• SEVEN •

Grindelwald's Mark

By the time they left the graveyard, the early hours of the morning had been and gone, and villagers were beginning to emerge from their houses. Gellert helped Albus down from the tree, while Albus protested that he could do it "perfectly well" by himself, then the two of them made their way, arm in arm, back through the kissing gate at the entrance.

Albus didn't think he had ever been happier.

They reached Bathilda's house to find her standing outside it, glancing at her watch.

"Dear me, you young men get tardier every day," she scolded, patting her greying hair as she led the way inside. "I must have had breakfast ready for an hour at least. Gellert, didn't you tell me you were going for a short walk? Where have you been?"

Unhooking himself from Albus, Gellert smiled and closed the front door. The sun's light faded into the dim atmosphere created by Bathilda's lamps. "We must have got sidetracked," he said. Then, when Bathilda only shook her head at him, he added, "We went to visit Albus' mother's grave and Albus was upset."

Albus flinched and backed away, Gellert smiled triumphantly and Bathilda's entire expression changed.

"You were? Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I didn't realise. But you mustn't let the pain control you, Albus. I know it's difficult, but one day you'll be able to manage your loss. Oh, dear. Come inside properly and have some breakfast. Gellert might have already mentioned that I made pancakes. Why he dragged you to the graveyard of all places! But then, he has never been one for tact."

"He really didn't drag me, Mrs Bagshot," said Albus quietly as he sat down at the long oak table and Bathilda set a steaming plate of pancakes in front of him. "I confess it was entirely my own fault. Gellert was only trying to help - he took me away from it. That is why we were late."

"You silly things," sighed Bathilda. But she patted each boy on the head as she hovered around them, offering them strawberries, blueberries, lemon, sugar, and too many things for Albus to count.

Albus tipped four spoonfuls of sugar onto his pancakes, then glanced up to see Gellert with his eyes wide, his own spoon motionless over a bowl of lemon segments.

Albus smiled at the expression on his face. "I have a very sweet tooth," he told him. "Elphias and my mother always used to scold me about it. They told me I would lose all of my teeth if I kept eating the way I do."

Gellert recovered his composure swiftly, squeezing lemons onto his plate with unmissable deftness. "Well, your teeth seem perfectly intact to me," he said, and Albus blushed as Gellert flashed him a not-so-innocent smile, his mind flying back to the elder tree, to the sunshine, to the smells of mint and salty skin and moss.

Albus had known that he was not attracted to girls from the moment his mother had introduced him to their pudgy-cheeked four-year-old neighbour, with her mass of blonde curls and dimples. Melanie Spring had hidden shyly behind her own mother as their parents discussed grown-up matters over their heads, sucking the side of her thumb and peering at him with enormous, glassy blue eyes. He remembered returning her stare with complete but curious indifference, with the same air of someone regarding an intriguingly shaped block of wood. Melanie herself, with her pink hair ribbons and her lace-trimmed dress, did not excite the childish puppy love that his mother had expected. Instead, he had found himself comparing the little girl to the boys of his age that lived in the house across the square.

Melanie Spring was a more-than-distant memory to him now. As he had grown older, the once ignored and unacknowledged feelings became too bold for even Albus to repress. He had met Elphias, he had faced the sneering, challenging stares from the boys that whispered behind his back, had woken in the middle of the night, flushed and guilt-stricken, from dream-sequences that he vowed to take with him to the grave but which stirred him in forbidden places.

And now there was Gellert, the boy who had turned up from nowhere in the stifling heat of Godric's Hollow at the exact moment Albus needed him most.

Once the breakfast things had been cleared, Albus stood up and mumbled something about returning home. "Thank you very much for the pancakes, Mrs Bagshot," he told the old woman as she vanished the plates into the kitchen sink. "I'm deeply grateful for your kindness, but I really think I should see to Aberforth and Ariana. I have family duties to attend to and I wouldn't want to intrude on your hospitality."

"Nonsense, dear," said Bathilda briskly as, somewhere in the kitchen, the plates began to wash themselves. "It is a pleasure to both myself and Gellert to have you in our home. You are welcome any time, you know that, Albus."

But Albus had already half-turned towards the door. "Thank you, Mrs Bagshot," he said, "but it wouldn't be fair on my siblings to stay. I apologise for being so rude-"

"No, no, dear. You have never been rude to me in your life. But I understand. Take these strawberries back with you when you go - they're growing so fast I can't get rid of them - and if you need anything else, I'd be happy to oblige."

"Thank you," said Albus again, his eyes on Gellert as he moved towards the door.

The other boy came towards him, eyes gleaming above his bright, knowing smile. "Albus," he said, extending a hand for Albus to shake. "It really has been a pleasure getting to know you these last few days."

"The same to you," said Albus, repressing a smile of his own as he took the offered fingers.

The two of them looked at each other, their hands still clasped, with Bathilda glancing back and forth between them. Then Albus cleared his throat.

"Well, I ought to be going," he said awkwardly, and Gellert dropped his hand. "Thank you for everything and I'll see you… later?"

Gellert's smile widened. "Whenever our fates demand it."

Albus glanced at the floor. "Very well," he murmured, then turned to leave the room. When he looked back, Gellert was still standing on the same spot of carpet, watching him intently.

Albus strode around to the backyard, humming to himself for the first time in months. He was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice Aberforth crouching behind one of his goats in front of the goat shed. But, as he approached, his brother looked up.

"You're cheerful," he remarked, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers.

Albus blinked then looked up. "Sorry?"

Aberforth frowned. "I said, you look cheerful - what happened? Where have you been, anyway? I looked in your room and you were gone."

"I went for a walk," replied Albus, too calm to notice his brother's tone.

Aberforth looked at him suspiciously. "Was that Grindelwald with you?"

"Yes. He was," said Albus in surprise. "Why?"

"Well, you're always with him, aren't you?"

"So?" said Albus.

Thrown by this question, Aberforth's mouth worked furiously as he struggled to find words to express his contempt. At last, as though he couldn't restrain himself any longer, he burst out, " So , he's… he's not good for you, is he? You've hardly done a thing since he turned up, except stay holed up in your room, writing goddamned letters. What about Ariana?"

"I've done a great deal for Ariana," said Albus, all his cheerfulness melting on the spot. Aberforth seemed to have thrown a wrench in his world of bliss, a wrench so strong that it shattered the world into pieces and sent Albus spinning down to reality again. He landed with a bump. "In fact, I came away now because I didn't think it would be fair to stay out any longer. You need me here."

"No, we don't," muttered Aberforth, but he fell silent as Albus dropped his gaze to the scattered mix of straw and droppings by his feet, studying his older brother's expression. Suddenly, he frowned. "What happened to your face?"

"What?" Bewildered, Albus looked up and saw that Aberforth was squinting across the yard at him, half rising from his crouch as though to see better.

Aberforth stood up. "Your face. It's different somehow. Something's happened."

Slightly panicked, Albus felt his chin and cheekbones, his fingers coming to rest on his seemingly unscathed forehead. "What do you mean, something's happened?" he asked. "Nothing's happened to my face. It's fine."

"No. I'm serious." Aberforth came towards him and Albus smelt a mixture of dung, goat hair and earth as his brother stopped in front of him. He reached forwards as though to touch Albus' cheek, but seemed to think better of it and his hand dropped to his side. "Your expression is different." He pursed his lips, suddenly the older of the two. "It's that Grindelwald, isn't it? He's done something. What did he do?"

"He's done nothing," replied Albus, backing away so that Aberforth couldn't see the blush that seeped over his features.

But Aberforth wasn't fooled. "If he so much as touches our family-" he began, but he was interrupted by the crunch of straw behind him.

"Is that a threat I hear?"

Albus toppled sideways into a haybale. Picking himself up, he stumbled a little and found Gellert standing there just as he had stood in the kitchen all those days ago, his arms folded, surveying the scene with a sort of savage pleasure.

Aberforth's hand went straight for his wand. "You!" he snapped furiously, whirling around and sending bits of straw flying.

Gellert only smiled. "Hello again, Albus. It seems as though the fates have declared our union early."

Albus was too shocked to reply with anything other than a stammer. "Gellert... Gellert, w-what are you doing here?"

"Visiting you," replied Gellert lazily, leaning against the goat shed wall. He looked so out of place among the munching goats and the heaps of straw that Albus was at a loss for words.

Aberforth, on the other hand, faced no such obstacles. He glared at Gellert out of the corner of his eye, as though expecting him to blow something up. "You weren't invited. We don't want you here. Get lost."

"Who needs an invite to stand in someone's back garden?" retorted Gellert with a smile. He watched Aberforth carefully, his eyes full of a lazy contempt that Albus didn't like. Before Aberforth could reply, he stepped forwards.

"Gellert, why don't you come inside? We can leave Aberforth to his goat-tending."

"All right," said Gellert with a shrug.

But Albus noticed his eyes remained on Aberforth all the way into the kitchen where a little blonde figure was tinkering with something next to the hearth. She looked up as the two boys entered.

"Hello, Ariana," said Gellert softly, kneeling down beside her on the cold flagstones.

Ariana's blue eyes widened as she gazed up at him.

Albus smiled and joined them, moving the tea set his sister had been fiddling with out of the way so he could sit down. "This is Gellert, Ariana," he told her, reaching forwards to brush her blonde hair off her forehead. "He's come to visit. Have you been making tea?"

Dragging her eyes away from Gellert's face, Ariana glanced down at the teacup in her hands, frowning as though she couldn't remember how it had got there. It was full of strange shapes and blobs, the remains of a handful of soggy tea leaves. She shook her head.

"You haven't?" Albus frowned. "What have you been doing?"

But Gellert had prised the teacup from his little sister's unresisting fingers and was turning it in his lap, studying it intently. "Fortune-telling," he murmured as Ariana gazed, enraptured. "The axe… the candle… the knife… Ah. And what's this?" He gave the cup a final turn and Albus watched as Gellert's expression faltered. "The coffin."

"What does that mean?" asked Albus fearfully, glancing towards his sister.

But Ariana had taken the cup back from Gellert and was gazing back into it, her hair obscuring her face from sight, holding the cup so delicately that Albus wondered whether she was afraid of breaking it. Ariana had always done strange things on a whim, and usually the things were childish, innocent and harmless. Albus assumed that this was the same. There wasn't any substance to reading tea leaves, was there?

Gellert remained pensive for a long while after they'd left Ariana to her own devices. They were sat together on the edge of Albus' bed, their fingers just touching, the air filled with unsaid thoughts. Over the next two weeks, the thoughts thickened, sometimes becoming so strong that the two could understand each other simply by being there. Albus spent his days in an increasingly blissful bubble, lounging on the grass in Bathilda's back garden, eating homemade cauldron cakes and swapping ideas on how best to locate the objects of their shared obsession: The Deathly Hallows.

On one of these days, the two boys lay side by side beneath the apple tree at the end of the garden, a box of sweets spread out beside them.

Gellert had a quill in his mouth and Albus's book propped open on his knee. Albus was watching him anxiously.

"Gellert, get that quill away from my book. Please. You'll ruin it."

Gellert chewed the feathery tip more vigorously.

Albus sighed. "Gellert, that is my favourite book. That's our favourite book. If you drip ink all over it, I will hex you into a-"

"Live a little," replied Gellert, removing the quill from his mouth and dipping it in the inkwell.

Albus watched him with a sense of growing apprehension. The apprehension turned to abject horror as he saw what Gellert was doing. "Gellert- No! Don't draw on the-"

But it was too late.

" Gellert !" shrieked Albus, so loudly that Aberforth, who Bathilda had persuaded to weed her vegetable patch, glanced up. "Gellert, how could you?"

Gellert sat back and admired his artwork with a critical eye. "It's only a symbol, Albus. Our symbol, in case you haven't noticed."

Albus, too, looked at the little black mark that rested, still wet and shiny in the sunlight, at the top of the page - a triangle, a circle and a line. To anyone else, it would have looked like a crudely drawn, triangular eye. "But- But-" he spluttered, still staring down at the title. The name The Tale of the Three Brothers stared back at him, sharing his indignation at being vandalised. "You can't draw on a book, Gellert!"

Gellert regarded his rounded, bitten nails. "I thought I just did," he said evenly, leaning forwards to study the book again. "Anyway, all the other stories have pictures over the titles. We've just added one. What's the difference?"

Albus opened his mouth to explain the difference in as many words as he could find, not to mention an essay, but Gellert picked up something from the grass and held it out, cutting across him.

"Would you like a Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Bean?"

Albus's mouth opened and closed uselessly. "What?" he asked at last and Gellert shook the box under his nose.

"Do you want a Bean? There are plenty left. Here-" He picked one from the box and offered it out, his palm facing upwards.

Albus hesitated. "It isn't vomit-flavoured, it?" he said with a shiver. "Elphias gave me one of those once and, I have to say, I've gone off Every Flavour Beans since."

Gellert smiled. "Of course not," he said. Then, when Albus continued to eye the sweets suspiciously, he added, "What sort of liar do you take me for?"

Grudgingly, Albus took the bean and popped it into his mouth. He choked. "Gellert!" he exclaimed, spitting the bean out and gagging. "Gellert, you promised me-"

"Oh, was it vomit-flavoured after all?" asked Gellert, turning innocently wide eyes on Albus. But he couldn't prevent his lips from twitching. "I apologise. I had no idea."

Albus tried and failed to scrub the revolting sour taste from his tongue, then gave up and rounded on his friend. "You are the most good-looking, annoying, manipulative... drama queen the world has ever seen."

Gellert laughed. "I know," he said smugly and Albus folded his arms.

"It really isn't fair."

"Isn't it?" asked Gellert, tilting his head as though contemplating the question. "I could say the same about you."

He leaned forwards and pressed his lips to Albus'. Albus' irritation vanished. He didn't even have room to think properly until the sound of a rake destroying a plagentine bush tugged him back to consciousness.

"We shouldn't be doing this. Aberforth could see."

"Let him," replied Gellert, pulling him back again.

Albus smiled but dragged himself away across the lawn, not trusting himself to stay within reach of those beautifully dangerous eyes. "I was being serious, Gellert."

"So was I."

Albus smiled again. "It's illegal," he told Gellert firmly. "And if your aunt comes back and sees us, she'll have a heart attack."

Gellert laughed. "She would, wouldn't she? But we can always go somewhere else." He got to his feet, then held out a hand to help Albus up, and Albus took it, brushing bits of grass and daisies from his clothes.

"You're hopeless," he mumbled, as Gellert tucked The Tales of Beedle The Bard into his pocket. "First you draw on my book, then you feed me vomit and now you're dragging me off so I can kiss you."

"You really are upset about the book, aren't you? Think of it as a piece of artwork, a gift to remember me by."

Albus laughed softly. "I'm more upset by the vomit," he admitted.

"I apologise," said Gellert, but he didn't sound very apologetic at all. In fact, he laughed and Albus found himself laughing along with him.

"Well, aren't you two getting along swimmingly?" Bathilda's voice brought them back to reality again. She was holding a plate of biscuits and a very large camera.

Albus and Gellert turned, still trying to smother their laughter.

"We are, Aunt," said Gellert, watching as Bathilda set down the plate of biscuits and fiddled with the camera. It was wooden and box-shaped, and the two boys eyed it interestedly. "You have a camera?"

"Yes, dear, I do," replied his aunt. "I thought it would be nice to take a picture of the two of you. And maybe Aberforth."

Hearing his name mentioned, Aberforth dropped his rake and looked up. Bathilda beckoned to him.

"Aberforth dear, why don't you join us for a picture? The three of you would look lovely under this tree."

But Aberforth, his eyes on Gellert, only scowled.

Gellert shrugged. "He doesn't have to join us," he said, watching Aberforth turn away and return to hacking at Bathilda's flowerbeds. "Albus and I will happily join the photograph. Posing happens to be one of my many talents."

Albus nudged him and laughed as Gellert joined him beneath the tree and put his arm around his shoulders. "Of course it is. Is there anything you can't do?"

Gellert waited until Bathilda had set up the camera and was out of earshot before responding. "No."

"Smile, boys," called Bathilda from behind the lens. But Albus and Gellert were too busy laughing to hear her. There came the sound of closing camera shutters and then some more laughter, and the next thing the boys knew, Bathilda had bustled away again and left them alone with the biscuits.

Albus sunk down onto the grass, weak from laughing, with Gellert's head against his knees. "There must be something you can't do," he said at last when they'd both calmed down.

Gellert turned around to face him. "There isn't," he teased. "I'm good at everything."

"I bet you're not," replied Albus, but Gellert shook his head.

"I am. Would you like me to prove it?"

"Yes, please." Albus became aware that Gellert's eyes were inches from his face. He felt himself sinking into an azure ocean, the water rushing too thick and fast for him to catch his breath.

The next second, Gellert's lips were on his again and they had fallen back into the tree. Albus banged his head on the bark when they resurfaced.

"Ow!" he muttered.

Gellert propped himself up on his elbows, still above him. "I told you I'm good at everything," he smirked.

Rubbing the back of his head, Albus sat up and smiled. "I don't know about everything , but you're certainly good at that."

"And stirring up anti-muggle revolutions," said Gellert at once.

And, despite the bruise on his head and the stain on his book, Albus had to agree with him. If it wasn't for Gellert, he'd still have been trapped in Godric's Hollow, bored witless, with no means of escape and no one to talk to. At least now he wasn't alone.

"All right," he said at last, as they sat and ate their way through Bathilda's plate of biscuits. "Maybe you are good at everything."

A/N:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this, even if it does feel like the worst chapter I've done so far ...I might have to come back and revise this at some point, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know. They would be massively appreciated. Thanks for all your reviews, follows and support, too - they've been fantastic motivation!

~ Lacy