the animal's Arabian keepers frown. The loud group gave me the chance to confuse the policeman."

"You confused someone after just two years in Hogwarts?"

"We had charms lessons right after a seventh years' class. It was the fourth period the third being broom lessons, which -as you may surmise- I didn't much enjoy. I usually didn't have any feat of broom prowess to brag about, so I didn't linger in the yard. I arrived early at the classroom and saw through the open door how the seventh years cast. I picked up a trick or two."

"How did you know you weren't trading the coppers for aurors?"

"I figured out that, if I was among a large group of wizards and witches of age, even if they were barely so; I would not trigger the age-trace charms. And I was right. The policeman was confused enough to fall in the hippopotamus pit. All hell broke lose and I went onwards to Baker St. on foot. When I arrived I noticed the same you did: the street only has 85 numbers. 221B only existed in my head and all my efforts had been for nothing. That is when it started to rain. It poured. Still, I thought it safer to go back to the Leaky Cauldron walking. By the time I arrived I was soaked to the bone but there was an answer, both my neighbors would receive me gladly. I flipped a coin and went to your great-aunt's. I still wrote a thank you note to Ms. Marchbanks as soon as I arrived home and had fed our poor owl Nyctimene. My mum had forgotten to feed it too and my brother only did when he remembered."

"Dream potions can have that effect in you, in some ways dream inducing potions are worse than alcohol. It seems that if you had an inheritance it would be one of escapism; but you have chosen to face life head on. Is that why, despite your parents being Slytherins and the Merlin connection, you are a Gryffindor?"

I smiled despondently: "It might be. Supposedly the Sorting Hat is unmovable in its decisions. I was terrified of being shunned last minute. I would have been glad to get in any house. But, while I was being sorted, I kept thinking how much I didn't want to be like my parents. Now I realize I could have done that just as well in Slytherin; but I didn't have that insight when I was eleven. Being quite frank, the houses are mostly a convenient way of assigning dorms and in general they allow to have like-minded people together. However, they seem to create a divide. I wonder if we wouldn't be better off without divisions."

He laughed: "That is a lost battle, take the houses and the people will end up creating their own divides. In Durmstrang it is every man for himself, which does not preclude the existence of some gang like alliances: the Quiditch players, the Duellists, the Potions Masters, the Charmers, even the Necromancers. As far as stereotypes go, at least, your school is supposedly fostering virtues like ambition, valor, intelligence and hard-work."

"With what group did your allegiances lay back in school, Gellert?"

"With none. I was pretty much a loner, Albus. Though I guess, when I was little, my allegiances were to the great name of Grindelwald. I was quite proud of myself back then."

I laughed softly: "O foolish boy, so vainly catching at this fitting form? Avert your gaze and you will lose your love, for this that holds your eyes is nothing save the image of yourself reflected back to you..."

He looked up from the tattoo, raising an eyebrow: "Really, Albus Dumbledore? Are you quoting Ovid's Narcissus to me?"

I chuckled and replied: "To me."

He laughed caressing my leg over the knee he was tattooing giving me goosebumps: "Is this one instance of you flirting unaware, my friend? Are you an Echo now?"

I must admit I was flirting. I was also skating thin ice. I decided that rather than get lost in his eyes; it was best to look away: "Now I'm in pain and wearing this awful rash. How long is it going to take you, my friend, to finish this tattoo?"

"I'm almost done and your tale is not done yet. You said the experience had been disappointing but also liberating. We've been through the disappointment, where does the liberation begins?"

I smiled sweetly: "Precisely when the disappointment ends. You see, my friend, I had translated Marcus Aurelius Meditations as part of my Latin classes with the local vicar, without really grasping the depths of it. Perhaps I do have a heritage of escapism. But I've chosen the better share of it. That day I realized the meaning of the phrase I'd translated without truly understanding it: Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions- not outside. Having realized that I had little control over outward circumstances, but full agency over my reaction to them; I began gaining control over my own destiny."

"A valuable lesson for a thirteen year old to learn, whilst some grown men never do learn it."

"That day Albus Dumbledore stopped being fate's fool and became the master of his life, in as much as we all can be. And that is what that map commemorates, my friend. That night I re-read Meditations in one sitting. The next day I secured employment at the local librarian and the local pub. Your great-aunt provided me with references without really knowing me. For that I'm grateful. I worked two full time jobs and, by the end of the summer, I had paid off the debt and had our chimney reconnected. I also had enough left to buy some of the school supplies I needed, second hand, of course. You disparage the use of old text books, I bless the oversight because my father's and mother's old text books have served me well. The next school year, I began looking for ways of securing a better situation. By fourteen I was already writing papers, aiding in classes and doing every odd job I could lay hands on. So I was the factual bread winner of my home; set on procuring a better lot for myself; while taking the lot I had with much better spirits than I had so far."

"That is something to commemorate indeed. How did you end up taking classes from the local Muggle priest?"

"My very wise grandfather, noticing my less than honorable Muggle friends, wanted me to also become familiar with the best that Muggles have to offer. The local vicar was a hidden jewel: a free thinker who, even in doubt, found enough goodness in the idea of a god to devote his life to it. The priest was also an avid reader, he had been educated to become a prince of the church, but had renounced the race for becoming a bishop because he had little patience for clerical politics. That was a disappointment to the bishop who had sponsored him so far and the vicar ended up being exiled in Mould-on-the-Wold, where he passed his time providing spiritual consolation to old ladies and tutoring the local kids. I was one of those who benefited from it. He taught me Mathematics and Grammar. He also inculcated in me a love for knowledge that is the best gift any teacher can give you. When he realized how avid I was to learn all he could teach, he set up private lessons of Latin, Greek, French, Science and Philosophy."

"As I said, birds of feather…"

"The vicar appraised my quick wit and said that, being a leader among my peers, I had the moral obligation of becoming a beacon of light instead of the devil's instrument. I don't know how well I fared as a beacon of light. I still ran amok raising havoc with my Baker St. Irregulars in the afternoon. But in the mornings I learnt a great deal from the man. We aided each other to feel less lonely in Mould-on-the-Wold. Though it was not to last long. I had just turned ten when he died of the flu. I mourned him and my grandfather who had died a few months after the vicar. The priest bequeathed me his library. It includes a couple hundred of classics but also fiction books for the man loved Conan Doyle, Balzac, Poe and Hugo as much as he loved Newton, Pascal, Mendeleev, Clerk Maxwell, Gauss, Thomas Aquinas, Kant and Rousseau. Quite frankly, the vicar had a wide variety of interests, some of which weren't particularly pious. His library became the seedling of mine, for almost every penny I can spend on myself, I spend on books. I've preserved the vicar's library almost intact save for a couple of books my father burnt during one of our fights."

He frowned: "I'm sorry, my friend, but your father was a brute."

"I cannot argue you that." I sighed.

"Who took care of you after your grandfather and the vicar died?"

"I took charge of raising myself and my siblings as well as I could. Though I'm afraid I haven't been very successful fulfilling my family obligations."

He humphed: "Yes, I don't believe those family obligations truly belonged to a ten year old. But we'll leave that discussion also for later on. The tattoo is done. Now all we need is a piece of your soul."

I looked at him taken aback. But before I could protest he kissed me deeply. He coerced his tongue inside my mouth making me moan. I was lost in the kiss when he bit my lips sharply until he drew blood. I pulled away and broke the kiss. Using the Swabian's strength he held me fast with one arm while he passed his thumb over my bleeding lips.

When he let go I looked away, sucking on my hurt lip: "Was that really necessary?"

He didn't answer immediately as he was busy muttering some words in a language I didn't understand, making signs over the tattoo with the blood he had taken. But he had taken more than blood. Looking at his head leaning over my knee I realized I loved him. I barely knew the guy, I didn't trust him or his designs, but the undeniable fact was that I loved him. I tried telling myself that all I was feeling was want, but what I felt for Gellert Grindelwald ran deeper than desire. That left me utterly confused. Which I'm sure was exactly his intention.

He smiled: "Blood is part of the rite. The kiss was an added perk."

I frowned: "Next time, kindly inform me of what you intend to do before you proceed. That would be a requisite under the full disclosure agreement I will need in order to pursue this association with you."

"I'll tell you next time. Now we need to travel a few days back and set up the meeting with El gato."

"You are pulling my leg! Am I to stay in the bellboy's skin for a couple of days?"

"Actually, it will be more like a month. We need to establish our cover identities convincingly and you need to train using different wands with the disguise."

"Damn you Gellert Grindelwald! You should have told me this beforehand!"

"I'm telling you now." He smiled a sweet boyish grin: "Besides that will give us time to prepare your birthday celebration, Albus Dumbledore."

I scoffed: "My birthday was two weeks before we met, Monsieur Grindelwald."

He laughed: "That is one advantage of having a time-traveling device, your birthday is whenever you want it to be. And the training will be hard we'll need every day we can get for it. You'll see."

We traveled a month back. We engaged a somewhat more discreet room than the one we had in Paris in the newly rebuilt Claridge's Hotel. Before he had permanent boarding in his Belgrave Square apartment, Gellert usually stayed at The Savoy when in London. The man was not into self-denial. But he thought Claridge's worked better for our cover as filthy rich gentleman engaged in less than honorable pursues. After eating a very satisfactory lunch in Claridge's public room; he went -posing as the Swabian with a thick German accent- to set up a meeting with a shady wizard from Edinburgh. The chap promised to put us in contact with El gato's right hand. It took us three days to finally meet with the brutish brother of the lady ruler of the Spanish wizarding underworld. After going back and forth for another three days; the exchange of carapace and pendant was agreed to take place a couple of weeks later. We checked out of the hotel and went back to Málaga, three weeks earlier than we had before the trip to Paris. I was beginning to understand why Gellert needed to keep careful register of his travels.

Karl the elf, who obviously was used to his master time-traveling and Polyjuice Potion shenanigans, greeted us just as warmly as he had before...or after. Time traveling can get a bit confusing. Gellert had Karl pack us a luncheon and water canteens in a couple of bags and we hiked up the mountain to find a suitable place to train with the use of different wands.

"All these used to be vineyards but the phylloxera fly took care of it. Now they are mostly empty but they will serve our purposes just fine."

We were standing in a clearing. He pulled a duffel bag from his space-pocket pouch and began setting things up.

I frowned: "What are those?"

"Those are bowling pins. Haven't you ever played?"

"I have, it was a very popular game back at school, what I meant was: What are those for?"

"To help you train in using different wands. I told you we need you to be battle ready."

I laughed: "Are you honestly suggesting I can get battle ready with something as ridiculous as bowling?"

He smiled: "My friend, you will find few things as interesting as ten-pin bowling! Are you familiar with a Muggle called Gauss?"

I nodded: "Yes, he was called the prince of mathematicians and I've already told you some of his works were in the vicar's library. You have a good memory so don't pretend not to remember."

His smile widened: "I do remember, but it seems you don't. I'll explain you why ten-pin bowling is fascinating while you train." He pulled a case full with wands: "I think you should try with this one first, it is Black Walnut with a kneazel whisker core."

"Merlin's beard! Where did you get all those wands? Did you steal them?"

He chuckled: "Not quite. They were lying in glass cases inside the Grindelwald's family mausoleum and I saw no reason for letting them lay there. Some cores, especially the Unicorn's hairs, had to be replaced. But I thought these wands were better off aiding me in my quest than rotting inside a tomb."

"You will go as far as grave-robbing your own family to get what you want? Who are you, Gellert Grindelwald?!"

He looked at me dead serious: "I'm the wizard who is going to save the world. And, if you manage to get past the minutia, you are the wizard who is going to help me accomplish it, Albus Dumbledore. Are you up for the task?"

It is easy to call myself stupid ex post facto, but I dare anyone to have stood there looking a that young man with steely resolve and not have believed every word he said.

I nodded seriously, wielding the Black Walnut wand: "You want me to topple the pins?"

He nodded back: "Yes, I want you to try. Let me go first though." He picked a wand from the case: "This is Spruce with a Unicorn core. It was Nagymama's and it is an endless source of frustration that I have a hard time mastering it. Let us say this wand shares on some of Nagymama's dark sense of humor." He swung the wand and all that came out of it were colorful sparks and something that sounded pretty much like a farting fanfare. He inhaled deeply and, as he exhaled, he muttered angrily: "Lófasz!"

I laughed: "Merlin's beard, Gellert! What happened? That was pitiable!"

He sighed: "Try your wand, Albus."

I did and I only managed to make the first pin quiver. I frowned: "What is wrong with this wand?"

He took it from my hand, flicked it and made a perfect strike: "Nothing is wrong with the wand." He flicked it again and the triangular frame of wood levitated to the pins that rose to meet it and were set up again. He handed the wand back and said: "Try again."

I did with all my might and all I managed was to topple the first pin: "Is this a trick wand?" Frowning deeply I cast wandless and made all the pins fall. "It is a trick wand! How dare you, Gellert!"

He laughed: "It is not a trick wand, my friend. It is a tricky wand for you, as I thought it would be; because Black Walnut and an unconventional core only works for self-aware and sincere owners."

I laughed meanly: "Then that wand is defective because you are many things, my friend, but sincere is not one thing I would call you."

He chuckled: "It doesn't need you to be sincere with others, but with yourself and I suspect that you, sir, practice the art of self-deception. I thought that wand would be the very worst pairing with you and that is why I gave it to you. You need to be able to use any wand. Because some powerful spells you can use to save your life work best through a wand. Hence, even if you are a gifted wandless caster, you still must practice and that practice needs to be progressive. Now you have seen what I mean you can start with an Elm, that being the most common wood in England. Here is one with a phoenix core, changing cores can be very tricky." He handed me the Elm wand.

"Were do you get that knowledge of wandlore?"

"From your Mr. Ollivander's note books. He keeps very good records and has very interesting insights. He also has a lax security in regards to his personal quarters, where he keeps his diaries. I was able to break in and copy the notes without him being the wiser. Though wandlore should be one of the few subjects restricted by your Ministry upon reasons of state."

I scoffed: "Again, I don't know if I should be impressed or terrified by you Gellert."

"This is serious and I like to be thorough in matters of life and death. Stop stalling, Albus, try again."

It worked better, but I only managed to topple a couple of pins: "Merlin's blood! Why is this so hard?!"

He sighed: "Loyalty: powerful cores get attached to their owners and commanding immediate loyalty from another person's wand is tricky. That is why it requires practice. Even if I'm making it easy by using a perfect equilateral triangle to set up the pins."

"Why would that make things easier?"

"It is a problem of connectivity. Keep trying while I explain it to you."

I was trying to get the triangular wood frame and the pins to levitate the way I wanted and was having a really hard time trying. I denied: "I don't think so, I need to focus all my attention to get even the barest magic out of this bloody wand. I don't think I can manage while chatting."

He laughed meanly: "Remember this is to get you battle ready? Do you honestly believe that in the midst of a life and death fight there won't be a hundred distractions worse than a conversational voice? It is crucial that you are able to cast with that wand and at the same time pay attention to what we say to each other, while ignoring the birds, the bunnies and the river. I need to know you will be able to do this before putting you in actual danger. The people we are facing are not going to be dueling politely. They are going to try to kill us and I don't want to get you killed. So please, Albus, do try."

"I'm trying!"

"Then try harder!"

I inhaled deeply: "Fine, I'll try harder. Carry on."

Ron Weasley exclaimed: "Bloody Hell! Can you believe this guy? Who thinks of training with different wands? And he was sixteen, well eighteen if you go by biological time or whatever… I remember what a hard time I had with Charlie's old wand and how bad Neville was with his first wand; so it might be useful to give it a try… I mean, if I were still an Auror I might have liked to look into it, mate."

Hermione shot an inquiringly look at her husband but he evaded her eyes. Ron seldom mentioned his time in the Aurors. She sighed and kept reading.

"Ten pins set up in an equilateral triangle are the 4th Triangular number T4=10. Triangular numbers are figurate numbers that count objects arranged in equilateral triangles and are a very interesting concept. This Muggle Gauss is said to have calculated T100 to solve the question of adding up the first 100 numbers. Legend has it his teacher left the task to get the children out of his hair but little Gauss solved it almost immediately by realizing that he could pair numbers up to ease the task."

I was working hard on toppling the pins but I stopped: "I'm not sure I understand what you mean by pairing numbers to ease the task."

He chuckled: "Give it a thought, here is a clue: leave out 50 and 100, that way you can arrange the rest of the numbers to add them easily."

I was sweating, but I had managed to topple all pins but two. I sighed, pulling at my lower lip. Then it hit me: "If I take 1 and 99 they add up to 100. Is the same if I take 2 and 98, and so forth up to 49 and 51. I have 49 hundreds which mean I have 4,900 plus the100 and the 50 I had left out."

"Exactly. You only need to add three rather easy numbers to get the answer which is T100=5,050." He wrote with his wand on the soft soil: "All triangular numbers can be expressed as Δ= n*(n1)/2."

"That is interesting but I don't see how the equilateral triangle makes getting a strike easier?"

"Let me explain it, my friend, T4 =10 and is also the result of adding the first four numbers. It is also the answer of how many handshakes are given so that everyone gets to shake everyone else hand in a room with 5 people. You can think that the first person shakes hands with 4 people, the second has only 3 people left to shake hands with and so forth." Again he wrote on the ground: "The total number of handshakes is n*(n-1)/2 with n=5 which equals 10. But 10 is the 4th triangular number so you only need to calculate Tn-1 to get the number of handshakes that are given in a room with n people..."

I gasped: "It is a problem of connectivity! And what is a strike but the pins all giving handshakes to each other in a way that gets them toppled?" My grandfather Abercrombie talked about cheap miracles, when referring to little coincidences that keep everyday life magical. In that precise moment I got a strike: "A strike! I got a strike!" I was so happy that I hugged him.

He hugged me back and leaned in to give me a kiss. This one was sweet and playful.

Still embracing him I asked: "What was that for?"

He chuckled: "I just felt like kissing you."

I laughed softly: "And I had thought it was a reward for getting a strike."

He laughed wickedly: "Is that a better incentive than keeping yourself alive? Very well, every time you get a strike you'll get a kiss."

Then it hit me: "Sweet Merlin! I still look like the bellboy! You shouldn't have kissed me!"

"Calm down Albus, I'm not going to get sick just by kissing you."

"No it's not because of that. It's because I look so hideous. Why would you want to kiss me looking like this?"

"Your looks are kind of growing on me. They don't seem half as bad, as long as you are the one wearing them. You shine even through the bellboy's skin, my friend."

I didn't know how to respond to that: "Ah..."

"Now, why don't you try with an English Oak wand, but this one with a dragon heartstring core. You'll try while I tell you about Fermat's polygonal number theorem and how Gauss figured out that all positive integers can be expressed as the sum of three or less triangular numbers..."

We trained, talked and kissed until I felt my body aflame. Part of it was probably due to the weather, I didn't want to over-think about what the other reasons might be.

He looked at the sun that had begun going down in the horizon from where it had been at midday. He began unbuttoning his shirt as he said: "I think that is enough for today. Why don't we have a swim in the Guadalmedina river and then we head back home for dinner? I'm famished."

"Uh, did Karl packed the swimsuits?"

He laughed raucously: "Albus, none of my old school swimsuits are going to fit these bodies. The Swabian is too big and the bellboy is too lanky. I'm going to have a swim because I'm dusty and sweaty. There is no hidden hook in my proposal. If your standards of decency don't allow you to skinny dip, you are welcome to stay back." He turned his back on me and continued disrobing.

It was a very hot June day and I was sweaty and dusty too. Besides, it was not really my body being exposed to indecency; but that of the bellboy. Something told me indecency was an old acquaintance of the guy. Thinking about the bellboy's naked wiry, rash covered body almost made me gag. I figured out my virtue would be perfectly safe as long as I was wearing the boy's looks. I followed Gellert to the river undressing as I went.

We were laying naked on the riverbank, drying up in the sun when it hit me. How odd it would be that when I went back home, I was going to go back only a few hours after meeting him. I was barely able to remember how my life had been before we got to be together all day long. The bleak days, filled with menial tasks and drudging, with nothing to hope for, seemed like a bad dream. But, eventually, I had to go back to that life. For my life was not my own. I had lost the right to it when I acquired the debt I owed to my brother and sister.

The image of Aberforth and Ariana weighted heavily on me. I felt the pull of my obligation to them like a curse I couldn't escape. I couldn't help it. I began crying with long, drawn up sobs of perfect despair. I embrace my legs and I rocked back and forth burying my head between my knees. All my claims of having found peace in stoicism tumbling like a castle of cards.

Gellert embraced me from behind. Rocking with me and hushing soothingly until the sobs turned into sights and then into silence. He caressed my hair and said: "Do you want to talk about it?"

I sighed deeply: "You are going to hate me… Just like everyone else." That thought almost sent me into another fit of crying. I buried my head deeper in my knees.

"Albus Dumbledore, there is nothing you can tell me that could make me hate you."

I laughed bitterly: "Wait until you hear this. This is bad."

He embraced me tighter: "Then let it out. You cannot heal if you keep what's wrong inside you."

I nodded: "This is about the time I spent pretending to be a Muggle boy."

"You said it ended up with you getting scarred. Did they hurt you?"

"No. I wasn't hurt directly..." I hesitated: "I've never talked about this with anyone before. I'm not sure where to start."

"How about you pick it up where you left it last time. Your grandfather and the vicar had died. Yet you were still pretending you were a Muggle."

"That's the thing. I was no longer pretending. When the vicar died and left me his library the cat was let out of the bag. My father was furious; he forbid me from going into town. Since I was only a few months away from being able to go to Hogwarts, I decided that I would obey the man. I basically locked myself in my room and began methodically reading the library the vicar had bequeathed me. That is how my father found me. He had been looking for me to try to teach me to ride a broom for the umpteen time. I told him I was not interested. He took offense. We had a big fight. He burnt two books and I set his favorite broom on fire, mostly unintentionally, at least on my part. He slapped me. I let my temper run wild and called him a drunkard and a failure. We were making enough noise to wake up my mum. She came out of her room furious like a dragon and she said that we'd better stop the infernal din. My dad knew better than to cross her so he shut up. When she asked me where grandpa was I felt thunderstruck. I told her that grandpa had been dead and buried for months. She just stared blankly at me. And father..." I felt a lump in my throat: "Father just laughed. I couldn't stand it. I stormed out and went to the quarry."

"The quarry where you gave yourself gills."

"Yes. I feel a keen affinity to water. It soothes me. One of the best things of diving is that tears get lost in the water. It is easier not to cry when you are underwater."

"You are a Cancer, a child of the moon. Your tears are pearls for the fish in the deep."

I smiled: "And you are a Leo, a child of the sun. Your laughter is a breeze for the birds in the sky."

He shrugged: "We are both denizens of the summer."

"I didn't give myself gills that time. I was not alone. There was a boy there: Gabriel. He was the youngest of the parson and one year older than me. The parson and his family had been en route to become missionaries in Africa; but the autumn had caught up with them before they could set out. The parson was trying to figure out what to do, for they weren't going to be able to set sail until the following spring; when, advised of the vicar's dead, he had come to fill in temporarily. Gabriel's father was a very different kind of priest from my old vicar. He was the type who peddles a fire and brimstone version of the afterlife to scare people into behaving in this life. His two older boys were cut from the same pattern as he was: Surly men with little to say save for pointing without leniency or compassion at the faults of their fellow men. The mother was a pale skinny woman with little character of her own. It is sad when a person becomes an afterword and this woman felt comfortable in the role of addendum to her husband grandiloquent preaching. I would have never gotten close to that Muggle family, if it hadn't been for Gabriel. The youngest son of the parson was a free spirit. He was beautiful like a Ganymede and fearless like an Achilles. He and I became fast friends almost on the spot."

"Ah, you fell in love with the boy."

"I think I was too young to really understand what love is. But I felt so drawn to the boy and I felt so little consideration for my father's prohibition that I began playing a dangerous game. I often escaped home to go visit Gabriel and his family."

"Did they found out what you are?"

"I think the two older boys suspected me. I was infatuated enough with Gabriel to want to bend some rules for him. Things seemed to accommodate to my friend's whims on their own accord. His older brothers grew vigilant, but I was an arrogant fool."

"How so?"

"For example: they kept interrogating me about where I lived and one time they had tried to follow me home; I put a curse on them so they could only walk over their own steps in a circle. According to Gabriel it had been past nightfall when they managed to find their way back home. Their father had used the paddle on them, even though the oldest one was fourteen."

"Oh Albus, you devil."

"I would find it funny, if it weren't for the fact that those fools thought I was a devil." I sobbed again.

He caressed my back: "It's alright, Albus. You can tell me anything."

I muttered: "Among all the rumors you've heard about my family… Have you heard about my sister?"

He shrugged: "People say that your mother birthed a squib girl and was so ashamed of it that she hid her in your attic. After getting to know you I'm convinced you couldn't tolerate that."

"My sister Ariana is not a squib, once upon a time she was the very opposite of it. When she was a baby she was so downright magical that when she took her first steps, flowers grew where she passed. Then she tried to run, fell on her buttocks and cried." I chuckled: "She cried so hard she managed to cast a small cloud right over her head. My father just laughed at her and my mum was… under the weather. So it wasn't until my grandpa comfort her that the cloud disappeared. I loved her dearly."

He looked frowning at me: "What happened?"

"After the incorporation of the Kingdom of Manipur to the British territory, her majesty found herself new souls to convert to the Anglican church and Gabriel's father was called forth for the task. They were going to leave earlier, before the winter could make the voyage difficult. I had some savings and wanted to buy some confectionery for Gabriel, I had been doing that when I learnt the town's gossip from an old associate of mine. I felt quite devastated. I needed to at least say goodbye. I went home looking for a pirate novel of Salgari: The Tigers of Mompracem which I had read to him and he had liked and then I went to find him. My little sister wanted to play bouncy but I was in rush."

"What is bouncy?"

"Bouncy is a game we invented in which we made each other rubber like and bounced in the garden."

"Ah, it is not so much as you invented it, I think that versions of the game are re discovered by wizarding children over and over."

"I was in a hurry. I ran out and I closed the garden door behind me but..." Another sob broke my voice: "Ariana was so magical… And grandpa was right, magic is will, will is magic. She managed to open the door and followed me. My brother loves Ariana blindly, he followed her. The parson boys found them trying to play bouncy."

Gellert gasped: "Kegyelem, Merlin!"

"They though she was possessed. She was powerful but she was only six. She was petrified. Aberforth tried to stop them but the second boy immobilized him while the eldest tried to exorcise her. That is how I found them. I went berserk. I thought that as they had wanted the devil they had finally found him. I'm not sure how I did it, I cast a hail and fire storm and made them run. But Ariana was lying on the floor catatonic. I carried her home with Aberforth's help and went inside to find my parents. My mum was out cold. I finally managed to wake up my father and told him what had happened." I began crying once more: "I don't think he would have done what he did, if he had been sober. He was furious, unhinged. He really scared me. I couldn't answer when he asked who had done it. But Aberforth told him it had been the parson's boys. What happened next was in the papers. He attacked the parish, he used Crucio in the older boy and Imperius on the middle child to make him torture Gabriel." I moaned: "Even though he had nothing to do with it. When the parson came out to try to defend his sons, my father used Avada Kedavra on him. I think that finally sobered him up. He came to the house looking very pale. He said I had to go hide with Ariana before the Aurors came."

"Where did you hide?"

"I hid in the quarry. I gave us both gills and held my sister's unresponsive hand until I was sure the Aurors had left. I carried her back home and found my mum crying. She spat on my face and said that I was supposed to watch over my brother and sister and now I had left them orphaned."

He turned away from me shaking and with his hands in fists. My lips quivered as I tried to justify myself: "I didn't mean to. Please don't hate me!"

He turned around: "How could I? I was trying to refrain from telling exactly what I think of a mother that can say that to her own child." He breathed in deeply: "Albus, hurt can fix us in a place and prevent us from moving on as if we were a butterfly pinned to the felt. I know there is a grieving ten year old inside you and is to that little boy I want to talk to: What happened was not your fault."

I mumbled: "The evidence is pretty condemning."

He scoffed: "How close to your home did the attack on your sister happened?"

"It was right outside our garden. The Muggle boys had seen the direction I had gone to when I cursed them and were looking for me."

"It is not the responsibility of a ten year old to make sure his house had protective spells in place to guarantee no Muggle would go near it and if they do that they won't be able to see a thing. Furthermore, even that zealot Muggle ran out to defend his young when he heard them being tortured. Didn't your brother and sister make a sound as they were being hurt?"

"I suppose so."

"The moment you noticed what was happening you ran to them, a very natural reaction. Where were your parents, Albus? That is, of course, a rhetorical question. It is easy to surmise one was with the bottle and the other with the dream potion. They should have watched over you, failing that they should have stopped the attack and oblivated the boys. It was not you, a mere child, who should have protected your brother and sister. That was your parents' responsibility to protect all of you. They failed all three of you and, frankly, my friend, given their parenting skills, they had left you three orphaned way before the incident."

It was as if he had drained an old festering wound. The pus was out and I could begin to heal. I embraced him tightly, forgetting we were both naked. I had bared my soul to the man, shared my deepest darkest with him; baring my skin seemed of little consequence. Sex is just one way of being intimate and in that precise moment it was the furthest thing from my mind. I let myself be comforted and, for the first time in eight long years, I was able to forgive myself from the heart.