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Whom you love, you love forever.
*The first thing Gellert ever told Albus, word for word, without any exaggeration, was: “My wand is longer than yours.” Albus was waving his wand to help Bathilda return used cutlery to their shelves. In his brief moment of distraction he heard the teacup and saucer clink against each other. He hoped he hadn't damaged the intricate flower patterns on the pottery. For a split second, he forgot that the proper way of answering was “Pardon me?” or “Could you repeat that please?”, and instead replied: “What?”Gellert was impassive, and only reiterated slowly, leisurely; “I said, your wand is shorter than mine.” He said it as if just wording it differently was enough to emphasise his viewpoint. Perhaps this statement was not intentionally derogatory. Wands, as delicate as they were, had lengths strictly corresponding to their users’ needs - there was no meaning to whether they were too long, or too short. But the way the other boy said it - head raised, height purposefully emphasised, and that false smile by his lips - made it difficult to believe that he meant anything but. And Albus, then perhaps already eighteen and corresponding with many of the most famed scholars in the Wizarding World at the time, was not yet at the age where he could entirely shake off impulses like rebuking that “Long-wanded wizards have shallow sights!” He placed the teacups safely into the cabinet and replied, coldly but not overtly brusque: “Very good. I hope you're not trying to overcompensate for the length of something else.”Gellert laughed aloud. His teeth and his golden hair shone with the same seashell-like, cold white glow. They exchanged their names and shook each other’s hand in greeting after that.
*He could not describe, define nor classify Gellert Grindelwald. He was more proficient in those things that were precise and strict: Alchemy, Charms, Potions. They needed clear differentiation: what materials, which state, how long a duration. He was relatively worse at poetic metaphors - but he could still try. Gellert Grindelwald was proud, like that “a little longer than Albus’” wand of his. A branch that was as if it had been cleaved into half by some sort of powerful force - one side coarsely rough, the other shining smooth. The body of the wand wound meanderingly about some unseen centre. Complicated, dazzling, almost hypnotic. It made him think of Gellert, of the bright colors that he sometimes wore beneath his black overcoat, of the rising and falling rhythm of his passionate speech, as his pale cheeks emanated light. The way he walked, purposefully agile, like some sort of beautifully feathered bird. No - not a bird but a predator, mesmerising its prey to stillness with its color-changing pelt. (Later, when he found himself infatuated with Muggle embroidery, with its complicated colors and criss-crossing lines, he would always connect the two.) He could not even name the color of Gellert’s eyes (when had he started to notice?). It was a color that refused to be named: not plainly blue, grey or green. Pale colored eyelashes like halos of light. Those eyes made him afraid. He was afraid of falling. It wasn't just because he was handsome. Handsome he was indeed; that required no debate. Albus had perhaps never seriously considered such a question before this, but it did not mean he couldn't admit it to himself. But this was not that kind of attraction. Something else seduced him to fall, something he had never felt before. It was as if his feet were rootless; he kept ascending upwards. He disliked others’ rules - he was first destroyer, then creator. His shoulders were weightless, his beauty burned, and there was no hesitation in his ecstasy. At the centre of his dreams and ambitions was an absolute, pure, scorching heat. And this was what Albus had: a sealed house and quiet, absent siblings. Dust on the furniture, memories of death, and his solemn, silent thoughts. Sometimes he questioned who he was really guarding; Ariana or himself. One particular afternoon, Gellert explained the specifics of a particular modification of Transfiguration of his own to Albus, his voice hypnotically deep, fingertips lazily playing with the other boy’s wand. That was a clear, cloudless day; the sunlight spun his golden hair into molten gold. The color of his eyes were echoed in his shirt. He looked at Albus, and ambiguously licked along his lips lightly. Like a cold-blooded snake, the tip of his tongue was inches away from Albus’ wandtip. And Albus found himself staring, unable to blink, straight at him. Albus was afraid of falling. He did not know (or did not wish to know) how much of it was because he wanted to fall. *When Albus admitted and surrendered to this fact, it was not because of a kiss - in fact, Gellert himself wasn't even there. Just as with every other important life-changing enlightenment, the person who triggered the revelation was always mysteriously absent. He remembered that that night, it was a kind of slight noise which made his heart skip a beat. The sound of owls’ claws knocking against the glass windows.They wrote each other every night. That night was no different from any other. He could no longer recall much of the specifics of the letter’s contents, except that it was even more ordinary than usual, and nothing at all to do with the plans and future they'd spent the entire day discussing. A short passage of messy thoughts regarding how to keep lemonade from going bad on hot days, to prevent Albus’ “nose from wrinkling uglily”. He looked at that piece of parchment and then, out of a motive that he himself did not understand, placed it before the tip of his nose and slowly, deeply breathed it in. He smelled the scent of old parchment and freshly dried ink. And what he wanted to smell: the light, sweet fragrance of sandalwood and the sting of burnt ashes, stinging but bizarrely mesmerising. He guessed that Gellert was mixing potions, or that it was the effect of the reaction of some kind of new charm he had long been experimenting with. Or, just Gellert. (Many, many years later, he sometimes woke alone in the Principal’s Office from some untimely nap. What woke him up was that scent. He would always think he was still dreaming. It always took a few minutes for him to realize that it was only the burning of the Phoenix's feathers.) He remembered his fingers retracing the letter from end to beginning, where the sharp pentip had written “Dear Al” with enough force to penetrate the parchment. He found himself with his forehead braced against glass, imagining Gellert’s voice murmuring to him in that penetrative way of his, leaning so close he could breathe that stinging scent again. He began to fall.
*Falling in love with Gellert was easy. Falling was always the easiest part. The difficulty lay elsewhere, lay in what came after the fall: how to fall slowly and calmly, with reservation. How not to err. He could admit that they were very young then. Perhaps too young, because he did not know then that there were other ways; no one had told him, and he had never learnt. Then, he knew that love was a sort of crazed heat, a kind of compromise, a form of devotion: heart, body and soul. But he didn't know there were other ways. Different ways. Better ways. Ways that didn't require one soul to consume the other. That, and that love could hurt people, too. (The latter he would remember for life, but he never learnt the former throughout his lifetime. After all, he comforted himself, wiping his glasses, people weren't perfect.)Gellert said, “Al, don't reject me. Reject anyone else, reject everyone else - but never reject me.” He kissed Albus from lips to throat with a clumsy sincerity, with the first hint of his later fanaticism. Gellert was two years Albus’ junior, but he never shied from assuming full control of any situation. His voice was even richer when it was filled with passion, breathing over the skin near his neck. Fire, muggle fireworks, Albus thought as he shut his eyes. Not a magically created, steady flame. Swift, uncontrollable. Or even coarser and more dangerous than that - wildfire. Albus sucked in a breath like a diver before delving into the sea.
And then he kissed Gellert’s lips, replying lowly, “Never.”(He did not know then what exactly he wanted from him. They were so young, touched with just a drop of despair. He wanted love. He was filled with hope.)Gellert kissed him ever more deeply. Ariana was playing quietly with wool somewhere downstairs, but in that moment, he found himself terrifyingly almost unable to care. Her, this home, or the world beyond them. It didn't even have anything to do with sex. They busied themselves with “greater pursuits”; they never even really made love. Except for that one sole attempt: Gellert pushing him up against the door, bright smile dizzying to the eyes, whispering in his ear: “Is that your wand I feel?”(Of course it wasn't.)And then. And then Aberforth came home.
*People said that the most painful memories were the clearest. But it wasn't that way for him. He didn't particularly remember the way Ariana’s unmoving body felt in his arms. Nor Aberforth’s howling cries. He recalled a few words, but that was it. What he felt was only a dull pain. The kind of deafening quiet when the rain fell at its hardest. Gellert is not here. Abruptly, he realized the one-way promise he had unwittingly made. “Al, never reject me.”He'd forgotten. After, in retrospect, he felt a drop of regret for not asking for the same in that one moment of passion.
*
They - to put it brusquely - did not see each other for many years after that. He could sometimes hear news of Gellert; here or there, in the newspapers, from rumors between alleyways. A poster, an indistinct shadow on a photograph. He was curious about what he had changed to become, if he was already far from what he remembered in his memories. He heard bad news too - most of them were - but without surprise. He thought that perhaps he had known many years ago. He wasn't that foolish even in his youth - he only chose not to see. Gellert - of course he had changed. Just as Albus too had changed. Only they had not changed into another person. That was impossible. People could only change in one direction: to become more like themselves. To just speak of appearances, his hair had shortened and thinned out, its color lighter. His face was even paler now. Two tired eyes stared out from swollen cheeks where there once were prominent cheekbones. His strides weren't as light now. And of course, he was taller than he had been in that summer of their youth. He could not be said to be old. But he was no longer the young man he had been when they met. His forehead and the corner of his eyes had the same wrinkles Albus’ did. He was active in places all over the world; and his ambition grew with his success. Albus chose to stay at Hogwarts. Ariana was gone, but still he guarded. This time he guarded himself. He tried to hate him. After so many years, he supposed he had finally earned that right. But Gellert did not ask Albus to love him, nor to give his heart to him. What he wanted was his aid, his magic, his genius. And Albus gave them to him. No one forced him; no one had pressed a wand to his neck. He gave him what he wanted. And everything else he had. So if Albus wanted to hate him, he first had to hate himself. He'd had many years to practice the latter, with his every breath. (Except - Albus didn't hate him. He was contemptuous of him. His fury was for others; for those he had murdered, kidnapped and tortured. But for himself? When he thought of preserved lemonade and the scent of sandalwood, he didn't hate him.)
*
“I can't fight Grindelwald.” He told Newt. He looked at the other man's puzzled expression with some amusement. How young he was, charming in his awkwardness. (He was at an age where others’ bright youthful energy touched him.)Newt asked, “Why?” Genuine, straightforward, innocence written even in the freckles on his cheek. No one should lie to a face like that. He wanted to be as genuine, as straightforward. He wanted to say, because that would hurt. Because ten years, or twenty, were still not long enough. Because he knows me, just like I know him. To some extent I carry his crimes, because I once longed to dream with him. Because there's a small part of me, no matter how small, which wants him to win. And that small part of me hasn't decided, despite all these years, if I still love him. He did not say any of those things. “I cannot.” He said. He did not say, I could fight Grindelwald. I just can't fight Gellert. (“Decide” was probably too strong a word. He did not think he could decide anything. At least he could not on this matter. So when Snape brought the tragic news regarding the Potter family on that fateful night, he could not but awingly realize the powerful and destructive force of love once more. When Snape muttered in suspicion that everything that had happened to him was from loving the wrong person, Albus replied, “No such thing. It's only the decisions we make for love that are right or wrong.”)
*Another thing he didn't tell Newt (nor anyone else) was that, before Gellert left for New York, they met for the first time in many years. (The owl’s claws knocked on his glass window. Then he went, bringing his wand with him. He thought with some bitterness that he hadn't matured much after all these years.) Gellert was waiting for him in an alleyway. At first he almost couldn't recognize him. Overshorn hair spiked up at the ends, black overcoat tightly swathing his shoulders, face hidden in the shadows - every detail fit his identity as a fugitive, a Dark Wizard, a fanatic. He said, voice low, hoarse and fervent, “Dear Al.”Albus did not know what to say. The things he wanted to say were many, but what could he actually say? Accuse (“You've done the unforgivable.”), interrogate (“Why did you hurt those people?”), regret (“I once hoped you would stay for me after Ariana.”), fury (“You left!”), plead (“Stay.”), the truth: (“I loved you.”). (No, even that wouldn't be the truth. This was: I love you. Even though its agony. Even though I don't want to.)Still, he did not say a single one of those things. What he did say, calm and cool, was, “What do you want?”The other man walked out from the shadows. He was smiling, the colors in his eyes mottled and dissimilar. He tapped his wand lightly with his fingertips. Albus could still see the seashell-like glow of his teeth and his golden hair. He had aged, he had deviated, he was marred. But to Albus he was still beautiful. (He must be going insane.)“You.” Gellert said, “I miss you very much. Really.” He stepped closer; Albus did not retreat. “Since we manage to hurt each other from any part of the world, why not do it face to face?”There were only restricted resolutions between them - one destroying the other, or mutual destruction. But if they could do neither, what other choices remained? The Dark Wizard leaned forward and pressed Albus against the dirty grey concrete wall, and whispered as he had that afternoon: “Al, is that your wand I feel?”(It was.)
They made love for the first time that night. The bed in Gellert’s safehouse had only coarse bedsheets and a noisy wooden frame, but neither of them complained. It was not even a pleasurable experience; he was distracted, one part of him imagining how sixteen-year-old Gellert would have done this - rougher or gentler than now? Or how the eighteen-year-old him would have reacted - more joyfully, or with greater trembling? What should that interrupted afternoon have been for them? He couldn't continue imagining. Too many things had changed, reminding him that that afternoon was forever buried in the past. Gellert’s weight on him was heavier than he remembered. His hair was too short; his fingers couldn't clutch onto them at all. On both their bodies were hard lines and a wave of undulating scars. When Gellert kissed him he felt the burn of his beard. There was a kind of deathly scent on his body, on his tongue, lips and skin. “Al,” he said, articulation hazy with distraction, “my Al.” Albus smelled the scent of sandalwood and ash, mixed in the other man's call for him. He shut his eyes throughout the waves of pain and pleasure until Gellert finally left.
*
They slept together a few more times before 1945. Once in Paris. Once in Berlin. Another time in New York. Sometimes only in nameless places, sometimes on silken bedsheets, others in alleyways. They never spoke throughout the process. It was a unspoken, mutual silence. Speaking led to fighting, and fighting was meaningless because they could never successfully persuade the other - nor did they still attempt to. Silence was their middle ground. Except for the initials of each other’s names, they almost never said anything. They always met in the summer. Once the door shut, buttons were undone. They made love in quietude. (Their pants, moans and muttered names travelled as if from a faraway place.)The last time they made love was at Godric’s Hollow, in the ruins of the old house, inside Albus’ dilapidated, dust-filled bedroom. That bed was miraculously undecayed - or perhaps Gellert had done something for it. They lay facing up, watching the dangerous, long-unmaintained ceiling, feeling the sweetness and weight of old memories resurfacing. As if Ariana still quietly remained in a corner of the house, and Aberforth was still on his way back from school, only too slow, too late to interrupt them. He turned his head to kiss Gellert, tasting the heartbroken memories of yore. “Gell.” He said, with the tenderness of his eighteen-year-old self. “Oh.” Gellert replied, likewise kissing him with the residual warmth of his sixteen-year-old self, “Oh. My dearest, dearest Al.”(He sounded very genuine. Perhaps even the most terrifying wizard could not avoid this: a moment’s weakness. Or maybe it was the sentimentality of a man in middle age.)
*Albus almost never spoke of what happened in 1945 to anyone else.
*Around the year Harry entered Hogwarts, they began writing to each other once more. The letters were short and few. They did not speak of the now nor of politics; those had lost their meaning. Besides, he was not naive enough to believe that every drop of ink on those letters were not thoroughly examined by others. They spoke only of things past. Of course, they could not resolve their differences - this was not an attempt to do so. Gellert had already strode over that line too much, too far. The time for reconciliation was long past. Even the missed opportunity was too far gone, to the point that the heartache and fury or regret too were as if blurred memories. They were only searching for things not wholly damaged in the ashes. Gellert’s first reply was: Do you still keep the preservative lemonade charm I gave you? His reply to this was: Yes. I keep it. I use it for Muggle lemoncakes. Perhaps only to infuriate him, if only by relating something so insignificant to Muggles. And then: I've started knitting recently. You won't believe how nice the patterns look. Purple and gold would suit you. And: Why do you always smell like sandalwood?What do I smell like? So it had always been only Gellert. And, sometimes, sharper things. Why didn't you stay after Ariana. You know I hoped you would stay.
Why didn't I stay, Al? Why didn't I choose to stay then?
It almost wasn't an answer. But compared to the other replies he'd anticipated, he thought it was already good enough.
*Harry asked him, “What do you see in the Mirror of Erised?”He replied, “Me? I see myself holding a pair of thick woolly socks. There are never enough socks to wear. Christmas comes and goes, and I haven't received a single pair of socks. People insist on gifting me with books.”How long had it been since the last time he spoke the whole truth? Why did he make it a taboo? Was he afraid that Harry, at his young age, wouldn't understand? Or because all of this had nothing at all to do with him? But perhaps even an eleven-year-old child would understand loving what he could not have, longing for something that had vanished at the moment of the conception of its yearning. (If any child could understand, it would be Harry.)Of course, he didn't see a pair of woollen socks. What he saw were youthful faces, so young it almost broke his heart. Young and happy. There was a seam to the window, because an owl might come in the night. He felt as if all these things were from a past life already. Perhaps that was true; after all at his age, most people's lifetimes had already passed. In truth, Gellert had given him woollen socks before. Or perhaps he should say he had taken them. For some reason, he hadn't left wearing his socks that day in Berlin. Albus wore that pair of socks until, ten years later, the bad parts were more than the good.
*
When his hand began to worsen, their letters increased. He dreamed, too, with increasing frequency. They weren't all nightmares. Good dreams, sweet dreams. He dreamt of impossible things pieced together by broken shards, like: them, in their forties, in his old bedroom; fighting, but only over the most insignificant things - how to preserve lemonade, or whose wand was longer. Albus drew his wand, light flashing - but only to shoot out a bouquet of flowers. They screamed and shouted, but eventually made love and made up. Ariana sang her songs, still a child, knocking on their door. He woke up and began to write. The shaking of his hand had worsened. He wrote about his dream. (Oh, he didn't have much time left already - if those nosy people had to read it, let them.) And then he asked: Why did you say that then, about your wand being longer? You know it would've only infuriated me. Gellert said: Because you were very beautiful then. You, Al, on that morning, and those little plates painted with flowers. And you know me - I've always liked making a mess out of beautiful things. He laughed for a while. And cried for a bit (He was very old. He was going to die soon. He hadn't done everything perfectly, but he'd done his best. He would not be ashamed of that.)And then he wrote: Did you ever love me? He wanted to cross it out. Really, asking this kind of question at his age. But why not? Had anyone ruled that anyone over the age of 115 asking this sort of question would seem too silly? (If they thought so, then they must still not know how torturous and slow a process love is.)He carefully folded the piece of paper and sent his owl out of the window. Then he walked downstairs. Harry was waiting for him. (On one small island, a Horcrux, a door waiting for sacrifice, and a poison waiting to be consumed was awaiting him too.)
*
Thinking of it now, perhaps he should have wrote that letter earlier. (Or perhaps it was because of the exact same reason that he had not chosen to do so.)
*He and Harry stood together at the light-filled King’s Cross Station. Harry told him that perhaps the reason Grindelwald wasn't willing to tell Voldemort the location of the wand was because he wanted to protect his tomb. Albus blinked, and smiled. (There was a lump in his throat - if that could happen to an illusion saved in another person's brain, that is.)
*This is what happened after the last time they made love:Gellert was kissing his hair. Albus did not avoid it, because this was the first time he was tasting the meaning of a particular kind of farewell. They both knew very well that the next time they saw each other under the sun’s rays, there would probably be no chance of saying goodbye. Gellert said, “After so many years gone by, I've realized one thing. There are two kinds of bad habits that no amount of terrible torture nor supreme intellect can cure. Bad habits - or, you could say, diseases.”Albus asked, “What?”The Dark Wizard placed his finger on his lips. The summer’s sunlight shone from behind him, making him look younger than he was in reality. Gellert said, “Love. Hope.”He continued, “Even now. You still wait. Still hope.”(When he sent Harry away at King's Cross Station, when he was no longer young, even when he was already dead, when he was very likely just an illusion in someone's brain, he heard a particular sound - suspiciously like an owl's claw knocking against a glass window.)He walked towards that door of light. He was still waiting. Still hoping.
Fin