• FOUR •

For Truth, For Love and For Freedom

Bathilda's hallway was so dark compared with the sunlit haven of Albus' bedroom that he could hardly see Gellert's face as the other boy closed the front door and advanced into the hallway. He remained with his back pressed against the wood, breathing in the lingering smell of baking and the new aroma of rich meat, while Gellert approached the door of the kitchen, glancing back at Albus as he went.

"Aunt, I have found Albus. We're back."

There came the rustle of robes, then Bathilda's silhouette peered around the kitchen door, a potato peeler in her right hand. "You have? Oh, there you are, Albus dear! I wondered what had happened to you. You were gone for such a long time, I sent Gellert around to check that everything was all right. You are all right, aren't you, dear?" She peered at him, her lips pursed, and Albus assumed his usual polite mask.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs Bagshot. I'm very well."

Both great-aunt and nephew scrutinised him for a good thirty seconds. Albus kept his gaze on Gellert's shoulder, feeling the bright eyes' burn on his face until the other boy turned away and bestowed his dazzling smile on Bathilda.

"They were all in the kitchen when I got there. It's a nice little kitchen, a bit like yours, Aunt. But I think Albus' might be a bit tidier."

Bathilda shook her head. "I don't doubt that, now that I have you on my hands. Your mother tells me you are the messiest person she has ever laid eyes on."

Gellert laughed, throwing back his head so that his curls bounced everywhere. "Perhaps I am. But I really don't mean to be. It isn't my fault if things end up in the opposite place to where they are supposed to be. But I will help you tidy away the dinner things when Albus has gone home, Aunt. And you must write home to Mother and tell her how dutiful I'm being."

Bathilda laughed. "Oh, you're such a charming boy. What are Albus and I going to do with you?" She glanced at Albus, who was still hovering by the front door, and her smile faltered into a frown of concern. "Are you sure you're all right, Albus dear? I'm sorry if Gellert disturbed you when you were back at home; he can be dreadfully forward sometimes."

Albus rearranged his mask into a smile, blushing as he felt Gellert's eyes on him again. "No. No, he didn't disturb us at all. Aberforth and I were just talking about… well, about coming to dinner."

"But he didn't want to come over here?"

"No. I'm sorry, Mrs Bagshot. I'm sure he didn't mean it in an offensive way. You know how he gets-"

Bathilda sighed, turning away to return to the kitchen. "I do, dear. You poor thing. But he can't help it, can he? None of you can, not after Kendra's little accident." She caught sight of his face, then raised her voice. "Right, boys. If you'll just pop upstairs for a bit, I'll get dinner ready. It shouldn't be much longer now. Gellert dear, why don't you show Albus your bedroom? I'm sure you'd be more comfortable up there, and Albus has never seen the spare room before."

Gellert eyed Albus curiously. "You haven't?" he asked and, when Albus shook his head, he smiled. "Then I will show you. But I think you will be very disappointed by the lack of books."

Biting back a smile, Albus pulled himself away from the door and followed the other boy up the set of narrow stairs to the floral-patterned landing. Like Albus' own home, four doors led off the dim corridor into various rooms, but two, as he knew from years of visits, led into Bathilda's study and the room where she kept all her paperwork. At the far end of the landing, the door to the spare room was slightly ajar and Albus could just make out the leg of an old metal bed in the gap between the door and the wall.

Pushing at the worn wood, Gellert led the way inside and Albus followed him, looking around at the wooden floorboards, the huge wardrobe that stood propped against the wall, and the unmade bed that looked as though it had been involved in a small hurricane. Just as Gellert had said, there were no books, except for a few foreign-looking comics and a very battered copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard on a shelf beside the door. Sunlight danced through the window above the bed, illuminating the dust that floated lazily along in mid-air, and Gellert pulled out his wand as he strode forwards into the centre of the room, pointing it at the bright glass so that the room exploded in a shower of golden light.

Albus blinked as the wand was lowered; the window was wide open and the breeze fluttered through it, welcome on his sticky skin. Gellert tucked the wand back into his pocket and Albus watched him, awed.

"I didn't know you were of age."

The other boy turned, the sunlight falling over his face so that it shone with mischievous delight. "I am not. I turned sixteen this year. But what does the Ministry need to know about my magic? I was expelled and therefore have a right to my freedom."

Albus stared at him. "You're not-?"

"Seventeen?" Gellert smiled at the shock on Albus' face. "No. But you must be, am I right? If you have already left Hogwarts, you can't be younger than eighteen or so."

"You're right. My eighteenth birthday is in about a month."

"It is? Well, your siblings shouldn't be that much younger than me. Sit down, if you like. Excuse the mess." Gellert gestured to the bed and Albus eyed it, his throat dry, before taking the smallest corner of the mattress and perching gingerly near the bedpost.

"Thank you. Ariana is still only fourteen, but Aberforth is a year below you at school. Or at least, he would have been, if you had gone to Hogwarts."

Gellert nodded, examining the fingernails of his right hand. Albus felt his eyes drawn to them too. They were smooth and clean, neatly rounded but uneven in places, as though Gellert nibbled them from time to time.

The other boy caught him looking. "I'm a nail-biter. Mother hates it. But Old Batty doesn't seem to mind. Your brother doesn't like me, though, does he? I noticed that earlier when I was in your kitchen."

His tone was easy, as careless and light as the rest of him, but Albus detected a tang of something sharper beneath the humour. He bit his lip.

"Aberfoth doesn't like many people. Don't take it personally - please - he's just-" But the words caught in his throat and refused to unstick themselves.

A faint frown appeared at the corners of Gellert's mouth. "Just what?"

"Just…" Albus hunched further into the bedpost, the hard metal biting through his shirt into his skin. He sighed. "You mustn't hate him or anything. Aberforth isn't unreasonable. He's just angry, upset that our mother… Well, you know about that. And then there's Ariana-" His voice broke again.

Gellert's gaze bored into his and did not shift, even when Albus turned his head. "She isn't just unwell, is she?" he asked and his voice was so quiet that it seared like ice.

Albus closed his eyes, desperate to block out the face that danced tantalizingly close to his. "I can't tell you."

"And why not?"

"I mean, I won't tell you."

He opened his eyes. Gellert had moved backwards so that they were no longer within inches of each other, and lounged against the wall, as intense as ever.

"Albus, I know that your sister is not unwell. I see it in your face, in your eyes, in your soul. You hide many secrets, but you have much to learn; the truth can always be found if you look hard enough."

"I've known you for an hour."

"A whole hour and twelve minutes. Those twelve minutes make all the difference. Tell me."

Albus did not move from his corner. "How can I? Besides, the truth doesn't always need to be found. Sometimes it's better if it isn't."

"And sometimes it's better if it is."

Gellert's eyes gleamed with life again and Albus felt the teasing smile tug at him, luring him away from the crevices of secrecy. His mother had always rejected the idea of truth: "You are what you choose to reveal, and no more," she had told him, one winter's evening, as he had sat on her lap by the dying fireside. He remembered her sincerity, the cool lull of her voice, the way he had been completely and utterly convinced that she was right. He still was, nothing could change that; secrecy was all that had kept them afloat for the past two decades. But something flared within him whenever Gellert Grindelwald spoke and he was a fool to resist such temptation.

"The truth," Albus sighed, his eyes fixed on Gellert's knee, "is dangerous and complex and enough to send the entire family to Azkaban. If the Ministry knew what Ariana was-"

"Your sister is unstable?"

Albus hesitated. "Yes," he murmured. He watched Gellert's expression as it melted from one of fear to one of shock, and then to morbid fascination, but the other boy appeared not to notice. His wild, gleeful look had - for the merest, fleeting second - vanished, to be replaced by something dark and cold, an expression that burned with power.

"She has explosive magic."

Albus nodded slowly. "Yes."

The hunger in Gellert's face flickered and died, his features smoothing themselves back into their usual graceful easiness. "Well, that is quite something. Tell me how it happened."

"I'm afraid I don't understand you."

Gellert exhaled, a long, slow breath that lingered in the air and on Albus' skin. "How did she become what she is?"

"She isn't anything," said Albus softly. "She's just a girl - a scared, sweet, harmless little girl who doesn't know what she's doing. But it happened when she was six. Some boys… they saw her doing magic through the garden hedge - she used to like to play with the snails… she called them her friends - and they attacked her. It wasn't her fault... or anyone's fault. But my father went after the boys that did it and sought his revenge. They locked him up in Azkaban. We never saw him again."

A flash of fire, lit Gellert's eyes once more. "Muggles did this?"

"Yes," said Albus quietly, his throat raw and eyes stinging. "Yes, they did. But it wasn't about them. They didn't know what they were doing-"

"Muggles never know what they are doing," said Gellert. His voice was soft, but there was a cold undertone to it that both terrified and intrigued Albus. "Never. Their barbarism, their cruelty, their complete inability to understand their superiors, is what makes them so ignorant of forces more powerful than they. Your sister could have had freedom and, instead, she was forced to live a life locked away from society, trapped by the people who should have loved and cared for her."

"That's not-" began Albus, but Gellert's lips were already moving.

"It is. That's precisely what your sister's situation is. Muggles are a threat to wizarding society, and we must be the ones to remove it."

Albus shook his head. "We mustn't. Not all muggles are dangerous, just the ones that attacked my sister. Anyway, what could we do? It isn't as though we could march into the Ministry of Magic and demand that all muggles be arrested."

"There are other ways," replied Gellert, and Albus saw that his eyes were gleaming, his head cocked to one side like an inquisitive child. His fingers reached out and draped themselves momentarily across Albus' knee. "There are other ways of removing such threats."

Albus couldn't breathe. He watched Gellert's fingers as they fell back into his lap, his right knee burning with jealousy over the tingling sensation that lingered in his left. Gellert watched him too, a smile flickering at the corners of his lips.

"I know there are other ways. But that doesn't mean we can execute them." Albus' tongue stumbled over the words before he remembered his ability to talk.

Gellert's fingers traced the same pattern on his own knee that he had traced on Albus'. "You really are the most dreadfully mundane wizard."

Albus smiled dryly. "So you keep telling me."

"You are the greatest wizard of the age. You alone are my equal. What is there holding us back from doing whatever it is that we like, from building a better world for wizards, from fighting for truth and for love and for freedom?"

"Gellert, we're teenagers. You're not even of age. No one would ever listen to us."

"But I have your interest," said Gellert lightly, his azure eyes flicking up to the ceiling. They looked down at Albus again, sharp and shrewd and calculating. He smiled. "Tell me I have your interest."

Albus sighed, amusement rolling through him for the first time in weeks. "I've known you for less than two hours and you are already the most impossible person I have ever met."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Another sigh, this one coupled with a smile. "It was hardly a question. But all right. I suppose you do have my interest. How exactly do you propose to go about conquering the world?"

Gellert considered this, his head cocked to one side so that he looked like an inquisitive child. "By force? By fear? By pressing our wands to the muggles' heads and forcing them into submission?"

Albus pursed his lips. "I doubt that is the best way of going about it."

"I disagree. But tell me how you would prefer the muggles to die. I am all ears."

"Die?" repeated Albus, leaning back against the bedpost. "Gellert, we're not organising a massacre. The death of muggles is not necessary. Anyway, you can't possibly be serious about this."

Gellert pushed his curls off his face and studied him. "I am perfectly serious about this," he said, and his eyes gleamed at the words.

Albus' gaze fell to his lap. "I don't hate muggles, Gellert," he said, his voice grating like sandpaper in his throat. "I can't. My mother was muggleborn and my friends have been muggleborn... and even your family must have muggle relations in it somewhere."

"That doesn't mean that they aren't a nuisance," said Gellert flatly. "Your own sister-"

But Albus interrupted. "Ariana would have been delicate anyway, even if the damage hadn't been permanent," he said quietly, examining his own legs. He tugged a loose thread from the edge of his belt buckle, while Gellert shook his head.

"She still deserves to be avenged."

Albus looked at him. His eyes smarted as Ariana's sweet smile bloomed in front of him, her blonde hair fluttering in the breeze, her blue eyes soft but sad. She had lost so much. They had all lost so much. He wanted nothing more than for Gellert to be right. Maybe it could be that simple. Maybe the two of them could create a better world - a world of freedom, of truth, of love - a world in which he wouldn't have to hide anymore or parrot the lies that his mother had drilled into him.

"Boys!" Bathilda's voice was so normal, so light and down-to-Earth that Albus drifted away in his own thoughts, still stuck in the land of daydreams, oddly disoriented.

Gellert glanced at the closed door then back at Albus. "We should go. I'm starving," he said. And, as Albus nodded, he strode towards the door and pulled it open, raising his voice to call onto the landing. "Coming, Aunt!"

Turning away from the golden haven of a bedroom for the second time that day, Albus followed Gellert back along the landing and down the stairs, the smell of stewed meat hitting him once more as they neared the kitchen. As they reached the dining room that led off a door to the right of the hallway, Gellert paused and turned, leaning forwards so that his breath tickled Albus' ear.

"Let's not tell Old Batty about our grand plans just yet," he whispered, letting his long fingers brush Albus'.

Albus wondered how human hearts could pound so fast and what would happen if his burst right out of his chest and made a mess on the carpet. He nodded, too breathless to speak, and Gellert smiled before stepping into the glow of the kitchen.

"Your cooking smells wonderful, Aunt."

A/N:

Thank you for reading! I haven't updated this for a long time, so I really appreciate your patience. If you have anything that you feel needs improving, please let me know. Otherwise, thanks for your support :)

~ Lacy