He just looked so young. In Albus's own time, Gellert was a little taller, his features sharper, and the cold in his his unmistakeable to his own appraisal. It was a helpful reminder, a constant deterrent, an embodiment of warning. That man, Albus could see cloaked in chilling indifference. He could see the void in that man, where conscience should have lingered. Perhaps the most frightening thing about Gellert was the potential mirror he served. Their interests, their visions, their goals and aspirations had been so instantaneously harmonious. Was their only point of difference methodology?
Even still, Albus couldn't dismiss Gellert's methods as ineffective, or even immoral. How was he qualified to make such an evaluation? He needed far more objectivity, not to mention the luxury of a century or so to see how Gellert's plans would play out. He had his doubts, of course, about what Gellert was doing in Germany-- what he planned to do in Germany. Perhaps it was the right way to go about things. Perhaps cruelty was more efficient, and thus a shade of mercy. So he did nothing, remaining in Britain, and left the continent to Gellert's care.
Some part of him still trusted Gellert's reason. And much of him craved Gellert's company. The discourse with a mind that rivaled his own. The ever-surprising way Gellert's skin seemed to run just a little too hot, as if his body was only just barely capable of containing him. Gellert's hands in his hair. And some dark little corner in the back of his mind wanted this Gellert for his own-- a private part of his mind, and every inch of his body, so painstakingly obvious to him that while he was capable of denying, he couldn't ignore it.
By the time he turned around, his clothes were sorted out and smoothed over. His hands were clasped against the rim of the table behind him, trying desperately to keep them occupied.
"So," he said, a bit flatly, frantically trying to remember why he'd come in the first place.