Sharp Lightning against a Dangerous Sky
SHARP LIGHTNING AGAINST A DANGEROUS SKY
Summary: They meet again on a wide, muddy plain in Belgium where millennia of battles have been fought.
(Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, and the duel.)
Characters: Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald
Words: ~3,800
Notes: Separate from the three stories in the " Golden, Ripe and Rotten" series, but thematically related.
Thank you to stereolightning for beta reading!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
They meet again on a wide, muddy plain in Belgium where millennia of battles have been fought. Muggle ones, yes, in their previous Great War and in many other wars before that. But wizards have duelled on this spot as well: Two competing French magical scholar-warriors in the seventeenth century. A Welsh mage and a high warlock from Poland-Lithuania in the year 1569. Legend even has it that Morgan le Fey and an unnamed Ostrogoth wizard crossed wands here in the late sixth century.
Albus recalls all this, boyhood history lessons from both Hogwarts and home flicking effortlessly through his mind, like shuffling through a stack of parchment pages, as he stands at the edge of this muddy swath of grass. Then he breathes slowly in and out and dismisses it all. History will not help him here.
Gellert’s campaign of terror has reached a fever pitch, throwing all of Europe into a panic. The Daily Prophet screams every day, WHY THE SILENCE FROM ALBUS DUMBLEDORE? and CAN DUMBLEDORE STOP THE MADMAN?
All the wizarding world knows that Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts Transfiguration professor and noted magical scholar, has made a study of Gellert Grindelwald’s magic, of the leaps and contortions of Grindelwald’s twisted mind. All the world knows, or thinks it knows, that Albus Dumbledore is the last, best hope of stopping the massacres, the depravity, the terrible violence, all the horrifying news that reaches England daily from across the Channel.
And every day in these last weeks and months, over breakfast at the staff table at Hogwarts, his colleagues have surveyed Albus not very discreetly, with expressions ranging from bafflement to outrage. Why was he still sitting there, slicing the top off a soft-boiled egg and sprinkling it with salt and a dash of pepper? Why was he not out saving the world from Grindelwald’s depredations?
Every day, Albus bit his tongue savagely and did not ask them, Were you ever in love?
And every night, alone in his study in one of Hogwarts’ high towers, Albus stared out at the velvet darkness of the castle lawn and thought and thought and could see no way out.
So he sent a message to Grindelwald, the first words to pass between them in forty-six years. And now he has Apparated, with sick dread in his stomach, to the neutral ground of Belgium.
The sky above this muddy plain in Flanders is sodden and grey, hanging low over the ground, threatening rain yet failing to deliver it. The damp grass squelches beneath Albus’ dragonhide boots. He gathers his cloak around him, although the air isn’t particularly cold. Any moment now, he will see Gellert step out from the trees at the other side of this field. Gellert Grindelwald, the beautiful, golden boy, the cruel, horrifying man, will emerge from the damp smudge of green that marks the other edge of this field. The man who betrayed Albus in their youth, but no more so than Albus betrayed himself.
Albus slips his right hand into the inner pocket of his robe and pulls out his wand, the same one he has wielded since the age of eleven. Its familiar surface is worn smooth with decades of use. With the exception of two months of madness as a dangerously obsessed youth, he has never wanted any other.
Wand secure between his fingers, Albus drops his hand to his side, assuming a relaxed but prepared stance, and looks up, as Gellert Grindelwald steps out from the treeline at the opposite edge of the field.
Gellert is still golden. Albus thinks it, then feels sick at himself for thinking it. But it can’t be denied that Gellert, at middle age, is still beautiful. Much of his blonde hair has shaded into white, but the overall impression remains one of radiance. Even seen at a distance, under a lowering sky, he lights up the world around him, his bearing strong, his face bright. But as they both pace towards the mid-point of the field, Albus can see, too, the lines that now accent the corners of Gellert’s eyes. Laugh lines, they would usually be called, but surely Gellert has not obtained these lines from smiling. Surely, surely, even Gellert Grindelwald doesn’t smile when his deputies bring him news of another village massacred in his name, another countryside laid to waste.
Gellert Grindelwald approaches Albus Dumbledore, stops half a dozen paces short of him, and smirks. Now, with the benefit of hindsight and loss, Albus can see that sun-bright smile for what it is, a mark of condescension, not affection. The wand - the Elder Wand, the fabled Wand of Destiny - dangles easily from Gellert’s right hand. That pale, supple wood, the delicate pattern of runes - having once exhaustively studied the lore of this particular artefact, Albus would recognise it anywhere.
“Hello, Albus,” Gellert says. His stance is confident and his voice carries through the air. There is no mistaking it: Gellert knows he possesses nearly unparalleled magical abilities - and an unbeatable wand. Albus returns his gaze, making sure to match that look of self-assurance. Gellert may believe he is unbeatable, but Albus knows he himself has no choice today but to win.
“This is a wizard’s duel,” Albus says loudly, clearly, although any onlookers likely cannot hear them at this distance. An international team of Aurors wait beyond the trees, under strict instructions not to intervene. Gellert assuredly has assembled followers of his own on the other side. “There will be no seconds. We fight our own battle and involve no others. The duel ends only when one party is completely subdued. Do you agree to these terms?”
Gellert’s mouth twists. “I agree.”
They each take two steps closer in, wands pointing downwards at their sides, and face each other. For a fraction of a second, Albus closes his eyes and collects himself, despite the training that says a duellist should never let his opponent out of his sight. He feels for the earth beneath him, the sky that arches above his head. He will need all their power with him today. This is the one advantage he has over Gellert: Gellert has always discounted anything he himself could not personally control.
Albus opens his eyes and steels his focus, every particle of his being intent on the opponent before him. They raise their wands in tandem, still in perfect unison after all these years. But where once it was Albus who followed Gellert’s lead, he is not following now.
Albus Conjures a ring of flame and sends it flying. Gellert blocks easily, of course, disintegrating the fire in mid-air with the smallest flick of his wand. But with that first spell cast, the duel is begun.
Albus sees Gellert’s posture change, settling naturally into the bright, coiled energy of battle stance. He makes no discernable motion, but some invisible force comes at Albus, something winged and powerful but made of air. Albus fights it off with blocking and banishing spells, and emerges from the wild wind it leaves behind to find Gellert grinning, already preparing his next spell.
Gellert is treating this as a game. He doesn’t believe Albus can best him, doesn’t believe anyone could best him. To look at him, this might as well be one of their playful practice battles during that summer when they honed their duelling abilities against the whetstone of each other’s skills. But Albus cannot afford to treat this as anything other than the deadly duel it is.
Gellert’s spell flies at him, a great mass of darkness that nearly sweeps him off his feet. Albus performs the most powerful Lumos of his life, dispelling the darkness and finding his footing, pausing only for breath before Conjuring a great white bird that soars, screaming, at Gellert. Gellert laughs and ducks, and transforms the bird into a hawk with a vicious razor-edged beak that dives for Albus’ eyes.
As Albus Vanishes the bird, Gellert begins to form shapes with both hands, magical motions Albus has never seen performed, but recognises from books he has read: secret magicks from the highest reaches of the Carpathians, a class of devastatingly subtle curses known to few. Albus performs the counter-curse almost before Gellert has completed his spell, and is grimly glad to see Gellert’s surprise. Albus has had many years in which to become a theoretical expert on all the kinds of magic Gellert might know.
Gellert shifts tack again, adopting big, showy spells, golden bursts of blinding light, suffocating walls of water that crash over Albus’ head, forcing him to perform underwater-breathing spells even as he casts fire curses back at Gellert, sizzling away the water and singeing the grass beneath their feet. He sees Gellert watching him, a calculating look, an awareness that he has the better wand and thus the upper hand. Gellert, if he chooses, can keep casting spells and making Albus dodge them until Albus drops of exhaustion. Strength alone will not win Albus this battle.
Albus reaches out again with all his senses, feels for what is present in the world around him. He knows by the faint beating of wings that there are birds flying high above them, concealed somewhere within the thick, grey clouds. Albus’ senses are so taut, so painfully attuned, that he can nearly hear the rustlings and snufflings of small creatures in the woods around the plain, hares and moles and hedgehogs going about the small, important business of their lives. He can nearly feel the trees growing, soaking up the wetness of the squelching soil.
What is there in the world around him that he can turn to his advantage?
Gellert favours dramatic spells that showcase brilliance? All right, then. Albus feels for the power of the ground beneath him, so strong it almost burns, draws that power up through his body and into his fingertips, and summons a storm.
Rain bursts from the swollen clouds, thunder cracks with a noise like the world ending. Lightning splits the roiling sky, and the winds of the gale shriek in their ears. All the while, Gellert is casting spells and Albus casting counter-spells, orbiting one another in a strange dance that allows neither partner any respite, as the ground churns to mud beneath their ceaselessly moving feet.
Rain streams down Albus’ face. Gellert screams his curses over the raging wind, shouts spells of pain, of petrification. Albus loses track of time, knows only the desperate focus of the duel, the strange synergy of battle. Nothing in the world exists but Albus and Gellert, and their war.
Albus feels his body growing tired, his legs aching with effort, but he cannot afford to flag for even a moment. A sharp slicing motion of Gellert’s wand sends fire through Albus’ shoulder, a lapse in his defences Albus should not have allowed. He flinches and keeps moving, cannot allow himself to stop moving. He darts forward and casts a blasting curse with all his might. Gellert stumbles, but is standing again in an instant, shouting words Albus has never heard, and then there is a great spear hovering in the air between them, its tip so sharp it glints even in the dull grey light of the howling storm.
Their eyes meet, for an instant, and Albus sees Gellert smirk. This was Albus’ nickname for Gellert, the strong spear, the meaning behind Gellert’s name. At every turn Gellert is showing Albus that he has forgotten nothing, that he knows the love Albus once bore him - and that on the strength of that love, he doubts Albus will dare to destroy him now.
The spear attacks Albus with singular purpose, stabbing at his eyes, his heart. None of the normal repelling spells affect it. Albus slips in the mud, rolls to the side as the spear comes stabbing down into the ground where his head was a moment before. Even over the wailing wind, he can hear Gellert panting with the exertion of controlling such a powerful weapon.
Albus closes his eyes and Conjures a weapon of his own, again drawing on the power of the earth itself to create a mighty, branching tree that rises up out of the mud and stands between Albus and the spear, no matter from which angle it attacks. The tree’s branches whip in the wind, parrying every blow, and finally Gellert throws the spear aside into the dirt.
“Albus,” he says, his voice hoarse from the curses he has cast over the roar of the storm.
And then Albus feels something he could not have predicted and cannot control. It begins as an indistinct tickle at the back of his mind, and expands into a sense of warmth that suffuses his entire body. The raging gale around him seems less real than the memory that now possesses him, a remembrance of high summer and hot sun, lying in the long grass of the back garden of his family home with Gellert, biting into an early summer apple, feeling the bright explosion of its juice against his tongue. And Gellert smiling down at him, Gellert, Gellert, Gellert, he has never adored anyone as he does beautiful, brilliant, golden Gellert…
His feet no longer his own, Albus stumbles a step forward through the mud, and Gellert’s eyes are fixed on him, Gellert’s warm eyes, flecked with gold and warm with love…
No.
Gellert never felt love.
Horrified, Albus flings off Gellert’s control, recognising it for what it is, a forcible breach of his mind, a silently invading Legilimency that has sought out his most vulnerable memories and made them a weapon against him. He is sick with repugnance at the sensation of Gellert Grindelwald inside his mind.
He hurls himself at Gellert, all magic momentarily forgotten, wanting only to attack, strike back, cause an equal and opposite hurt. The force of it knocks Gellert to the ground and Albus lands on top of him, the first time they have touched in all these years. They grapple, they shout, Albus has lost all sense of what words he is speaking, knows only that he must conquer Gellert, must wrestle him down and hold him there so he can never attack anyone else.
Rain pours over them and Albus can barely see, knows the battle only by Gellert’s powerful, flailing limbs beneath him.
And then Albus’ back is in the mud, Gellert has gained the upper hand and his wand is at Albus’ heart. Albus is one whispered Avada Kedavra away from death. Gellert needs only to say the words.
Their eyes meet.
For a fraction of a second, so brief it might not have been there at all, Gellert hesitates. Albus’ heart stutters in his chest. There is emotion in Gellert’s eyes he can’t decipher.
Nor can he afford to waste time in doing so. This is the only advantage he will get.
It’s all over in a moment. Albus surges up, seizing the Elder Wand even as he topples Gellert to the ground and pins him. Albus’ own wand has dropped neatly to the ground beside him, as if it knew this was the plan all along and was simply waiting for its cue to slip out of the way.
Gellert struggles like a wild animal, snarls and fights against Albus’ body as it pins him. He scrabbles against Albus’ arms, his fingers clutching with bruising force.
But the Elder Wand is in Albus’ hand, and its tip comes to rest lightly against Gellert’s panting throat.
Their eyes meet again, and this time, there is no hesitation. Albus’ hand does not waver, his gaze does not leave Gellert’s face. His foe is in his power, and for the sake of others than himself, he does not have the option of letting go.
“Have mercy, Albus,” Gellert rasps, his voice like a raw wound. Nothing is left in it now of the intoxicating cadence Albus remembers from their youth, the honeyed consonants and the warm, rich vowels. “End it here. Kill me.”
Albus shakes his head, strands of his own pale hair whipping past his eyes in the unnatural gale that still rages around them. Unbidden, he feels a tear trace a caustic path down the side of his long, crooked nose, burning a hot track into his wind-scoured skin.
“No,” he says. “I will not kill. Not even for you.”
Gellert exhales, a jagged sigh, and closes his eyes, his lashes fluttering golden against his skin. Despite the lines around his eyes and mouth, he is every inch as beautiful as the day Albus first laid eyes on him, standing in the lane in Godric’s Hollow, dazzling against the liquid gold of the afternoon sky. He doesn’t look like a murderer. But then, he never looked like what he is. And Albus is, at long last, wise enough not to trust appearances.
“There is a team of Aurors standing by,” Albus says, making his voice as hard as he can manage with the one love of his younger life subjugated beneath his hands. “They will escort you to the International Confederation of Wizards, in front of which body you will stand trial for the crimes you have committed. Do not expect to receive clemency after all you have done.”
Gellert’s eyes flicker open, and his mouth twists. “No, I don’t expect so.” He coughs raggedly, turning his head to the side. But when the fit has passed, his eyes return unerringly to Albus’. “No judge or jury would understand what I have done. But you, Albus, you understand.”
“No,” Albus says, and the hand that clenches Gellert’s robes, pinning his shoulder to the earth, clenches convulsively, although the hand that holds the wand does not sway.
“You understand,” Gellert whispers. “It was all for the greater good. For the glory of wizards. Our rightful place above the rest of humankind.”
“No,” Albus repeats. “There is no good greater than love. And in love, we are all equal.”
Gellert sneers. “Love? Love has nothing on power. And without power, I’d rather be dead.” His gold-flecked eyes lock once more on Albus’, and he whispers again, “Have mercy.”
Another tear slides ineluctably down Albus’ cheek. “No.”
He allows himself one final moment to study Gellert’s beautiful face, lovely despite the dust of battle and the bloody gashes he has sustained down one cheek. This is the face of the man Albus once loved more than life itself, the man for whom he would have done anything. But Gellert Grindelwald is no longer that man. Perhaps he never was.
With the Elder Wand, Albus Conjures unbreakable cords of pure magic, and binds Gellert with them. Then he collects his own wand and pushes himself up from the ground, pulling Gellert to his feet beside him. The storm has died down and the dripping sky seems to pant with exertion, a last few drops of rain falling wearily down to the sodden world. All is silent, as the victor leads the vanquished across the great expanse of the plain and into the hands of the Aurors who rush forward to meet them as they emerge from the roiling white mist that engulfs the field.
Albus hands Gellert to his self-made fate. Two of the Aurors seize hold of him, whilst the rest of the team break across the field, towards the woods at the opposite side, where Gellert’s followers are even now surely scattering. They won’t be hard to track down. Gellert’s is a cult of personality, and without him at the head, the rest will fall.
Stepping aside to allow the Aurors to cast additional binding charms on their prisoner, Albus slides both wands, the Elder Wand and his own, into the inner pocket of his robes. They nestle there as though they have always belonged like this, together in his pocket. Albus allows his fingers to brush a last brief time against his own wand, his beloved, mundane wand, for whom no wizards have ever killed. Albus could gladly live out his days with this wand and no other.
But the wand chooses the wizard, and he now bears the Elder Wand.
For a mad moment, Albus longs to toss the Wand of Destiny aside, grind it under his heel into the muddy ground and leave it there to moulder. But he knows even as he thinks it that this was never an option. The Elder Wand, if cast away, has a terrible way of turning up again in the most devastating fashion possible. Albus must keep the wand and use it as his own. He will carry it as a reminder to himself. And he will ensure that in the end the succession is broken, the wand is not taken from him in defeat, and the Death Stick at last surrenders its terrible, deadly thrall. Until that day, Albus must wield the Elder Wand.
Gellert, soaked in mud but proudly silent, is securely in the Aurors’ hands. Albus’ duties here are discharged. They have met for the last time.
Albus turns and walks away. His robes are heavy with spattered mud, weighing down each step he takes. His gashed shoulder throbs, and he can feel blood pooling stickily beneath his robes.
In his mind, Albus can already hear the magical presses at the Daily Prophet clattering to life, can almost hear the whirring wings of the post owls that will beat the air about the Ministry, bearing messages that demand he be appointed Minister for Magic. But Albus knows he deserves none of it. And in any case, there’s only one thing he would wish as his reward, and that one thing is beyond the realm of the possible.
He’s reached the treeline at the edge of the field now, and he forces himself not to glance back. The man he knew is gone, or was never there at all.
Albus breathes in the scent of the rain-soaked woods. He thinks of Ariana, frozen in time just as she was, forever a sweet and shy fourteen. He remembers Aberforth, his rage striking home along with his fist, on the day they buried their sister.
He imagines Gellert gazing out over a barren landscape from a prison cell, perhaps even from a narrow window of Nurmengard itself. Albus pictures the words carved above the prison’s entrance, For the Greater Good, and a painful shudder runs through him.
Albus knows, he learned at the age of eighteen, that the mistakes of the past can never be undone. All he can do is go forward.
He does not look back at the field where they fought their duel, as he steps away into the trees. He does not say last farewells.
Albus will go forward. It’s all he can do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The End
Summary: They meet again on a wide, muddy plain in Belgium where millennia of battles have been fought.
(Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, and the duel.)
Characters: Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald
Words: ~3,800
Notes: Separate from the three stories in the " Golden, Ripe and Rotten" series, but thematically related.
Thank you to stereolightning for beta reading!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
They meet again on a wide, muddy plain in Belgium where millennia of battles have been fought. Muggle ones, yes, in their previous Great War and in many other wars before that. But wizards have duelled on this spot as well: Two competing French magical scholar-warriors in the seventeenth century. A Welsh mage and a high warlock from Poland-Lithuania in the year 1569. Legend even has it that Morgan le Fey and an unnamed Ostrogoth wizard crossed wands here in the late sixth century.
Albus recalls all this, boyhood history lessons from both Hogwarts and home flicking effortlessly through his mind, like shuffling through a stack of parchment pages, as he stands at the edge of this muddy swath of grass. Then he breathes slowly in and out and dismisses it all. History will not help him here.
Gellert’s campaign of terror has reached a fever pitch, throwing all of Europe into a panic. The Daily Prophet screams every day, WHY THE SILENCE FROM ALBUS DUMBLEDORE? and CAN DUMBLEDORE STOP THE MADMAN?
All the wizarding world knows that Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts Transfiguration professor and noted magical scholar, has made a study of Gellert Grindelwald’s magic, of the leaps and contortions of Grindelwald’s twisted mind. All the world knows, or thinks it knows, that Albus Dumbledore is the last, best hope of stopping the massacres, the depravity, the terrible violence, all the horrifying news that reaches England daily from across the Channel.
And every day in these last weeks and months, over breakfast at the staff table at Hogwarts, his colleagues have surveyed Albus not very discreetly, with expressions ranging from bafflement to outrage. Why was he still sitting there, slicing the top off a soft-boiled egg and sprinkling it with salt and a dash of pepper? Why was he not out saving the world from Grindelwald’s depredations?
Every day, Albus bit his tongue savagely and did not ask them, Were you ever in love?
And every night, alone in his study in one of Hogwarts’ high towers, Albus stared out at the velvet darkness of the castle lawn and thought and thought and could see no way out.
So he sent a message to Grindelwald, the first words to pass between them in forty-six years. And now he has Apparated, with sick dread in his stomach, to the neutral ground of Belgium.
The sky above this muddy plain in Flanders is sodden and grey, hanging low over the ground, threatening rain yet failing to deliver it. The damp grass squelches beneath Albus’ dragonhide boots. He gathers his cloak around him, although the air isn’t particularly cold. Any moment now, he will see Gellert step out from the trees at the other side of this field. Gellert Grindelwald, the beautiful, golden boy, the cruel, horrifying man, will emerge from the damp smudge of green that marks the other edge of this field. The man who betrayed Albus in their youth, but no more so than Albus betrayed himself.
Albus slips his right hand into the inner pocket of his robe and pulls out his wand, the same one he has wielded since the age of eleven. Its familiar surface is worn smooth with decades of use. With the exception of two months of madness as a dangerously obsessed youth, he has never wanted any other.
Wand secure between his fingers, Albus drops his hand to his side, assuming a relaxed but prepared stance, and looks up, as Gellert Grindelwald steps out from the treeline at the opposite edge of the field.
Gellert is still golden. Albus thinks it, then feels sick at himself for thinking it. But it can’t be denied that Gellert, at middle age, is still beautiful. Much of his blonde hair has shaded into white, but the overall impression remains one of radiance. Even seen at a distance, under a lowering sky, he lights up the world around him, his bearing strong, his face bright. But as they both pace towards the mid-point of the field, Albus can see, too, the lines that now accent the corners of Gellert’s eyes. Laugh lines, they would usually be called, but surely Gellert has not obtained these lines from smiling. Surely, surely, even Gellert Grindelwald doesn’t smile when his deputies bring him news of another village massacred in his name, another countryside laid to waste.
Gellert Grindelwald approaches Albus Dumbledore, stops half a dozen paces short of him, and smirks. Now, with the benefit of hindsight and loss, Albus can see that sun-bright smile for what it is, a mark of condescension, not affection. The wand - the Elder Wand, the fabled Wand of Destiny - dangles easily from Gellert’s right hand. That pale, supple wood, the delicate pattern of runes - having once exhaustively studied the lore of this particular artefact, Albus would recognise it anywhere.
“Hello, Albus,” Gellert says. His stance is confident and his voice carries through the air. There is no mistaking it: Gellert knows he possesses nearly unparalleled magical abilities - and an unbeatable wand. Albus returns his gaze, making sure to match that look of self-assurance. Gellert may believe he is unbeatable, but Albus knows he himself has no choice today but to win.
“This is a wizard’s duel,” Albus says loudly, clearly, although any onlookers likely cannot hear them at this distance. An international team of Aurors wait beyond the trees, under strict instructions not to intervene. Gellert assuredly has assembled followers of his own on the other side. “There will be no seconds. We fight our own battle and involve no others. The duel ends only when one party is completely subdued. Do you agree to these terms?”
Gellert’s mouth twists. “I agree.”
They each take two steps closer in, wands pointing downwards at their sides, and face each other. For a fraction of a second, Albus closes his eyes and collects himself, despite the training that says a duellist should never let his opponent out of his sight. He feels for the earth beneath him, the sky that arches above his head. He will need all their power with him today. This is the one advantage he has over Gellert: Gellert has always discounted anything he himself could not personally control.
Albus opens his eyes and steels his focus, every particle of his being intent on the opponent before him. They raise their wands in tandem, still in perfect unison after all these years. But where once it was Albus who followed Gellert’s lead, he is not following now.
Albus Conjures a ring of flame and sends it flying. Gellert blocks easily, of course, disintegrating the fire in mid-air with the smallest flick of his wand. But with that first spell cast, the duel is begun.
Albus sees Gellert’s posture change, settling naturally into the bright, coiled energy of battle stance. He makes no discernable motion, but some invisible force comes at Albus, something winged and powerful but made of air. Albus fights it off with blocking and banishing spells, and emerges from the wild wind it leaves behind to find Gellert grinning, already preparing his next spell.
Gellert is treating this as a game. He doesn’t believe Albus can best him, doesn’t believe anyone could best him. To look at him, this might as well be one of their playful practice battles during that summer when they honed their duelling abilities against the whetstone of each other’s skills. But Albus cannot afford to treat this as anything other than the deadly duel it is.
Gellert’s spell flies at him, a great mass of darkness that nearly sweeps him off his feet. Albus performs the most powerful Lumos of his life, dispelling the darkness and finding his footing, pausing only for breath before Conjuring a great white bird that soars, screaming, at Gellert. Gellert laughs and ducks, and transforms the bird into a hawk with a vicious razor-edged beak that dives for Albus’ eyes.
As Albus Vanishes the bird, Gellert begins to form shapes with both hands, magical motions Albus has never seen performed, but recognises from books he has read: secret magicks from the highest reaches of the Carpathians, a class of devastatingly subtle curses known to few. Albus performs the counter-curse almost before Gellert has completed his spell, and is grimly glad to see Gellert’s surprise. Albus has had many years in which to become a theoretical expert on all the kinds of magic Gellert might know.
Gellert shifts tack again, adopting big, showy spells, golden bursts of blinding light, suffocating walls of water that crash over Albus’ head, forcing him to perform underwater-breathing spells even as he casts fire curses back at Gellert, sizzling away the water and singeing the grass beneath their feet. He sees Gellert watching him, a calculating look, an awareness that he has the better wand and thus the upper hand. Gellert, if he chooses, can keep casting spells and making Albus dodge them until Albus drops of exhaustion. Strength alone will not win Albus this battle.
Albus reaches out again with all his senses, feels for what is present in the world around him. He knows by the faint beating of wings that there are birds flying high above them, concealed somewhere within the thick, grey clouds. Albus’ senses are so taut, so painfully attuned, that he can nearly hear the rustlings and snufflings of small creatures in the woods around the plain, hares and moles and hedgehogs going about the small, important business of their lives. He can nearly feel the trees growing, soaking up the wetness of the squelching soil.
What is there in the world around him that he can turn to his advantage?
Gellert favours dramatic spells that showcase brilliance? All right, then. Albus feels for the power of the ground beneath him, so strong it almost burns, draws that power up through his body and into his fingertips, and summons a storm.
Rain bursts from the swollen clouds, thunder cracks with a noise like the world ending. Lightning splits the roiling sky, and the winds of the gale shriek in their ears. All the while, Gellert is casting spells and Albus casting counter-spells, orbiting one another in a strange dance that allows neither partner any respite, as the ground churns to mud beneath their ceaselessly moving feet.
Rain streams down Albus’ face. Gellert screams his curses over the raging wind, shouts spells of pain, of petrification. Albus loses track of time, knows only the desperate focus of the duel, the strange synergy of battle. Nothing in the world exists but Albus and Gellert, and their war.
Albus feels his body growing tired, his legs aching with effort, but he cannot afford to flag for even a moment. A sharp slicing motion of Gellert’s wand sends fire through Albus’ shoulder, a lapse in his defences Albus should not have allowed. He flinches and keeps moving, cannot allow himself to stop moving. He darts forward and casts a blasting curse with all his might. Gellert stumbles, but is standing again in an instant, shouting words Albus has never heard, and then there is a great spear hovering in the air between them, its tip so sharp it glints even in the dull grey light of the howling storm.
Their eyes meet, for an instant, and Albus sees Gellert smirk. This was Albus’ nickname for Gellert, the strong spear, the meaning behind Gellert’s name. At every turn Gellert is showing Albus that he has forgotten nothing, that he knows the love Albus once bore him - and that on the strength of that love, he doubts Albus will dare to destroy him now.
The spear attacks Albus with singular purpose, stabbing at his eyes, his heart. None of the normal repelling spells affect it. Albus slips in the mud, rolls to the side as the spear comes stabbing down into the ground where his head was a moment before. Even over the wailing wind, he can hear Gellert panting with the exertion of controlling such a powerful weapon.
Albus closes his eyes and Conjures a weapon of his own, again drawing on the power of the earth itself to create a mighty, branching tree that rises up out of the mud and stands between Albus and the spear, no matter from which angle it attacks. The tree’s branches whip in the wind, parrying every blow, and finally Gellert throws the spear aside into the dirt.
“Albus,” he says, his voice hoarse from the curses he has cast over the roar of the storm.
And then Albus feels something he could not have predicted and cannot control. It begins as an indistinct tickle at the back of his mind, and expands into a sense of warmth that suffuses his entire body. The raging gale around him seems less real than the memory that now possesses him, a remembrance of high summer and hot sun, lying in the long grass of the back garden of his family home with Gellert, biting into an early summer apple, feeling the bright explosion of its juice against his tongue. And Gellert smiling down at him, Gellert, Gellert, Gellert, he has never adored anyone as he does beautiful, brilliant, golden Gellert…
His feet no longer his own, Albus stumbles a step forward through the mud, and Gellert’s eyes are fixed on him, Gellert’s warm eyes, flecked with gold and warm with love…
No.
Gellert never felt love.
Horrified, Albus flings off Gellert’s control, recognising it for what it is, a forcible breach of his mind, a silently invading Legilimency that has sought out his most vulnerable memories and made them a weapon against him. He is sick with repugnance at the sensation of Gellert Grindelwald inside his mind.
He hurls himself at Gellert, all magic momentarily forgotten, wanting only to attack, strike back, cause an equal and opposite hurt. The force of it knocks Gellert to the ground and Albus lands on top of him, the first time they have touched in all these years. They grapple, they shout, Albus has lost all sense of what words he is speaking, knows only that he must conquer Gellert, must wrestle him down and hold him there so he can never attack anyone else.
Rain pours over them and Albus can barely see, knows the battle only by Gellert’s powerful, flailing limbs beneath him.
And then Albus’ back is in the mud, Gellert has gained the upper hand and his wand is at Albus’ heart. Albus is one whispered Avada Kedavra away from death. Gellert needs only to say the words.
Their eyes meet.
For a fraction of a second, so brief it might not have been there at all, Gellert hesitates. Albus’ heart stutters in his chest. There is emotion in Gellert’s eyes he can’t decipher.
Nor can he afford to waste time in doing so. This is the only advantage he will get.
It’s all over in a moment. Albus surges up, seizing the Elder Wand even as he topples Gellert to the ground and pins him. Albus’ own wand has dropped neatly to the ground beside him, as if it knew this was the plan all along and was simply waiting for its cue to slip out of the way.
Gellert struggles like a wild animal, snarls and fights against Albus’ body as it pins him. He scrabbles against Albus’ arms, his fingers clutching with bruising force.
But the Elder Wand is in Albus’ hand, and its tip comes to rest lightly against Gellert’s panting throat.
Their eyes meet again, and this time, there is no hesitation. Albus’ hand does not waver, his gaze does not leave Gellert’s face. His foe is in his power, and for the sake of others than himself, he does not have the option of letting go.
“Have mercy, Albus,” Gellert rasps, his voice like a raw wound. Nothing is left in it now of the intoxicating cadence Albus remembers from their youth, the honeyed consonants and the warm, rich vowels. “End it here. Kill me.”
Albus shakes his head, strands of his own pale hair whipping past his eyes in the unnatural gale that still rages around them. Unbidden, he feels a tear trace a caustic path down the side of his long, crooked nose, burning a hot track into his wind-scoured skin.
“No,” he says. “I will not kill. Not even for you.”
Gellert exhales, a jagged sigh, and closes his eyes, his lashes fluttering golden against his skin. Despite the lines around his eyes and mouth, he is every inch as beautiful as the day Albus first laid eyes on him, standing in the lane in Godric’s Hollow, dazzling against the liquid gold of the afternoon sky. He doesn’t look like a murderer. But then, he never looked like what he is. And Albus is, at long last, wise enough not to trust appearances.
“There is a team of Aurors standing by,” Albus says, making his voice as hard as he can manage with the one love of his younger life subjugated beneath his hands. “They will escort you to the International Confederation of Wizards, in front of which body you will stand trial for the crimes you have committed. Do not expect to receive clemency after all you have done.”
Gellert’s eyes flicker open, and his mouth twists. “No, I don’t expect so.” He coughs raggedly, turning his head to the side. But when the fit has passed, his eyes return unerringly to Albus’. “No judge or jury would understand what I have done. But you, Albus, you understand.”
“No,” Albus says, and the hand that clenches Gellert’s robes, pinning his shoulder to the earth, clenches convulsively, although the hand that holds the wand does not sway.
“You understand,” Gellert whispers. “It was all for the greater good. For the glory of wizards. Our rightful place above the rest of humankind.”
“No,” Albus repeats. “There is no good greater than love. And in love, we are all equal.”
Gellert sneers. “Love? Love has nothing on power. And without power, I’d rather be dead.” His gold-flecked eyes lock once more on Albus’, and he whispers again, “Have mercy.”
Another tear slides ineluctably down Albus’ cheek. “No.”
He allows himself one final moment to study Gellert’s beautiful face, lovely despite the dust of battle and the bloody gashes he has sustained down one cheek. This is the face of the man Albus once loved more than life itself, the man for whom he would have done anything. But Gellert Grindelwald is no longer that man. Perhaps he never was.
With the Elder Wand, Albus Conjures unbreakable cords of pure magic, and binds Gellert with them. Then he collects his own wand and pushes himself up from the ground, pulling Gellert to his feet beside him. The storm has died down and the dripping sky seems to pant with exertion, a last few drops of rain falling wearily down to the sodden world. All is silent, as the victor leads the vanquished across the great expanse of the plain and into the hands of the Aurors who rush forward to meet them as they emerge from the roiling white mist that engulfs the field.
Albus hands Gellert to his self-made fate. Two of the Aurors seize hold of him, whilst the rest of the team break across the field, towards the woods at the opposite side, where Gellert’s followers are even now surely scattering. They won’t be hard to track down. Gellert’s is a cult of personality, and without him at the head, the rest will fall.
Stepping aside to allow the Aurors to cast additional binding charms on their prisoner, Albus slides both wands, the Elder Wand and his own, into the inner pocket of his robes. They nestle there as though they have always belonged like this, together in his pocket. Albus allows his fingers to brush a last brief time against his own wand, his beloved, mundane wand, for whom no wizards have ever killed. Albus could gladly live out his days with this wand and no other.
But the wand chooses the wizard, and he now bears the Elder Wand.
For a mad moment, Albus longs to toss the Wand of Destiny aside, grind it under his heel into the muddy ground and leave it there to moulder. But he knows even as he thinks it that this was never an option. The Elder Wand, if cast away, has a terrible way of turning up again in the most devastating fashion possible. Albus must keep the wand and use it as his own. He will carry it as a reminder to himself. And he will ensure that in the end the succession is broken, the wand is not taken from him in defeat, and the Death Stick at last surrenders its terrible, deadly thrall. Until that day, Albus must wield the Elder Wand.
Gellert, soaked in mud but proudly silent, is securely in the Aurors’ hands. Albus’ duties here are discharged. They have met for the last time.
Albus turns and walks away. His robes are heavy with spattered mud, weighing down each step he takes. His gashed shoulder throbs, and he can feel blood pooling stickily beneath his robes.
In his mind, Albus can already hear the magical presses at the Daily Prophet clattering to life, can almost hear the whirring wings of the post owls that will beat the air about the Ministry, bearing messages that demand he be appointed Minister for Magic. But Albus knows he deserves none of it. And in any case, there’s only one thing he would wish as his reward, and that one thing is beyond the realm of the possible.
He’s reached the treeline at the edge of the field now, and he forces himself not to glance back. The man he knew is gone, or was never there at all.
Albus breathes in the scent of the rain-soaked woods. He thinks of Ariana, frozen in time just as she was, forever a sweet and shy fourteen. He remembers Aberforth, his rage striking home along with his fist, on the day they buried their sister.
He imagines Gellert gazing out over a barren landscape from a prison cell, perhaps even from a narrow window of Nurmengard itself. Albus pictures the words carved above the prison’s entrance, For the Greater Good, and a painful shudder runs through him.
Albus knows, he learned at the age of eighteen, that the mistakes of the past can never be undone. All he can do is go forward.
He does not look back at the field where they fought their duel, as he steps away into the trees. He does not say last farewells.
Albus will go forward. It’s all he can do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The End