Daily Deviant
- there is no such thing as 'too kinky'
Fic: "The Lowest Drawer," Albus/Gellert, R 
21st July 2010 23:45
Title: The Lowest Drawer
Author: [info]thegildedmagpie
Characters/Pairings: Gellert Grindelwald/Albus Dumbledore
Rating: R
Kinks/Themes Chosen: self-flagellation (in both senses)
Other Warnings: Half-naked Dumbledore. Kinda dorky, very horny teenagers. Epistolary fic.
Word Count: 2046
Summary/Description: Albus gazes into his Pensieve and his lowermost desk drawer, and, in true Nietzchean fashion, they gaze also into him.
Author's Notes: My favorite thing about the whole of DH was the awesome academic enthusiasm of the DD-to-GG letter. This may come through a bit.




“Has there ever been anyone else?”

The office is silent, but for that half-audible whisper; dark, but for that silvery-blue glow. Neither, of course, is true. Even in the most hushed of moments Albus can hear the castle around him. It breathes like a living thing sometimes as its stones settle against one another with the comfort of littermate puppies. And starlight through the window of the little Transfiguration office joins the uncanny light of the Pensieve in picking out the weird, delightful silvery twists of the humming devices that Albus builds and tinkers with, standing over them in tufted slippers with a wand and a wrench or a tuning fork when he can't quiet his mind enough to sleep. But Albus has learned the power of the poignant half-truth and he might as well use them for himself, so: it's silent. It's dark.

“Has there ever been anyone else?”

“You are not real,” he tells the figure that is slowly revolving in the silver bowl. Nude. Skin pure as ivory. Not broken and captive as he was after Albus made his uneasy peace with the duel that he had to fight. That memory will never drip into the bowl. He guards it in his head, because he knows it could break him to be surprised by it.

“If you truly believe that then maybe, for your own good, you should stop talking with me.”

“Go back where you came from,” he tells the perfect blonde Adonis in the Pensieve, and as if by design his slight turn at the desk causes the faint light to catch on one of the premature strands of silver that are visible every so often in his long auburn hair.

“I came from you,” says the memory-Gellert, and, with that perfect flash of wicked humor: “Every time we could manage it.” The joke now makes Albus wince, where at seventeen, eighteen it would have brought forth a delighted, wicked chuckle. How mad and beautiful he was – they both were – in the days when they were two large bright fish together by luck in a quiet muddy pond.


G –
Been thinking further (as usual!) on what we were talking about today before Ab came in. I still think you're wrong but never mind that. It doesn't matter. Spells that use blood as a magical carrier: Why can't they take a substitute? Couldn't the wizard theoretically just spit on the raw materials? It is the same cells of the caster as you find in the blood.
-A

A –
Of course you think I'm wrong. That is the nature of my genius. And of course it could, if the wizard bit himself first. It's not the cells of the body that are important in that kind of spell, it's the carrier of life. It's the fact that it symbolically IS life. Ask a vampire.
-G

G –
I expect that's why raw materials spells are usually considered black magic (when really we should just consider it area-effect Potions), that conception that

A –
? Finish your sentences. Your owl is going to explode from exertion if you send notes by the phrase.
-G

G –
Sorry, Ar needed something. Was saying: I think we consider many kinds of possibly useful magic to be the Dark Arts because we have a conception that blood = life and thus necessarily involves loss of life or of life-force to perform it. Perhaps it would go a long way toward overcoming that superstition concept prejudice superstition (I'll say it!) if it were possible to work with saliva, tears – it could open up entirely new fields. If some Dark Arts spells could be performed without being Dark Arts – ! Well, if those of us who have the power to manipulate those spells could research openly or at all!, we could become gods. Just think how harnessing power like that could change the world for good.
–A

A –
Does this mean you're abandoning your dragon blood theory in favor of dragon spit? If so, I want your notes and you can dodder into obscurity trying to make dragons drool in cups for you all by yourself while I become the brilliant inventor. The saliva I don't see. Magic is all about exploiting the power inherent in the world and blood by its very nature is a channel of energy. Tears maybe. What about semen?
-G

G –
Semen? If it's as magically powerful as blood I'm going to weep for all of it I've been expending into my socks over you lately. See how my tears blotch the ink. But we just decided tears are powerful too. Curses! Such waste! I can see your point though. I read something in the Hogwarts library while researching something completely different once, passing mention of sex magic. Never understood how that would work although I think I understand better now, again thanks to you and your apparently staggeringly vast knowledge on the subject.
-A

A –
Don't mock my knowledge on the subject, maybe it will change how our world views the Dark Arts and then you will see how wrong you were to mock while you're still collecting dragon dribbles. Sex is powerful – and useful – and now that you have me thinking about it I want to prove it. Preferably without getting interrupted like we were last week (going to kill your brother one of these days). Let's try a little experiment, you like those: Hold your wand in one hand (the wooden one; see, I'm making a pervert out of you) and I imagine you know what to do with your other “wand” and other hand and a sock if you really feel you need one. See how your wand (not in quotes) sparks when your fist moves. That's what magic feels like to me. Sweeping through me, power running over like a spring bubbling out of the earth. Are you doing it?
-G

G –
You don't need to tell me twice. But I still think yours feels better. Just the right shape like my hand was made for it. Like silk. You fit into my hand as smoothly as my wand does. I could touch you forever. Can't write and hold my wand at the same time (not leaving off the third thing!) but when it is in my fingers – I think you're right. It does spark in a rhythm. What about yours?

A –
Don't stop. I'm thinking about you. I can just see your candle light across the square and over the roof of the little house next door. I wonder if I can see you. Take your robe off and get on the desk and I'll be looking. Maybe I'll see the sparks.
I wonder what color it sparks when you finish. I want to see.

G –
On the desk. Writing against the pane. Quill drying. Wish you were here.

A –
I see you. Just a little pale blur and a hint of red. Leave the window open, put the owl to bed. I'm coming over. Aberforth can't send you to bed without your supper and I'll risk it. Have to see what color. It's about to become my favorite. I think it'll be red as blood.
Don't finish until I get there.
– G




The letters that flew across Godric's Hollow, hasty jottings alternating scripts on one sheet of parchment, the handwriting shrinking as the paragraphs shortened and the text devolved ever more into a system of abbreviations made up on the spot and perfectly clear to both on those bright and brilliant nights – some of them were lost. Some are probably still under one of the beds they slept in. Some are long since burned to ash. There are just a few sheets of scrawlings that are still in the triple-spell-locked drawer under the desk. These he couldn't give up.

The drawer is open now, and he has taken from it – not any of the letters that rustle rumors of a passion he had to ruthlessly poison to smallness in order to survive it, but instead a cruel little implement of leather with tips cut to points, something that stings. He keeps it on top of these rolls and scraps of parchment for a reason. His robe is open in the square of moonlight from the window – he barely remembers unfastening it.

There's never been anyone else. At first he used this wicked little whip to make sure of it. Pain was usually enough to focus his mind back on the laughing beauty of Gellert Grindelwald, rather than whatever had prompted Albus's desire to rise … a glimpse of silky golden hair (like his), a winsome knowing smile (like his), the curve of an ivory neck (like his) above a plain black robe.

The first crack of leather makes him bite the inside of his mouth, his blue eyes squeezing shut behind the spectacles he's just begun to wear, and he has to wait for the sharp burn to fade some before he can steel himself to do it again. He has it down to a science, the exact sharp little downward flick of the wrist that avoids the head – that's too much – and slaps the leather onto his shaft, one of the tongues occasionally wrapping to snap against his balls, that sharp blow making him jerk even through the sparse cushion of curling auburn hair.

At first he used this on a desperate whim, a dark haggard form of the try-anything whimsy that governed his youthful affair, to stop himself wanting too soon after Gellert. Now, this is the only way he can come. He waits weeks between times. It has to be long enough for the pain to leave his keen memory a little. Usually he waits until it starts to hurt not to, sometimes delaying it further by deliberately misplacing the key to the lower drawer where he keeps the letters, the one picture of the two of them together, and this flogger. And a bottle of Firewhiskey. It's not that he's ashamed of that, it's just that he has the kind of mind that likes things that go together, kept together. And he often needs the burn in his throat to dull the residual burn of the welts he leaves.

He spreads his narrow thighs wider to allow himself better access to hurt himself. The skin that was already crimson is darkening in stripes to purple. Some of the better blows will still be faintly visible when he washes and dresses in the morning to go down to breakfast, a reminder that he once loved badly and believed uncritically, and that he must keep it to once.

It only takes a few rough pulls with his long fingers tightened around his equally long and narrow cock before he feels the heat and tightness start to build toward crescendo, and he leaves sharp, cruel smacks on the pale skin of his thighs just below where the reddish down trails off. He continues to stroke himself, crudely, none of the finesse he learned on Gellert being used for his own benefit. The blow that tips him over the edge grazes his smallest finger and just catches the low firm curve of his balls before marking his thigh – and he spatters the open drawer, the floorboards, and the hand that is working cruel magic on himself as the pain peaks.

He'll mop up the mess with a sock as soon as he rises, but he stays kneeling on the floor for a moment, panting with his head down and a curtain of auburn hair narrowing his vision. He's already half-guiltily thinking where he should mislay the key this time once he's locked the flogger back in the lower drawer.

When he does rise, the surface of the memories in the etched silver basin lies as glassy-calm as the innocent surface of a murderous loch. He drops the leather flogger back into its place and, with a bang that only barely ripples what lies in the Pensieve, he shuts the drawer.
Comments 
22nd July 2010 07:19
*hugs Albus* Now I need to write a fic where he finds love again with someone without a darkened spirit... well written, dear!
23rd July 2010 15:32
I know, poor guy. Thanks!
23rd July 2010 00:41
Oooh. Poor Albus. I loved their letters, and the ending was just heartbreaking.
23rd July 2010 15:32
The letters were my favorite part to write, too. :) Thank you!
23rd July 2010 04:52
Wow, this is excellent -- so taut, atmospheric, beautifully-written, and psychologically telling. So like Albus, to lock the painful bits of himself and his life into drawers and gadgets: rather like his own version of horcruxes; he has to compartmentalize if he wants to continue living. And I love the way you make use of magical possibilities. There are so many great lines that just ice-pick their way into my brain, starting with that perfect summary. Here are a few:

But Albus has learned the power of the poignant half-truth and he might as well use them for himself, so: it's silent. It's dark/

That memory will never drip into the bowl. He guards it in his head, because he knows it could break him to be surprised by it.

At first he used this on a desperate whim, a dark haggard form of the try-anything whimsy that governed his youthful affair, to stop himself wanting too soon after Gellert.

And the "aren't-we-the-coolest-and-smartest?" teen letters are spot-on.

Great ending image, too. A powerful, tight piece; I'm impressed.
23rd July 2010 05:02
Oh, yeah, and the sock -- *snerk* Heart's desire, indeed.
23rd July 2010 15:37
I deliberated on and on and on about actually using the sock motif in a piece that is supposed to be depressing, but I kept coming back to ... but it's Dumbles! I finally realized whimsy is one of his defense mechanisms. Or at least that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it.

And the letters were just ridiculous fun to write.

Thank you! *squee*
25th July 2010 17:40
Gorgeously written, tragic and lovely!
27th July 2010 03:32
Oh, poor Albus.
3rd August 2010 16:26
Definitely tragic but so believable. I really like the letters and then Albus punishing himself, both physically and mentally. Well done.
18th August 2010 10:27
Wow, this is really excellent -- sexy and beautifully-written, and very very much in character. Thank you! <3

My favorite thing about the whole of DH was the awesome academic enthusiasm of the DD-to-GG letter.

Oh god, same here. *g*
31st October 2011 14:34
So painful on so many levels. Excellently done!
3rd November 2011 04:33
Anonymous
All of this is so painful. The line a passion he had to ruthlessly poison to smallness in order to survive it is just terrible (in a wonderfully well-written way). Thank you! - busaikko
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