Work Text:
Setting: 1996, Hogwart's School of Witchcraft & Wizardry during the 2nd Wizarding World War...
Albus' head lay smooth against his bed pillows, but his rest was hard to find. His gaze turned across to the wall where dark and lighter shadows played, lit by the candles that perched from the upper walls of his bed chamber. They seemed to Albus just then as elusive and chaotic as the wars that he had long been fighting, flickering once and then still again in those shadows. This time, he would not be at the close. His grey and withered hand lay still on his chest, only disturbed by his gentle breathing. In some ways that fact was a relief. But sometimes, as now, memories came close and whispered in his ear. And other memories stirred deeper still as a sharp stain, or as an aching joint. Yes, he had regrets, but none such that he could number them, lay them bare on any thought or page, or pull out one turn he was willing to separate on his path for the one approaching him. A year, that was the time still granted him.
The resurrection stone had been so tempting – there in his presence at last and held by his flesh. The promise of regaining not only his sister again, but the young man that he had once been, unencumbered by this guilt that still burdened him. Grief was like that. Sometimes you thought of it not at all for many years, and then you turned a corner in the street, or glanced down at a stone reflecting what once had been, and it came back to you as an echo of utter torment. As damp tears streaming down your cheeks. Just for now though he exhaled, and let his thoughts toss back in another parallel direction, one he rarely let them stray towards. Another temptation, or perhaps a regret, but one he was surely granted indulgence in now, as a man with a death sentence. A temptation whose heart was still beating, if just as aged and imprisoned as his own. Now that his end was so near, Albus somehow felt closer than he had these last fifty years to Gellert and to his own youth. What would Gellert feel now if he knew of Albus’ impending death? Satisfaction? A faint sadness, even grief? Nothing at all? Albus recalled a day long ago during the summer of his youth. One of the few times he had gazed unblinded into Gellert’s mind.
For Albus had discovered that he had some talent for legilimancy in his 4th year of Hogwarts. He had read about the skill in a textbook in the restricted section of the school library, and it had been one he had been curious to explore further. He had brought it up with his friend, Elphias Doge a few days later and Elphias had been more than willing to let Albus practice the technique on him. Albus had found it took him a great deal of concentration to hold on to Elphias’ mind. To not be distracted by his own thoughts, which were always humming and whirring in the background. Often in his early days of practicing the technique he could only collect whiffs of stray feelings that he could identify. Feelings like ‘hunger’ or ‘boredom’, before his concentration would slip and he would have to begin over again with the technique.
When he had first met Gellert that summer in Godric’s Hallow, Gellert had been full of dissimile. From their first encounter, their conversations had often taken twists and turns, as if Gellert relished in leaving Albus breathless, and off-guard. Though Albus had developed his skills in legilimancy further during his later years at Hogwarts, it still required great intention and concentration from him to wield them. Thus, it had shocked and surprised him that summer when it had happened quite by accident one evening. Though, now, as he thought back on it, he thought that perhaps what happened had not been such an accident after all, but had arisen from that playful but serious tension that had been building between the two of them throughout that summer. From Albus’s unconscious and growing frustration to know Gellert’s true intentions. With this friendship unlike any he had encountered before.
They had been relaxed, sitting and facing each other in Gellert’s room, wrapping up a discussion. Albus had just been teasing Gellert. He had looked up for a moment to meet Gellert’s eyes, and suddenly it had been effortless. He was falling into Gellert's eyes. It had been so very different than in all the other practice sessions with Elphias, or with any of his other friends. The effect of entering another’s mind had been magnified ten-fold. It had been so overwhelming that at first Albus had not been able to distinguish any form or definition to the storm of thoughts and feelings that resided in Gellert’s mind. It was all imprecise, un-demarked, layers upon layers of thoughts and feelings. And so intense that they felt indistinguishable from his own. But then he had seen something beating at the base of Gellert’s mind, beyond the blue calm border of an exterior, of what was shown to the outer world. It was a strong warm golden hue of a feeling, suffusing out towards him. A tenderness. An interest both intellectual and carnal. Golden yes, but also blood red at it’s center. Not so well hidden after all. Abruptly, Albus had stumbled backward and out of Gellert’s mind. “I’m so sorry!” he had exclaimed, “I didn’t mean to!” He remembered the brief vision of Gellert’s face. His startled eyes still open and burning. Albus himself had felt as if he had just fallen into a deep well, but one with no bottom. He had rushed out of the room that day. “Albus!”, Gellert had called out after him. Though Albus had apologized to him again later the next day, he had never admitted to Gellert exactly what he had glimpsed there. Nor had he revealed that other discovery. For in that moment, not only had he recognized the unlimited extent and the nature of Gellert’s feelings towards hims, but he had also recognized identical and reciprocated feelings of his own. Gellert had never brought up with him again what had happened that evening. Perhaps both he and Gellert had been similar is that way. Afraid of their vulnerability and of what it would mean to the both of them.
None of those long-ago feelings, either revealed or unrevealed, mattered now, Albus sighed. And then he smiled slightly to himself. He wondered why it gave him now some comfort to think that Gellert would outlive him. He thought now also of his young students. They had such courage. More courage at their age then he had ever had. And some of them still had a chance at happiness, of falling in love, and of heart break, even. Yes, he was dieing on the right side of this war, even having given into temptations. He turned and lifted the deluminator from his bedside table. With a press of the button, the flickering lights left the room as wars surrendering to the dark finally, but a dim light still diffused his bed chamber. It came from outside. It was a dawn that was brightening.