Normal Days

“You’re what?” 

“I’m sorry, Albus. That’s why I arranged for this—to apologize. I am sorry for. For everything.” This is his one chance, now that he’s not being mercilessly pummeled, so Gellert pulls out all the stops. 

“I spent fifty years at Nurmengard, biding time for my escape. Each second that passed, I thought about the different ways I would crush the British government under my iron regime of promise and integrity within the Wizarding World.” 

“Oh shit, was it a bad idea to bring him back to life?” Oliver whispers to Percy. Percy shrugs, mentally checked out for the day. 

“But then, I was transported to a Rainforest Cafe.” Gellert steadies himself on his own feet. “I’d like to show you what I saw.” Gellert reaches his hand out. Albus narrows his eyes, but tentatively reaches out and accepts Gellert’s hand. 

“After you.” Albus states, softly, the need to fight still coursing through his tensed muscles. Gellert bows his head. 

“We should follow them, right?” Sirius asks, coming up to Percy and Oliver. 

Percy eyes the small crowd of employees that had gathered to watch the fist fight, some swapping money between them from bets on which old guy would win. 

“Yeah.” 

And Albus is led back to the entrance of the Rainforest Cafe. Gellert opens the door for him, and a young man in a safari-themed jumper walks them to a table in the corner. Directly in back of them is a huge portrait of safari-themed animals, and near the front is a stage with different animatronics. 

“When I broke out, I was accidentally transported to one of these.” The waiter, Dave, comes round to take their drink and appetizer orders. 

“Thank you, Dave.” Gellert smiles at him, and Albus is surprised to see the other’s facial features empty of any sarcasm. 

“Of course, Mr. Grindelwald.” Dave smiles back. 

“And I knew that the muggles had achieved something….spectacular.” Gellert gestures with his hands to the restaurant, full of fake foliage and fake jungle noises. “Muggles, Albus. Muggles came up with the idea, implemented it, and made it come true.” 

Then, Gellert leans forward and lowers his voice to a whisper. He fiddles with his napkin, “But, it was lonely. It was a beautiful and joyous experience, but it was dulled because,” He sets the napkin down, “Because you weren’t there with me.” 

He doesn’t know if his world will reach the man sitting across from him, but he wills it to be so. “Albus. All the power in the world is useless when I won’t have anyone to share it with.” 

Gellert should have wished harder. Albus visibly rolls his eyes. “Gellert, many people would jump at the chance to rule alongside you—” 

“BUT THEY’RE NOT YOU.” Gellert shouts, slamming his fists on the table as he rises. “The only person I want by my side is you, Albus Dumbledore.” 

Albus refuses to be apart of this sudden childishness. “But why, Gellert? I disagree with your ideals on every stage of them, I am the leader of the light, in fact, I’m—” 

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, you daft fool.” Gellert confesses, breathing heavily as he stands. “I love you, and I don’t care about the differences. Not anymore, not when we’re like this.” He gestures to his person then to Albus’. “Albus, we are too old to care about such things—” 

“You brush off human life as ‘such things’” Albus asserted, getting to his own feet, equally enraged. “This is why it will not work. You care only for yourself, not for the others that you step on in order to receive power.” 

“I do not! I care for you!” 

“You do not! For if you truly cared for me, you wouldn’t have tried to kill me!” Albus is breathing heavily, the poor table splintering under his grip. He forces himself to calm down, but the hurt will not be tempered. So he continues. 

“Gellert. You chose power over me. You chose to go against your fellow man for it.” 

“Please, Albus.” And Albus had never seen Gellert look so vulnerable, let alone in public. “I regret it, truly.” 

“The lives you took? You feel remorse for them?” Albus asserts, and Gellert bows his head. “No.” Albus walks out from their booth, but a hand at his wrist stops him. “But because you mourn them, I mourn them too.” Albus looks back, surprised at the confession. 

“Because you hurt, I hurt for them. Each soul that I’ve taken, I. I cannot bear myself feeling this hurt that you’ve felt. But I will endure it because it reminds me that your feelings, Albus Dumbledore, is what makes you strong.” Gellert’s grip is loose, Albus could break out of it anytime he wishes. 

Dave comes back and awkwardly sets the appetizer and drinks out on the table as Gellert and Albus remain standing, looking into each other’s eyes. 

Hesitantly, Albus is the one to break eye contact first, sitting back down. 

“If you were to go free, what would you do?” Albus asks, looking into Gellert’s eyes to peer inside his mind. Oddly enough, Gellert allows the legilimens to occur, dropping his oculomancy shields.  

“I’d ask to live with you, to restart our relationship from the top. I want to know what it’s been like, being a headmaster at Hogwarts, fighting in another war. Then I’d tell you how it was in Nurmengard, breaking out, discovering the Rainforest Cafe.” 

“What is your stance on muggles and muggleborns?” 

“The muggles have grown advanced, not just in the ways of military. They’ve used their technology to make things that are beautiful. Muggleborns still need a proper education and a better integration process into our world, but.” Gellert takes a depth breath, “I understand how radical mass murders of muggleborn and squib parents are. And I think that proper reintegration protocols can occur through,” Gellert makes a face, “proper legislation.” 

“What of your stance on dark magic within Hogwarts?” 

And this is how the next two hours went, with Dave steadily refilling their drinks or swapping them out for new ones. At one point, they took a break to eat their chosen lunches, but it was mostly Albus grilling Gellert on his new stance and morals on everything from pureblood politics to the proper maintenance of magical and non-magical creatures. 

Near the end, they were both very drunk. 

“Gellert, my last question.” Albus downs the rest of his Cheeta Rita, Gellert not far behind. “Why? Why did you break our blood pact?” 

“I was a fool in my younger years. All I wanted was to rule, to make sure that the magical community was protected with my way, and only my way.” Dave sets two new cocktails onto the table. 

“Thank you, Dave,” They both say because it’s important to make sure your waiters feel validated in the back breaking labor they do. Dave might be an exception to this rule since the cafe was so slow, he usually just smoked outside with the employees from the gift shop. Poor Dave, sometimes he got bullied by the other workers because he attended school in central London. 

“But now I realize that, truly, none of that means anything when I do not have you.” Gellert puts his hands on the table. Albus put his own on top. 

“What makes me so special to you, Gellert?” Gellert smiles, grabbing Albus’ hand to bring them closer. 

“Because, after all this time, somehow. You still love me, too.” Then Gellert draws Albus’ hands together to kiss the tops of them. 

“I’m still very angry at you, you know.” Albus says in response, finally relaxing. 

“I hear that the angrier you are, the more bitter forgiveness will be.” Gellert responds, laying another kiss onto Albus’ hands. Albus huffs quietly at the quip. 

“Then, what have I for bitter forgiveness, if your sweetness is all I need?” Albus quips back, moving to sit next to Gellert. “This will be a long path for us, Gellert.” 

“We’ve started it, Albus, that’s half the battle.” Gellert leans against Albus, their hands intertwined. 

“Wow.” Percy whispers, him, Oliver and Sirius in the booth to their immediate left. They’ve been eavesdropping from the moment Albus and Gellert sat down. “I can’t believe they made up after only two hours.” 

“What do you mean only two hours, my arse is practically asleep.” Sirius complains, stretching out and contemplating turning into a dog to stretch some more. 

“Professor Dumbledore went from killing Gellert to accepting weird hand kisses from him.” 

“I guess Gellert was known to have a lot of charisma…but I didn’t know it was this much.” Oliver confesses, peeking over again to see the couple leaning on each other and debating what to get for dessert.

“If they start making out, I’m leaving.” 

“And I’ll be right behind you.” Oliver says. 

A few minutes later, Percy, Oliver and Sirius run the fuck away as Gellert and Albus prove to each other that, yes, all of their teeth are real. 

The noonday sun rises and begins its descent into nighttime. As hours pass, drinks and snacks passed from Albus and Gellert’s table at the Rainforest Cafe. The couple drifted closer to each other, ending up shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the booth. Albus, making the chips from the beef lava nachos do a line dance, with a few cheese sticks using their guts as a one-string bass for the music. 

“I think we could make the cheese sticks drunk if we infuse them with the Mongoose Mai Tai,” Gellert posits, already flagging down Dave to get them another three (Albus has the alcohol tolerance of a God, and Gellert has taken that as a challenge to get him as drunk as possible). Then, the glint of his iced up rolex catches his eye and he notices the time. 

“Oh,” He says, the words puffing out from his chest. 

“What’s wrong, Gellert?” Albus waves his hand, the chips pairing off to a slow waltz. The cheesesticks take a break as the Amazon Bruschetta take up the herbs along their back as wind instruments. 

“In order to keep up the portkey, I must be back in my cell, soon.” 

“If not?” 

“The portkey breaks and my daytime dalliances are revealed.” Albus takes Gellert’s wrist, looking over the portkey himself. 

“This is ministry magic, a broken one?”

“Yes. One of the guard’s gave it to me as part of my ‘cause’.” 

“Well, we have thirty more minutes, and then.” Albus grasps Gellert’s hand, “we’ll have another day.” 

“Oh, Albus.” Gellert feels something in his cold, dead, heart. It might just be love. “Truly?” 

Albus smiles, “Truly, Gellert.” 

So they spend the last thirty and some odd minutes of Gellert’s freedom for the day cozying up in a booth at this Rainforest Cafe. The faux jungle storms come and go, each time Albus summoning a small shield to keep themselves dry as they watch the small raindrops fall. 

Their hands stay intertwined. 

And when there was a scant five minutes left, Gellert paid the check and they both stacked their plates and thanked Dave profusely for his level of service. Then stood, face to face. 

“Tomorrow, Gellert. Let’s meet back here, tomorrow.” Gellert gives a soft smile, an expression that looks a little mancing on his old, angular feature, but genuine nonetheless. 

“Promise you won’t beat me into the ground, Albus?” 

“Of course, Gellert, once was enough.” Albus leaned in closely, “And it seems that not even that can get you to cross over to the side.” They share a quiet laugh, drifting closer to one another. 

“Those students of yours sure are special, huh?”

“Of course,” Albus says, “Percy is the brightest wizard in his class. And Oliver is.” Albus is ashamed to admit he stumbles, “And Oliver is the strongest.” Gellert snorts. 

The minute hands move up, and Gellert knows he can’t string this moment out any farther. 

“I will miss you in the hours we are apart, Albus.” And Albus leans in closer, and closer. 

When they come up for air, foreheads still leaning against one another for purchase, Albus responds. “I will, too. Be safe, Gellert. I look forward to tomorrow.” 

“And the tomorrow after that?” 

“And the tomorrow after that.” Albus agrees, “And every other tomorrow after that one, too.” They embrace one final time, before Gellert steps away to activate the portkey. No goodbyes are said, no other exchanges of love or piety, just a silent acknowledgement that, when tomorrow comes, they will have another day for each other. 

Albus, left in his lonesome at the Rainforest Cafe, reflects on the cleared away table that housed him and Gellert. Loss, loss was something he knew too well. It pulled at his stomach every time a memory of Arianna or Gellert seemed to pop into his mind. But now, it seemed like something in him had been loosened. Maybe it was his old age, wisdom seemed to come in spades to fools, it seems. 

And in his cell, looking up at a supermoon, Gellert thinks the very same thing. 

Meanwhile, Percy and Oliver were back in the cave with Sirius Black and Buckbeak. Sirius, out the fuck cold, snores loudly. Buckbeak smacks him with one of her wings. Sirius continues to snore. 

“Look at how big the moon is!” Oliver excitedly whispers, trying not to wake up Sirius. Although Percy wasn’t sure what whispering would do, Black was currently dead to the world. 

“It’s yellow, too. That means the moon is lower in the sky than it previously was, which scatter more of its blue wavelengths—” 

THUD

Percy snaps his head to the right, where Oliver has thrown his big ass axe into the tree trunk. And there, the blade holding his collar, is Tony. So, Percy looks closer at the trees. The leaves donʻt move. And if Percy stands very, very still he canʻt feel any of the humid wind on his skin. Instead, there’s a latent chill in the air. 

“Hi, Tony. Thanks for the beer and the axe.” 

“No worries, dude. Here’s your axe back.” Death nonchalantly pulls the axe—blade on his uncovered palm— off of his shirt collars and hands it back to the Oliver. 

“Thanks! How’d your game night go?” 

“Pretty good, we did uno but Cthulu got ganged up on and had to pick up 30 cards! We had to call it early before he drowned all of us.” 

Oliver nods understandingly—that was one of the many wonderful things about Oliver, he was very agreeable with anything that came out of anyone’s mouth, even if it was the most insane thing in the world. 

Tony turns to Percy now. 

“Percy.” 

“Tony.” Cold, was the appropriate word to describe their greeting to one another. 

“So, you killed us?” Oliver asked, letting the axe fall heavily on his side as he sat back next to Percy. There was a minor disillusionment charm on it to hide from the muggles, but he still had to lug it through the town as their little gang fled the scene during Albus’ and Gellert’s makeout session. 

“Yuh.” Tony winks at them, giving them two sets of finger guns. The tips of his fingers smoked. This time, he was wearing a wonderfully neon orange shirt that read, “Get a Bucket and a Mop for That Weapons and Payoffs”. 

“Why??” Percy exclaims. If he remembers that day right, Tony was playing fucking Quidditch with Oliver and Harry that day! 

“Him, lol.” Tony points at Oliver, “It’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about. But then I forgot. So, my bad y’all.” Then he holds up a peace sign. Which could be considered ironic for a multitude of reasons. 

Percy promptly lost his shit. 

“The fuck you mean, my bad, YOU FUCKING KILLED US. YOU TOOK US AWAY FROM OUR FAMILY, OUR FRIENDS.” He was up from his seat, Oliver trying to grab his arms and get him away from the eldritch deity he was yelling, to no avail. Tony did not flinch as Percy got closer. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Then Percy, winds his hand back in a fist and punches the living fuck out of death—which is a very big feat considering he’s the anthropomorphic idea of Death.

“PERCY!” Oliver shouts, finally managing to get a hold of the other man and literally wrenching him away from Death. “Percy, fucking hell, your hand.” And sure enough, each part of Percy’s hand that made contact with Tony darkened in color to a horrible black. Then bits of the charred flesh started to peel off, revealing more ashy dust and something white—Percy’s bones. 

“Oh, Merlin. Fuck, fuck fuck.” Oliver scrambles, layering stasis charms over Percy’s hands and trying to stop the spread. 

For Percy, it doesn’t hurt. But the more he thinks about it, and the longer his eyes are stuck on the sight of his rapidly decaying hand, the more it hits him: he doesn’t feel it. It’s just a numb sort of warmth. He tries to move his hand, but finds that he can’t. Or if he did, he can’t see that he moved it. So, Percy hardens his gaze and wrestles his decaying stub of what used to be a limb back from Oliver’s frantic spell casting. 

Then punches death one more time! And when his hand, whole and healthy, makes contact with Tony’s face, yet again, Percy knows with a certain kind of vindictiveness, that this motherfucker was trying to pull a fast one on them. 

Instead of reacting like a normal person, Tony snaps his crooked jaw back into place then shoots Percy a smile. 

“I always knew you were the smart one.” 

“You’re a fucking cunt,” Percy spits back. 

“Your hand is fine.” Oliver says, grabbing at Percy’s hand and checking it over once, twice. Then one more for good luck. 

“Of course it’s fine, Tony just thought it would be funny to play a little prank on us.”

“And it was!”

“CUNT!” Percy lunges for him again, and Oliver fully picks him up so that Percy is in the air, feet kicking. Tony takes out a cigarette and lights it, too. 

“You’re taking this a lot better than him.” Tony observes, taking a drag from his death stick (appropriately titled). Oliver shrugs. 

“You’ve got your reasons, right?” Oliver asks, unusually calm as Percy struggles in his grip, continuing to cuss out Tony. 

Tony nods, “That I do. It’s a fun story, too!” 

After a little bit, when Oliver finally manages to calm Percy down, Tony monologues at them. 

“Once upon a time, there was a war.” 

In this particular war, the greatest resource was bodies. And the people who repair them.