"Aurora Borealis" for cruentum
“Oh, isn’t he precious?” the plump old woman cooed. “Face like sunshine, the ickle tot. C’mere, Gellie.”
She reached her hand out toward his cheek; the boy flashed her a roguish smile and ducked below her arm, running out into the garden (cheeks intact).
“You’ve got an upstart on your hands, Ilsa,” the old woman chuckled, settling back into her chair.
“Too right,” Ilsa said with a rueful grin from across her. She didn’t bother watching Gellert in the garden; he was a bright enough boy to see to himself.
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Gellert Grindelwald was the sun, and the rest of the world had been orbiting him unwittingly for thousands and thousands of years. There were planets encircling him, friends and teachers, family and ancestry, all prominent and noteworthy; none equal. Then the moons, asteroids, loose rock, debris that filled in the rest of the skies-common men, Muggles, animals. He did not think of those as inferior. He didn’t think anything of those at all.
Gellert Grindelwald was the sun, with no thought for ants and Muggles.
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“You can’t do that!”
“Scat, Markoff, can’t you see I’m busy?”
The body of a small boy lay on the table of the empty classroom, and Gellert Grindelwald was passing his wand over it lazily, paying no mind to the trembling student behind him.
The boy on the table did not stir. Now his legs were sliding together in a swift motion, his trousers unraveling themselves and falling away. Gellert watched in delight, the other boy in horror, as the skin on the boy’s legs knotted together seamlessly, as the bones beneath shifted-now the feet tapered off into fins, now the skin erupted quietly in scales. The boy still did not stir.
“Wake him up,” Markoff breathed. “Is he dead? What’ve you-you can’t do this to students, you’ll be expelled-”
“It’s not a student. A Muggle, from the village. I…took it,” Gellert whispered happily, touching the scales with a gentle finger. “It’s perfect; I’ve been working on it so long. Look, Markoff, at the detail on the fins…all it needs is a pair of gills, and we could drop it into the Baltics…”
“You shouldn’t-”
“Don’t you ever stop thinking within the law?” Gellert asked, irritation creeping into his voice. “The things you could accomplish, the things all of us could do so beautifully-”
“The headmaster will be so angry, Grindelwald…”
“Will he?” Grindelwald did not bother turning; he flicked his wand over his shoulder, and Markoff slumped to the floor.
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“Never have I witnessed such reckless disregard of human life within Durmstrang’s walls.”
The headmaster, Gellert could see, was furious. Pacing up and down the floor of his study, wrapped in silver furs, shaking his finger in the air-furious.
Gellert leaned back on his divan and watched cheerily.
“Nikolaus may never be the same-he’s still babbling to the walls and smearing porridge in his hair. And the parents, the parents, they’ll have us torn down and cast out, you fool.”
Gellert chuckled.
“Impudent boy!” the headmaster yelled, yanking Gellert up by the scruff of his robes, tumbling his bright curls behind him. “I’ve heard rumors about you, Grindelwald, the things you get up to in your private chamber. Experimenting on vermin, on Muggles-inferior creatures whose protection is our duty and calling. Why you would ever try your hand at such Dark dealings-I cannot fathom-” Because I can-“and now you’ve destroyed the mind of a student, perhaps forever! How long did you have him under Cruciatus? How long?!”
Gellert waited until he’d stopped being shaken, then-“Long enough to slightly dull his wits, sir, but quite insignificantly.”
He was hurled back into the lap of the divan. “Out of my study, out of my institute. I never want to see you again.” The headmaster withdrew. Gellert, still sprawled on the divan, took a small glass phial from his sleeve and held it up to the light, illuminating the blue liquid within: the transmuted suffering of Nikolaus Karkaroff, unadulterated human pain extracted during the Cruciatus Curse. Another successful experiment.
His smile was like sunshine. “Surely, headmaster, you can’t mean that. Not after all we’ve been through…”
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“It’s not very big, I’m afraid, but I do hope you’ll enjoy yourself,” said Bathilda Bagshot, helping him shake the Floo powder off his robes.
“I always enjoy myself,” Gellert said with a smile, and his young aunt wondered why her cousin Ilsa was so apprehensive about having this charming young man back in her house.
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The first thing Gellert had noticed in Godric’s Hollow was the large manor at the top of the hill; high up in a tower he would see sparks, lights, smoke emanating through the window, and later he would wonder who lived there (but never ask, because he adores surprises).
Gellert had not minded coming down to Aunt Bathilda’s for holiday (exile), because he was the sun, and he knew wherever he went he carried the world with him. The wizards in England practiced magic in a much different way than the North; their spells were refined, less grounded to the earth, modern and evolved, fascinating to work with. And his aunt was rather brilliant, but he felt something pull him towards the tower on the hill, and he was never one to deny his experiments.
So late one night, when Bathilda was sleeping, he stepped into the warm summer air. Sure enough, the tower on the hill was alight, and greenish blue light poured through the window like the aurora borealis. Gellert watched for a moment, leaning against a tree, then waved his wand. A violet ribbon shot out of the tip, widening, spiraling through the air, until there stood a long stair twining up to the tower window.
At the top, Gellert saw a tall, lean figure silhouetted by the light of a glowing cauldron, his back to the window and-yes-his hand holding the wand aloft.
Gellert knocked on the windowsill.
The silhouette turned in surprise, and the cauldron promptly exploded. “Oh, look what you’ve done.” He came forward wiping blue potion of his robes, and in place of the silhouette there was a boy his age.
Gellert took a curious sniff. “The Elixir of Seven Delights?” he asked, laughing.
“Yes, and I’d have got it right if it weren’t for you.” The boy was blushing slightly, leaning out of the window, and now that he was closer Gellert could note his auburn hair and rather impossibly blue eyes.
“A dangerous brew, wouldn’t you say? Requires unicorn blood, if I remember right…” There, the cards were laid, and now all he dared do was hope…
Scorn flashed across the face. “I think it a small sacrifice, even for a failed attempt. The pursuit of magic doesn’t cringe at death. And I nearly have it…next time it will be perfect.”
Gellert was delighted. An ambitious, hedonistic boy, young and testing the boundaries of his magic. There were thousands of his kind. But those eyes…a star was burning there, and Gellert could see it through the eyes. Here, then, was a brother at last, a proper wizard, unashamed, delighting in magic rather than fearing it, living it rather than harnessing it.
“Who are you?” the boy asked, his voice softer now as his eyes trailed over Gellert’s satin staircase. “And…was that a Cecilian twist on the wandwork?”
Dawn was in the corner of Gellert’s eye. He gave a crow of triumph and leapt atop the windowsill as rosy light crept up the tower. “Gellert Grindelwald. And to the second, yes.”
“Albus Dumbledore.”
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Gellert Grindelwald was the sun, with no thought for ants and Muggles, and his path had just crossed something quite interesting in orbit.
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