Who: Albus Dumbledore and Draco Malfoy What: Roommates. And baggage. When: Ahha, backdated to Tuesday morning Where: Their bungalow (# 4)
He shouldn't have opened the suitcase. It was the only conscious, coherent thought in Albus's head as he pushed himself up into a seated position on the floor. Idly, he managed to wonder if he'd lost consciousness entirely for a moment there, at the peak of it, at the pinnacle of the thing that still stormed in his mind.
For Albus, it was the closest he had ever come to being able to believe he could hate Gellert-- truly hate anyone. In the weeks and months and the first year after he'd left, there had been so much else to numb and distract and his anger -- the biting, crushing, burning-cold rage he knew was fueled by hurt -- it had been convoluted and obscured and self-directed and reasoned beyond. Almost beyond. But this, now, like this. It was like being torn apart when he was certain that the only thing that could make him feel whole was to rip something else to shreds, even if it couldn't. But there was little reasoning with the burning- blazing-- blinding-brightness of the thing in his head that clouded out his ability to master it.
His hands were shaking, but there was no outlet for them. For any of him. It was like trying to scream but having no breath. Only, he was breathing, fast and shallow and struggling to keep time with the vicious thrashing throb of his heart in his chest and for a moment Albus entertained the idea that he was close to death-- that he'd released more than... more than the harrowing cold in Gellert's eyes, more than guilt-ridden misery left in his shadow. More than weeks and then months of waiting for some word, any word. An apology, an explanation, even a tirade defending his actions. Anything. And Albus was close enough to hating himself for even caring that none ever came. How could he? How could he still want, still miss, still love him when Gellert had abandoned him in the middle of the mess he and Aberforth had started?
The hurt of the loss of his sister was dwarfed by his guilt over his own hand in it. Where the pain of the loss of Gellert fit into that scale, Albus could hardly even begin to gauge. As he pushed himself to his feet and smoothed his hair neat once more, the searing hurt seemed to dominate the whole of his existence beneath the cold shell of his ensuing, vindictive anger. But at least, dizzy as he was, his heart seemed to be slowing.