• CHAPTER SIX •

Masters of Death

"I want to show you something."

It came as no more than a whisper through the morning darkness, riding on the breeze through the open window. Albus jumped so violently that he slipped off the desk chair and banged his knee on the table leg. He whipped around.

"Gellert, what-?"

Gellert was perched on the edge of the windowsill, golden curls whisking around his shoulders. He smiled, twirling his wand between his fingers. "Good morning to you too."

Albus stared at him, speechless. "How did you get into my room?"

Gellert leapt down from the window and landed, with a light creak, on the wooden floorboards. "It was easy." He tucked away his wand and held out a hand. "Come. I want you to see something with me and there isn't much time. You have been reading my letters, haven't you?"

"Of course. But, Gellert, I don't- It's six in the morning, for Merlin's sake! Why are you even dressed?"

"I could ask the same about you."

Albus sighed, looking around the room at the recently vacated bed, the crumpled pair of pyjamas on the floor and the half-empty ink bottle that sat beside him. "I woke up early," he told Gellert, "and I thought I'd write to Elphias."

Gellert folded his arms. "The friend that left you?"

Slightly flustered, Albus shook his head. "Well, technically I left him. He did ask if I wanted him to leave the tour and stay here, but-"

"Put the letter away and come with me. You can write that later."

"I- Yes, I suppose I can. But you can't just appear in the middle of someone's room and expect them to follow you out of the house at the crack of dawn, Gellert. You're lucky I wasn't getting dressed!"

Gellert's eyes danced, full of mischief. "You call that lucky?"

Albus spluttered for a good thirty seconds until Gellert smiled, took his hand and dragged him towards the window, snatching Albus' wand off the desk as he went.

"All right. I'll come with you," said Albus, pulling free and prising his wand from Gellert. "Not that I have much of a choice. But where are we going, exactly?"

Gellert shook his head. "Somewhere important. I knew it must be here when I first arrived - I saw it. It's next to the church, just a few metres from a yew tree in the corner-"

Albus stopped dead in the centre of the room as realisation dawned. "We're going to St. Jerome's?"

"Is that what it's called?" asked Gellert idly, examining a fingernail. "Then, yes, I suppose we are."

"I've only known you for three days and you're already dragging me out of bed to visit a graveyard at the break of dawn? I'm all for mutual bonding experiences but-"

Gellert's fingers encircled Albus' wrist. "Dawn is the best time for research. No one will see us."

Albus let the other boy manoeuvre him forwards again, his skin prickling as his hands found the windowsill. "Gellert," he said quietly, "Gellert, I can't deny it; you're starting to scare me a little. See us doing what? What are you planning?"

"Nothing," replied Gellert, although Albus noticed that a smug smile flickered across his features. "I merely want to look at something undisturbed. And I thought you might like the honour of accompanying me."

Thinking privately that he'd rather have the honour of returning to bed, but blushing all the same, Albus watched as Gellert swung himself onto the window ledge and tugged his wand from his pocket.

"You're going to need a spell to get down."

Albus sighed. "Can we not just use the door?"

"That depends entirely on whether or not you want your brother to hear us," replied Gellert, studying Albus' face.

Hesitating for half a second, Albus shook his head and stepped towards the window, fingering his wand as he did so. "All right. All right, I will do it. But you really mustn't make this a regular thing. And please teach me the spell before we try it, or I'll fall to my death and your aunt will have to pick bits of me out of her front garden."

With a soft laugh, Gellert turned to face him again, one leg dangling out into the summer air. "We will teach each other. But listen. The spell requires much concentration and-"

But the nausea was already pounding through Albus. He closed his eyes, trying not to think about endless falling and stone floors and death. "Just tell me the incantation. Please. I'm not especially fond of heights, Gellert."

Curiosity flickered in Gellert's eyes. "You're not?" He smiled. "Then I suppose we have an issue."

Albus felt his cheeks burn and he turned away, while the other boy remained watching him.

"We are only about twenty feet up, Albus."

Albus shuddered. "Don't remind me," he begged, then he forced the fear into a crevice in the depths of his stomach. "So go on. What is this incantation and how do you perform the spell?"

"Like this," said Gellert simply and, with a sweep of his wand, he transformed the air around him into a rippling current of energy.

Albus felt his neck prickle as the magic swept past him. "That wasn't exactly specific," he complained, but, raising his wand likewise, he screwed up his concentration and let his instincts take over, feeling power trickle through his fingertips.

When he opened his eyes, he found Gellert watching him as he leant against the window frame, his expression so full of hunger that Albus felt horribly naked.

"So you can do it. Without my instruction."

Albus swallowed. "Well, yes," he said quietly. "It really isn't hard. Not once I've seen someone else do it. Magic comes from within, as naturally as sleep and breathing and hope. All we have to do is summon it."

"But really, that is rather impressive."

A strange lightness stole over Albus, a lightness that had nothing to do with the effects of the spell and everything to do with the expression on Gellert's face. He glanced down at the floor, noticing for the first time that his body had a strange, feathery shimmer about it. "Thank you."

The two of them looked at each other. Then Gellert turned his attention back to the window.

"Well," he said lightly, and the moment vanished. "We have dithered enough. It is time to test the magic for ourselves."

Albus' throat went very dry. "You… Do you honestly mean to tell me that you've never tried out this spell before? This is your first time using it?"

"Certainly," said Gellert, not glancing back. "There must be a first time for everything. Now come. We are wasting time and Old Batty said she would make pancakes."

Wondering whether he was going mad, Albus watched as Gellert leapt from the windowsill and soared through the air, the spell holding him up like ropes, like wings, so that he stayed up too long and landed too lightly. As soon as his feet reached the dewy grass, all traces of the magical tingle vanished and he was left mortal once more, a wild, gleeful boy with a headful of golden curls and dreams.

He tilted his head to the sky and called upwards, the sunlight splashing over his face. "I told you the spell would work, Albus!"

"That doesn't mean it's safe," muttered Albus, gripping the windowsill so hard that his knuckles turned white. He lowered himself onto it, straddling the wood and clinging with both hands. He closed his eyes. "Promise you'll catch me if I fall," he said.

Gellert laughed. "Just jump. You are the greatest wizard of the age; what do you think will happen?"

"I am never doing this again," grumbled Albus. But he pushed forwards and leapt anyway.

He knew he was on the ground the moment he felt Gellert's arm on his. Opening his eyes, he was dazzled by sunlight before he realised that he hadn't broken his neck, he wasn't lying in pieces on the garden path and his magic had somehow managed to work.

"Thank Merlin. I will never take the ground for granted again."

"You were only in the air for about a second. I'd like to do that again sometime. Maybe we should go to the rooftop to practice."

"No," said Albus firmly, clinging to Gellert's arm and swaying on the spot. "No, don't you dare. Anyway, you promised to show me something. In a graveyard, as I recall."

"We would have been there by now if it wasn't for you and your fear of heights," said Gellert with a roll of his eyes. But he kept Albus' arm on his as they made their way up the garden path, down the dusty lane and past the quiet little cottages on either side of it.

Albus remembered walking this exact path on the way to his mother's funeral, following the carriage bearing the coffin as it trundled forwards in a blur of black and misery. His heart clenched.

They reached the graveyard gate, the same spot where Albus had sat when Bathilda had first mentioned Gellert, all those days ago. He ran his fingers over the wood before opening it, feeling the creak as though it was inside him. He and Aberforth had chased each other around these graves when they had been young, returning to the house covered in dust, not minding in the slightest when their mother scolded them for ruining their clothes.

"This is the place, then?" Albus turned to Gellert and found that the other boy was standing stock-still by the gate, his eyes closed, breathing deeply in the summer air.

As though roused from a dream, Gellert opened his eyes and shook himself free, striding across the thick grass to the far corner by the church. "Yes. I can feel it."

Albus didn't bother to question this sentiment. He'd often felt similar things himself, those strange tugs that itched at him whenever magic was present. Together, they made their way between the graves, stumbling a little over the chunks of stone hidden by the earth. The graves nearest to the church were the oldest ones, Albus knew. He himself had run his fingers over the crumbling names more times than he could count.

They fell into a patch of shade and Albus followed Gellert onwards, marvelling at the way he seemed to know exactly where he was going, even though he couldn't possibly have been to this part of the village before.

"Are we almost there?"

"Nearly," replied Gellert without turning back. He seemed intent on looking for something, his azure eyes sweeping over the surfaces of each tomb they passed.

Albus tried to search too, although he had no idea what it was they were looking for, pausing at every name and date, wondering what the owners of the graves had been like in life and whether or not they had left family behind.

But at last, Gellert stopped.

"Here," he said sharply and Albus saw that he was breathing hard again. The stone beneath him was so weather-beaten that whole chunks of it had vanished altogether and the moss obscured most of the lettering.

Nevertheless, Albus felt his pulse quicken as he looked at it. Could it be-? But of course it was. He knew that it was.

"Ignotus Peverell," he breathed, dropping down so that he could read the familiar engravings. He glanced upwards to see Gellert gazing with the same intensity.

The blue eyes flickered for a moment in Albus' direction. "You knew that this was here?"

"Of course," said Albus in a low voice. "Of course I knew. I've been coming here for years. The youngest Peverell brother was buried right here, in this grave, in Godric's Hollow."

Gellert joined him on the grass. "So the Invisibility Cloak-" He didn't need to say it. They both knew what he meant.

"It can't be buried here, though," said Albus reasonably, running his fingers over the stone. "The legend says that he passed it onto his son. And the chances of the entire family remaining in Godric's Hollow are so slim that it's practically impossible."

"If I were his descendant, I'd have stayed here." The longing in Gellert's voice was difficult to miss.

Albus glanced at him. "Yes, but you're not. Neither of us are, as far as I know. But I still like to come here, every now and again. Especially when I visit-" His voice broke.

Gellert looked up and gently brushed his fingers against Albus' palm. "Where is she buried?"

Albus' voice shook as he spoke, pointing towards a clump of bushes several rows away. "Over- Over there."

Wordlessly, Gellert stood up and began to stride in the direction that Albus had indicated. Albus followed him, struggling to keep the tears at bay, tugging at the hem of his black jacket as though the mourning clothes had any say about his feelings.

They stopped together at precisely the same moment, each of them feeling the grave before they saw it. Albus wondered whether his heart was going to split in two. His mother. His stern, proud, clever mother - the woman who had nursed him and raised him and kissed him on the forehead whenever he and Aberforth banged heads - was buried in this hole, rotting away into dust, unaware of the son that stood over her. The tears slid over his cheeks before he could stop them and he did not wipe them away, although he knew that Gellert must be watching him.

"Albus?"

Albus didn't respond.

"Albus, look at me. What is the matter?"

"What do you think is the matter?" Albus choked, turning away from Gellert so he couldn't see the way his shoulders shook. "Everything is the matter. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know who I am, and now I'm head of a family that feels like it is doomed. And if it is, then it's all my fault because I'm selfish and horrible and cowardly."

"Albus." Gellert's fingers were warm on his clenched hands. "Albus, listen to me. We will glorify your family name. We will provide for the millions that have been forced to cower from their inheritance, forced to flee like rats from the muggle world. You will be honoured. You will be raised up and honoured beyond anything that others could give you. I will make sure of that."

"I don't want to talk about your plans," said Albus quietly, failing to stem the flow of tears with his sleeve.

"They're our plans, Albus," said Gellert, placing a hand on the side of his waist and steering him away from the grave. "Our plans. Now look at me."

Albus kept his gaze on the ground.

Gellert leaned in to breathe against his ear. "I said, look at me."

"I can't look at you if I can't turn my head," replied Albus, smiling in spite of himself.

Gellert's grip tightened on Albus' waist. "Albus. Albus, listen. I want you to be happy. But we shouldn't have come here. Let me take you somewhere less distracting for a while."

Albus wiped away the remaining tears. "Where?" he asked thickly.

But his friend's only response was to lead him away from his mother's grave, back in the direction they had come, to a thickly-knotted elder bush that squatted by the ruins of the graveyard wall. They were out of sight of the main gates here, but close enough to Ignotus' grave that Albus could see the faint outline of the symbol etched into its headstone; a vertical line and a small circle, both enclosed by a triangle. The symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

Safely in the bush's shadow, Gellert hauled himself up onto the most sturdy branch, a great, black strip that protruded sideways like an elephant's trunk. Albus climbed up too, a little more gingerly, shuffling along until he came to a section that was comfortable.

The tree creaked underneath them and they sat there in silence for a good few minutes, Albus painfully aware of how close they were, the way that the elderflower blossoms tickled his nose, the way that - despite the fact that he felt surrounded by death - he wanted to hold onto this moment and sit in it forever.

"How… How did it happen?" Gellert broke the silence first and, although Albus knew exactly what he meant, he said nothing, focusing instead on a patch of moss that grew between them. So Gellert pressed on: "Your mother, I mean. How did she die?"

Albus struggled against the lure of his voice, but at last it became too much. "It was a backfiring charm," he murmured, and the words felt as though they were torn from his chest against his will.

Gellert leaned closer, his curls tickling Albus' cheek. "I want the truth," he whispered, while Albus shivered. "Tell me everything. How did it really happen?"

But Albus could not, would not betray Ariana. And, as he couldn't keep lying to Gellert either, he remained silent. Gellert filled in the gaps for him.

"It was your sister, wasn't it? Your sister's magic went wrong."

Before he could even open his mouth to deny it, Albus knew that his expression had given him away. His shoulders slumped. "Yes," he told Gellert. "I suppose it did… in a way. Aberforth was out and I was- I was upstairs… and Ariana couldn't be calmed down without Aberforth. My mother was trying to sort her out but she was weak, she was tired. It wasn't as though Ari could control it... But- But our mother was killed."

"I'm sorry," said Gellert softly.

"It's okay," replied Albus heavily. "You didn't realise."

"We will help your sister, you know."

Albus smiled sadly. "It's not possible."

"But it is," said Gellert insistently, shaking his hair off his face, his expression earnest. "It is possible. There has to be a way. Maybe you could remove whatever it is that makes her magic dangerous."

"It would kill her, Gellert," said Albus, feeling his eyes beginning to prickle again. "She's not strong enough."

"We would be strong enough. And, if we had the Hallows, we could use our strength to make her strong too."

Albus shook his head. "That isn't how the Master of Death thing works, Gellert."

"Maybe not. But we could do it, you and I."

"No. We couldn't. I'm not going to risk hurting her. Besides, Aberforth would kill me."

Gellert's eyes flashed. "Your brother doesn't know anything."

"Don't say that, Gellert. Please."

There was silence again. Albus felt his skin warm to the sun's rays, the dappled light falling through the trees' branches. Overhead, a blackbird chirped and rustled, but Albus felt its song was insignificant compared with the pounding of his own heart. He was aware of every inch of himself, aware of every inch of Gellert, even more aware of the bits of them that were touching.

"Albus," said Gellert softly, his voice so faint that Albus had to concentrate to hear it. "Albus, at Durmstrang, I didn't get along with the other boys."

Albus' heart rate slowed. "Why?" he asked in surprise, and it was a long while before Gellert answered.

"They called me a sissy."

"What are you-?" His heart rate was beginning to quicken again now and he kept his eyes on the patch of moss on the branch in front of him, tugging at the cool, spongy greenery until it crumbled away in his hands.

Gellert reached across and touched Albus' wrist. The moss slipped from between his limp fingers. "Albus?"

"Y-Yes?"

He smiled. "You know, for an intelligent wizard, you are remarkably incoherent around me."

Albus froze, the blood rushing into his cheeks. So Gellert had noticed. Oh, God. What was he going to do now? "I- I'm sorry," he stammered. "I don't- It's not like I- I mean, I've never exactly been with a boy-"

Gellert sat back and studied him, his gaze shrewd, his eyes gleaming. "I wasn't criticising you."

Albus' lungs had stopped working. The pull between them was irresistible, so tightly woven that he wanted nothing more than to entwine his fingers in Gellert's golden curls and feel the hot taste of his mouth against his. He didn't know what to do, didn't remember how to think or move or feel anything other than the burning delight that had flared in the depths of his stomach.

He inhaled as Gellert's hands found their way to his leg, warm and long, nail bitten and as extraordinary as the rest of him.

"The only boys I ever kissed smelt like damp fur," whispered Gellert and Albus glanced up to find his bright eyes inches away from his own. "We had to wear fur capes as part of our uniforms."

"I don't smell like that, do I?" breathed Albus, trying to dismiss the panic from his stomach.

Gellert laughed. "No. You smell of lavender sheets and books and... cleverness."

"Cleverness has a smell?" asked Albus, wrinkling his nose.

But he didn't have long to dwell on it. Before he could form even a single coherent thought, Gellert's mouth was on his and the whole world exploded. If cleverness could have a smell, Albus decided, power could too. Because Gellert's entire being radiated it. It erupted from within him and leaked into the air, intoxicating Albus as he breathed in its scent. He wasn't even aware that he had run out of breath until they broke apart and the world began to trickle in again, slightly fuzzy the edges but burning brighter than ever.

"Albus?"

"Mmm," said Albus distractedly.

"Come with me."

"What?"

"Come with me. We could rule the world."

Albus looked at him, looked at the deadly, passionate person in front of him, revelling in the taste of peppermint and the hot, fiery tang of danger. He wanted their dreams to come true. His entire body ached with it. But then he remembered Ariana and Aberforth, and guilt rushed in to take the place of his ecstasy.

"We'll see," he said quietly. "We'll see."

And, although Gellert didn't question him, Albus knew that the other boy could tell exactly what he was thinking. How could Albus ever rule the world, ever join Gellert Grindelwald in a quest to become the true Master of Death, when he had a damaged sister, younger brother to care for and the burden of his own conscience?