A/N: frankly i have zero idea what this is. i was planning another fic for these prompts but it was shaping up to be both difficult to write and long so i just gave up and wrote this in a couple hours…thank god it's done, i guess. not holding out hope for points for prompts LMAO

title from Ruelle's War of Hearts, which partially inspired this whole thing!

note that i have not watched fantastic beasts and i do not intend to. so basically these two are oc's based off very vague impressions from the original series.

update so i just realised that i cannot do math and when this is supposed to be set they're like...80? ...yeah, whatever.

QLFC, S11, R4

Magpies

CHASER 1: St. Augustine Lighthouse, Florida: Write about someone struggling to guide or lead others.

optional prompts

(trope) forbidden love

(object) map

(emotion) suspicion

Gellert is in Albus's room when he returns.

The ghost sits, cross-legged, a centimetre above the fluorescent-coloured bed. The sight reminds Albus of years long past: seventeen, eighteen, in Bathilda Bagshot's magically-reinforced house, flush with the glory of youth, the power of a secret and the feeling of the world at their feet. His head is tipped back, but when he hears the telltale sound of the door opening, he looks straight at Albus.

Albus says nothing. He takes off his hat and sets it on the table. The silence is both peaceful and stifling. There's something thrumming in the air between them that discomfits him.

Gellert speaks first. Albus is almost surprised; the ghost speaks so much less than the man. Another way death has paled him. "Good day?"

"I suppose," says Albus. He sits on the chair by the table and turns around to face Gellert. He almost says, war plans, but any mention of war is too close to their past to be comfortable.

"Looking forward to term again?" Gellert floats forward to peer over Albus's shoulder, to where he's unfurled a map from today's Order meeting. The ghost, bound to this house, has not much else to do than nose in Albus's business.

"Yes. It's always a delight to return to teaching after a break." There's an ache in Albus, bone-deep but so old he can hardly feel it anymore. The conversations they carry now are so much less substantial than when they were carefree youths. Of course, so much has changed since then. He forces himself not to think of it.

"You always liked shaping young minds, lover," says Gellert, suddenly further away again. Albus jolts. Their dalliance is so rarely spoken of Gellert's casual use of lover makes the ever-present ache become a sharp, piercing pain.

He doesn't say it's not like that. He doesn't say we're not like that. He doesn't say that was what you did, wasn't it? So he stays silent.

"Like your precious Order."

Albus blinks. "What?"

"Fresh out of school, barely legal," mocks Gellert. "You recruit them to fight for you, to die for you in never-ending fights you never seem certain of winning. What makes you so different from me?"

Oh. So they're going there. Albus supposes they had to talk about it, at some point, not just the first time Gellert materalized in his living room, but still, he doesn't want to engage.

"Stop," he says quietly.

"Hypocrite. So high and mighty all the time, and you're not so different from the Dark Lord you vanquished. Or the one you won't."

"I will defeat Tom," says Albus, with a certainty that comes from meticulous planning and hours spent mulling over possibilities. He meets Gellert's eyes. "What spurred this on?"

"Maybe I just got tired of you."

Now, Albus is laced with suspicion. Gellert's strange attitude has him on edge, and he doesn't know what the other man intends to do with this…outburst. He treads carefully. "Now?"

"You used to be so easy to rile up," says Gellert, almost disapprovingly. "What happened to that boy? My boy?"

Albus feels something throbbing at his temples. "What do you intend to do with this?"

A short, sharp laugh. "Intend to do? I've already done it."

It feels like his blood's turned to ice. He says, painfully, "Gellert, what have you done?"

"They're coming," says Gellert, smug.

"Who?"

"My successor, of course! Who else?"

Albus can't seem to move. Distantly, he registers that he needs to do something: get out, warn the others, something. But curiosity has always gotten the better of him, so instead he says, "How?"

"Just because I can't leave this godforsaken house doesn't mean others enter." The voice of someone who knows they've won. "I got into contact with one of my other dead followers. A surprising amount of them have remained here, you know. It's the ideology keeping us rooted here." He pauses. "She could sense me, somehow. She comes when you're not here, for information." He nods to the map, still lying on the table. "This so-called Lord Voldemort has every draft of that map from a year ago to last week. Why do you think he keeps catching you out?"

A mole, Albus's always thought. He's learned to allow the least possible number of people to see the plans, and yet they keep slipping through; the fact that the leak could be him has never occured. He's failed the Order so utterly. Maybe the right thing to do, now, is give up leadership, but ironically, he trusts no one more than himself. Then his thoughts catch up to the situation; Tom is coming.

He tries to Apparate. And encounters the shocking block of his magic by an anti-Apparation ward.

How has Tom gotten into his defences so fast and so deep?

Albus stops. He calms, forcibly. He can hold his own, he's sure. He's one of the best wizards of his generation; no matter how many Death Eaters they throw at him, he won't go down. Can't go down.

A line of thought cuts through his planning - why?

No. No, he isn't thinking of this now. He knows Gellert hates him, in the back of his mind, but his decades-ago defeat somehow stayed in the back of his mind - and, and, he'd thought, somehow, something of their youthful romance, their summer fling, had lasted. The smartest wizard of his generation, they call him. And he wasn't smart enough to predict a betrayal from the one whose loyalty he had known had never been there.

He readies his wand. The door bursts open.

"Gellert," says Tom Riddle, his pale face with its snakelike cheekbones and ice-cold eyes twisting into a mockery of a smile. Gellert floats forwards to meet him. "It's good to see you."