A story about history
Friday 7th July 1899
/AD/
We indeed spent our day training the wandless magic, as Gellert asked me to.
He came slightly before the lunch was served, so we waited for a while in the dining room, chatting about the book he gave me to read. I told him everything I remembered and pointed up some things I considered as useful and he thanked me. I had a feeling he never read the book, but at least I was not bored. Maybe he read it a long time ago and did not remember a thing by now. We chatted about Hallows, as always. He seemed to be in a good mood today.
“Have you… Had a beauty sleep?” I teased him, smirking a bit as he yawned.
“I literally woke up like an hour ago. I was working till the morning almost… Never can leave a good work undone, that is just my weakness…” he smiled back, stretching his arms and looking away when Abe came with the lunch. Ariana sat next to him, staring at me a bit coldly, as I was sitting on the other side of the table with Gellert. We laughed a bit during lunch, which I believe made Abe even more upset. He cleaned up plates shortly after we finished and I had the feeling if Ariana was not here, he would break the plate against Gellert’s head. I gave him an upset look, too, and he quickly disappeared into the kitchen.
Gellert and I moved to the living room, ready for our practice.
/GG/
I left the house without any breakfast. I told Bathilda Albus invited me over for a lunch and she understood I am just trying to be polite and needed space in my stomach to be able to eat the lunch since I woke up around eleven o’clock. I have never been a morning bird. I was not a night owl, either. I was simply traumatised until all the work has been done, so I spent the whole night deeply focused on Deathly Hallows and of course, the morning sun put me to bed with a gentle homesick feeling, when I was so tired I could not keep my eyes opened and fell asleep with my head buried to the book on the table. I missed the cold weather and mountains, all here seemed to be so… Warmer.
And I believe some things should simply stay cold.
Even if I was not the biggest admirer of the nature and people here, I was not blind. And I was not blind even towards Albus, though it could have looked like that. It was him, who was blind, maybe. But I knew how he was looking at me yesterday in the forest, I knew how a big kind of distraction I was for him. And It would not be polite at all to say he was not attractive to me, because he was; he was intelligent, gifted, friendly and… and pretty. Not handsome.
Albus was pretty.
I left my attic room with an amused smile, as I let my hair half not brushed. As I said; I knew how he was looking at me yesterday. His flushed looked when he had to look into my eyes when I forced him to believe we are best friends. I undid my wrist buttons. Sorry, Albus. It has to be this way. You had to believe, you had to trust me. And I know you will.
The weather was quite nice today, warm and sunny. Another minus for this awful land. I partly wished I was back in the Durmstrang, but not with the same people. Maybe actually just there, just in mountains and… home. But not in the house. No, my home was not a concrete place. Fortunately, Albus was enough intelligent to let me feel at home for at least those few hours we could spend together. Or shall I say days?
A knock echoed through the house and Albus let me in. I walked cheerfully down the hall and Albus sat me down in the dining room with the words, "We'll have lunch." I placed my hands on the table, deliberately exposing my wrists. It was a small, tiny bit of exposed skin, and even so, I would bet my soul that it would embarrass Albus. And for our friendship to function normally, I needed him to get used to the embarrassment I could cause him with my presence.
/AD/
Gellert seemed to be deeply focused most of the time, but for me, it was a huge distraction I did know I was not ready for. Everything seemed to be fine, he was an excellent student and I would say I was a great teacher. In fact, I started enjoying it; the ability to control his moves, tell him how and what to do and when exactly; I felt good and I was really enjoying teaching, at least teaching him. Gellert did all I told him in the hope, that at the end of the day he will be better than me. I would gladly tell him so, but it was not the truth. He had a lot to learn, still.
As I said, everything was just fine and almost perfect; until I started noticing those little details, he probably did not know about them. The way his hair was not perfect today since he came; it surprised me, but surely I had nothing against it because it kind of seemed sexier on him. I was horribly embarrassed for my thoughts since we ended as best friends yesterday and he seemed to be more comfortable with it, than… being something more. But his hair, his goddamn hair! Those few golden locks that were not brushed perfectly today and became a bit messy while practising and being constantly around magic flames, that hair was just one of million little things I have noticed today, that was driving me crazy. I wondered if he always looked this way and I just have not noticed before. What changed since yesterday? Does being best friends mean noticing small details? I highly doubted it. His messy hair locks moved so perfectly every time he cast a spell, tilted his head or…
Or moved his hands.
His wrists turned gracefully as he conjured playful flames; by the end of the day, his flames could change colours, and shapes, do different things and turn into other spells. I admired how quickly he really learns and how much he puts into it. He didn't surprise me in a way though, from the first look we had I knew he would be not only intelligent and charming but also gifted and more than capable of learning and understanding quickly. I was grateful for that because I finally had someone who could understand me.
However, his wrists, otherwise well covered by black sleeves, were now exposed for a few inches. His black shirt was the same as always, tight and fitting him well, but the buttons on the sleeves were unbuttoned, revealing those few inches of his skin. Skin, that was as pale as his face, almost as light as my walls in the room and when he conjured the blue flames that seemed to be his favourite, his wrists looked almost transparent. I gulped and nervously tried to adjust to the situation, taking it as it is, trying to avoid looking at that piece of exposed skin but to no avail.
And he even made it worse.
“Gosh, could we practise something else now? I do feel like I will cook myself soon, it is just too hot here…,” he stated, unbuttoning a few inches of the shirt around his neck and loosening his collar tie.
“It indeed is…” I hated myself. I should not be staring at him like that. I should stop being the monster.
So I tried to dive into learning again.
"Alright then, let's try the next step. How about levitating, controlling objects, making them work... Try pouring me some tea." It was about two hours later, so I'd say he definitely had a more than the good handle on flaming and basics. Plus, as I said before, he was a great student and a quick learner.
He managed to pour the tea just fine, he even arranged my books on the shelves, cleaned our living room and managed to fix a broken oil lamp without a wand. He smiled laxly the whole time and occasionally poked me with a remark that made me think he might just be testing me to see if I could handle wandless magic as well as he did. However, I immediately dismissed that when I remembered that it was already the first day that he almost envied me because he wasn't into wandless magic that much. And he could never have planned this.
After cleaning and levitation, it was time to create and create objects. First, I asked for a simple rose flower, then a new cup of tea. This was followed by the disappearance of the existing sofa and its replacement - I let him choose his taste. I laughed as a black leather couch, decorated with silver engravings on the sides, landed in the now empty space. I also asked him to transform the entire sofa set, and before long, I could enjoy the new furniture.
"Refined taste," I remarked, sitting down with the new cup still hanging in the air. "And the tea?" I smiled, looking into the empty mug. My blond companion smirked and sat down with a simple wave of his hand forming another mug, taking it in his hand and then with another elegant twist of his long fingers he let both mugs fill with tea. Again, I let him choose his taste. I took a sip.
"Pine, rum and a hint of honey," I stated, stirring the tea and looking into the mug, "freshly made, with the right ingredients. Ah, of course," I chuckled, "no milk."
He smiled but didn't say anything, he also took a sip from his mug, now looking at me. His forehead was slightly sweaty again and his hair a little more frizzy from the heat. I hid my blush behind my mug and immediately started sipping the hot tea.
"Albus," he said after a few minutes of silence as we just sat there drinking tea. I looked up at him - I couldn't tell from his voice where he was headed, so I swallowed carefully and placed the mug on a saucer on the table and looked at him.
"Y-yeah?" I choked a little on swallowing and had to cough and blink a little. Then I looked straight into his eyes again.
“I'd like to thank you,” he announced to me in a soft voice but with complete certainty. He also set the mug down on the table, but much more gracefully than I did and folded his hands in his lap before placing one palm on my knee and squeezing it ever so slightly. I took a deep breath. His wrists were still exposed, and so was his neck up to his collarbones. Confused, I ran my eyes over his skin, not knowing where to look. His eyes were probably the safest place.
"For what? Do you mean for today? There's no need. At least I got some practice. I was starting to miss doing nothing but cleaning the house with magic all summer. It's humiliating..." I snorted, folding my hands on my chest. Gellert smirked.
"No. However, it is not a job for you. You deserve something far better, far grander than helpful cleaning and housework charms. When I look at you…" he trailed off and I blinked, now straightening up and looking straight into his eyes again, "when I look at you, I see you doing magnificent things. Something grand…”
Something in his eyes seemed… Odd. I blinked again, trying to focus on his sight as when having a normal conversation. But he was looking somewhere else. To somewhere, where it scared me and I did not even know where. Was someone behind me? Was he seeing someone else?
“I see you standing in a beautiful, breathtaking place in a white cloak that contrasts with your hair and…”
His eyes rolled back.
/GG/
I felt like my head was going to shatter into a million pieces. I immediately pressed my palm to my forehead, pressing on the place between my eyes. However, the pain did not stop. It escalated and grew, but I tried not to show it.
"Gellert?" Albus blurted out in confusion, trying to remove my hand from his forehead. I shook my head.
"P-probably something in my eye... Ah... it's burning... D-could you take me to the bathroom...?" I tried to, at least, blink, but it was as if I was blind. I felt like my eyes were starting to bleed, all I could see now was white. White turned to grey, and as Albus led me into the bathroom and I slammed the door behind me, the picture was now completely dark. I dropped to my knees, still pressing the point between my eyes.
Dark. A flash of something white... Nope. No, it is not a flash, it is a movement. The movement of something white, some textile, clothing, or cloak.
I tried to blink but saw no presence when I ran the water into the sink and tried to wash my eyes but still felt like I was bleeding.
Wand. Nice wand, very nice, powerful and... The elder wand.
I nearly fell to my knees as I blindly ran from the sink to the door.
A glimpse of Dumbledore’s bathroom.
"Albus? Albus!" I screamed but felt like I was drowning. Now I could feel blood or water in my ears as well. Confused, I bumped into something - it was not a door. I felt several things being dumped on me, probably bandages, towels and another toilet. I heard the lock click.
Another movement of that white coat. It is a sleeve!
"Gellert?!" I could hear Albus' voice like it was underwater. A flash of auburn hair and a bathroom.
"A-Albus…" I felt like during a child's spinning game.
„Dreh mich, dreh mich
rund und rund…
…
Dreh mich, spiel mit mir…
aus irgendeinem Grund”
It wasn't until I felt Albus' hands on me (until then I was still frantically spinning around trying to face flashes of the present and the other reality in which I saw the white sleeve and the elder wand) and heard his voice that I realized, that I had to recite the entire nursery rhyme out loud.
"What did you say?! What the hell was that? Gellert?!" I steadied myself and closed my eyes tightly, but I could still see…
The white sleeve picks up the wand, raising it higher and the dust that was in the air begins to surround the sleeve until it is grey...
"A-Albus I… I can't see you…"
Dust settles on the man's shoulders too, I cannot see his face, as if he did not exist...
"What about me? Can't you see? Why can't you see me? Gellert, you have to put your hands away..." I did not realize until now that I was still clutching my forehead and holding my hands over my seemingly bleeding eyes. Letting Albus take my hands away, I dropped to my knees.
A quick red flash and more ash and dust... Lots of ash and dust...
"What the hell-!"
With a flash of the bathroom and of Albus, I managed to hold the image a little longer now. In those two seconds, I managed to notice how Albus had flung himself up and was now panting on the opposite wall of the bathroom.
"Albus, what's wrong…?" I asked, feeling my hands begin to shake slightly. I had no idea what was going on, yet I tried to stay calm and not panic. "Albus? Are you here?" It was clear to me that if my eyes were bleeding, it was not a simple sight...
The dust and ash swirled, dispersed by the white sleeve and disappeared from my field of vision. Then there was only darkness, it began to turn to grey and then to a blinding white light until the bathroom that I was in right now, appeared before my eyes. Now I was able to blink and recover. I rubbed my eyes in confusion and looked at my hand, but it was clean, with no blood. I looked at Albus who had picked himself up off the floor and was coming back to me determinedly.
"Are you… Are you okay?" he asked me, kneeling down in front of me, and looking into my eyes. I shrugged.
"I guess so? I thought I was bleeding..."
"What happened?" Albus blurted out, cupping my face in his hands, checking my pupils. I carefully pulled away from him and shrugged again. Albus blinked, now sitting fully on the bathroom tiles and took a breath. "You talked at me. You thanked me for today and told me you imagined me better, doing things other than chores. But then you looked completely off; like you were looking right through me. And then… Nothing fell into your eye, did it?"
I shook my head and stood up, rinsing my face in the sink and Albus handed me a towel. I politely accepted it and tossed it over the hanger. "No. I got a terrible headache. Or I don't know, it was here," I pointed between my eyes. "And then it felt like my eyes were bleeding and I couldn't see anything at all. I just . . ."
"Your eyes rolled back. Into the inside of your head. All the way back. I could not see a bit of your pupils. I thought you were having a seizure. And that… What were you saying? What was that?"
I replayed Albus' words in my head for a moment. He shocked me a little but at least confirmed what I had been thinking for a while. It's happened a few times already. I read about it somewhere, just couldn't remember where now. I looked at Albus. He looked like he was waiting for some answer from me. "Hmm?"
"I was asking what you were saying. I didn't understand. It was..."
"...German," I finished and walked out of the bathroom and back into the living room. I looked around and reached the minibar. "Can I?" I asked and Albus nodded his head, smiling slightly.
"I don't know what it'll taste like though. It's been here since last summer. The only one who always drinks fire whiskey here is Batty..."
I chuckled and took a good look at the decanter, which I then showed to Albus as well. "So either Batty came here to drink with your mother or she's not the only one who drinks. It is almost empty though... Is there something you want to tell me, Albus?" I took a shot at him, even though I was as clear as he was about what it all does mean.
"I'm really going to kill him... Seriously, I will just kill him one day, before he manages to turn his sweet seventeen. Well, he is barely seventeen, he does not do homework, but he is drinking in the evenings when I am asleep... Do you know how it looks now?"
I laughed, and even Albus could not help but smile a little. "Like, after three unhappy marriages, he's a widower three times over? Yeah, exactly…" I was glad Albus could put it off for another time. I did not want to watch him argue with his brother again.
We sat back down on the sofa and Albus looked at me, now without laughing. "So… you can't imagine what happened to you? You didn't have a…" I saw him swallow hard and blink, "seizure didn't you?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so. It has happened to me a few times before, it happened to me at school too. Yes, sometimes I thought it must be seizures, but luckily it's nothing like that as it was confirmed today," I explained, but Albus drifted closer, examining my pupils again.
"But how do you know it's not really a seizure? What if it was? I think that's definitely how seizures manifest themselves; you're insane, you're not aware of your surroundings, and you can't hear or see anything. It could be some type of seizure, Gellert..."
"It's not a seizure," I said again more forcefully, trying to push his hand away. Meanwhile, Albus reached for his wand and raised it dangerously close to my head. I flinched a bit in disbelief. "You're paranoid," I stated, ducking a few inches again to keep him from reaching me with his wand.
"You don't know, maybe it really is-"
"It's not!" I shouted, knocking his wand hand away. She fell on his couch and I had to turn around. God knows why I couldn't help watching him helplessly pick her up and stand in front of me. I sighed. "I didn't mean to startle you, I'm sorry…" I took his shoulders to reassure him that everything was fine. He looked at me and took a ragged breath. Then he smiled.
"It's nothing. You didn't startle me. So what do you think it is?" he asked and I could tell from his shoulders that he was probably playing with his wand behind his back. I let him go and sat on the sofa.
"I think they're visions," I stated, finishing my glass of firewhiskey. I smiled. "It's really good, by the way. Anyway, I think they're flashes of... Futures. It happens to me sometimes. It happened to me at school, but it was so dim and indistinct that I never saw anything. At first, it started in my dreams. I fell asleep and dreamed things like that poor muggle trying to trip my legs the next day. And it happened. I didn't deal with things like that at first, but the strange thing about those dreams was that I was always able to remember them. And they were and are the only dreams I ever had."
"You... You don't dream? And what about the German speech, what was that? It kind of sounded like a riddle or something, a poem maybe" Albus asked interested, now sitting down next to me, one leg propped up on the sofa. He looked very surprised, but it was clear from his expression that he wanted to know more. I shook my head.
"No. I never dream. These were the only dreams before they started showing up in the day. Sometimes they're… Flashes, sometimes images, but this was different. Something new. And yes, it was a poem," I smiled, a bit embarrassed – it is not typical to start saying a child’s poems out of a sudden, is it…
"And what did you see today? Was it... Something that's supposed to happen tomorrow or something?"
"I don't know. I don't remember it...clearly. I don't understand it. It was...just flashes." I didn't want to tell him, not yet. For me alone, it was something different, particularly important, almost intimate. I wasn't sure if Albus and I were at this stage yet. I wasn't even sure I'd ever let him this close to me. He just won't know yet, I won't tell him yet. It was comforting to me that after a week of confiding, I had a secret that could only be mine.
But even that stopped entertaining me after a few days.
“Oh, alright… Then I hope… you will maybe see it better the next time?” He was so clueless I loved it.
“Yeah, I hope so too… I really want to know what that all means.”
For a while, we sat there in silence, again, just with our unfinished tea. Albus made it warm again before turning to me again. “What does the poem mean? What does it say?”
I took a breath, translating it in my head first, then telling it out loud once again in German for an accurate translation. I closed my eyes for a while.
"Spin me, spin me
round and round...
spin me, spin me
for any reason… found…”
I smirked and shrugged. The ‘aus irgendeinem Grund’ means just ‘for any reason' or something like that, I just… felt more poetic by adding the last word,” I winked at Albus and poured myself more of fire whiskey. Albus looked scalded. I raised my brows. “Mhm?”
He stuttered, and blushed again. “I- how many languages do you speak? I know only French, Spanish, Latin, a bit of Gobbledegook, I had a one-year course of Mermish language and that’s probably all…” Albus said it so sad that I really caught myself pitying him. I smiled and patted his shoulder.
“If I won’t count German, which is my native language, and won’t count even English, because I know it since I was a child, then it is Latin, Norwegian, Hungarian, Russian, I also had some courses for Mermish and Gobbledegook, but I found it… less interesting than actual human languages. I would very doubt myself at French, but you can try me maybe… It is not so bad, to be honest, but I still do believe my Spanish is better. I am currently learning Swedish, which seems to be really easy for me.” I smirked, leaving Albus’ mouth wide open before he gulped and nodded.
“I mean… Whoa… Well… Say something in Norwegian, please! It sounds so interesting, I bet-“
“Jeg aner ikke hva jeg skal fortelle deg, Albus…” I shrugged, giving him a clueless look, but bursting to laugh after a while.
“What? What did you say?!” he wanted an answer, “were you offending me or something?”
I laughed again. “Meg? Nei, det ville jeg aldri! How rude!”
“Then what was that before and what did you say now? Gellert, I asked you to tell me something in Norwegian, not to start speaking it like that…” He played offended, I had to laugh.
“Oh come on. I said ‘I don’t know what should I talk about, Albus’. And then ‘Me? No, I would never!’ because I would never offend you. Not even in a different language. Not even if I hated you,” I admitted, meaning it absolutely honestly. I would never offend someone so intelligent and smart as he was because there was no bad word for him.
“Oh really? And how am I supposed to know you are not lying to me, eh?” He smiled, his cheeks turning a bit red as he realised what I did tell him. “You serious? Why would you ever hate me? I mean, I could never hate you…”
/AD/
The shock I experienced when Gellert's eyes rolled, turned white and he was disoriented was long gone. Now we were talking, just him and I and that was my whole world. I was intrigued by his ability to speak several languages as much as I was intrigued by his appearance. Like his behaviour and personality. Like all of him.
"Will you teach me some Norwegian? And how come you speak so fluently?" I demanded, looking at him with hope in my eyes. Gellert laughed.
"I went to Durmstrang, I said that before. The teaching is in two languages; Norwegian and German. English is rarely spoken there, for example only when a foreign professor is teaching or English is his native language. If you could not speak either of those two, and you still want to study there, you have to ask for permission to use the translation charm while at school. But then you'll have a hard time communicating with others because you can only understand what they're saying, but they probably won't understand you; the translation charm is just an exception for foreigners. And most of the students do not speak English outside of English classes. Most are simply from the north, so they only know English thanks to the school, but their parents don't," he continued to tell me, and I blinked my eyes in amazement.
"I never really thought about that. I thought you had to learn English before joining Durmstrang. But it makes sense that not everyone knows it. Oh well…" it dawned on me that I didn't even know where my foreign friend is, "where are you from? where were you born?"
Gellert smiled and threw up his hands. "That's quite a complicated story. Do we have time?"
I looked at the wall clock; it was already after dinner, a few minutes after seven o'clock. I smiled and got up from the couch. "We do. But I'm hungry anyway. Shall we go eat?"
I found Ariana and Aberforth's leftovers in the kitchen. I frowned, took my wand and turned to Gellert. “You know what? Since you are going to tell me about your homeland and you were so kind to tell me about your school abroad, what is the typical dish you were used to as a kid? And can you make it?”
Gellert laughed again and shook his head. "I can't believe you're so interested in where I'm from, but even more interested in the country itself. Oh well. First I'll make you some Fårikål, and then I'll try to explain… my childhood." I raised an eyebrow at the name of the dish and dropped it with my chopstick to the line.
"I hope you don't need something we don't have," I blurted out, but he shook his head.
"You'll definitely have this. It's simple, look..." His wand rose and several potatoes, lamb and cabbage flew out of the pantry. Then, he cut the lamb meat into two same-sized pieces, then washed it and set it aside on the counter. He was partly using his hands too, and watching him cooking a time to time without the wand was something that made my heart so warm and happy. I wanted to come to him, hug him from behind and rest my chin on his shoulder…
“Could you maybe wash the head of cabbage and cut it into some big pieces?” he asked me and I nodded, letting the cabbage be cut to what he said and watching it carefully. I hid my blushed face to an elbow for a while, pretending I am yawning.
“What now?” I asked kindly with a prepared cabbage.
“Now, you discard the root end of the cabbage and set it aside. Meanwhile, I will dredge the lamb meat in flour, and then line the base of a pot with some of the prepared meat. And after all, you will lay some of the cabbage leaves on top of the lamb meat. Oh, and please, make those potatoes meanwhile…”
We managed to cook the…
“How did you say it is called?” I had to ask again. He smiled, preparing it now only with his want on two fancy black plates, adding a wine to the table. Oh, I did not tell him I don’t drink, right…
“It is a Fårikål. That is what it’s called. Come on, help me with it to the dining room…”
I levitated two wine glasses as well as potatoes and brought them to the dining room, where he served it and sat onto, now already his favourite, chair. I sat opposite and kindly thanked him.
“So, will you-“
“Can I at least have my first bite to know if it is good enough?” he laughed and I felt I was blushing again. I nodded obediently.
“Of course, sorry,” I mumbled, blushing hard. Why it was so hard to be friendly around him? And why does he look like he is either enjoying it or not noticing it?
“Well, where should I start?” he asked me after a while. The dish was delicious.
“Uhm, where were you born? What happened then? Why did you say it is complicated? This is delicious, by the way. Very good, thank you,” I complimented him and ignored passing Aberforth, who looked horrified when saw us eating together. What was the matter, brother?
“I was born in Luxembourg. However, that is hardly important at all, because I did not spend even a month of my life there. My mother waited until she was not pregnant and it was safe for her to apparate. She could not travel any other way because they were guarding the borders and Luxembourg is just too small to go through it. In addition, pregnant and without a father, because it was because of him that the borders were guarded. I think he did something and he could not go back, so he lived in Germany as close to my mother as possible. However, they could not see each other. They also looked after her, which is why it took a month after the birth before she managed to move herself to Germany.
We lived in Frankfurt for a while, I learned to speak German, and both my parents were finally able to join the wizarding world; because until then the mother had lived as a muggle and the father had been caught by the muggles in that crime and so they treated him as well. No one in the wizarding world knew anything; father was just good at covering it up. They wanted to send me to Hogwarts, first, but my father could not control himself and of course, did something again. They kicked him out of Frankfurt, actually from all of Germany, you could say. My mother wanted to move back to England, where her parents were from; Bathilda is related, as you already know, she is my grandmother's younger sister on my mother's side.
After the trip to London, however, those muggles from Luxembourg managed to catch my mother. She did not know that even after so many years there was a warrant for her arrest for leaving the country. As soon as she moved out of Germany and someone spotted her outside of Frankfurt, they found out. It is still a miracle that she was able to hide in Frankfurt for four years. So my mother was taken away and arrested, and I was sent to Bathilda's care, as she was the only living relative besides my criminal father. I spent two months with Batty before I was five years old and my father decided to educate me at home. You can get a lot done in two months, and being my father will get you even more done. He changed his identity by stealing it from someone and drinking a Polyjuice Potion. When I had to go out with him, of course, he would give it to me too; he always made sure it was some kid from the country that no one knew in the city. He did this until we moved again... He was afraid that someone else would connect it to the whole incident.
I continued to live with my father in Frankfurt, although he now had a different identity. I don't know how he escaped prison, but I don't think they even managed to get him there. Of course, after a while they noticed that something was wrong; after half a year, a young lady, about twenty years old, came to visit, and she said she was going to visit her father. But of course, it wasn't her father, but mine under a Polyjuice potion. Father didn't manage to cover everything up well this time, and after he left, Miss reported him to the local Muggle...Police, I think? Kind of like Aurors are.
So we immediately moved, and father returned to his native land; Norway. He kept his form this time, and we lived a fairly happy life until I was ten and my father was caught. At the time, I didn't even think it would happen, but I never really got along with my father, so I didn't even regret it. He was more like my teacher, and not a bad one. But I had to start school anyway.
Because my mother was arrested, my father sent me to Durmstrang. I knew English thanks to Batty and my mother, but he didn't care. It was important to him that Durmstrang only accepted pure-blood wizards, so I couldn't be noticed by any of the muggles. Anyway, father wanted to be as far away from muggles as possible.
I have to admit that the years in Norway were probably the best for me. I was learning a lot and I was old enough to remember things. I managed to go to school, and then my father wrote to me from prison. After three months, he stopped writing, so I could not come home for Christmas. Not even for the summer holidays. I had to stay in school, even for another year. This continued until I was fourteen and managed to forge a letter from Bathilda saying she would be able to take me for the holidays. So I returned home to my father's house, where I was alone for two months, cleaning for my own future needs. I managed to find some interesting books among the discards, such as... Yes, Deathly Hallows.
After finishing the fifth year, I was going to go home again, again with a fake letter from Bathilda. I don't think he knows it to this day. The sixth year flew by and the seventh year was definitely interesting mainly because I got kicked out. Since December, I have spent almost a year travelling and searching for the Deathly Hallows, but as you can see, without success. And then I remembered about the letter Bathilda sent me not only once, about the Ignotus’ grave and how proud she is to live so near.
And so here I am."
The whole time I was listening, I was careful not to accidentally clink my fork against my plate. I ate the last bite almost at the same time as he finished the story and quickly hurried to finish the food which would soon be cold. I swallowed; I didn't believe that there would ever be something about this young man that would fascinate me even more than already does. But I was wrong. Apparently, Gellert was in my life to surprise me every day.
"Mmm, may I ask? Why didn't you go to Bathilda's for the summer holidays for real?"
Gellert smirked. "It was clear to me that she would behave like my mother. She would always boss me around. I wanted freedom and independence. Bathilda would be worse for a fifteen-year-old boy than school. Now she rarely has anything to say to me."
I nodded and stared at my plate. "So this is Norwegian food, see? You liked it the most... Is there Durmstran too?"
He nodded his head. "Even if I knew the way, I couldn't tell you. They erased my memory after I was expelled, and I don't know how to get there anymore. I only remember how beautiful nature was there. Yes, cold, but beautiful..."
Just as I was about to see Gellert off after dinner, we bumped into Batty at the door. We both looked at her in confusion and she sighed.
"What are you two doing in here? I've sent an owl twice and each time it came back saying that no one seemed to let it in. Where's your brother, Albus? What about your sister? Is anyone home at all?"
We both looked at each other. "Abe went into the kitchen a moment ago. He might be back upstairs by now. And Ariana will be asleep. What was the big deal?" I asked, taking the envelope from Bathilda. I pulled out a folded paper and Gellert and I read it together.
It was an invitation for me to the ball. I sighed. I had completely forgotten about the summer wizarding balls that mother always sent Aberforth and me to.
"Do I have to go? And why didn't it come straight to me?" I asked like a small child and Bathilda sighed.
"Probably because it was clear you would ignore it. Yes, you have to go. You take your brother with you. I'll watch Ariana," she said firmly, already opening the door, ready to head back home.
"But-" I tried to protest, but Bathilda shook her head decisively.
"No, no buts. You go to balls every year and this one will be no exception... You'll at least have some fun, Albus. And you have to be there out of politeness," she added and my stomach almost flipped. I hated doing things out of politeness.
"But I don't even have anyone to go with. My brother will quickly grab someone away with him, as always. The girls from the village don't have anyone to go with either. But me? They don't even know me..."
"It's not my fault you didn't listen to me, and you never went to any of the parties. Now you see, you're going to the prom alone. Neither your mother nor I can go with you this year. I'm looking after Ariana, remember..."
"Don't say: I told you so," I begged, looking angrily at Bathilda. There was no shame in going with a mother or almost-aunt, especially if the mother had no father. But going alone?
"I told you so," she shoved the words in my face and went down the stairs. "Gellert, come on, you were on your way home, weren't you?"
It was hard to tell if my blond friend wanted to laugh or if he was just extremely confused. He nodded his head.
"But I can't go alone!" I shouted again after Bathilda, who stood resolutely on the last step, waiting for Gellert. He turned to me, then to Bathilda, then to me again.
“You will not go alone."