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It is already late morning, but Albus finds himself gazing out his window. A frost covers the outside of the double-paned glass in intricate patterns and the sun has just reached above the slope of the furthest hills, and filters in through the fine condensed figures. A cold draft follows and seems to sink into the stone walls around him and to settle even further into his bones.
He wonders if he is finally old, to find himself so lost in mindless thought, just as those aches in his back and joints have begun to defy the feats of magic that have so long protected him. He knows somehow, from some strong but intermittent strand of that gift for prophecy within him, that if this is not old age, than it is surely some foreboding of the stillness and coldness of a vacant tomb which awaits him, not so many years hence. Death does not bring him terror, exactly, but when he does turn his thoughts towards it, he feels as if he is a curious child, peering into the doorway of an unfamiliar and recently deserted room.
The last of the children have left for their winter holidays and the corridor outside his chamber is unnaturally quiet. No hesitant knocks from first-years yearning to ask his advise on matters most important or troubling to them, no heavy clatter of the older student's feet as they make a hurried way, late to their studies. Even Fawkes is indulging in a lie-in this morning. Albus can hear the faintest whistle from the gentle in-and-out of his breath, and the occasional ruffle of feathers as his loyal companion shifts in sleep. He ponders how he has never entirely gotten used to this: all of the silent space that the children leave for his thoughts when a term is over.
One of his favored pastimes is to contemplate riddles, perhaps none of those more fascinating than all the variations, both small or grand, in those motivations of the human mind and heart. But even given these inclinations towards reflection, and even during the shocking losses of his youth, he has never been one who was prone to melancholy. He knows that some of his colleagues wonder where this fortitude comes from, that some whisper that he holds neither true ideals, nor a true heart of his own. While others consider him to be merely a supremely gifted and powerful busy-body. But control, even unquestioning control, is that virtue he now holds in highest regard, for without it he feels he might lose his hold of these very same ideals, of what in his heart he tries to keep clear and humble. To live on stoically, though there are corridors of that heart which are shuttered and have been for as long as he cares to remember. And so these losses and disappointments, even the moments of real fear, have only convinced him to tighten his grip. Where he has lived up to his ideals, and where he has certainly failed, of both he is equally unsure.
No, he has never been prone to melancholy, but perhaps it is the extra brunt of cold this morning as the temperature has tilted below freezing, and it's echoing in the nearly empty school, that on this rare occasion, his thoughts have escaped towards another tower chamber, far away. To dangle dangerously on that edge of both loss and unsteady headlong infatuation (love?) of his youth. When neither glass windows nor stone walls were necessary to isolate his own foolish heart, or the blackened or cold hearts of others.
Yes, there was one moment when Albus knew he had lost. He had stood in front of Albus, his eyes lit as if by some magical creation, his words so certain, so clear in their magnificent logic, so convincing in their youthful arrogance. And yet, he had stood in front of Albus with just that hint of a grin. That hint ever present for all of his upright and single-minded seriousness (would be present till the last) always promising, to Albus only it seemed, some kind of surrender, promising...
Albus blows out his candle, lit during the dim early morning with the intent to catch up on his reading, and rises with only the slightest of unsteadiness from his armchair towards the sun-damped frosted window. As he raises his hand, not yet bejeweled in his preparations this morning, and as he touches the glass, and gazes more closely at the faint maze of his own reflection, and the widening landscape beyond it, he is overcome by a rare feeling of complicity. He experiences a moment of the strongest conviction. That that stark face in his reflection and those elegant bone-thin fingers and that half-opened palm, pressed on the cold glass against his still living flesh, are not those of his own, but belong to another, in another colder, more silent, and certainly sparer chamber.
"Ge-llert."
It is short. An involuntary staccato-ed whisper. And he cannot recall when he last spoke that name aloud. In fact, he stuns himself so thoroughly having said it, that later, he cannot say whether he has conjectured the response from his deepest, most foolish desires or faith. For the stunning thing is that, if he were to be more precise, he does not feel stunned at all, but rather as if he has shifted into a more natural state. For he hears an echoing voice, neither frostily cruel, nor unforgiving in its intent, and perhaps belonging to some realm even bordering on the tender.
"Al-bus.."
Albus lifts his eyes slightly to those eyes in the reflection, eyes clear though the sunlight and the frost should prevent their definition. And then there is another echo, in a halting and gravely tone, as if the owner too, were either much-aged, similarly stunned, or unused to speech.
"Of course, I am with you my friend."
"I was. I shall be."