Albus would have liked to hold him close, to feed him sweet words that’d calm him down. Arms around him, skin to skin, mouth to skin, mouth against mouth. Instead, he settled for observing him let out every breath like a shudder as he paced up and down the room. There wasn’t that much space for him to move.
Gellert’s pulse hadn’t got back to normal, nor his breathing, and not even in his sleep there had been a moment of peace; now that he was awake again, it was even worse. And he didn’t want to speak either. Not about the vision. Not about how he felt. Now about the day before. So Albus had to deal with the distance between them motionless, waiting, expecting, a passive force of his lover’s suffering.
Gellert had screamed in the vision, he had screamed as if he had been drowning, or burning or dying. And Albus had unsuccessfully tried everything to stop what had put him in that state, even breaking a promise. But Gellert’s mind had been like a bush of thorns and reaching would have meant coming back bloody and hurt, and probably poisoned. Legilimency had been impossible.
So he had held on to Gellert, whose nails had clawed on his skin, leaving half-moon-shaped marks and scratches. And Albus had prayed. To the Gods, to anything or anyone that would hear him, please, don’t take him away from me, hurt me instead, hurt me instead but leave him unscathed, please, please, please. His beloved seer. His living nightmare. It had been ages since the last time he’d seen him like this, terrified and out of control, driven by despair, lost, lost but seeing. The stars couldn’t be crueller, enlightening his visions with darkness and doom only after placing them on opposite sides, only after making Gellert push him away.
The night, the rest of it, they had spent awake. For hours he had breathed deeply with Gellert’s hand over his heart, a steady pulse under his fingers, and Gellert had failed to mirror him, shaking violently, breathing sharply, almost choking. The sun had long risen when his body had given up on his mind and he had finally fallen asleep on Albus’ arms. They had already given up on fixing his state, Albus had been petting his hair, Gellert’s eyes had been half closed and tiredness had won. In his sleep, he had twisted and turned.
He had woken with a caged-animal expression, surly and cranky, ready to snap back at any comment. Albus couldn’t help if he didn’t want to be helped. And he had been very clear with not needing Albus, no, with not wanting him to comfort him, or to share the burden. That vision was his. Only his. Behind that Albus could read the mistrust.
“Who did you call.” Gellert let himself fall on the bed and rolled next to him, shrinking into a ball, his arms around his knees. The white in his eyes looked almost black, he looked eerie, fae; too much blood had leaked through the broken capillaries. “Who did you bring back from the dead.”
Albus wouldn’t place the blonde curls that covered his eyes behind his ear. He crossed his arms over his chest instead.
“Your sister?” Gellert insisted when he stayed in silence, his hand moved closer, caressing the sheet but not reaching for him just yet.
Albus shook his head and let it fall back against the bed frame. He wished Gellert had asked about it before, before he had thought he was trying to sabotage him, before he had started to suspect him. Albus wouldn’t have minded that much then. Now, it felt like suicide, like slitting himself open just for him. Maybe he didn’t trust him either anymore.
“Albus, please.”
“My father,” he spitted out.
Gellert waited a few seconds before propping up and dragging to his side, he rested his head on the bed frame too. He was worried. He was exasperated, bothered by the time Albus was taking to answer his questions, by the scarce information he was sharing. But he already knew the answer to everything he wanted to ask, Albus didn’t understand the reasoning behind his approach.
Would she hurt? Would his mother feel pain when Gellert used the Resurrection stone? Would he be bringing back the dead at the cost of their pain? But of course. That was the deal. That was the reason why the second brother couldn’t continue living. Gellert knew the tale by heart. It wasn’t the same thing to summon a spirit or a ghost as to bring it back to life, to give it flesh and blood and a new pulse, to give them back their memories, to allow them to feel, to sense, to smell, to touch. With power came a responsibility, part of that responsibility was being able to bear said power. Albus wouldn't remind him of something so obvious.
“And how was–”
“I don’t want to speak about it.”
Gellert flinched and turned his back on him, lowering his body back on the sheets, his head on the pillow. Albus would have rolled his eyes if the situation wasn’t equally painful for him, he wasn’t trying to be hostile, he needn’t, every word that left his mouth would hurt Gellert, everything that wasn’t what he wanted would be taken as an offence now. He knew. Gellert knew. Fighting was no use, they knew each other too well.
If the circumstances were different he would have reached for him, he would have pulled him closer, he would have told him everything he wanted to hear, every little detail, every sensation, how his father’s voice had sounded in his ears after all that time, grave and severe, how terrible and scary it had been to see his own features grown old, to have checked something he already feared, that he’d grow older to look like him, that it wouldn’t be Aberforth as he had expected, wished, hoped, that it would be him.
But they weren’t. And Gellert seemed to be expecting him to walk away at any moment while at the same time wanting to be the one to send him away. So he stayed where he was and let him deal with his rejection alone. For a while, there was just silence, only the catch on Gellert’s breathing breaking it, as if the vision had severed his lungs.
“Why your father and not your mother,” Gellert returned to the attack, you hated him was left unspoken, you hated him for what he did, for not being able to stop those kids in time, you hated him for leaving, for killing, for going down without a fight, handing himself to the aurors when they came, you’ve told me so many times, you’ve told me so many times, why do you call for someone that’s hurt you so much.
Albus swallowed hard, he didn’t manage the mocking tone so it came out very dry. “Because I am too old to be scolded.”
Gellert turned to him again to see his expression. He was still wearing his shirt, the one that covered half his thighs, pooling on his hips when he sat down. It had always been too big even for him, on Gellert, it looked huge. The skin of his legs looked almost transparent in the remaining light of dusk that entered through the curtains, the paths of his scars mixed with the blue of his veins. As he moved, a ray of sun graced his face, blinding him, and he took shelter behind his hand, open palm towards Albus.
You are lovely like this, he wanted to tell him, but he couldn’t. Pale face and purplish eyelids, crimson eyes and watered down irises, Gellert didn’t look weak, he never looked weak, but suffering. Bare. Aching. He reminded him of the angels that guarded the tombs in cemeteries, of the Spanish dolorosas, of all the baroque statues he’d ever seen. Vulnerability suits you, my love, he wouldn’t say.
He wondered for how long Gellert had been sure Albus would betray him, for how long he had been planning to cast him away. Knowing him, either two seconds or two years. Impulsivity came naturally to Gellert Grindelwald, instinct was engraved on his very essence. it had won him lost battles, it had freed him from prisons and traps and deceits; it had granted him survival time after time. But Gellert could also keep a thought inside his head for as long as the world would be world, ruminating on it until it’d drive him mad.
He could have justified almost every one of Gellert’s thoughts, he would have been able to understand anything that came out of his mind, no matter how twisted. Everything but this. Everything but Albus being the one that would stab him in the back. The traitor. The third traitor. And he was accusing him? Of all the people he could point fingers to at random? Him? Really? If it had been a joke, it wouldn’t have been funny either.
But the cards were there, the cards and the teeth and the vision he wouldn’t hear anything of, there was no way Gellert would ignore the stars. Or maybe he had, maybe he had until he hadn’t been able to look away anymore. He felt hurt, wounded, he guessed Gellert felt something similar towards him.
Albus wasn’t sure if it was the attraction that existed between them, the magnetic pull that held them together, orbiting the other, or if it was the blood pact’s doings, something that could only be explained with blood magic but, to be in front of someone he thought now a traitor, Gellert still wanted him close.
There was nothing else that could comfort him, no other presence that would give him some type of peace. That night Albus had seen a side of him he knew deeply, the one that pushed the knife deeper inside his own guts, a self-destructive tendency he recognised from their youth just because they had shared it from the beginning. Terrible, it was true, but it was comforting, he didn’t want to think about how impossible things would have been if the damnation of reciprocity weren’t there. If I’m to be destroyed, let it be you; if I’m to be killed I’ll be the one to put the knife in your hand.
“And did he scold you? Your father.”
“No.” He pressed his lips together, uncomfortable he hadn’t dropped the topic. “He gave me a piece of wisdom. He was always good at that.”
Gellert was upset he didn’t say more, pouty lips and furrowed brow. Albus couldn’t say to him what his father had told him, not without him feeling manipulated, not without giving him an excuse to push him even further away.
You’ve been old enough to take care of yourself since you were born, when have you needed me? And who would have avenged her if it wasn’t me? There is no guilt in loving, no shame in a sacrifice made in the name of love. You should have learnt that by now, son. If I had stayed, your mother would have never been able to look me in the eye. Your brother and you would have despised me. And Ariana would have still put flowers in my hair, unaware of the fact that she lived a cursed life because of me. I did what I had to do, I regret nothing. Albus had been almost glad when he had turned the ring again to take him back to where he had come from, Percival Dumbledore had only been able to feed his resentment for him.
Gellert reached for his ankle, closing his fingers around it. “I need to talk to Perenelle. Are you coming?”
“You know I am.”
Albus observed him discreetly turn the ring twice around his finger once they had started to get dressed in their street clothes. Gellert froze before he could turn it a third time and knelt to get his shoes from under the bed. The Resurrection stone stayed grey and transparent, no ancient magic leaving it, no dead being forcefully brought back to the land of the living.
It was one of the coldest springs Albus had ever lived, he tried not to shake under his long coat. Cheeks covered by the Gryffindor scarf he had got back from his childhood bedroom, he held back from holding one of Gellert’s gloveless hands inside his own pocket.
Aberforth had kept his old room as if it still belonged to a teenage version of himself. The books on the bedside table and the dried flowers on the windowsill, the school awards on the shelf and the scarf from his house hanging from it. Albus had left it behind by accident in the past and he had never bothered to go back and retrieve it. At the end of the day, teachers weren’t supposed to cheer for any house at Quidditch games. He didn’t need it anymore.
Gellert had put the scarf around his neck and had pulled him closer by the ends in the morning, an excuse to kiss him. “You never wear red. You should have made it your colour.”
Albus had shaken his head, he had spoken the words between kisses. “Clashes with my hair.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re one of the few.”
But Gellert had kissed him again and the conversation hadn't continued further. He had wanted Albus to fuck him against the desk, he had wanted it hard and slow, he had wanted his fingers inside his mouth to muffle his moans. Some kind of act of rebellion to being under Aberforth’s roof. No silencing spells. He was sure his brother hadn’t heard them, Gellert seemed to suspect that too, he had worn bruises and teeth marks like a trophy during breakfast, a necklace of bloodied flowers just for Aberforth to see. Had the cards been pointing towards him then? Had Gellert thought him a traitor by that time?
The streets of Paris were always familiar, they’d be for the rest of his life. The route back to the Flamel’s house had been engraved in his mind after all the nights he had walked back home too intoxicated to see his own feet, with the freezing air hitting his face and only the remaining warmth from some stranger’s body to protect him from the cruel black night.
The underground bars, the hidden basements, the muggle men and boys and the few wizard ones that sneaked into the same places he had, looking for a distraction, looking for a few gulps of the Lethe’s waters, only with temporary effects. He wondered if someone still remembered him, the redheaded youth with the sad eyes. He had become a man soon enough, he had learnt to hide the sadness.
And would anyone remember Gellert? It was most probable. The mismatched eyes, the angelic features, all the decadent poets seemed to have written about him. Tout cela ne vaut pas le terrible prodige/ De ta salive qui mord,/ Qui plonge dans l'oubli mon âme sans remords, / Et charriant le vertige,/ La roule défaillante aux rives de la mort!
“I love you, it’s ruining my life” He had shouted at him once. He had been barely twenty, it had been the first time they had spoken in years. They had seen each other often, though, half naked and cock deep inside someone else, dilated pupils and erratic movements, half blinded by smoke, but he hadn’t spoken to him directly until then.
He had walked Gellert home, he had been too high or too drunk or too disturbed by something to react and Albus hadn’t been able to bring himself to go and leave him there, the faceless bodies around him like vultures ready to eat him whole.
With a hand around his waist to help him stand and with Gellert’s arm around his neck, they had walked the Seine riverbank in silence. Albus hadn’t been sure if he had recognised him in his state, but once the cold air had sobered him up slightly, Gellert had been ready to fight him, to put his fingers inside old wounds until they bled, to speak about death sisters and failed plans and loneliness and emptiness and purpose and love. Albus had stopped him in an instant.
“I love you, it’s ruining my life,” he had shouted in the middle of the night, and the harsh wind had taken the words away.
And Gellert had stood there in shock. Tears had come to his eyes, Albus didn't know if it had been the cold or the wind or the alcohol or the feeling that had provoked them, but he had felt a surprisingly crushing guilt taking hold of his heart, that broken thing in the middle of his chest.
“If you love me, Albus, you don’t love me in a way I understand,” had been his answer.
And it had been so unfair. So unfair because it had been him the one not understanding, so unfair because he hadn't wanted to believe Gellert’s pain was a mirror of his. He had promised himself to never kiss him, to never fall for the spell of his touch; he could observe him, he could look at him, he had allowed himself to fantasise, he had had the means, the memories, but he had drawn a line at touch.
And still, he had been the one to kiss him first. Gellert had been ready for the assault, that was a way he had always understood very well, he had been accustomed to violence from a very young age, and so had Albus. They had realised soon enough how much the other enjoyed pain, how the gears of power turned and made the machine work. Wasn’t everything in life about sex but sex? Physical pain was more satisfactory than arguing with words, the desire for power, over the other, over their own self, had dragged them to the next alley.
“Enfant de la Calamité, tu es vivant.” Perenelle walked down the three steps that separated the Flamel household from the street and hugged Gellert like an angry mother, lovingly, anxiously. She hadn’t taken a coat to protect her from the sharp, relentless wind, looking at him as if she doubted her own eyes. “Je t’ai vu mourir, j’ai tenu ton cadavre dans mes bras. Comprends-tu?”
“Child of Calamity, you are alive,” she had said. “I’ve seen you die, I’ve held your dead body in my arms. Do you understand?”
Gellert nodded. “Nostradamus,” he answered.
Perenelle’s heterochromatic eyes looked fragmented, the different shades of blue and brown in them, cracking the irises, she closed them tightly for an instant and, as she opened them, the white thread that had covered them dissipated, her features were a rictus of pain. Reddish eyelids, a copper tone Albus knew well, visions had come to her that night too. She was wearing a complicated black lace dress he didn’t remember ever seeing her wear, she had abandoned her usual blacks and whites for a mourning attire. Perenelle Flamel mourned a child, not the one she thought, but she still mourned someone. Nostradamus, Albus wished Gellert had told him.
They walked inside and only then she acknowledged Albus, a bit confused. “Qu’est-ce que tu fais ici? Albus, hier tu as quitté Paris.”
Only he hadn’t actually left Paris. He had wandered, he had walked and walked, he had needed time to think, and then, he had come back to his hotel room and Gellert had told him to leave and he hadn’t left, he hadn’t even considered it. Another accusation. Where did the hostility come from? Was it because of what he had done or because of what he hadn’t?
“Je vous remercie de votre confiance,” he mumbled, thank you for the trust, impossibly bothered.
He exchanged a look with Nicholas, who observed the scene from behind his magnifying glasses, leaning on the laboratory door, he must have been working downstairs before they had knocked. The palms of his hands were slightly raised, let it pass, it meant. He did. He allowed Perenelle’s words to exist without contradicting them.
My best apprentice, my brilliant brilliant young man, you are a prodigy, Nicholas had only boasted about having him near, he had been very vocal with his praise for him while maintaining the distance between them very clear, which had resulted in Albus keeping the highest respect for him, never daring to drop the formules de politesse. He understood a man like Nicholas couldn’t see anyone as an equal, it’d make no sense, not after living for centuries on end. The only exception was his wife.
During his studies in Paris, Perenelle had been kind to him, finding him rare books and manuscripts, introducing him to the highest society; if not a bit detached, but that’s just how she is, Nicholas had told him once, he had thought he had offended her and couldn’t guess the reason why. Seers, they are so…, so peculiar, you must have never met one before, with their minds always in the future. She cares for you as much as I do, dear boy, she’ll let you know if she ever has a problem with you, believe me. Albus had just nodded, any other answer would have been self-destruction.
He would have never guessed Gellert didn’t only have a very close relationship with her, but that he also spoke to her as an equal. Seers of the same rank. He had contradicted her the day before, and that, Gellert saw as a sign of respect towards her. But he had accused her of lying because he respected himself too, he had told Albus afterwards. Perenelle had hit him with all she had, saying all the right words to harm his ego. Prideful, arrogant, pathetic, inexperienced. Both had been harsh towards the other, only Perenelle could wear her truth with much more grace than Gellert. Age gave one the advantage of experience, he guessed, she must have been called a liar by other younger peers before. Albus would have never dared to speak like that to any of them.
He was left alone in the living room in no time, staring at his own feet. He knew every picture framed by heart, every crack or scratch in the furniture, the Flamel’s hadn’t changed anything in centuries and Albus had called that place a home for more than two years.
Nicholas tilted his head to instruct him to follow his steps down the laboratory. He pitied him, Albus could feel it. He was engulfed by the familiar heavy atmosphere, the sulfuric smell, the suffocating smokes, a part of him yearned for it. Nicholas showed him the experiments he was working on at the moment, dragon blood fermentation for healing purposes, distillation of poisonous water inside alihotsy stems to restore the entire crop, and knots of cherry stems mixed with them to soften the effect. His robes were stained from that day’s work.
“Tu as quitté l’alchimie trop tôt,”
“J’ai quitté beaucoup de choses depuis des années. L'alchimie n’est qu’une de plus.”
Nicholas added a few leaves of parsley to a pot, something burned inside of it. “Pas lui.”
“Non.” he huffed. “Pas lui. Pas encore.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean.” He sat next to him and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. The hand of knowledge, of wisdom, of time. “The stars have their ways. Even if we, mere mortals, don’t know them.”
He raised his eyebrows, it was an experience to hear Nicholas speak like that of something he had the minimum grasp on. A man of science trusting the stars? It was comical. Albus had to remind himself he had the best intentions, he had to remind himself he was trying to comfort him. But anger swirled in his insides, a childish voice that claimed how unfair it all was.
“You didn’t trust me to stay either.” He made it sound like a neutral statement, no emotion, no cadence.
Flamel lowered his eyes, pensive. With his white hair and clear eyes, he looked like a ghost. Age may have stopped affecting him a long time ago, but he still had an older-than-time aura around him that helped Albus feel the ground under his feet steadier, a certainty of the world being something well-known for at least someone.
“I trust my wife, her beautiful mind, I trust her visions. That doesn’t mean I always agree with them.” He sighed. “And I don't trust blindly, Albus, if that’s what worries you, but I’ve been around for long enough to understand nothing’s set in stone.” He stood up and lowered one of the fires, pressing his lips together. “You never seen a bitch eat her puppies? Is it nature turning on itself or is it also a part of nature?”
“I’m not the traitor, Nicholas.”
The alchemist considered him for a few seconds, he must hear the defeat drowning his voice, sinking its claws on him, weighing heavy on his shoulders and bending his back to make it break.
“Uncertain times await. And I don’t know how much we will be able to do while we wait for answers.” He motioned towards the cauldrons. “I wouldn’t mind some company in the lab. And it’s been ages since the last time we published something together. It’d do you good, don’t you think?”
Albus knew exactly what that meant. He needed to be surveilled, it was better if his movements were monitored. He agreed with him, choosing once again to not confront Flamel. He had kept his old robes, the ones that had been too big then and that now fitted like a glove, almost as if the Art had been waiting for him to come back.
It was midnight when Gellert and Perenelle came out of her cabinet. The Invisibility cloak was between his hands.
“Passez la nuit ici,” she said to them before picking up Nicholas’ coffee cup from the table and drinking a few sips. It was too late to go back to their hotel room, they’d be stopped when they tried to cross from magical Paris to the muggle one.
Nicholas made a gesture to take the cup back from her, but she gave him a warning look and he rolled his eyes, the fondness in them, unmistakable. They were in love. They were in love. They had been in love for the last millennium.
In the living room, Gellert sat next to him and showed him the cloak. It was the Cloak. It couldn’t have been another, the power it emanated was already engraving itself on Gellert’s magic.
Perenelle had been looking for it in parallel but now that Nostradamus was dead, a lot had changed. The reasons to contact Loxias outweighed the danger Gellert would be putting himself in. Albus heard the explanation through the ringing in his ears.
Gellert searched for his hand to bring it to the fabric. He wanted him to feel it, the softness of the embroidery, silky, how the light caught in it, like the scales of a fish just taken out of the water.
“I owe you an apology, don’t I? You were right.” Perenelle lied. So did Nicholas. And once again you have proved to me and to yourself how you are the only one you can trust.
“So were you.” He toyed with the cord of the hood. "My magic is not the most stable right now, I shouldn’t be the one casting the spell.”
Everything would be much easier if the former masters of Death weren’t immune to the Hallows, the Resurrection stone wouldn’t them back; when Death claimed them, it claimed them forever, a punishment for their ambition. Gellert touched his hand again, interlinking their fingers before he could draw it back.
“Perenelle and I have thought maybe you should be the one to speak to Loxias.” He lowered his eyes to their hands, his thumb caressed his wrist. “It’s better to have a corporeal body, a vessel, and what better than another seer to-”
Albus took a deep breath, Gellert continued speaking before he could give him a negative.
“It’d be safe. For both of us. And Perenelle will make sure to ready me so I can host another soul for as long as the spell lasts. Think about it before saying no.”
Albus could already feel his head shaking. “What happens if I don’t agree to this.”
Gellert pressed his lips together and shrugged softly. “Nothing really. I’ll just do it without you. The outcome would be the same either way. I’ll play both roles.”
Gods, are you asking me to become Master of Death for a little while just because it is convenient? Giving me power over Death herself, putting honey to my lips, just to take it away once I know how it tastes? You say I’ll turn back on you and only give me reasons, you only give me reasons to do it.
“I don’t trust myself with it.” He said to Gellert once they were behind closed doors, the guest room, Albus’ old bedroom. It looked as if he had never left, none of Flamel’s other apprentices had decorated it in any way during the years, it had stayed plain and boring, the only remarkable thing in it was the floral baseboards, hand painted at some point in past history. He opened the window and leaned on the ledge before putting a cigarette to his lips, leaving April’s cruelty inside the room. Sometime in the past, he remembered having let the snow in before he went to bed, forcing his own body to increase its temperature so as not to go hypothermic. Small ways to kill oneself that only left him more alive. “And I don’t understand why you would either.”
“I know you don’t.”
“You are giving me all I'd need to fulfil your prophecy, love.” He lit it up and breathed in smoke. “And you are forcing me to accept a power I don’t want.”
He sighed. “I heard you say no the first time, why are you dragging it.” Gellert took a seat next to him and reached to take the cigarette away from his lips, to bring it to his own. He had to light it again, the wind had put it out. “There was a time that was the only thing you wanted. To Master Death.”
They stayed in silence for a while, smoking. The Parisian night was too bright, they couldn’t see the sky or the stars at all, just the reflection of the disgustingly yellow lights.
He wanted to think it had been just a comment, no edge for him to cut himself with. Of course, there was a time that had been the only thing for him. His sister had been alive, and scary and sweet. And so had been his mother, barely able to take care of herself. His brother hadn’t hated him that much, he had only worn an open disliking for him like a badge of honour, and Gellert had been outside the picture completely.
Albus had wanted to Master Death when power was the only thing he had aspired to, when he would have fought with his teeth to make the world a better place. Teenage frustration had simplified all the problems in the world to only one solution, him ruling over them with the Deathly Hallows. The moment he met Gellert, his dream became something shared and love led him through the worst paths; all the idealism became an obsession, a craving, the quest for power would be the only thing that’d grant them happiness, freedom to exist. Freedom to love each other, it all had been reduced to a selfish desire.
And the Hallows, they would be used for even more selfish reasons. To bring back his parents so that he was free to leave his siblings. To bring back an army of dead. To kill and never be questioned, to never have anyone doubt their power. To trick Death if it ever decided to claim them.
But the reverie broke when Gellert left. And Albus could finally see through all the illusion how awful the world would have been under their reign. How easily power corrupted the one that yearned for it. At fifteen, Gellert had been a revolutionary, he had wanted to change the world, all fire and no fuel, he would have burnt out without Albus, he would have been reduced to his visions, his ambition had been to change the world and Albus had told him how.
By the end, Gellert returned to himself, he had wanted to avoid the first war when he had already fed the ashes with new dry wood. It had been too late. It all had burnt too bright. The approach was now different, but the irony was there, they needed the Hallows now to avoid a war when they had been supposed to create it with it.
He dropped the cigarette, it hit the tiles with a last orange spark. “How does it feel, Gellert? How does it feel to have the three of them reunited? Let me guess, not that different to how it felt when you had none.”
Gellert regarded him.
“It’s all rotten. Their power. The Masters. All of it. ” He looked away, into the night. “You want me to master the Hallows because it is convenient, but you don’t trust me to not stab you in the back just yet. How does that work.”
He stayed silent.
They had been happy for a short while. They had had good moments. Albus regretted not having been able to engrave them inside his mind clearly enough to be able to relive them every time he closed his eyes. He could only grieve for them now, the words came out of his mouth naturally, he realised he hadn’t even thought about them before.
“Let’s break the blood pact.”
Gellert scanned his face, every emotion passing behind his eyes. “Are you–?” He swallowed hard. “Remember when I told you you’d want to destroy it and you denied everything?”
He scoffed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t considered it yourself in the last, I don’t know, days? Hours? Months? I don’t know for how long you’ve been trying to frame me.”
Gellert turned away from him, upset and clearly offended, he went back inside the room. “Blood pacts cannot be broken. It’s ancient magic. It’s no use to.” He didn’t finish the sentence. “And, for the record, I haven’t even thought about it. Ever.”
Albus closed the window and blocked Gellert’s way when he tried to dodge him, cornering him against the nightstand. He had taken a few blankets from the drawer and had left them on the bed, next to the pillows. “Love.”
“Don’t. Don’t call me that.”
Gods, Gellert, let’s be fucking pragmatic, I’m trying to make things easier for both of us, it is not an attack. He’d have him fuming at him if he said it.
The night was getting colder by the moment. It might snow. “Listen to me. I’m sure in all these years they’ve been wandering the Earth, Nicholas and Perenelle must have found at least another pair of fools that chose to tie themselves to each other through blood. If I’m the traitor, you may need to fight me, or to kill me. The blood pact would be a nuisance. It’s not about breaking it, it’s about–”
Gellert took a step closer to him and Albus could feel his magic overpowering him, paralysing him. He mastered Death, he mastered the most powerful being in the world now and his power was unmatched, how had it passed so unnoticed before, how hadn’t he noticed it boiling inside Gellert’s blood.
“Don’t you dare,” he said and it startled Albus how his own body reacted, leaning closer instead of flinching back when Gellert brought his hands to his face. He traced his cheeks, his eyes were inquisitive, Gellert was trying to read his expression. “You don’t want that, I know you don’t want that.”
It was as if every cell of his body wanted to reach to him, to hold him, to kiss him, to own the power inside his very bones. It scared him how his desire for him had no limits, how magnetic and alluring his presence was. Had it always been like that? Had it changed now the Hallows were reunited?
“What I want is not important.”
It made Gellert’s magic overwhelming, aggressive, he felt a strong pressure around him, making him dizzy, it was as if it’d make him explode. Albus brought a hand to his own neck and opened the clasp of the chain, he slid it around Gellert’s. He seemed unaware of the charged magical atmosphere, knitted eyebrows and trembling lips, he was all raw emotion.
“I can’t dare to do anything if I don’t have it. You keep it.”
Gellert lowered his eyes to the pendant and closed the distance between them. He rested his head on the curve of his neck. His breathing against his skin was still uneven, as if he hadn’t recovered from the vision yet, and he was cold, another secondary effect, his temperature struggling to get back to normal, just a few degrees under. Albus held him back tightly, one arm around his shoulders, another around his waist, trying to give him back all of the lost warmth. I love you, I love you, why can’t you see it, why can’t you feel it.
“How unfair am I to ask you to be patient?” He pulled back slightly and Albus’ hand moved to his cheek. He wasn’t sure if Gellert's occlumency was down on purpose but it made him want to cry, all the love that Gellert had for him, all the fear that matched it. “I’ll figure it all out. I just need–”
Albus brushed his lips against his, his thumb between them so that it wasn’t a proper kiss. He felt them chapped from the cold under his touch.“I know.”
Gellert looked confused when he stepped back, his eyes travelling the room, trying to find the answer before asking the question.
“The laboratory. I need to check that I haven't forgotten all the alchemy I learnt ten years ago before I can start working on any of Nicholas' projects.”
He took a few notebooks from a shelf and selected a blank one, he took a quill out of the first drawer and charged it with black ink from the container he found on the second one. It had stayed behind in Paris at some point after a conference, dry and unused. A birthday present from a long time ago, he wasn’t sure if it had been Elphias’ or Bathilda’s or Newt’s. The loss had not mattered, he owned too many quills.
“Want me to wait for you?” Gellert’s gaze on him was almost heavy.
“No, go to sleep, I’ll be there for a while.”
“Wake me when you come back?”
Albus walked down the wooden stairs on tiptoes, he still knew where to stand so that the steps didn’t crack. The lamp of the lab was on, Nicholas had left next to it his endless list of tasks, the values and percentages to check off the steamy cauldrons. A test for him. He had known he would come seek refuge in the basement.
How much more predictable could he get? He picked up a tome from De occulta philosophia at random and opened it, Nicholas had left it around, he must be working with it. “Of Madness, and Divinations which are made when men are awake, and of the Power of a Melancholy Humor, by which Spirits are sometimes induced into Men's Bodies”. He sighed and closed it, discarding it for the days to come. He reached for the Turba philosophorum next to it, the last thing he had worked with when he had been his apprentice. At that moment, he needed something real, something tangible; no stars, no destiny involved, if ye err, blame no one save yourselves.