[summary] — Albus&Gellert [Frankenstein!AU] Albus stood in silence, eyes downcast, as his mother stepped to the front of the crowd, turning to face their friends and family. It wasn't a big turn-out, but more people had wanted to remember his father than Albus had expected.

Warnings for medical stuff (I couldn't avoid things entirely because of the parameters of the AU, but I have glossed over enough details to keep it at a T rating)

A/N — I might come back to this later as there's more I wanted to write, but I only had room within the word limit for the first section, and where I've left it felt like an ending.

Written for Houses [g] short using the funeral prompt.

[2150]

Albus stood in silence, eyes downcast, as his mother stepped to the front of the crowd, turning to face their friends and family. It wasn't a big turn-out, but more people had wanted to remember his father than Albus had expected.

She took a deep breath, her eyes surprisingly dry and her expression composed, and began: "I'm glad you could all come here today." Albus' attention drifted; he was normally better at paying attention, even if it were to generic speeches — though, really, her husband was dead; Albus had thought she'd be able to bring up a little emotion — but today he couldn't even bring himself to pretend to listen.

A distant aunt — or perhaps great-aunt? — wrapped her arm around his shoulders; it was a bit of a stretch for her, given how he was almost a foot taller. "It's okay to be upset, dear."

Albus nodded, giving her a tight smile, and muttered a quick, "Thank you," an idea already forming as he looked around the graveyard.

.oOo.

He waited until everyone else had fallen asleep; that in itself wasn't unusual — he was almost always working away at his experiments well into the night whilst his family slept — but tonight he had made the conscious decision to do so.

There was only one more thing he needed, and now he knew exactly where he could get it from.

When he was sure everyone was definitely asleep — and had waited a good hour after that — he quietly descended the stairs and slipped on his boots. The front door was a little more tricky, but he managed to open it silently by going as slowly as he possible could, pausing at even the slightest of sounds.

He didn't bother locking the door, just closed it as carefully as he'd opened it and, stuffing his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the cold, quietly walked down the street.

It was strange being out so late — or perhaps early? he wasn't sure — as even in such a small town, things felt very different at night. Almost as if the darkness was pressing down on him, muffling the world around him; he found it oddly comforting, even as the chill air turned his ears and nose a painful red.

No matter how peaceful he found the night — with its empty streets and calming quiet — he was still thankful the graveyard was only a five minute walk from his house.

He found the grave easily — it was the only fresh one, and he'd been there earlier in the day, after all — and stopped when he reached the marker.

Percival Dumbledore

1860-1894

There were no personal touches — Albus wasn't even sure the date of birth was correct — but it was of no importance. Albus pulled his wand from his robes, double checking that no one was around; it wasn't Muggles he was worried about as this was the wizarding area of the cemetery, but anyone who saw him would be immediately suspicious if they were witness to what he was about to do. There was only so much that could be passed off as the actions of a grieving son.

When he was satisfied that there was no one about, Albus waved his wand and muttered a quiet incantation, parting the earth and exposing his father's coffin.

Taking a deep breath, Albus pressed on; this wasn't exactly something he was happy about doing, but he couldn't let that stop him now. Not when he was so close.

Opening the coffin was harder than he'd anticipated — and it didn't so much open as split — but it was far from the worst thing he'd have to do tonight.

.oOo.

The walk back to his house went much more quickly — mostly because he'd run — but slipping through the front door was a lot more stressful than it had been the first time; at least then, he'd have been able to explain it away as needing some fresh air or a stroll to clear his thoughts. Now, his mother would probably have him committed.

He snuck into the house and up the stairs without incident, though his heart was pounding and his breathing laboured. Setting it down on the matt he'd left on his desk specifically for this purpose, Albus went about casting the appropriate cooling and preserving charms.

There was no guarantee this would work — all his tests had ended with somewhat mixed results — so he needed to be as careful as possible.

He pushed his mattress to the side, having taken it from his bed so that he had somewhere to sleep when he'd begun all this, and pulled his bed into the middle of his room to give him access to all sides. It was a little cramp and far from ideal, but it was the best he could hope for.

With a grand gesture, mostly for his own entertainment, he removed the sheet from the bed, revealing the body underneath.

It was admittedly a somewhat shoddy job; he hadn't been able to get all the parts from the same source, so he'd had to choose the best pieces from different bodies, and Albus had learnt to sew on the job, so to speak. His earlier work was rather obvious, and in places he'd had to go over it again when he'd gained more skill so as to avoid any accidental seam-rips, but he thought his most recent attempts had been somewhat passable.

Regardless, his creature, as he'd taken to calling it, was far from pretty. Originally, Albus had intended to use glamours to mask that, but he didn't see the point in trying that yet. He hadn't quite finished.

He walked around the bed until he was standing behind his creature's head, and lifted the back of his skull away; he'd cut it earlier, needing to remove the original brain. There had been something wrong with it, he knew that much, and he hadn't wanted to risk it contaminating the rest of the body — he really didn't want to have to begin again, as this had been a long time coming — but he wasn't entirely sure how the science of it worked.

With a wave of his wand, he levitated the brain from his desk, carefully guiding it into the open cavity. Connecting everything properly was the hard part — he'd only been successful about fifty percent of the time, and never on something entirely human — and so it required all of his concentration.

He could feel sweat dripping from his brow, beads rolling down his face, but he couldn't risk brushing is away lest he break his concentration.

It may have been hours or merely minutes when he was finally satisfied with his work, but he had no way of telling if he had been successful. Not yet, anyway.

He reapplied the charms just to be sure, put the sheet back in place and pushed his bed back against the wall. All he could do now was wait.

.oOo.

A storm hit town a few weeks later, the rumble of thunder pulling Albus from a light sleep; he hadn't been able to sleep properly since he'd begun all this, too preoccupied with thoughts of his creature.

He was quick to get to his feet, grabbing his wand and using it to practically throw his mattress out of the way. He was a lot more careful moving the bed. He left his creature, however, as there was still one last thing he needed to do, and he didn't want to inadvertently damage it in the process.

Opening his window as quietly as possible, Albus slipped his wand between his teeth and picked up one end of each of the coiled cables on the floor before he climbed through. The rain had made the roof a lot slicker than he was used to, but he'd practiced this enough times that he knew exactly where to put his hands and feet to give himself the most stability. He'd only ever fallen twice like this.

He almost lost his footing when he reached the gutter — he hadn't quite calculated correctly the affect the added weight of the rainwater would have — but he managed to catch himself just in time, and didn't drop his wand or, more importantly, the cables. He wasn't sure how long the storm would last, and he couldn't risk having to go back for them, as levitating would mean he'd have no control on what happened to the other ends — best case scenario, he'd have to carry them back inside with him, worst case they'd knock something important out of place in their flailing and he'd have to start over.

Letting out a relieved sigh when his feet touched the main roof, Albus only allowed himself the briefest of pauses before he was crawling carefully towards the metal spike he'd put up back when he'd first begun the experiments.

He wrapped each cable around it, one at a time, using magic to carefully seal them place, and only moved onto the next cable when he was sure of the first's security. It was a long process, and Albus was completely soaked through, his hands slipping every so often on the smooth metal, but he persevered.

And, when all the cables were attacked to his satisfaction, Albus used his wand to extend the spike high into the air; he didn't bother with concealing charms — if anyone were awake to witness this, they would see whatever was about to happen regardless of what he did to try and hide it — but he did use magic to reinforce to strength of the metal.

Getting back inside was a lot easer, now that he had full use of both his hands.

Albus didn't bother drying off; as soon as his feet hit the carpeted floor of his bedroom, he set to work.

Using the pins he'd already inserted into his creature, Albus connected cables — one on each joint, and two on either side of the head and chest — pushing the pins further into his creature once he'd wrapped each cable around them so that everything but the part with the cable around it was inside his creature.

Only then did he remove the ring from his finger; it was an ugly thing, but he found it quite fitting for his creature, and really it was the stone that was important. The stone held more power than everything in Hogwarts put together; the stone was the only reason this was possible.

He slipped it onto his creatures finger, and waited. He needed to time this perfectly.

A rumble of thunder sounded, and Albus turned the ring once, twice. On the third rotation, lightening struck, sending Albus flying clear across the room.

His head hit the wall with such force that his vision clouded and a ringing noise picked up in his ears; he thought he heard a groan — most likely his own — before he faded into unconsciousness.

.oOo.

Albus stretched, letting out a high-pitched moan, and slowly blinked open his eyes. He reached, almost blindly, for his glasses. "Thank you," he muttered when they were passed directly into his searching hand; he was too exhausted to tell his brother to stay out of his room.

He put them on, rubbing his forehead as he waited for his vision to clear. And was met with a very unsettling sight when it finally did.

His creature — though he supposed it was about time he came up with a name for it — was crouched in front of him, grinning in a way that showed off his decayed teeth. The golden curls — Albus' primary reason for his choice in heads — were matted and greying, bald patches visible on his creatures scalp where they had fallen out in clumps despite Albus' best efforts to preserve as much as he could.

Its joints moved stiffly, but Albus supposed that could have been down to a number of factors. He hadn't been able to repurpose more than one thing from each body, so they were a little mismatched, but the pins and cables still tethering his creature to the roof certainly couldn't have helped.

But these were all things Albus could work on later, because it had worked.

It wasn't quite resurrection, if his creature's blank stare and slurred attempts at speech — Albus was reminded of the groaning he'd heard just before he'd passed out — were anything to go by, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

Albus took a deep breath and immediately regretted it — his creature smelled exactly as it was; dead. "Gellert," he said decisively. His creature tipped its head to the side; good. It could hear. "I think your name shall be Gellert."