Happy Springsmut, jairissa! Author: screamingveela Recipient: jairissa Title: Glad and Sorry Season Rating: NC-17 Pairing: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. Summary: Some things, he learned the hardest way. Warnings: Lots of talking, wee bit of sexing. Word Count: 4,500 Author's Notes: Writing Dumbledore is, frankly, a terrifying experience, and I hope I got him approximately right. Segment headings are from Stars' 'Better Be Heaven' (and are more structural than thematic), title from Shakespeare's sonnet XIX. Graciously beta'd by C; any mistakes are wholly my own. jairissa, I hope this is close to what you were hoping for or, if it's not, I hope you like it anyways.
*
prologue –
Naivety was a powerful thing, Albus Dumbledore had learned. The hard way. Of course.
Oh, he was quite brilliant, there was no denying it (he never did), but he had his blind spots. He never denied that, either. He could ignore just about anything for the sake of himself: his brilliance, his career, his future, or his libido. He couldn't ignore death, as it turned out, but he could ignore all the warning signs. His brother raging at him, his sister looking dolefully up at him - about a quarter of the time, when she wasn't in one of her moods. It was those quiet moments that were haunting, looking back. Silent, and accusatory. His sister.
Albus Dumbledore could ignore that, could ignore his own family, his own flesh and blood, if there was but a small, miraculously-offered, greedily-accepted, distraction.
Gellert Grindlewald was neither small nor miraculous. But Albus Dumbledore had, naively, allowed himself to be distracted.
And naivety, Gellert Grindelwald knew, is highly exploitable.
*
one's the touch –
Albus Dumbledore was bored. It had to be said. There had been - brief, flickering, temporary - hope: of other things, of something completely brilliant, of a whole year abroad. The pyramids in Egypt, and the Great Wall of China. Huge and obvious things, and Albus was ready to learn, finally, what the Hogwarts professors hadn't been able to teach him.
That's what he said – it was to be a learning experience. Not so much a holiday as an education. He wasn't a tourist he was an intellectual. And what better place to learn than the whole wide world? Everything beyond England, Scotland; everything beyond these bloody islands. Everything beyond the cottage house in Godric's Hollow.
It was selfish. It was for himself. It was to escape this tiny life he had lived up until then, a life that had done its best to stifle him. It was supposed to lead to something grand, something important.
To be gone for a whole year. A year without worrying about his sister, rowing with his brother, humouring his mother. A whole year without having to answer questions about his father. A year. What a concept.
This, he denied. Oh, how he denied it to everybody who asked, to Bathilda Bagshot and Elphias Doge. He denied it even to himself, later in life, when he thought he'd put the whole summer behind him. It was always educational, and never selfish.
Albus Dumbledore couldn't wait to get out. The whole wide world was out there, after all, just waiting - waiting, he was sure of it - for him.
So he'd thought; so he'd hoped. Hope that he could get out of this. That he could, he would, rise above the shame of an imprisoned father, a haughty, unforgiving mother, a dim and dull brother. And the secret he knew must eventually be exposed.
When his mother died, so did that hope. Brief, flickering, temporary.
*
two's the feeling –
Bored. At home, caring for his sister, but only when his brother would let him near her. He spent his time reading books he'd already memorised and writing Flourish and Blotts to keep up to date on the latest in reduced prices. He'd never had to think about money before. Oh, there was money. Some. Enough to survive, but not, in Albus's opinion, to live. Even the stagnant, static media of books opened a new world for him. But this world - all those worlds - were now a luxury.
He resented it. How could he not? He had been raised - nay, he had been groomed - to be a great wizard, to be brilliant and influential and important. He was meant to read dense essays discussing the theories of Transfiguration, to think about shape and nature and purpose. He still had those thick books, full of essays and unreadable diagrams (his own among them, he was still proud to say). But what was new? And, almost more importantly, who had replaced him as the young savant du jour?
It stung, thinking about it in those terms.
He reread his own library three times before moving on to his family's. Aberforth had nothing but standard textbooks and the occasional dirty - very dirty - magazine. His mother had novels, most of them romances about kidnapped witches and the gallant knights - invariably named Sir Lancelot - who rescued them. Disgusting.
His sister's collection - a paltry combination of thinly-veiled moralistic fairy tales and the most very basic learner's guides to magic - was only marginally better. The fairy tales, at least, were illustrated, painted in vivid primary colours, moving slowly and deliberately across the page.
The monotony was broken by the sudden appearance of Gellert Grindelwald.
*
three's the answer –
He was short; perpetually youthful. His eyes were bright and almost always laughing, Albus never knew at what. Emotionally, he had barely matured beyond the point of a pubescent fourteen year old. Full of energy and life, and always speaking of grand adventures he'd had, was in the midst of having (for what was expulsion but a forced adventure, anyways?) or would undoubtedly have. He excited Albus, and for the first time since his mother's death, he grasped the idea of a whole wide world out there, waiting not just for him but for them.
What drew them together was books. Oh, they were introduced formally enough, by Bathilda. It was an awkward moment: she was simultaneously ashamed of Gellert's expulsion, and uncomfortable with the details of Albus's unsavoury family history. But what truly drew them together was scholarship, reading, learning. A thirst they both shared.
To begin, however, the boys eyed each other warily.
'Hogwarts, yes?'
'Yes,' answered Albus, proud and defensive at once.
'Yes, I've heard of you.' Albus was nonplussed; he was only seventeen but many people, far more important than this Gellert Grindelwald, had heard of him. 'Read your article in Transfiguration Today.'
'Oh?' asked Albus, both dreading and anticipating what he was forced to say next. 'Which one?'
Gellert smiled impishly. 'Oh, all of them, no doubt,' he said, and he sounded neither impressed not envious.
'Your aunt says you're quite well-read.'
'Quite, quite,' said Gellert airily, waving a hand. 'Not nearly so well-written, however. Nor well-published.'
Albus had the distinct impression he was being teased, and he smiled. Perhaps he even blushed. He could be friends with Gellert Grindelwald, he decided. Maybe even good friends. He certainly could use one. Even the elegant letters, sent by exotic, multi-coloured birds, from Elphias Doge, only seemed to emphasize the intellectual distance between them. Elphias described the things he saw, the people he met, but was quite useless at writing about history or local traditions or anything to do with magic at all.
Gellert seemed unfazed by Albus's silence, preferring to remain silent himself rather than interrupt this well-published man's thoughts. It was the first of many times when silence would fall between them, and it was comfortable at once.
'Have you -' Albus cleared his throat. He had never asked a perfect stranger (comfortable though they were) such a personal question. 'Have you any interesting books?'
Gellert laughed, and it was bright, open, without a hint of shame. 'My dear Albus! I thought you'd never ask.'
And that was how Albus Dumbledore first made Gellert Grindelwald laugh. He dearly hoped it would not be the last time. He felt he could live under that laugh, that it would protect him from all the world, that it would ease the forgetting of the past - for both of them. There was only the future in that laugh and Albus Dumbledore forgot to remember to think about his mother (even to blame her for the inconvenience of her death) for the rest of the summer.
*
four's the leaving –
Albus had been used to teaching - to speaking rather slowly, to repeating himself, to reducing the most complex notions to their barest bones, and then building them up again, carefully and deliberately. He had been used to questions, lots of them, most of them unfathomable to someone who grasped vague and abstract concepts at first glance.
Speaking with Gellert Grindelwald was the exact opposite. In fact, Albus sometimes felt that he was the pupil. Gellert spoke fast, never had the same idea twice, and took the simple and spoke of it in such a way that astounded Albus.
'And it makes us special,' he concluded one evening, a fortnight into his visit to Godric's Hollow.
Albus, who had been nodding, following and agreeing with Gellert's theories on the cross-pollination of Mandrakes and Gurdyroot (though he had no interest in Herbology himself, Gellert could make even the mundane seem extraordinary), stopped nodding at this point.
'Er - special?' he asked. Naturally, the idea of a kicking, screaming Gurdyroot had to be unique - but special?
'From the Muggles!' Gellert exploded, and Albus had the distinct impression that the last two weeks had been leading up to this precise moment. 'Plants, animals, minerals - species unique to our understanding, beyond anything the Muggles' imagination, or capacity for thinking.'
'Muggles have the capacity to grasp -' Albus began slowly, trying to see ahead, trying to anticipate the next words out of Gellert's mouth.
'Fantasy!' spat Gellert. 'Myth! Ghost stories to frighten themselves, horror novels that act as mere metaphors for whatever they truly deal with in life, such as that life is. When presented with something real, what would they do? Deny it. Explain it away with their science. Too bland to seek the truth, too blind to see it when it hits them in the face.' He paused as if for dramatic effect. 'Muggles.'
Albus, unsure what to say after this unexpected outburst, stared out the window. Muggles. He hadn't thought about Muggles, hadn't wanted to think about Muggles, in a very long time.
Gellert, as if sensing Albus's hesitation, didn't press the issue, and quickly changed the subject to -
The Deathly Hallows. Albus was beside himself. Could they really exist? Could they be more than fairy tale fodder, a morality tale to keep children from desiring too much? He pictured the moving illustrations of his sister's book. Real?
He thought about the stories he'd heard. The Elder Wand, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone - stories so old they were reduced to myth, aggrandised beyond the scope of truth.
He shook himself. Sod it. It was all such nonsense. But he let Gellert speak on, enthralled by the sound of his voice, serious and frivolous all at once.
'You see where I'm leading you?' Gellert asked, quite innocently.
'Oh, yes, quite,' replied Albus.
For how could he not? The first tract had not succeeded; Albus had no responded to Gellert's indignation. But this - appealing to his sense of scholarship, his love of discovery - this just might work, and even Albus himself knew it. Gellert was sly in his speech, his questions always appeared meaningless, but Albus was a very good listener. And he had done nothing if not listen, enthralled, to this new companion for the last two weeks.
'You want to acquire these things - the Deathly Hallows - in order to assure your power over the Muggles. Then they will have no choice but to acknowledge your superiority over them once you are in possession of the Hallows. Something like that?'
Gellert smiled as though pleased Albus had caught on so quickly. 'Something, yes.'
'How exactly do you propose you find these thing? How are you going to narrow the search? It could take years.'
'Of course it could take years - it could take years just to convince you they exist,' Gellert said, shrewdly. Albus merely smiled. If he could read Gellert, he could not be surprised that the reverse was also true. 'All the more reason to start now. We're young men - but we're oh so clever, wouldn't you agree?'
'Quite clever, yes.' 'We've got ages ahead of us, but that's no excuse to delay. Imagine what everybody will say when two twenty-odd year old wizards take over the world.'
'Twenty?' Albus was amused. 'Can you do this all by the age of twenty?'
Still looking to be dramatic, Gellert hesitated, but Albus was certain that he had already calculated their campaign to the last detail. 'Together, yes.'
Albus put all thought of the Hallows behind him; he was determined to think about other things. Unfortunately, Gellert's obsessive personality allowed him no such luxury, and Albus spent nights awake, trying to think of suitable conversation topics. But none presented themselves. Everything always came back to the greatness of magic, the superiority of even the stupidest wizard over the most accomplished Muggle. Everything always lead to tangents on the filthiness of Muggles, their slow minds and dull imaginations compared to the privilege of carrying a wand and knowing the secrets of the universe.
He'd tried probing Gellert's past, but stories of Dark Magic sanctioned by the professors of Durmstrang left Albus feeling cold. As a rule, Albus never talked about himself. Gellert never asked.
Defeated, Albus allowed Gellert to carry on, hoping the less-than-responsive audience would discourage him. It didn't; Gellert seemed quite pleased to talk to himself.
On a particularly sunny July afternoon, Albus found himself staring out the window, daydreaming about the warm sun and a cool dip in the nearby pond. 'What a beautiful day! What are we doing inside on a day like this?'
But Gellert didn't pay any attention to his friend. He ranted, good and fully, so excited by the sound of his own voice. More prattle about Muggles, and he quoted from every anti-Muggle document Albus had ever heard of, dating all the way back to Salazar Slytherin, and some he hadn't.
Albus wished he would stop, and he stretched an arm across the table separating them, clasped Gellert's hand.
'Stop,' he said, unnecessarily, for Gellert had frozen, mid-sentence. For the first time since Albus had known him, Gellert had no words; he was speechless.
'Albus?' he asked, and in that - that name, in that question - something changed. Not knowing what he was doing, Albus griped his friend's hand tighter in his own. He feared his own impulse, feared what he might instinctively do. Yet he could not pull his hand away. They sat in silence, looking across the table at one another.
Finally, Albus found his voice; and found himself speaking completely against his instinct.
'Muggles,' he said, 'attacked my sister.'
Gellert didn't smile, not with his lips - they didn't even twitch - but with his eyes. His eyes always gave him away. They brightened, they sensed the triumph that was coming. He had Albus by the hand, had his friend under his control.
Albus noticed the new sparkle, and he knew and feared what it meant. He had been won, he understood; he had succumbed to Gellert Grindelwald.
He had been won.
*
six are the devil's kiss –
Gellert had done this before, Albus could tell. The subtle wooing, the quiet manipulations, the casual words. All designed, all practiced, to win allegiance, to slowly break down old beliefs and instil new ones. Everything was carefully sporadic, designed - oh, yes, designed - to lure towards, and not scare away.
But he could also tell that Gellert thought Albus was different, he was special. He assumed it was because he was just as clever, just as talented, as Gellert himself. There was little accomplishment in manipulating the less talented; Albus would be his greatest recruit, if recruited properly, and Albus felt Gellert restraining himself from going too far, too fast.
Albus knew, but he refused to give up control. He had decided, for himself, to take this path, and he was still in charge of himself. He was not being manipulated, so much as he was simply being lead, eager to follow.
*
- interlude
But Albus - poor Albus, Gellert thought - was slightly blinded, too. He did not realise that Gellert's seduction was two-fold. Perhaps it was because he was young. Perhaps he had never enjoyed the pleasures that Gellert had. Perhaps he had, and then forgotten about them. After all, Albus never mentioned anything about a girl, about love, about marriage or happiness.
No mention of a girl, and Gellert took that as a good sign, but above all, Albus was naïve, and Gellert was allowed to manipulate him more than Albus had anticipated.
Gellert contemplated this as they drank mulled wine, sitting in the comfortable armchairs of his aunt's study. The fire was lit, but gave only light and no heat. It was past midnight, but neither boy had noticed. They sat, each absorbed in his own reading. At least, Albus was absorbed. Gellert was thinking of something completely different. He refilled Albus's glass surreptitiously, but the silence continued for some time. The rustling of pages being turned, the clink of glass on the marble table, the occasional scratched nose were the only sounds.
Albus came to the end of his chapter. 'Fascinating,' he murmured, reaching for his wine glass. 'Simply -'
'Fascinating?' Gellert was grinning.
'I apologise, I didn't mean to disturb -'
'My reading?' Gellert sighed. 'I must admit, Coetzee's treatise on elemental Disapparition doesn't hold my attention the way it once did.'
Albus nodded, understanding at once. 'His complete omission of Lariovinsky's Principle of a Three-Fold Gravity is disturbing, and calls into question his entire conclusion.'
'Very sloppy,' agreed Gellert.
Albus glanced at the hands of his pocket watch, and his face fell. 'It's so late already. I really must -'
'Must you really?' Gellert was teasing him again.
'Yes, quite,' and Albus stood, wavering slightly. Gellert, quite alert, jumped up and caught his arm - but he had underestimated how drunk Albus was and they both fell, rather awkwardly, back into the chair nearest the fire.
They laughed, and Gellert saw his chance, the first good chance he'd had since the afternoon in the library when Albus clutched his hand so desperately.
'Albus,' he said, the only warning he gave his friend before kissing him. Albus, in his drunkenness, didn't resist the kiss, but continued laughing against Gellert's mouth.
Gellert feigned embarrassment, untangling himself. 'Not quite the reaction I was looking for.'
'No, I should say not!' Albus exclaimed, hiccupping slightly. 'But you can't blame me, you're the one who's gotten me nicely drunk, after all!'
Not expecting Albus to have noticed, let alone accused him of it, Gellert decided on the spot not to contradict it. 'It is a good wine though, is it not?'
Nodding, Albus stood. 'Delicious. My compliments to your aunt and her fabulous tastes. But I think it really must be time for me to leave.'
'Of course,' Gellert replied graciously, and he walked Albus to the door. No need to press his luck, after all. This was a delicate matter. The seed was planted and that was enough. For now.
'Until tomorrow then?' he asked. 'I'm expecting a copy of Aylmer Augustus's new work on effervescent Transfiguration, it should be quite a laugh ...' Gellert trailed off as Albus shook his head.
'I think we have neglected our pet project, Gellert. Why are we wasting our time debunking crackpot theories?'
'You mean,' Gellert began carefully.
'Muggles!' Albus whispered, leaning in close. They must be taught their proper place.' He looked down into Gellert's bright eyes. Gellert didn't look away. 'Was that all just talk?' he murmured.
'No, not just talk,' Gellert whispered back, leaning in closer. 'I meant every word I said.'
'So we will -' Albus began, closing his eyes and sighing.
'We will,' Gellert finished, and then they were kissing in earnest. Hands touched faces, hair, and waists, and Gellert knew - oh, he could always tell - that Albus had done this before, he had kissed a body, he'd known perhaps many bodies.
Gellert was no longer plotting, planning. Everything had lead up to this and now, his body was finally - finally! - taking over from his brain.
'Are you,' he panted, between kisses, 'quite sure you - must - go now?'
But Albus was already leading him back to the study, back to the brandywine, to the heatless fire. Back to the books, but, for the first time, to ignore them completely.
*
seven better be heaven –
Albus had more sense, more experience, than to get drunk on a few glasses of wine, but what an excuse - what a glorious excuse to get what he wanted.
He had wondered in the past few weeks, if what he had done was different from what Gellert had attempted to do. It was manipulation, pure and simple: allowing Gellert to continue believing that he was the most powerful in the relationship, that he was seducing Albus against his will. To interrupt, to intervene, to expose his own desires would have been more truthful - a much more friendly act than the continued pretence of ignorance. But to continue - Albus knew it gave him the upper hand. He could stop it, but didn't. He was in control, he had to be. And it had lead him here. It certainly was hard to feel guilty about that.
Albus and Gellert fumbled into the dying light of the fire, touching, kissing, stroking, removing the cumbersome robes that separated them from each other. Albus shivered as the cool air hit his warm skin, but promptly forgot it as Gellert's hands stroked down his bare back, caressing and tickling him.
They stood in the middle of the room, in front of the window, not caring whether it was midnight or noon; they were far too consumed with each other to notice the whole wide world around them. They were naked, flesh pressed against flesh; Albus felt Gellert's hardness pressed into his thigh, felt it pulsing with the same desire that made himself hard, too.
Albus, his tongue still exploring Gellert's mouth, wrapped his long fingers around Gellert's cock, lazily but purposefully. He knew what he was doing, but was not in any particular rush.
Gellert moaned slightly into Albus's ear, kissing and licking and thrusting himself with an urgency that surprised Albus.
'In a hurry, my dear friend?' he asked, still stroking steadily. He was calm, self-assured, but Gellert seemed to be reduced to an unthinking, excitable mess. Albus adored this reversal, and took the opportunity to seize control.
Gellert reached to even up the situation, but too slowly; Albus was already on his knees, licking and kissing any exposed flesh he found under his mouth. Gellert didn't resist, but tried to push Albus's head into a position where he could enter his mouth. Albus pulled back, and from above him came an unhappy sound - but he was only licking his lips in preparation.
Gellert moaned with pleasure, his hands in Albus's auburn hair, the only part of him he could reach. But Albus was concentrating and ignored the sounds. He was good, but he couldn't appear too good. It was still important to maintain the illusion of innocence, for what it was. He allowed a tooth to graze a raised vein, he heard Gellert suck in a breath - but he was already soothing the area with his tongue. One mistake, one reassuring mistake, he allowed himself, and now Gellert was all his.
Stroking the soft hair on Gellert's inner thighs, Albus pulled his mouth away. 'Come here,' he whispered, and at his command, Gellert too was on his knees on the soft rug.
This time, Albus allowed himself to be touched, allowed Gellert to grip his cock, to stroke his balls, and he kissed him, slowly, sensually.
He decided then to give up, to end the game. He had won this time, he felt it was time to forget about the power struggle and just give in to this. He'd worked for this, and had earned it.
The two boys, finally on equal footing, rolled around on the rug, both prolonging the immediate pleasure and delaying the inevitable one.
Albus had lost track of all sense of time and space when - finally or too soon, he couldn't tell - Gellert knelt in front of an armchair, and Albus was right there, behind him, lubricating with his cock and Gellert's arse with whispered words. And then he was fingering, stretching, opening - and entering, slowly and deliberately, in control as he always was, but as always, just barely.
He was not the first; Gellert was practiced in this as well, and they moved together, Albus deep inside and Gellert, still pulsing and wet with pre-come in Albus's hand. He kissed the back of Gellert's neck and Gellert wrapped an arm backward around Albus, urging him on.
Gellert tensed, briefly, and Albus came, shuddering and collapsing momentarily on Gellert's back. Breathing deeply, he pulled himself out and Gellert, wearing the familiar impish smile, turned to face him.
Without prompting, Albus lowered his mouth to Gellert's cock and, as if he had been waiting for only this, Gellert came easily, moaning with satisfaction.
There was no cuddling, no softly spoken words; they were done. The goodbye was not awkward: Albus gathered his robes and his shoes and his books, and Gellert walked him to the door, as casual and unembarrassed as before.
They kissed again, a promise of what the future held: Deathly Hallows, wizard dominance, more fucking. They would see each other tomorrow, and the day after that. Together, they would take over the world.
*
epilogue –
Well, no, they didn't. They didn't even get close, really.
Not that they hadn't tried; not that Albus hadn't tried. They had read dozens of books, rare and old, falling apart and in eight different languages (three of them dead). They had traced the Deathstick (Gellert relished the name, always drawing out the middle syllable, and they never called it anything but). They traced it to Russia, to India, and finally, into Bulgaria. They had been on the verge of leaving, Albus ready to accept his brother's offer to stay with their sister so he could have his glorious adventure, when it happened. When Ariana died. When Ariana had been murdered.
Gellert fled; his bags had been packed and it was a quick escape from someone who was always running from one thing or another.
Meanwhile, Albus's nose was broken, and he never felt it happen.
For the Muggle's own good, he had once written. He had once been so idealistic - he would have liked to say that. But he knew - he had simply been naïve.
Wizard dominance - it would kill people. It would break up families and it would ruin lives. And not only Muggles.
Safer, he decided. Safer to hide from them, to protect themselves and, in so doing, protect the Muggles, too.
He wished he could say that some things he knew innately, that fighting for the right things came easily to him. But it wasn't true. Some things, he had learned the hardest way.