(fic) alone among the wreck
alone among the wreck, Grindelwald-centric, Grindelwald/Dumbeldore, Grindelwald/OMC. ~1200 words. written for butterfly269200.
Magic is a steady thrum beneath the surface of his skin, power that he can already feel so readily. Nine years old and already he feels so much of the world around him, feels how he could bend and shape it, if only given the chance.
He looks around this gaudy ballroom, all tawdry gold and bright curtains, and he hates his parents fiercely for moving them here. St. Petersburg is the center of the world, his mother likes to say, as they play at being royalty. Whirling around salons and ballrooms, speaking of their vaunted pureblood, but with absolutely nothing to show for it. What good is it to have generations upon generations of magic flowing through your veins if you won't do anything with it, Gellert wonders.
He thinks of the newspaper that he read just this morning that wrote of the advanced spellwork being researched at the university in their native Munich, and scowls at the golden statue of Merlin that stands at the center of the ballroom.
It probably doesn't even look anything like the real Merlin, he thinks with all of the pettiness and annoyance of a frustrated child.
This is what you get for being the only son of forgotten Bavarian royalty, the last vestige of an ancient, magical line, left to rot amongst some pretty skirts and terrible attempts at intelligent conversation.
Being here makes his parents feel good, makes them feel important, but all it makes him feel is terribly bored.
(Two more years, days filled with books beyond his years and ballroom chatter to make the ears bleed, and finally, finally there comes a letter marked firmly with Durmstrang).
+
He thought it would be different, better, but there is nothing to challenge him here. He has swapped one hateful place for another, his mind just as bored in the chilled halls of Durmstrang as it was at home.
Some days, he takes over a corner of the library, and he reads and reads, learning new lessons because the lessons he's being taught every day in the classroom, he already knows.
There's the thrill of practical use, the spoken word accompanied with the wave of the wand, something that he could not get at home, but it's not enough, he finds. Gellert craves more, more knowledge and perhaps above all, someone on his level to talk to.
The boys in his year all appear to like him, despite his oddities, despite his fierceness that makes a few of the professors nervous. He's long since learned how to fake at being charming, how to look interested when his own mind is leagues away, and they all find him intriguing, if a bit strange.
He endures their presence because Merlin knows their company is better than that of his parents. It is a mantra that he reminds himself of daily as he prevents a stray eyeroll or bites back a sharp comment.
+
The years may be dull but the summers are the worst, all thunderstorms and galas. At fifteen, his mother begins to shove marriageable young girls of noble descent in front of him. He stands there and makes small talk and grits his teeth through the tedium, a myriad of cutting responses dancing through his mind.
And so, a few hours later, he shoves his hand down the serving boy's pants and that's not tedious at all.
+
At sixteen, he meets Professor Romanoff, and everything changes.
The other professors approach him with a mixture of indulgence and anxiety, cowed by his intellect and confused by his put-upon charm. Professor Romanoff looks at him and for the first time, Gellert feels like he's being looked at like an equal.
"You're something else, Mister Grindelwald," Professor Romanoff says, one day when Gellert stays after class. "I would not be surprised if you've been doing quite a bit of learning on the side, given how advanced you are compared to your peers."
Gellert says nothing of the contents of his personal trunk or the empty dungeon classroom that he has taken for his own. The experiments that he's begun are, strictly speaking, illegal even by Durmstrang's lax standards. Instead, he smiles and says, "I don't suppose you have any books to recommend for me."
Romanoff has a look in his eyes that says he's not fooled but he passes over a few books from the depths of his desk, and it is on that day that Gellert first learns of the Hallows.
+
It becomes a habit, staying after class and talking with Professor Romanoff. They do not discuss Gellert's experiments outright, skirting around the subject with circular language, but Romanoff's contribution to the discussion constitutes as tacit approval in Gellert's eyes. It is refreshing to not be bound by the rules of society that govern the world that his parents cling to so tightly. As the months go by, he finds that his tongue loosens, that he is quicker to speak his mind around his classmates, and less inclined to play the charming schoolboy when he has greater things occupying his mind.
His research makes leaps and bounds in a relatively short time, curses and potions that he had only dreamt of as a theoretical become a reality. It only serves to underline what he already knew - that he is meant for something more, something better than what any of his apparent peers can comprehend. It makes sense, in its own way, that he has found true companionship in someone nearly a decade older than him.
It is tiring, though, how Professor Romanoff looks and leans ever so close and thinks that he's in control, that he will be the one to make the first move when Gellert has known that this was inevitable from the start.
In December, a mere few days before the school is to break for Christmas, Gellert decides he's tired of playing this game, and shoves Romanoff against his office door, kissing him hard.
Gellert decides against going home for Christmas after all and they make much use of that office desk; Romanoff fucks him against it, whispering filthily in Gellert's ear about how one day, together, they will rule the world, and Gellert can only think, yes.
+
In March, the Headmaster brings Gellert before a trial of professors to answer for his crimes.
His experiments, his mind corrects angrily, as if any of these hypocritical bastards are any better, their spirits as deeply entwined with the darker magics as his is.
Professor Romanoff speaks against him and Gellert hates him because he should have expected this. A coward, in the end, and not an equal after all.
The verdict is expulsion and it's a relief in its own way. There's never been anything for him here.
+
(Years later, he will meet Romanoff with disdain in his eyes and a continent at his fingertips and he will fuck him again anyways, and hate him just as much, not for being a coward, but for who he's not - a redheaded Englishman, bright and sharp as a whip, with a dancing grin and twinkling eyes).
An equal, it seems, is always just out of his reach.
+ un-beta'd because I'm a bit of a lazy bastard so please feel free to point out any glaring mistakes but know that the haphazard grammar is mostly intentional.
+ my apologies to my beloved Natasha for abusing her name so.
Magic is a steady thrum beneath the surface of his skin, power that he can already feel so readily. Nine years old and already he feels so much of the world around him, feels how he could bend and shape it, if only given the chance.
He looks around this gaudy ballroom, all tawdry gold and bright curtains, and he hates his parents fiercely for moving them here. St. Petersburg is the center of the world, his mother likes to say, as they play at being royalty. Whirling around salons and ballrooms, speaking of their vaunted pureblood, but with absolutely nothing to show for it. What good is it to have generations upon generations of magic flowing through your veins if you won't do anything with it, Gellert wonders.
He thinks of the newspaper that he read just this morning that wrote of the advanced spellwork being researched at the university in their native Munich, and scowls at the golden statue of Merlin that stands at the center of the ballroom.
It probably doesn't even look anything like the real Merlin, he thinks with all of the pettiness and annoyance of a frustrated child.
This is what you get for being the only son of forgotten Bavarian royalty, the last vestige of an ancient, magical line, left to rot amongst some pretty skirts and terrible attempts at intelligent conversation.
Being here makes his parents feel good, makes them feel important, but all it makes him feel is terribly bored.
(Two more years, days filled with books beyond his years and ballroom chatter to make the ears bleed, and finally, finally there comes a letter marked firmly with Durmstrang).
+
He thought it would be different, better, but there is nothing to challenge him here. He has swapped one hateful place for another, his mind just as bored in the chilled halls of Durmstrang as it was at home.
Some days, he takes over a corner of the library, and he reads and reads, learning new lessons because the lessons he's being taught every day in the classroom, he already knows.
There's the thrill of practical use, the spoken word accompanied with the wave of the wand, something that he could not get at home, but it's not enough, he finds. Gellert craves more, more knowledge and perhaps above all, someone on his level to talk to.
The boys in his year all appear to like him, despite his oddities, despite his fierceness that makes a few of the professors nervous. He's long since learned how to fake at being charming, how to look interested when his own mind is leagues away, and they all find him intriguing, if a bit strange.
He endures their presence because Merlin knows their company is better than that of his parents. It is a mantra that he reminds himself of daily as he prevents a stray eyeroll or bites back a sharp comment.
+
The years may be dull but the summers are the worst, all thunderstorms and galas. At fifteen, his mother begins to shove marriageable young girls of noble descent in front of him. He stands there and makes small talk and grits his teeth through the tedium, a myriad of cutting responses dancing through his mind.
And so, a few hours later, he shoves his hand down the serving boy's pants and that's not tedious at all.
+
At sixteen, he meets Professor Romanoff, and everything changes.
The other professors approach him with a mixture of indulgence and anxiety, cowed by his intellect and confused by his put-upon charm. Professor Romanoff looks at him and for the first time, Gellert feels like he's being looked at like an equal.
"You're something else, Mister Grindelwald," Professor Romanoff says, one day when Gellert stays after class. "I would not be surprised if you've been doing quite a bit of learning on the side, given how advanced you are compared to your peers."
Gellert says nothing of the contents of his personal trunk or the empty dungeon classroom that he has taken for his own. The experiments that he's begun are, strictly speaking, illegal even by Durmstrang's lax standards. Instead, he smiles and says, "I don't suppose you have any books to recommend for me."
Romanoff has a look in his eyes that says he's not fooled but he passes over a few books from the depths of his desk, and it is on that day that Gellert first learns of the Hallows.
+
It becomes a habit, staying after class and talking with Professor Romanoff. They do not discuss Gellert's experiments outright, skirting around the subject with circular language, but Romanoff's contribution to the discussion constitutes as tacit approval in Gellert's eyes. It is refreshing to not be bound by the rules of society that govern the world that his parents cling to so tightly. As the months go by, he finds that his tongue loosens, that he is quicker to speak his mind around his classmates, and less inclined to play the charming schoolboy when he has greater things occupying his mind.
His research makes leaps and bounds in a relatively short time, curses and potions that he had only dreamt of as a theoretical become a reality. It only serves to underline what he already knew - that he is meant for something more, something better than what any of his apparent peers can comprehend. It makes sense, in its own way, that he has found true companionship in someone nearly a decade older than him.
It is tiring, though, how Professor Romanoff looks and leans ever so close and thinks that he's in control, that he will be the one to make the first move when Gellert has known that this was inevitable from the start.
In December, a mere few days before the school is to break for Christmas, Gellert decides he's tired of playing this game, and shoves Romanoff against his office door, kissing him hard.
Gellert decides against going home for Christmas after all and they make much use of that office desk; Romanoff fucks him against it, whispering filthily in Gellert's ear about how one day, together, they will rule the world, and Gellert can only think, yes.
+
In March, the Headmaster brings Gellert before a trial of professors to answer for his crimes.
His experiments, his mind corrects angrily, as if any of these hypocritical bastards are any better, their spirits as deeply entwined with the darker magics as his is.
Professor Romanoff speaks against him and Gellert hates him because he should have expected this. A coward, in the end, and not an equal after all.
The verdict is expulsion and it's a relief in its own way. There's never been anything for him here.
+
(Years later, he will meet Romanoff with disdain in his eyes and a continent at his fingertips and he will fuck him again anyways, and hate him just as much, not for being a coward, but for who he's not - a redheaded Englishman, bright and sharp as a whip, with a dancing grin and twinkling eyes).
An equal, it seems, is always just out of his reach.
+ un-beta'd because I'm a bit of a lazy bastard so please feel free to point out any glaring mistakes but know that the haphazard grammar is mostly intentional.
+ my apologies to my beloved Natasha for abusing her name so.