Chapter Text
Bathilda Bagshot dies on a bright summer day, trapped under the rocks of a prehistoric cave that collapses on her and the party of explorers that went down with, not knowing the risk they were taking. The terrible news reach England a week later. Albus Dumbledore is one of the few that hears about the tragedy scarcely twenty four hours before it is on every paper known to Earth, thanks to a contact in Egypt. Sensationalism plays with the information and twists it as if it were origami sheets, in colour. Better over than under. That’s journalism.
Aberforth burns holes on his skull but he doesn’t say anything. At the time of the funeral, he stands up and pours his cup of tea in the sink before leaving, it had rested in front of him on the table for at least two and a half hours and he hadn’t brought it to his lips once. Aberforth has drunk at least two entire teapots alone, while throwing him accusatory, questioning, demanding looks that Albus didn’t even bothered to return. Their brotherhood had been reduced to that, it was surprisingly kinder than what it could be.
He can’t help but think about his mother’s funeral. Not Ariana’s. Not his father 's. His mother’s, because the house feels the same, cold, too cold for July, suffocating, asphyxiating at the same time. The wind makes everyone in the graveyard shudder and shake their legs discreetly to warm themselves up, he himself is wearing gloves. Aberforth, next to him, moves his chair to let him pass to the front.
Of course he was meant to read, say, explain, something; Bathilda had instructed with eerie detail what she had wanted to happen with her corpse and her belongings the moment she wasn’t there anymore. Private ceremony. No one allowed, no press, no admirers. She wasn’t planning on her funeral to pass on in history, the antithesis of her lifework.
In his half speech half rumble Albus remembers her as a meticulous woman and there seems to be an agreement in the air, mumbled, hopeful; he tells an anecdote about the time he and his siblings were children, paying her visits after mass, coming back home too full of scones, feeling guilty when they sat down at the table for lunch. He tells a warming story because he knows it is what he’s meant to tell. But he doesn’t wish to give away more, the moment he speaks it out loud, there is an emptiness that settles on his heart, as if it had been carved out and emptied, as if the memory had been taken away from him forever.
He knows the few people there reunited have been hand-picked by Bathilda. He also knows everything that’s coming out of his mouth will be repeated by someone for the right amount of galleons, he’d see it published on the following day’s front page of The Prophet. And still, still, despite being so sure of it, so aware of his movements and of the consequences of every single one of his words, he finishes speaking and doesn’t sit back down. He doesn’t turn to the grave, open, the coffin not having been lowered down just yet. He just keeps walking. He walks to the line of cypresses at the back, he walks towards the cloaked figure that stands next to them. He may have been staring at him during the entire time he had been speaking.
“Don’t leave when this ends. We need to speak,” he says and his voice comes clearer than he expects it, he hasn’t been able to blink the tears away yet. “I won’t call the aurors on you.”
The figure nods, very subtly, Albus is sure it hasn’t been perceived by the crowd. He hopes no one is looking at them, he prays it’s all inside his head, the sensation of having so many eyes on him, on them , together, because it isn't difficult to guess who hides under a dark cloak of night under the cruel summer sun. And despite his best judgement, he takes a step closer. And another. And he touches Gellert’s arm, and his hand continues ascending until it closes on his shoulder. He squeezes it tightly and Gellert yields completely, his legs almost failing him. Albus holds him against his body and Gellert clings to him, to his clothes, as if it was the only thing keeping him from walking forwards to the crowd and throwing himself inside the open hole in the ground to rest with her.
♦♦♦
He exchanges a look with Aberforth before diverting his path from his and going to Bathilda’s instead. The hatred in his gaze doesn’t hurt half as much as it should, Albus is used to seeing, to feeling, it. How many funerals would they attend together until they inevitably had to organise the other’s? How many shared loved ones left to mourn? Albus doesn’t know what he prefers, to die first or to bury his brother. He has already buried the rest of his family. But so has Aberforth when he thinks about it. Does he wonder the same? Has he ever wondered?
What do you expect me to do? He wants to ask him. But he doesn’t, he can imagine his brother’s answer. I want you to kill him .
He lets himself in with the key that is now his, according to the rushed will that had been read at the end, and Gellert’s, according to both Bathilda and himself. She had left mostly everything to him because she had been certain Albus would make sure it didn’t get lost on its way to her nephew.
The house smells the same, the furniture, he doesn’t understand why he expects it to have changed after her death, at the end of the day, the woman expected to come back home from her journey to Egypt. He fears he’d see her appear through the library door, with a tray flying behind her, porcelain cups clinking, spilling tea on the plates and never enough ancient history books on her hands, excited to tell him about her new investigations, her new discoveries, anything that would end up picking his interest.
He finds Gellert in the kitchen, leaning on the counter, his back to the window. He wouldn’t see it coming if someone decided to attack him. But again, he’d probably feel it, the magic charge, the presence of someone else, he was always too good at knowing when he was being looked at, Albus learnt it a second too late in his youth.
He holds his own hands, Albus can see the blue sparks spilling through them, the Elder wand is nowhere to be seen. The hood still covers his face. For a few seconds, Albus just stays in the doorway.
“I wanted to make tea. But I don’t dare to touch anything.” His voice is a whisper, ragged, it breaks. “Everything is the same.”
The same as in that summer, the same as in 1899. Albus knows Gellert hasn’t put a step on Godric’s Hollow since then. Why would he. The only relevant thing in that unremarkable and boring village was Albus and Albus left eventually. And his aunt, he could always write to her. Albus remembers the conversation with Bathilda, she preferred Gellert not to come either way, it would make her home a target for the Ministry and she couldn’t guarantee his security. She had been surprised he hadn’t tried to contact Albus, Albus had not told her he could see a call in every one of his attacks, that Gellert needn’t write to let him know he still wanted him.
“I’ll make it,” he says, and it is muscle memory, the kitchen is even more familiar than the one a few houses away, his own when he had been a teenager, Aberforth’s now; he boils the water on the kettle and pours the leaves before filling up the cups.
He doesn’t offer Gellert one, he’d drop it with that trembling of his hands. Instead, he reaches and slips down the hood onto his shoulders, uncovering his face. Gellert’s eyes are closed as if the movement had caused him pain, but when he opens them, he keeps his gaze low, on the floor, on his military boots, on everything but Albus.
Albus interlinks their pinkies tentatively and pulls, an old gesture that surprises Gellert. They sit on the uncomfortable sofa, the tacky flower pattern clashes with everything else in the room. Gellert reaches for his hand again when their fingers inevitably slide free, not wanting to break the contact, rejecting separation. A few blue sparks jump the moment their skins touch again. Raw magic, Albus feels his own boiling under his skin in recognition. He allows it, he is almost glad Gellert fixes his gaze on the unlit chimney after a while, deep in thought, not seeming very aware of his surroundings, uninterested by his presence. His eyes cover in white and he blinks the vision away, shaking his head softly. Albus realises he has somehow mastered his sight. He caresses his hand with his thumb and his fingers find the scar that breaks his palm in two to match his own. He tries not to think of that day, of the barn, of the past.
So he focuses on him, and regards him, Albus allows himself to stare. For how long has he thought himself satisfied with the pictures on the papers and the reflection on the mirror of Erised. Nothing does him justice. Not fixed photographs, not the moving type, not reflection and, to his dismay, not memory either. His hair looks lighter, a clearer blond he hasn't perceived before, a change so subtle most wouldn't notice it; it happens when one toys with the dark arts, and his features are sharper, hardened by the battlefield, defined by age. A man, not a boy anymore, but a man.
It’s dusk when Gellert finally meets his eyes again, he turns towards him slowly. Red-rimmed eyes, it is the second time Albus has seen him cry. Ever. He still remembers the visions of war and Gellert, terrified, not even able to speak, his grip on his bedsheets, the tears rolling down his face. They had been on his childhood bedroom. Now he is calm, breath slightly uneven, he keeps his thoughts, his fears, his visions to himself, but his eyes are wet. Albus' sight goes blurry too.
“I should have stayed. When your sister died.” He swallows hard, biting his white lips so hard, Albus fears he’d draw blood. “I should have never left.”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
♦♦♦
In the way he kisses him, hungry, desperate; in the way he moves, erratic, trembling, Albus is relieved he’s giving him some type of comfort. He is not surprised that Gellert still likes the same, a hand around his neck and a tight grip on his hip keeping him in place, they fuck on the bedroom that had been his only for a summer and Albus makes sure to tire him. Gellert doesn’t want him to be gentle, so he is harsh, harsher, he silently makes him pay for his words, for his belated regret. He forces himself to ignore the tears running down Gellert’s face and covers his mouth to muffle his moans, his sobs, he turns him to be able to go deeper. Albus knows he is not hurting him, this is Gellert’s way of processing everything that is happening, this is his way of handling pain, with more pain to match it.
They almost laugh when he breaks the pillow with his teeth, staring at each other with half a smile on their lips. Albus bites his shoulder affectionately and Gellert twists under him to face him, discarding the pillow with a smack, throwing it on the floor. White feathers spill from it like running water.
“I’ve missed you.” And the adoration in his voice hurts.
“Of course you have,” he answers and Gellert pulls him closer, his hand holding his hair in a fist of red flames, in the kiss they taste blood.
Gellert’s sleep is light, he’s out for less than half an hour. Albus kisses his spine the moment he hears him breath in sharply, dragging his lips up to the nape of his neck, letting himself fall back on the bed next to him. He relaxes instantly under his touch.
“I thought you had left.”
“It’s still early,” he answers softly, he takes one last look at the half written letter on the desk, a younger Gellert’s handwriting claims to love him. He has found it in one of the drawers, he doesn't tell Gellert he's certain his aunt knew about them. “Classes start at nine.”
Gellert shivers when the tips of his fingers brush his side; his skin, gooseflesh. “Stop it,” he says, but he pulls him closer, makes space for him under the covers. He drags a leg on top of him as if dissatisfied, as if their bodies weren’t tangled enough. “So the truce ends at eight.”
“Eight thirty if you want to push it, there is a portkey to Hogsmeade nearby and Hogwarts is walking distance from there.” He smiles, feeling his nose against his neck, Gellert is nodding.
He plays with his hair, making red strands turn around his finger. Albus knows he wants to say something more, he wants to ask a question and doesn’t know how to arrange the words. Clarity filters through the drapes on the windows, darkness leaving the world.
“If it had been a plot, an attack, something more… more shiny, something my sight wouldn’t have missed.”
He sighs and Albus kisses his forehead.
“You can’t prevent everything, Gellert. You are a seer, not a time traveller.” He runs his fingers through his hair when he props up to look at him. “You’d have blamed yourself even more if it hadn’t been an accident, believe me, I know what I’m talking about.” And the way his throat closes surprises him for an instant, he swallows hard.
Gellert is careful with his answer, Albus feels his limbs tense against him, and suddenly they have stopped speaking about Bathilda’s death. “If it had been a different kind of tragedy, at least I would have someone to take revenge on.”
Albus touches his face, traces the line that joins his brow to his lower lip, it draws his cheekbone, crosses the cheek.
“The moment you stop grieving, revenge loses all its allure.” He kisses back when Gellert brushes his lips against his. “It would have never closed the wound, it would have just kept it open.”
Something crosses behind his eyes, like doubt, like fear. Albus realises a second too late what tense he has used to speak about it, the ambiguity of the tragedy of conversation, removed.
“No,” Gellert says, but Albus deepens the kiss before he can contradict him, he bites before he can think again about complaining. It doesn’t take long for Gellert to accept the answer as truth, his hand travelling south, his body burning against his.