chapter 22
It was coming up on Newt's first year of school. Albus was busy with his lesson plans so Gellert took this opportunity to get the boys fitted for their robes. Though currently he was fighting with his youngest about Pick.
“Newt you can put pick down for five minutes” Gellert sighs and tries to take the bowtruckle from his youngests shoulder. Newt yells and shakes his head, grabbing his wrist.
“NO APU!” He backs up “pick wants to stay, he gets difficult if he’s away!” Newt gets Pickett to let go of his shirt and puts him in his trousers pocket. Then get with the measuring assistant.
Gellert sighs and sits next to Theseus “Theseus, you’re going to have to look after your brother. I’m afraid he’s going to land on both sides of trouble in school.” He looks through the stores display jackets within reach.
Theseus looks up from a book and nods “he’s going to be made fun of. Dad is probably going to try and get the headmaster to allow Newt to stay in his quarters.” Theseus gets up as another assistant comes to measure him and gets on the podium. He watches as he takes various measurements and looks up, he’s able to see a glimpse of Newt who didn’t look too comfortable.
As they both finish, Newt runs back to Gellert and stands behind him, checking on Pickett. Gellert goes to pay and approve their uniforms, Newt staying close behind him as a female assistant was fawning over him. Of course who wouldn’t fawn over a small shy little boy who still hid behind his father, it’s adorable. He looks up and Gellert looks down at him “jól vagy kis kelpie?”
Newt makes a noise “pick wants to go home” he was holding the little stick creature to his chest. He looks away as Gellert kneels down, trying to pull his head away when his father tries to get him to look at him.
“Newt, nézz rám kérlek” Gellert says gently and waits for the boy to look up at him “you don’t have to lie and say one of your creatures wants to leave” he rubs his back gently and hums. “How about We get something quick for lunch then go home?”
Newt shakes his head then lets Pick back into his pocket. As they leave the shop Newt draws closer to Gellert and Theseus, looking at the older boy. Theseus looks back at him and makes a face. Newt laughs a bit and holds Gellerts hand as they go to apparate back to the castle.
Newt runs back inside to the animal room. The 11 year old has acquired many different creatures over his youth, Albus argued against letting Newt take them in at first but then he saw how happy Newt was with them. Gellert set up an enlarged room to keep them in, in almost perfect conditions since Newt wouldn’t let them live in any other condition.
Gellert goes to the kitchen to get some tea to bring up to Albus. As he goes into the office and hums as he sets the tray down “my love it’s time for a break.” He sits on the desk and pulls the lesson plans away. He smiles as his love looks up, they both have matured more over the years, Albus had cut his hair short but kept the beard. Gellert on the other hand, kept his hair styled in a spiked style with the sides shorter and slicked back, his hair had also gone almost completely white which Albus was blaming on his use of dark magic, Gellert is set stubborn on it being whatever genetics made him blond in the first place.
Albus looks at him “Gellert…”
“Love, you’ve been working since breakfast.” Gellert kisses him and pulls the chair away, setting the tea to self pour with a charm and picks up the cup. He smiles as Albus takes the cup and leans back. Watching as he drinks it, calming down, Gellert takes his own cup and drinks too.
Albus moves to lean on Gellert “how was the unnecessary fittings” he looks at his partner and scratches his face at him.
Gellert hums “not unnecessary. I don’t want my children to have Ill fitting clothes.” He takes the cup then leads him out of the office “you need a break, you’re stretching thin with all this lesson planning” he brings them outside and walks around the grounds with him. “We only went for fitting, Newt wanted to go home after it. He’s claiming that it’s Pick that wants to go home again.”
Albus sighs “I don’t know why he does that, we should check the nanny’s” he picks up a flower, putting it in Gellerts lapel. He kisses him and hugs him “I love you” he smiles.
“I love You too, are you trying to convince your boss to let Newt room in your rooms” Gellert kisses looks over to the gate where Dippet was standing.
Albus looks up and goes over to let him in “headmaster, this is a surprise” they go inside and sit down with him. He watches as Gellert goes back upstairs and sighs, he knew Gellert didn’t really get along with Dippet for some reason. “What brings you here?”
The headmaster picks up a cup of tea “I saw your boys at the art gala in France this summer, Newt doesn’t seem quite ready for dorms”
“Yes, I was about to send a letter about it.” Albus also takes a glass of tea “Newt is still awkward around kids, we’ve tried so many times to get him to play with other kids when he was little but he just had no interest in playing with most kids.” He sends over some biscuits to the headmaster and leans back in the chair.
Dippet nods “if you want you can slowly introduce him to the dorms, but I can’t allow him to stay in your chambers past second year. Him being your son or not”
Albus nods and puts his cup down “yes, that is very appreciated.”
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The week before school started they went to diagon, they had been pushing it off because both adults had gotten busy. Albus was keeping Newt close with Gellert, Theseus had done off on his own to buy his school things. “This is horrible, we should’ve come earlier”
Gellert hums “maybe, but this is good for Newt. He has to get used to being in large crowds” he leads them into the book store and looks for Newts school books.
Albus rubs Newt's shoulder “it’s ok Newt, let’s find your note paper” he brings him to a wall. As they looked around Albus saw a flash out of the corner of his eyes and suddenly he was being pulled away from the wall as a curse hit it. He notices Gellert pick Newt up and he was holding the other man behind him, “what in Merlin’s name?”
“Assassins, we need to get Theseus and go” Gellert gives Newt to Albus and blocks them while looking around. They leave to the street and go down the alley. Gellert kisses Albus “go back home I’ll look for Theseus” he kisses Newts head and Albus again. Once they apparate away Gellert goes to the store Theseus said he was going in and pulls him to the side “we have to go. Now.”
“What apu? Why?” He looks at him and then around, his father only got like this when something was wrong.
Gellert pulls him to an alley and puts up wards around them “someone shot a curse at your father and brother” he apparates them back to the castle and checks on the wards “go back inside, make sure your father and brother are ok” he sets up some more secure ones then goes to take count of everyone in the castle. He then goes up to their room “Albus” he kisses him and looks at the boys “are you ok Newt”
Newt was sitting on the bed nodding “yes” he whispers. The boy was playing, letting pick and a baby niffler play around him. He picks up the niffler and checks on him.
Gellert nods and sits with Newt, “did you see anything before I pulled you away Newt?” He lets Pickett crawl on him and gently flicks the leaf on his head. Newt had yet to name the baby niffler but he likes to cuddle with the little trouble maker at night.
“No” Newt holds onto the niffler as the creature spots his Apus necklace. The boy takes a piece of silver out of his pocket for the niffler and yawns “there was a weird red head guy..”
Gellert picks up Newt “really?” He kisses Newts head “What was he doing that was weird?”
“Kept looking at me”
“At you?” Albus comes back over from checking on Theseus, “are you sure he wasn’t looking at me or apu?”
Newt shakes his head “no he was looking at me, I thought he was looking at pick at first but pick was hiding in my pocket.” He lays his head down on Gellert's shoulder. “Apu can I go check on the animals”
Gellert slowly puts Newt down “yeah, can you just tell me what he looked like before you go”
“Red hair, brown eyes, really light lighter than daddy but not as light as you apu…and a scar here” he traces down Gellerts face over his eye and down to his chin. He shakes his head as Gellert kisses his head, his parents were being overly affectionate and it made him want to leave.
“Thank You Newt, you can go check on your animals.” Gellert stands back up and looks at Albus “does that sound like anyone You know?” He turns to Theseus when Albus shakes his head “do you Theseus?”
“No apu, but I could ask some of my friends that were in the alley today, they might have seen it” Theseus knew it was a stretch that he might accept, especially with the castle being on lock down but he could try.
“They come here and you’re supervised with them.”
“Apu I’m 17 I can handle myself if trouble comes”
Gellert goes over to him “I don’t care, if you do get into trouble I don’t want you alone.”
“You dueled for the elder wand when you were 17! You adopted me!”
“I said no. What I did when I was 17 doesn’t matter”
“Dad!” Theseus looks over to Albus “please, they’re just my friends”
Albus sighs “sorry Theseus, I know your friends are good people but after what happened today we have to be careful”
Theseus groans “seriously! This is cruel!” He walks off.
Gellerts hands clenched into fists and the lights flicker a bit “you have no idea what cruel is Theseus..” he glares when the door is slammed shut. He didn’t realize things started to fly around until Albus was pushing him to sit on the bed. “He doesn’t know, he doesn’t..”
“That’s right, he doesn’t because you actually care.” Albus knew this was about Gellerts father. They had agreed not to tell the boys about their grandfather because Gellert hated talking about it. “You made sure the boys didn’t have to know that world. You protected them from it”
Gellert shuts his eyes “I don’t want to hurt you…I don’t want to hurt them..”
“You won’t love” Albus lays down with him and rests his head on Gellerts shoulder. “You won’t”
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It was late, almost midnight, when Theseus noticed someone standing at his door. He had been laying in his bed and reading when he heard the footsteps. “What is it, Newt?”
“Dad and apu are hiding something.” Newt goes over to sit on the other's bed with him.
Theseus puts down his book and looks at him “yeah the freak that wanted to kidnap you.”
Newt shakes his head and looks at the door “something else, when you stormed out of their room, and I was coming back. I heard them talking about why we don’t know what cruelty is. But we do know, being cruel is willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it. Like hunters searching to kill creatures for their magical properties.”
Theseus sighs “Newt come here” he holds out his arms and holds his younger brother when the boy lays down with him. “You know the definition of cruel, yes. But not Why Apu said that, I don’t know why he was talking about it like that but I do know that when we were younger, Apu had a hard time dealing with us and not wanting to be alone with us.”
“Why?”
“I remember overhearing a conversation before you came along. Apu was saying that he didn’t want to hurt me, that he was scared he would end up like someone. I don’t know who and whenever I asked about it dad said not to bring it up with Apu and that it hurts him to remember.” Theseus looks out the window. Yawning and then noticing Newt was starting to fall asleep “hey you brat,” he says softly “go sleep in your own bed, I’m sure that teddy bear of a niffler you have wants to cuddle”
Newt gets up and starts to walk out the door “I like that, teddy..” he goes to his own room.
Theseus keeps thinking about it and goes back to memories when he was younger. Him being a brat and Gellert locking himself in his room, leaving Theseus with the maids. He always thought it was because his apu didn’t want to deal with him, but now he thinks it might’ve been because he couldn’t.
That morning Theuses was sitting outside when Gellert came out for his walk “how many times were you close to cursing me growing up?”
Gellert freezes and stiffens “what do you mean Theseus?”
“You didn’t want to be alone with me growing up, if I got too loud, or didn’t want to listen to you, you would lock yourself in your room until dad came back.”
Gellert doesn’t look at him but he turns to go back inside “I lived most of my days in fear when we first adopted you” he goes in and motions for him to come. As Theseus follows him to the top of the castle into a room with some chairs he wonders what he means.
Gellert sits down and sighs “Theseus, how old am I?”
“28, why” he joins his younger father to sit down.
Gellert nods “I was 17 when I adopted you, still a kid myself…and I wasn’t ready, I didn’t want to be a father at that point, ever. But if I went back to that moment that we found you in that alley, I wouldn’t change a single moment.”
“Apu where is this going?”
“Well you’re old enough to know, but you can’t tell your brother I don’t know how he would handle this.” Gellert waits for Theseus to nod and he continues “my father treated me worse than a house elf growing up. He thought I was a product of an affair and refused to admit I was his even after a blood test proved it. You’ve seen how much your aunt and I differ in looks, she’s also 10 years older than me. He would beat me until I passed out if I didn’t do exactly what he said, which was often, and he blamed me for my mothers death. That’s why I am how I am, why I make certain decisions about you two. Why I was so terrified to be left alone with you, because I didn’t want to be like him.”
“You were scared you would hurt us?”
“Terrified beyond belief, there were days where I didn’t want to leave the bed because if I didn’t get up then I wouldn’t have to risk the possibility of losing control.” Gellert looks at him “I would’ve killed myself if I hurt either of you”
Theseus leans on him “I don’t blame you” he closes his eyes, he didn’t really sleep last night because the question was nagging at his mind. “Why are You blond..and Why are your eyes different colors..”
Gellert laughs a bit and rubs the teens shoulder “no idea, and they’ve always been different colors but why one is white and the other black is because of my use of dark magic, they used to be black and blue” he checks the time “how about we make breakfast for your dad?”
Theseus nods and gets up going to the kitchen with his apu and starting making breakfast. “This is going to turn into a disaster.”