Work Text:
True, the vision’s hazy.
But I swear someday there’ll be
A celebration throughout Oz that’s all to do with me.
The coffee house on the Ring in Vienna looked normal - for a Muggle establishment, that is. Electric lights, large glass windows looking out on the street along which the trams with their metallic dingle and rattle were carrying passengers to their home, work or leisure. Albus could not help but feel a mixture of wistful grief and anger at the idea that the splendor of the wizarding world had to tuck itself behind a veil of spells before unfurling in its beauty. If only...but these were precisely the kinds of thoughts that were not going to help him keep a level head in the meeting he came for.
Come to think of it, he should not have accepted the invitation to meet Gellert in the first place. Well, if one listened to the Ministry, he should have issued the invitation first - but to a duel, not a cup of coffee. But the sheer audacity of the letter, after so many years, after...everything...well, if he was going to come out of this with more knowledge on how to stop Gellert’s plans from unfurling, it was worth it.
The door rang melodically when Albus entered, but the intricate blanket of charms let the patrons ignore him, letting their minds find another explanation for the sound in the apparent absence of a new visitor. One of them half-lowered the newspaper he was reading and kept looking straight at Albus, which made him either of four: a ministry spy, one of Gellert’s followers meant to take him elsewhere or warn of an ambush, Gellert himself, or, most unlikely, just one of Vienna’s wizards who liked the illicit taste of rubbing elbows with Muggle writers, poets and the rest of the coffee house patrons. This mutual staring was going on for longer than polite interest could warrant, and Albus has readied several spells at the tip of his mind. He decided to probe the thoughts of the man at the table, when the stranger smirked and half-drew the wand from his sleeve, before tucking it back in. The Elder Wand.
Albus let out a long breath through the nose, before reminding himself that he arrived here for a reason. He cast a simple ‘Revelio’ while taking the second chair, and the appearance of the man in front of him started bleeding down like watercolours, leaving a familiar face exposed. He looked painfully alike and different to how they last saw each other, only now Gellert wore his hair in a tail and cut off the bangs which used to curl up all over his forehead in summer heat.
‘And here I was afraid you would not want to look at me, Albus.’ - he said cheerfully, steepling his fingers together.
‘I prefer to see who I’m dealing with’, Albus replied curtly, then added, unable not to state the obvious. ‘You have the Wand, then.’
‘You are quite a sight yourself - have you transfigured one of your more flamboyant robes or have you chosen Muggle clothing to match?’, Gellert pointedly looked over his waist-length hair, the brightly coloured vest and tie in different shades of lavender, as well as azure coat and cufflinks. ‘It’s good to see you have not decided to hide all of yourself from the world in that remote castle of yours’.
Gellert must have dropped his own spell for being vaguely unnoticeable, because the waiter approached their table at his signal, and took the order for two coffees.
It gave Albus a moment to compose himself and not succumb to the first reaction or, Merlin forbid, blush at the implications of him being intimately acquainted with the certain clubs in London and Glasgow. Still, his words came out with more defensiveness than he would have preferred: ‘I have not come here to discuss my fashion choices with you, Gellert. What do you want?’
This time it was Gellert who took advantage of the pause caused by their order arriving and cups of coffee and glasses of water being arranged on the small table. He tugged at the end of the ponytail, and took a gulp of water before speaking.
‘I want to show you the future’, and kept looking at Albus as if he could expect any sort of sensible answer to that.
Dumbledore scoffed: ‘I don’t need to see whatever boogeyman about Muggles and future you share with...whoever you try to impress into following you’, but Gellert held up a hand.
‘Please, just hear me out. I am not going to tell you cautionary tales - we talked about them at length, and if you choose not to get involved to prevent all the danger we discussed, I do not think more of them will convince you’. He sounded bitter, and it made Albus’s nose flare angrily. How dare Gellert be the one hurt or mad at him? But apparently he was not finished. ‘I can win this without you, make no mistake. But the future I see, the brilliant things which will come out of magic emerging from the hiding and taking the best of the Muggle technology, - I see it only with the two of us together. Both of us having a hand in the celebration of the cause.’ He stretched out a hand on the table, between the saucers and cups, palm up. ‘Let me show you, Albus’.
Dumbledore stared at Gellert and the offered hand and crossed his arms. ‘We both know Divination is not that precise, not over grand events, let alone the whole course of history, Gellert.’
Grindelwald leaned forward, ‘Then there’s no harm in seeing, is there? I’ll let you into my thoughts. Don’t tell me you don’t miss it - dreaming beyond the confines of our society and schooling, thinking of how to bring about the impossible.’ He tilted his head to the side, ‘Or is that what you do know, instill that same narrow-minded mold onto the new generations?’
Oh, Albus did miss ‘it’ - a lot of things, and touching Gellert’s thoughts among them, as well as what usually happened after. The familiar angle of the head, making Gellert’s neck stand out sharper, was not making things easier. And the broken, ragged edges of their once shared dream, of his naivete and foolishness, were cutting him deeply - almost as painfully as he had crashed back down onto the ground after flying up on the wings of hope amidst what he had thought to be the ruins of his life, before it shattered into pieces.
‘I try my best to let my students flourish, not clip their wings’, was the only bait he could afford to rise to verbally. He tossed his head but looked into Gellert’s eyes, ‘Fine, show me what was apparently worth writing to me again as nothing else was’. Gellert’s eyes narrowed in what usually promised a heated argument, but he kept silent and took Dumbledore’s hand, lowering the Occlumency defenses just enough to let him in.
It felt quite different from watching memories in a Pensive - no specific focal point of person who experienced the event, but more of a floating sensation. He was on the balcony, quite high from the ground, and on the street below and in the air in front of him was the bustle of people trying to reach their destination - many brooms were swishing past, several carriages with Thestrals, some people gliding on what looked like tear-shaped wooden boards painted with enchantments. This must be how disorienting the annual migration to Hogwarts looked like to Muggles in the ages past, only this crowd did not pass by and disappear, but kept as a steady stream of people. Albus spotted vehicles looking similar to Muggle cars, both on the ground and in the air, and when he shifted the attention to people, they wore a mix of wizarding and Muggle fashions, and the ever-moving stream was not only human - he was able to spot centaurs, elves, and either a pair of animagi or werewolves - when the vision clouded and shifted out of focus.
Next, he was in an underwater city, seeing Merpeople swimming among the reefs and pillars together with various surface-people, including one giant, using bubble-head charms and glass-like contraptions to breathe underwater. He caught sight of several conversations gestured in Mermish; the fluent language could be taken as proof this was indeed a vision rather than a scene created by Gellert in his mind, as he was - or at least used to be - notoriously bad at it. But the truth of visions themselves did not mean they would come true, or at what cost, but he could not deny the allure of the mixed world they offered. A school of fish swam past, obscuring his vision, and he was back at the table staring into Gellert’s eyes and clutching his hand.
Gellert watched him intently as if he could barely contain the impulse to jump up and pace around, while Albus blinked a couple of times, and took a sip of the almost cold coffee. Yes, he would not mind a chance to pace and not be in a public place right now too.
‘There’s more where it came from’, said Gellert with an almost sing-song quality to his tone. ‘Don’t you want to see it, Albus? What we could make the world to be?’
Albus cleared his throat, taking away his hand. ‘I certainly don’t want to be detained on charges of indecent displays in public, or what do they call it these days. You’ve let the eye-averting spells slip.’ But Gellert only shrugged, not looking much guilty.
‘I am staying at a discreet place here. We won’t be disturbed’, he stood up, offering a hand to Albus - and against his better judgment and bitter pain of betrayal Dumbledore took it. It could not hurt to learn more - or rather, it could not hurt more than his already shattered heart.