The Study of Sequestered Grief
(notes from the desk of Albus Dumbledore)

[a letter that was never sent, april 1903]

We boggled each other down near the gully. Fiendish and foolish, we were monsters, masquerading as children, hungry for the other, never knowing what we could do, what we would become. Gellert, do you remember? The way I gnawed on liquorice, or the way you bumbled into my arms? I find myself thinking about the way we coalesced together, like dying stars that melded into comets, as though the world was ours. Perhaps it still could be. 

I think about you everyday, all the time, when I go to sleep, all I can see, beyond the darkness of my eyelids, are summer days, gnawed on liquorice, blissed out boys by the back of trees and lakes. Our wands are fixed together, like promises made to behold. Our hands interlaced, like we will never let go. 

I miss you, Gellert, I miss you like I miss Ariana. Maybe even more. 

I am still in Britain, still lurking in cobbled alleyways, researching already researched potions, already done papers. I am still waiting for you, I think. Gellert, 

(the end is ripped out)

[notes on how to reverse dark magic, april 1921]

Dragon’s Blood:
Known to have healing properties, ability to quicken rate of healing, ability to aid in vein collapse and hypothermia, ability to ‘wash away’ curses and stains caused by dark magic

How to save G?????????

Effects of dark magic on human body include but not limited to: rupturing of veins, entanglement of curse bodies onto the arteries, heart shrinks, black spots across body, how to help, how to stop it??????????????

 Dragon blood works only through the main core of dragon - the dragonis membrane within these cells, ability to mutate the magic of dark magic, ability to erase

Needle G????? What to do?

On wixen, how does it effect? [quoted 1865 article on women who drank dragon’s blood] felt cleaner, those who were from darker families more cheerful, more happy?? Simple effects, these women were not cured, is it the blood stream? How to save g???

G’s veins black. G will not die. 

[unsent letter to the ministry, july 1938]

If I may offer you a semblance of solace, I will confess everything. The direction is North. The map leads up the hill. The cabin stands at five metres tall and it is shrouded by willow trees that blaisé into a cacophony of green. He is inside—he spends his time reading by the fireplace, hidden by the fire, then the timber, and then the wood, and alas, the green. It is as though, sometimes, he is the cabin itself, the forest within the mountains and the mountains within the world. 'Does he exist?' you might ask. I have no real answer.

'Are they dead even though their existence is imprinted in our minds?' is a question that is similar in nature. The answer is no, for death is already an abstract concept and memory our only constant. I can recall the way he revoked my own mind and invoked a higher power against my will. that is a power I know naught of how to explain, or how to recreate. If you so wish to seek him, then that is the price.

[in response to a letter his old friend has sent, march 1957]

‘Abhor me, then.’

Abhor you, abhor me, abhor this. There are plenty of things to abhor about everything. It is a silly, made-up word, made real, made tame and made lame. I could despise you, that I know, I could terrorise you, but what has this blank crate of hate bore us? You are a daemon of hate, a fiery monstrosity that thrives off your own dislike of the aberrative, the abhorred. 

I could never hate you; it wouldn’t work. 

‘Shall the lame month I spent with you cost me a century?’

It shall cost us everything. 

[an unfinished poem, december 1963]

The Price of Flesh

What is it about the pale slab of flesh, the mount of pink meat and sinewed muscle that hides under peach fuzz skin, that excites us so? Why is it when demarcated from the human form that it confounds, disgusts—betrays us? What are we trying to see? To feel? To be humbled, to be turned or to be adored — in our great narcissistic fashion we are abolished by our fellow flesh. We are admonished by our intelligence; disembowelled by the common man. Is it our words? Our slick red tongue? That can spout our words, our one language? Of love, of grief and of all the things in between. Of which, we may recite poetry, and we may expunge moans and groans and elicit whimpers and cries. We are tethered to our tongues, and tethered to the mouth of he who speaks, and tethered to the flesh of our word, flesh of the almighty. Crusader of the flesh—I am humbled.

[scribbled out, written on parchment, november 1967]

Gellert, may you never hear this - for you might never forgive me. 

He is like you - he is starved. He has known no kindness, no forgiveness; he is this maelstrom of hate, and anger - how furious this boy is! I am no fool, I am aware that I have never hung a star in Tom Riddle’s sky, it is as dim as I have allowed it to be. Tom Riddle is everything you were, but yet nothing like you at all. He has no weakness, there is nary a time when the boy is shy. Coldness thrums through his veins - he is as cruel as he is powerful. 

In that way, he neither resembles me or you. Magic does not run through his veins, Gellert, he is magic. He has been consumed, has been created and destroyed again and again and again. He is not like us, he has not been elevated by magic, he has survived through magic. The boy does not wane; he does not shake; he is as formidable as the ocean, as it crashes into the simple bays over and over again. He does not take to our climate, does not take to simple household spells - he is a creature of destruction, of fodder and ire that will inevitably strike our world for the same magic that has given him life. 

There is hunger in his eyes - our eyes - but there is no flame to be found, no spark, no crown - he lives on a throne that is made entirely of his own darkness, his own enmities. How he starves, Gellert, how he aches - to be seen, to be found; for what purpose is my own question. 

And how ready the boy is to commit the fouls of the darkest wizards before him; how ready the child is to betray his own life force, his own brand of survival. I suspect - I suspect he is trying to master nature itself, its very essence and time. He knows everything and nothing all at once. He is a contradiction. 

I am ashamed. And so very, very regretful. 

[scrawled on the back of an old transfigurations textbook, february 1972]

He watches, waiting, lurking. He is about to pounce. The boy is starvedcrazy. He is insane. Insatiable, intolerable, anything to everything. You were rather amenable about the whole Dark Lord thing, weren’t you? Charming and brilliant, I had forgotten what it was like to see you (hear you, taste you) until I accidentally dropped a memory into my pensieve. I cannot blame the crowds for adoring you, I was one of them before, anyways. But you were always so much, too much. I am now a bumbling old fool, thinking of sunny days and cold lakes, by your side. You were never afraid, not once.

I am no longer afraid of anything,my beloved. Not after losing you. 

He is not after the power our power. Only after a false memory, after another aberration by nature. He is collecting, and he is thriving. I will not let him pass. I will not. 

[a yellowed out note, october 1981]

We used to duel to win, can you imagine that? He is gone. Tom Riddle has been vanquished. By some God, he has been vanquished! By a child, no less, a gift of nature overcoming his pursuit for immortality. The gift vs. the stolen. Irony. Irony. Irony.

[on the back of the note, november 1981]

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. He will come back, he will find a way. Stay safe, Gellert, stay hidden. 

[on the walls of his office, hidden, september 1984]

Gellert, this, I do not mind letting you see. 

Harry is like no other. He is the mirror vantage of the boy. He is defiant, he is determined, he is hungry. He does not just contain the fire, he is the fire. Orange and red and radiating power. They are not like us, Gellert. They will not hesitate. They will not shy, nor will they hide. They will not wait, they will not cry. There is no forgotten fondness between them - they are starved to overcome, to break, to destroy. I cannot explain it, for there are no words to explain them. Harry is good, overwhelmingly so - he is not like us. He is not like the rest of the heroes of old folk tales, for he is more. He is brilliant. He does not survive, he thrives. He is inexplicably a child, inexplicably a hero, inexplicably, wholly, Harry.

I must save him Gellert, I must. I must find a way, he cannot end like this. He cannot fall for this. He is not like us, Gellert, he deserves to live. He must. He must, he must. He MUST. 

I will not let him go. I will not let him burn. He is not Icarus (and this is not a matter of cannot, but a matter of will not)  and Riddle is the furthest thing from the sun. 

For the first time in decades, old friend, the world is light. 

[the train station, ???]

The train station is neither cold, nor hot, nor anything really. It is an empty place, ironically topped off by the excavated memories of a soul we once saw. I feel nothing here - no sadness, no joy, only longing. Just waiting. My mind is not drowned, here. I am in a state of stasis, it seems. You are not here yet, although I’m unsure if you will ever come. Time does not exist here, it is merely a place of ache. My hands are no longer weak, eyes no longer dull. I only see light now, old friend, as I wait for your familiar figure to come. I shall not enter any carriages, not alone. Not without you.

I refuse to lose you now.