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In a space of pale anachronism, Albus Dumbledore sits before Gellert Grindelwald. He does not know this place, the dark walls and the neat tables, the mist of time and destiny that clouds them both.
But he knows the man.
Grindelwald is a bruise of color, ash hair and burgundy scarf, his eyes cold like a winter sea. He is beautiful even now, cruelly so.
“Teaching has made you soft,” he says.
“Better a teacher than a monster.”
“Is that what I am?” Grindelwald tilts his head. “A tyrant, a monster, a revolutionary. Great men must be monstrous by nature if they wish to bring change. Yes, Albus Dumbledore. I am a monster. Your monster.” He lowers his voice. “You called me here, after all.”
Had he? Albus clutches for the blood pact, but it is gone. The world has been bleached bare of its hue, and all that remains is a man and his muse.
Gellert Grindelwald leans forward, sharp features and even words. “You cannot deny me. Even as we sit, thirty years later.”
Albus will not cower before him. “You came to me,” he says.
“And I am a sentimental man.” Gellert Grindelwald clasps his fingers. “I was curious to see how long it would take before you surrendered to the inevitable. What state I would find you in.” His head tilts at the look on Albus’ face. “You can’t destroy it. The golden vial or the fate which strings us both. We are kings of this chessboard, sending pawns to death and incapable of doing much more. Maddening, isn’t it?” His eyes are dark. “Your place is still by my side.” It is said kindly, gently. “It has always been by my side.”
He looks at Gellert Grindelwald and sees jagged lines and sharp crevices, an obelisk of dark stone that lures woebegone sailors to their death. The soft golden hair is gone, the delicate lightness of his heart. The boy has died, and so the man is born. “Where did you go?” Albus whispers.
“I never left.” Gellert Grindelwald doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. In this alone he is chivalrous. “It was you who said we would reshape their world."
“It was what we said we'd do," he pauses, tries to stop but - “because I was in love with you."
Albus wants to look away, but Gellert Grindelwald calls to him, demands him.
His features are still and unreadable. “It's not too late," Grindelwald says. "Lay down your fire. Let me walk through the gate and tear down your castle. We will take the bricks and build an empire greater than the last, you at my side, the world at our behest."
“You want this," Albus says suddenly. “Me."
“You." Grindelwald reaches a hand, and when Albus doesn't flinch away, his thumb brushes against Albus' under eye. He stares at what he has done, smiling softly. “You were always at your most beautiful, most divine when you cried. Brilliant blue eyes turned glassy with tears, flushed cheeks and tragic poetry on your lips. And you were never ashamed. It takes a rare confidence to weep with grace.
“I want to make you cry again, so I can see you torn and raw, broken and fearless. Your truest self. You have not wept in very long, but you will when I'm done. You will weep because you'll know that this ruin of a world could have been avoided, that the blood of the fallen is written on your fingers, that if only you were better and stronger and wiser, you would not be sitting here, a man and his mirror.
“Do I want you?" Gellert Grindelwald does not pause to think. “Yes. I want you. I want you as a flower craves sunlight, as a starving man begs for water, as the corrupt covet power. But if I cannot have you, then I will end you. Your ruin was written in the stars the day we met."
“Our ruin.”
“Ours,” Grindelwald repeats. “A harmony of two parts. And doomed, for all of that. When the bards write of our tragedy a thousand from years now, they will say it started that summer, at a stream by the corner of Godric’s Hollow.”
“And where would it end?”
Gellert’s eyes are smoky in the haze of distant candles. “It would end as it began. Standing in a forgotten field, still dreaming of another life.”
“We would die.”
His gaze is steady. “Just a little. But if I should pass on the morrow and flutter to the heavens which bar me entry, then know that I would give my life again to live as I have.” Gellert Grindelwald stands and touches Albus on the cheek. His fingers are warm. “I would not end your life. Even if it weren’t for the blood troth. Cry for me, Albus Dumbledore. I want to know that I have made you beautiful.”
Albus closes his eyes to stop the tears. When he opens them once more, Gellert Grindelwald is gone.
Alone in a world falling apart, Albus Dumbledore cries.