Time Parts the Hearts of Men

Note: Weird mix of gen and slash… 'post-slash' might be the best way of describing it :). Written for the Ides of March on Insanejournal (Prompt: 'Places'). Title is borrowed from Emily Bronte. Thanks to Lazy Neutrino and Chthonia, my two favourite people in all of fandom, for the ever-perceptive beta! Dedicated to FPB, who inspired this thing in half a dozen different ways.

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The afterlife bears a surprising resemblance to a railway station: a ceiling of towering Victorian arches, all elaborate ironwork, glass inlays and steel pillars. The closest of them is crowned by an ornate monstrosity of a clock with hands shaped into sword-wielding angels. Somehow, he doubts that time is truly its purpose. The far ends of the hall fade into a dusky distance that looms too close.

It has to be the afterlife, however. It has to be. His back is unstooped, his skin firm. His eyes, which had acquired the range of a mole after decades of dwelling in a dark cell at the questionable mercy of a dim oil lamp, are as clear as they'd last been on the morning of the final battle. He runs his tongue over his gums and encounters teeth. He doesn't feel young – he feels timeless.

The strange surroundings begin to make sense when he notices the figure half-hidden in the shadow of one of the cast-iron arches. Albus Dumbledore has always been obsessed with railways; haunting Muggle stations like Victoria or King's Cross, exploring the claustrophobic spiderweb of the London Underground, sweet-talking the driver of the Hogwarts Express to let him crawl through locomotive and tender for hours. Leaning there against the side of the arch, he seems small. But no feat of architecture, wizarding or Muggle, can long overshadow Albus Dumbledore. Not even Hogwarts managed, or so he's heard.

Albus looks... well. Not just for a dead man, but the years have settled lightly on him, despite the lined face and a pince-nez that now half-moons the sharp blue eyes. He misses the glorious auburn hair; bleached to white it jars with his memory of Albus, but suits him all the same. And the quirky tuck of too-long beard into belt – that's pure Albus.

Confronted with Albus like this, he is grateful to have back the ageless look of decades ago, wizarding prime in place of the wizened ruin that Nurmengard had left of him. Of course Albus has every right to look good, having lived his life free, with all the benefits of magical healing at his disposal. Not locked up until the world goes dark, and the teeth rot out of his gums, and memory that once tinkled along like a spring is reduced to the garrulous slouch of a mud-tainted river.

Albus looks at him, and now he sees that the blue eyes have lost some, though not all, of their exuberant sparkle. The pince-nez slides precariously low on the long, thin nose.

"Albus," he acknowledges at last, when he begins to wonder whether the man – spectre? - will speak at all.

"Gellert." Something deep down inside still twists at hearing his name from Albus Dumbledore's lips. "I had hoped you would not become... embroiled in my troubles."

Hah!

"Do you think I'm sorry that your pup Voldemort did what you couldn't bring yourself to do when you should have?"

That much is a lie, of course. He minds quite a bit being killed by an arrogant, headblind fool, and a former pupil of Albus's to boot.

Undoubtedly, the glitter in Albus's eyes is nothing but light reflecting in his glasses. "Did you tell him what he wanted to know?"

Shrugging off old age may have its benefits, but on the downside it prevents him from producing a proper cackle.

"Tell that young upstart, scared stiff of his own mortality? Do you think I hate you that much?"

Albus's lip quirks. "The thought did occur to me."

"You should know better!"

Albus's gaze lowers for a fleeting instant, but he's never been given to remaining discomfited for long.

"What happened, Albus?" The question has burned inside him ever since 'Lord Voldemort' first started to carve his name into the quivering flesh of the British Wizarding World. "You had that boy in your school for seven years, and you were never blind to ambition or darkness. Albus Dumbledore, who could charm the petals off violets? What did you do to him?"

It's a pity he's never done research on the theory that the dead can blush – he'd certainly have ample evidence now.

"I took a dislike to him when he was young, and let it show. It was a terrible mistake."

This is new indeed – Albus, admitting to mistakes?

"Poor Albus," he scoffs. "Did you shrink from him because he reminded you of me?"

Albus clicks his tongue, a faint echo of the scalding mockery once reserved for those unable to keep up with the fancies of his mercurial brain.

"I saw a bitter little boy tied down by his surroundings, angry with the world, feverish with ambition. No, Gellert – I did not see you. I saw myself. And it frightened me so much I drove him away when I should have nurtured him towards a different path."

It sounds like a confession, practiced and honed to the cutting edge of self-incrimination. It provokes Gellert's opposition.

"Your affection might have made a difference," he concedes. "But he's weak; even when he stood before me in Nurmengard, I could see his flaws: all that power, and still unable to hide the fear beneath. He'll never master the Elder Wand."

Even wielded by its proper master, the wand tends to turn on those with a core weakness. He's learned that much, to his detriment.

"You didn't set this up for me," he observes with a sweeping gesture at the mist-ringed station. "Who were you waiting for? One of your boys? Both?"

This time, his old 'friend' flinches. "I see that death hasn't blunted your edge, Gellert. You still cut deep."

His laugh sounds hollow even to his own ears. "Ah, Albus, I've learned from the master."

Albus doesn't flinch again – that would have been too much to ask for. "Death hasn't blunted your hatred for me either, then."

He can feel a grin pulling at his lips, baring teeth. "Why would it? You left me for worse than dead, Albus."

"And you think you didn't deserve it, after Nurmengard?"

He allows the smile to play on his mouth, knifeblade-thin. "I might – but what did you do to deserve your fate? Being all righteous and upstanding and fighting 'evil' bravely, and then being forced to condemn a lover to hell for your trouble?"

He pales then, does Albus, and a savage part of him is glad he hasn't been wrong – it had hurt Albus, to do that. He wants to tell himself that it's revenge, but can no more flee into lies than Albus. Not here. Not after all this time.

Contrary to prevailing belief, Gellert Grindelwald has never been a vengeful man. He is not above dispensing his own brand of justice, however. He's spent fifty years in prison penning magical theory on a sheet of parchment with an inkless quill. During his youthful collaborations with Albus, they had always complemented each other – Albus's Legilimency against Gellert's crystalline memory, never forgetting a word heard or a line read. He's had libraries in his head to draw on in his prison, even without a wand to test his work in practice. The thirteenth use for dragon blood, glaringly obvious once Albus's work had disseminated onto the Continent, and finally to Nurmengard; his own groundwork research on deflecting Avada Kevadra. All these were lost with his death, never put down anywhere outside his head; his quiet, subtle vengeance on the world that had cast him out.

He could have obtained ink and parchment easily enough, in his younger years at least. His guards were greedy and human – greedy for knowledge, or, more often, for a warm body. He'd paid for amenities and information that way many times without much reluctance. Pride died quickly in Nurmengard. There had been those who used their opportunity to exact vengeance for destructions wrought, or loved ones slain, but he'd shrugged off those assaults as a lesser evil than isolation.

"Have there been others, Albus?" he inquires, because morbid curiosity lends itself easily when you're dead. "Lovers?"

Albus shrugs, a near-wistful expression on his lined face.

"Pity," he sneers, and realises that he means it. "Not even that boy who finally did you in?"

"Severus?" He can't help but wonder whether the widening of Albus's eyes is caused by the suggestion itself, or by how well he is informed. Though not even Nurmengard was left untouched by the wildfire of rumour that blazed across Europe upon Albus Dumbledore's death. "No – Severus's heart belonged to another, always."

"Pity," he repeats softly. "You did see it coming, though, didn't you?" There's never been any doubt about it, and he doesn’t need to see the challenging twinkle behind Albus's pince-nez. If Gellert himself could not fool a young Albus beyond the first storm of passion and the sweet seduction of the companionship of equals, nobody else will. "No," he corrects himself, "you didn't just see it coming – you made it happen."

Albus smiles sadly. "I don't think he'll ever forgive me for it."

"Mmh," Gellert agrees. "You've always been a cruel bastard."

"Only by necessity – or negligence."

"I think in my case, I'd have preferred inclination," he muses. "That way, at least one of us might have enjoyed it."

Generous white brows draw together. "I didn't expect to see you here, Gellert. I do not expect your forgiveness. I'm not asking for it!"

Gellert feels a long-forgotten shudder of pleasure at the base of his spine; this is the prickly, impetuous spirit he's always been drawn to, more even than to Albus's lovely body. He steps up and touches his fingers to Albus's cheek. The white beard is a soft contrast to the dry, wrinkled skin.

"Ah, but why would I hate you, Albus?" He lets his hand drop, half turning as if to study the nearest wrought-iron pillar. "You do remember our battle, don't you?"

Such a perfect, unsullied day it had been; sunshine flooding even the last shady close, the tender blades of grass veritably preening themselves in the spring air. The whitewash on the half-timbered buildings had blazed against their dark wooden beams, even through the streets were empty of wizards – aside from the warring parties.

He had carried the numbers, carried the field, and now carried the weapon that would make all the difference.

"I had the Elder Wand, the most powerful artefact in Wizarding history."

The memory of it is still scorched into his fingertips – thrumming with power, brimming with the desire to destroy. Unlike many, Gellert has never wondered why Albus sat in his castle like pacifism incarnate and left the battle to children. Going to war with the Elder Wand meant inviting the very forces into your heart you wanted to destroy.

"And yet I failed – like your Voldemort."

"You were never like Voldemort!" Albus says, almost fiercely.

"Different," Gellert concedes. "Not better. Either way, Albus, I should have won – and we both know it." There had never been any doubt about Albus's courage, but never less so than on that day. "And yet, you defeated me. So how could I hate you?"

"I did not expect you to stop at the Killing Curse," Albus says softly.

"Yes, well, neither did I."

He hadn't held back until that very last moment, raining down curses on Albus with all the fire of love betrayed; making him scream, shattering his leg in a way that would leave a web of scars until Albus's dying day.

"I hated you for deserting me and turning on me, but the only one I can blame – have ever blamed – for my defeat is myself." He shrugs. "It is as I said - the Elder Wand does not serve a flawed master."

"Tom Riddle thought it a flaw," says Albus mildly, and something in Gellert's stomach twists because as much as he wants Albus to understand, has wanted it more than anything for fifty years, revealing the extent of his weakness is painful. "That's what caused him to fall the first time," Albus continues, "and it's what will mark his downfall again."

It's a quieter certainty than Gellert knew in young Albus Dumbledore, but all the stronger for it. For decades he's railed against the fate that had him looked up in the topmost tower of Nurmengard while Albus soared free to turn himself into legend. Now, he wishes he'd been there to watch him become this steely saint in his cloak of meekness, and admits to himself, for the first time outright, that he doesn't regret how things have turned out.

"I should have come back," Albus says. "Only that after waking from the dreamless sleep the healers put me in when the battle was over, all seemed set in stone. They would not have pardoned you on my say-so, even though you'd spared my life, and I was terrified they'd ask why I thought you might have in the first place. I was still a very great fool, then, afraid of other wizards' judgement."

Gellert makes a contemptuous noise in his throat. "Coming back would have been the one thing I wouldn't have forgiven you for." He draws his robes more tightly around himself, and stares down the rows of iron arches to where they melt into nothing.

"I will leave you to your children when they come, then," he says. "I'm sure they won't be long."

"Yes – I'm afraid they won't." There is a touch of bitterness in Albus, and Gellert has to struggle not to reach out to him. He inclines his head, and starts to walk towards the edge of the station.

"Gellert?"

It stops him cold once more, his name from Albus's lips, soft and without a trace of doubt. "You will wait for me?"

Without turning, he allows his smile to flower on his lips as it wants.

"Who else would I wait for, Albus?"

The afterlife, it seems, is a lot like a railway station after all.

~ finis~

With his venom
Irresistible
and bittersweet
that loosener
of limbs, Love
reptile-like
strikes me down
(Sappho, Fragment)