Chapter Text
Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin.
Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air
and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.
It was only spring, and I was already done with this year. I felt old, for the first time. While the fresh, flowery air wafted through the open window, while a cat jumped around on the windowsills, owls and doves flew by and a musician started to played Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune on the violin, while people downstairs argued, and celebrated, and fell in love with each other and with this city, I finalized my betrayal.
Without my knowledge or consent, I’d become Gellert Grindelwald’s assistant. It was just something he decided. I’d agreed to the terms and conditions of our strange partnership somewhere down the line, I’m sure.
Grindelwald looked at Albus for a while, pondering. “I need small crystal phials, a silver teaspoon, dew taken from a place that had not seen sunlight or been touched by human feet for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawk Moth - oh, and more Mandrake leaves, of course.”
I started taking notes quickly. It took me a while to catch on. “Hold on, that’s not for helping him!”
“I am helping,” Grindelwald said, looking slightly affronted. “We have a full moon soon – that means it’s about five weeks to the next – he has time to start over. He can’t just lay there while I heal him and do nothing; he’ll get bored!”
“You can’t be bored when you’re unconscious.”
“No, you can’t be bored when you’re unconscious,” Grindelwald corrected me. “I’ve seen this one get up in the middle of the night to repair his broken chess pieces because ‘his dreams were a touch underwhelming.’”
“Why were his chess pieces broken?”
“It’s a mystery.” For some reason, the question seemed to amuse him. “The point is, I want to see, whether I can centre his mind to a goal. I’ll need the Mandrake leaves by tomorrow.”
“How many?” Perenelle whispered. She’d regained her composure, but was still breathing heavily.
“As many as you can get. Two, at the very least.” He kept circling things in the healer’s notebook, then crossing some words out. Every now and then, he pulled some obscure and dark objects out of his pockets – a Tibetan ritual knife, a silvery phial with a blood-filled pearl in the middle, a stone that was so dark, it was like looking into nothing, and a small, caged blue spider with glittery legs that clicked its pincers at us. “They don’t have fire alarms in here, do they?”
“Are you mad?” I asked him. I just had to check.
“Opinions differ,” he said dryly. In other words, yes.
*
“Just leave it alone.” That’s all Albus had to say on the situation. He’d told me about what he referred to as ‘my summer of madness’ and refused to revisit the subject, no matter how hard I tried.
“You can’t bottle it all up,” I told him, desperately wishing we were back on the wine-soaked balcony, where everything had been so easy. Secrets had been revealed, our friendship had felt tighter than ever, and the evening sun made everything feel final. Like a new chapter was about to start.
“It’s in the past,” he insisted. “I wish not to ponder on it. I should be allowed to make that choice.”
“You’re torturing yourself,” I insisted. “You hold on to memorabilia of a relationship that you won’t talk about. The healthy choice is to burn these things and move on, or to admit that you’re still in love and – I don’t know, contact him!”
“Contact him?” He seemed appalled at the idea. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Fine. Then we’ll burn the letters.”
“I can’t. It won’t make a difference,” he insisted. “It just won’t. It won’t change how I feel.”
“You say that,” I told him, “but it makes no sense. You don’t want to move on. At this point I’m beginning to suspect you love your misery.”
After that, we didn’t speak or exchange letters for a while. I knew I’d gone too far. Eventually, we pretended it hadn’t happened.
*
With Grindelwald, it was easiest to pretend one didn’t see or hear some things. His ideas were grand, and on the disturbing side, but I couldn’t really stop him, criticise him, even, while he looked at Albus with such affection, such pain in his eyes. All is fair in love and war, Opelia, my girlfriend, loved to say. Of course, she spoke of fictional characters in novels, not dark wizards in a roof apartment.
“This is microscopic, how does he deal with it?” Grindelwald complained.
“He’s modest,” I defended Albus (or the house). “Frugal. He’s always been. I don’t think he ever minded it.”
“He was a half-orphan with a mother who couldn’t work. He wasn’t allowed an opinion,” Grindelwald disagreed. “If he’d minded, he’d been the monster who complains about the fragile dying girl.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” I protested. It didn’t sound like Albus; at least not the way I knew him. “Kendra was a fine woman. She did the best she could, given… well, her circ*mstances. And she was an amazing and selfless mother, Albus said so!”
“Does every amazing mother leave it to the eleven-year-old to repair the family’s reputation?” he said, and I knew he was doing it to provoke, to mask the sadness he didn’t want to address, but still… There was an uncomfortable kernel of truth in there. “She didn’t help, slamming the door in everyone’s faces, repelling the neighbours while they had goat dung thrown at them.”
“That was Aberforth.”
“And he should have been disciplined. What rolemodel was she, really? Devote all your life to the dying girl who might or might not kill you, son, and be sure to insult everyone in town, your brother will fix it for us!” He pulled a row of colourful sweaters out of Albus’ closet, shook his head at them, and kept looking. What he was searching for was beyond me.
“That’s not… that’s not right – that isn’t what happened!”
“Isn’t it? Didn’t you ever wonder why he’s so painfully polite? He lives in a different country, speaks a new language – can you honestly tell me, you’ve ever heard him curse? In French or English?”
“Well no, but that doesn’t mean… what do you need his jackets for?”
Grindelwald froze, a number of shirts in one hand, and jackets in the other. “Seriously, what is this? How does he still get dressed by tiny woodland creatures in the morning?”
“Are you going to blame Kendra for that, too?”
“No, I blame myself. I’ve given him too many compliments for this nonsense. What can I say,” he shrugged, when I started laughing. “I’m a charmer, I compliment everyone. It was cute when he was younger, I suppose. How does he date half the city like that?”
“It’s not half the city!”
He looked at me with derision. “Isn’t it?”
“Absolutely not. You’ve been here a few days, and by the looks of it, you’ve almost caught up with him, so I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t slander my best friend. Glass house, Sir!”
“You also need to learn how to curse,” he commented, and threw the clothes onto the small chaiselongue in the corner. “It’s not here.”
“What is?”
“His notes on the experiment. I keep giving him stabilizing potions, and his body barely reacts to them. He should have a normal pulse by this point, but something is blocking every effort in make. I know what it is – but I don’t know. It’s obvious, but it’s a secret – I hate when he keeps secrets from me, it’s so unnecessary!”
That, I could relate to. However… “How would he share secrets with you, you haven’t been in contact for years!”
“Excuses,” Grindelwald murmured, flipping through a stack of notes and letters on Albus’ desk.
“I think those are private!”
“And I disagree.” He grabbed one of Albus’ most flamboyant coats, put it on and admired himself in the mirror. “Let’s go to the bar. Who is it that he hangs around with?”
“Ah, yes, your chronological list.”
His lips became a very thin line. He hated to be reminded of that, but it was very obvious that he was still doing it. “I want to find out who he could’ve talked to about his last experiment. He always leaves his notebooks lying around somewhere, because he’s made sure no one else can read them, and he’s way too trusting. One of his friends might have the answers.”
I had to (reluctantly) agree and start to send out Merlin with letters of invitation. Despite my better judgement, I invited Julien. I’d be able to keep Grindelwald in check, I told myself. He’d stay focussed, he had to!
When I returned from the restaurant bathroom, Grindelwald had positioned himself in the midst of Albus’ friends, and I felt a small twinge of jealousy, along with a sense of deja vue. The way he was able to entertain a whole table, the way the hung on his lips, only to dive into a deep one-on-one conversation with a person of his choosing the next moment, felt so painfully familiar. He commanded the room. He was the center of attention, and it was all so very effortless.
We didn’t find out anything about Albus’ experiments, other than that he had been in the middle of studying dragon blood. In the end, we left a drunken and wildly curious group at the bar, and I watched Grindelwald disappear into the night, before I went back to Albus’ apartment. I had no idea where he went when he did that - he’d either go and seduce a stranger, or sleep at the hospital. Or both, which felt wrong in so many ways. Spending time with him was exhilarating, but there was a natural stopping point when I just wanted to talk to my mum. Take a long, cleansing shower. Pet baby animals. Drink some milk. Anything.
Over the next weeks, that feeling faded. I could see it – him and Albus. It made sense, in a mad, sort of unhinged way. I would envision them, experimenting together, discussing books at a speed and depth no one else could match. I could see why Gellert was bitter about losing all that – he wasn’t the type to feel guilty, so what other emotions were left for him? In that way, he was the opposite of Albus, that I was sure of. At least the Albus I’d known.
*
“What did they say? Did you win? Of course you won! Who else would it be!”
“I did – I guess I’m going to Cairo,” he said, but he didn’t look happy. He usually looked the happiest with a trophy in his hands; this was different. He was pale, almost greenish in the face. “I – I think I have to write to my mother.”
“Do you want me to take a picture first? I’m sure she’ll love it! Oh, this is amazing!” I hugged him, and he just stood there like a statue, clinging onto his most serious quill. The one for correspondences. Important ones.
“Did something happen? Don’t be so mysterious! What did they tell you?”
“Nothing, they just shook my hand, and the last man, the one from the ministry – I thought he’d congratulate me, and he just said ‘My condolences.’ And then he left.”
“Condolences for what?”
He sat down, drafted a short letter, then got back up. “I have to find Aberforth. He’ll want to know, before it’s on page twelve of the Prophet. If he finds out by chance, he’ll just start random fights in the hallways again. I’d hate for mother to get two devastating letters in a week.”
When he left, it finally hit me. Page twelve were news from Askaban. Albus gave up his position as Youth Representative of the Wizengamot that week. In fact, he stopped talking about them altogether. No more comments on government progress or plans to bring all the changes to the system that he’d always dreamed of, all the wonderful and refreshing ideas – they just went out the window.
I never witnessed him being political again. But I witnessed a second surge of that bitterness, that defeated look that could barely conceal his anger – the day we were meant to leave for Greece.
*
It had all the signs of a Greek tragedy. Gellert, the young hero, seemed to be fighting a losing fight. he had moments of victorious delight, followed by seething rage. On days when he’d put on his black tie, the one with lavender sprigs stitched onto it, I could tell that he felt the most optimistic. His rage was equally intense, when yet another experiment failed.
So far, he’d poisoned me once, himself twice, turned Albus bright red for 24 hours, managed to disappear exactly two of his toe nails (we were both confused by that) and kept glowering at out ever-dwindling supply of dragon blood. It just had to be connected to dragon blood, that we were both sure of. For some strange reason, he'd started to place a skull on top of Albus, and used it to blow smoke into his face. His eyes would role back, and he'd be very shaken, once he was back to normal.
"Shock therapy," he called it.
"You want to shock him awake?"
"It might work," he said, but he quickly gave up on that course of things.
*
One rainy Thursday, I returned from a short work trip, and Gellert stood in the middle of the room, talking to himself. He truly reminded me of Albus in that moment, until he started laughing. There was a fine balance between genius and madman, and Albus usually balanced on it in high-heeled dragon skin boots. This was different. I’d been gone for three days, and he’d descended into full madness. It was only when I saw the tears in his eyes that I truly got scared.
“I have the solution,” he whispered. “It’s all so clear – it’s always been there – the hand… Yes. it’s so simple. We’ll need a sacrifice,” he said matter-of-factly. “Blood must have blood.”
“You’re going to sacrifice me?” That was new, and mostly alarming. “Will it hurt?”
“A different kind of sacrifice, I’m afraid.”
He took me to the woods near Lyon that night, and I was confused how he wanted to restock our dragon blood reserves in the middle of France. According to Albus, one had to travel abroad to find dragons these days. But, again, I was mistaken. I wished I wasn’t, because that’s when things took another unexpected dark turn.
When my wandlight strived something so white, it was almost serving as its own light source, I felt a sense of shock. In front of us, in the clearing, grassed a tall and majestic unicorn. It had been in contact with humans before (maybe wandmakers, or apothecaries), and didn’t seem as shy as unicorns often were. It also, on closer inspection, looked a lot older than the unicorns I’d seen in the past.
“What do you need a unicorn for? Wouldn’t it have been easier to buy the hair in a shop?”
I didn’t like the mocking smile around his lips. Despite my reluctance to accept the cold, harsh truth, I knew where this was going, and it filled my stomach with dread. When he turned from me… that was the moment to stop him. I had to! I did, didn’t I? could I?
The unicorn froze under his stunning spell. And I froze with the certainty that this might be out last shot.
“You can’t!”
“This is necessary. Don’t interrupt me.”
Albus or the unicorn. Albus or the unicorn. Albus or the unicorn.
I wasn’t the one doing it, I told myself. I wouldn’t have to bear the consequences, I was just a bystander. Though, in some ways, that felt worse. As I watched the silvery blood drip into the little crystal bottle, as he patched up the wound without any real expertise and the unicorn galloped away, I certainly didn’t feel like an innocent bystander, though I assuaged my guilt in the knowledge that it wasn’t dead. It was just a small cut. It was necessary.
I felt sick.
*
Albus’ eyes gleamed when we got closer to the unicorn. “See? I told you it would be easy!” he whispered.
The unicorn’s hooves pawed the burnt grass nervously, and its eyes were on us. Wary. Suspicious. It’s fur was so white, it emanated a faint glow in the sunlight. It retreated, but struck out it’s head to sniff for the treats we’d been given.
“Professor Howin said to wait,” I warned him. “She said the girls should go first.”
“She said, it would be easier for them to trust girls,” Albus disagreed, holding out his hand for the unicorn to sniff. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t get to meet it. Look, it’s not scared, are you?”
It was September, and, like every year, he’d come back to school a touch more reckless. More adventurous. It was like he came back to live of the train, and things had escalated from there. Burned bed curtains, a bubblegum pink potion (it was supposed to be silvery grey), a small expirement that had kicked me off of my Nimbus during Quidditch practise (though it did make it faster; he had been right about that) and excursions into the Forbidden Forest that I’d threatened to write Kendra about, without meaning it, of course. Reckless.
When he moved, he did so slowly, and with glittering, amazed eyes. I’d never seen him so calm. As the unicorn and my best friend made eye contact, he looked almost serene. In the back, Professor Howin yelled his name, which was a rare occurrence in class. To my astonishment, he continued to ignore our exasperated professor and managed to pet first the unicorn’s nose, then it’s neck.
“Come on, you have to feel it, it’s so soft!” he exclaimed. He didn’t even notice that it was nervous around me, still. All he saw, all that mattered to him in this moment, was the beautiful creature in front of him.
“Why do we just use the horn and hair in Potions, have you ever wondered about that? With dragons and salamanders, we take every part. Wouldn’t the blood of a unicorn be incredibly powerful?”
“Don’t say that, she can hear you!” Albus protested, his hands barely covering half the unicorn’s ears. “It is a sacrilege to hurt a unicorn. Their blood is powerful, but it must never be taken. The person who drinks it is cursed for the rest of their life!”
“That’s a likely story,” one of the girls behind us commented, rolling her eyes.
“But correct in essence, although theories on the reasons behind it differ,” Professor Howin said. She still gave Albus a scolding look for disobedience. He’d maneuvered himself out of house points by sheer cheek, again. “The blood of a unicorn could technically keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death. However, the drinker will live a half-life, from the moment it touches their lips. There is a price to be paid for killing a pure and defenceless creature.”
“But why?” the girls inquired.
“And what kind of fate do you mean, Professor?” I asked. “What does a ‘half-life’ mean? A shorter life? A half-enjoyable one?”
“We don’t know for certain,” she said mysteriously. “Few have ever been stupid enough to try.”
*
“It’s a dangerous thing, to drink it,” Gellert said, but he didn’t seem frightened. “You see, once it touches your lips, it seals your goal in drinking it to your fate, so to speak. It’s a fancy way of saying, you become obsessed with your intention. Those who drank it to survive are said to have become obsessed with their own mortality. They defend it, cling to it desperately, and find more and more obscure ways to ensure their survival. More unicorn blood often is a part of that journey. As it is mostly consumed for the purpose of survival – though a few obscure potions that contain the blood as an ingredient exist – the person in question tends to form an addiction to the blood. The trick really is to know when to stop.”
“And you do?”
“I do.”
“And you’re not worried… what it will do to you?”
“Do I worry that it might make me obsessed? That I will desire nothing but this – that it will be the bane of my existence, that I won’t be able to move on from this, ever?” His eyes rested on Albus, and the smile on his face was pained. “Like I said, it won’t change anything for me.”
“It could still – curse you, couldn’t it?”
“Well then.” He took the crystal bottle, uncorked it, and sat on the empty bed next to Albus, toasting me. “Here’s to damnation!”
I wanted to scream, to stop him, but, selfishly, I wanted my best friend back more. So I did nothing to stop the inevitable, swallowed my guilt and started to feed Albus the other potion, forcing the thick green liquid down his throat, and placing a sugar cube on his tongue, so the saliva would keep running and do the rest. This potion wasn’t cursed. At least I hoped it wasn’t.
“Te dimittam,” I heard Gellert whisper, while he took the old knife, Percival’s knife that had once belonged to Wulfric, and before him, to Brian. He held it against the palm of his hand and sliced it open, tracing the scar tissue. Then, he did that same to Albus hand. This was obviously more difficult, as it was swollen, and had turned a nasty shade of blackish purple. “Te dimittam. Te dimittam. Te dimittam…“ He repeated the words frantically, though his voice got slower, quieter, until there was silence.
And then, it was nothing but me and the silence, standing in the dark. The black candles spread the smell of burnt oils, smoke, and melting wax. I had argued with Gellert before, as I’d suspected that we didn’t need quite so many of them. He’d denied that they were there for dramatic effect only, while lighting more and more of them. It was the most sinister fire hazard I’d ever seen.
I waited, counted down the seconds on my pocket watch, then gave both of them half of what Gellert had called ‘the second potion.’ It just looked like a few drops of human blood. I tied their hands together with the monogrammed handkerchief, as instructed. Gellert had been worried they might fall apart, but they didn’t. Blood trickled down, staining the bedsheet, dripping onto the floor. Their fingers remained interlocked, and something was pressed in between both hands, something I couldn’t see. All I’d been told was that it was connected to the scars. Matching scars. I still didn’t know what he’d meant by that.
The fingers on my clock ran slowly, ever so slowly. Albus’ bloody knife lay on the bedside table, glimmering in the candle light. Silver and red. The seconds passed slowly. It was so quiet, I could almost hear it, hear the watch tick, hear my own heartbeat, slow and painful.
Thirteen minutes. The first candles went out the second time was up, while a small ‘crack’ sent shivers down my spine. The noise continued, but it was barely audible. One by one, the candles started to flicker, smoke. Their light grew dimmer and dimmer, until there was nothing but darkness. Darkness and silence. And then I heard a scream, a commotion, and something made of metal fell to the floor.
“Lumos.”
I looked into the shocked, pale face of Albus Dumbledore. He’d sat up in bed, and his eyes were wide open.
