A burning summer

The end of summer

It was the 23rd of September. Autumn was announcing itself with a cool wind that had begun to detach the first dry leaves from the trees. It was a fresh, awakening air that had shaken Albus, making him wake up definitively from that dream, or nightmare, that that burning summer had been.

Things were ironically back as they had been before : Aberforth was at Hogwarts and Albus was about to leave for a study trip. He would go to Paris, the very city that he and Gellert had planned as their first stop, but he would go alone and there would be no speeches or campaigns. He would have thrown himself into studying under the supervision of the famous alchemist Nicolas Flamel, and it was better that way. He felt a great need to return to the simple pleasures of life: reading a good book, learning a new thing, visiting a new city ... all things that would keep him away and not tempted by any form of power. The small taste he had had of it had painfully confirmed to him that he was absolutely not suited to any position in which he would rise above others.

It was all back to how it had been before, yet so many things were missing. Albus still felt all the tears in his heart that seemed to heal with infinite slowness, and he was relying on his mind for a while. It was time to see things as they were, to consider one's mistakes and learn not to repeat them.

He went to fetch the newspaper from Richie that morning and passed by the graveyard on his way. He made a wreath of flowers appear on Ariana's grave and shed a few tears which were dried by the wind, then continued on to the decrepit wooden kiosk.

The headline on the front page was:

"Gregorovitch robbed. Will his fame disappear just like his most precious wand?"

Albus didn't read the whole article, he didn't need to. He walked towards the grove across the bridge and sat under the oak feeling the emptiness beside him, but he was fine with that. It served as a reminder of how badly he had misjudged Gellert Grindelwald. He still loved him, oh yes, his heart pounded fast every time he thought about those wonderful days they had lived together, but it became clear to him that he had never fully known his lover. It was as if he had focused only on his light eye, discarding the dark one and ended up forgetting about it. There had been signs of that darker nature that was part of the young German wizard.

Albus had known early on that Gellert had been expelled from Durmstrang for putting his friends in mortal danger; every time they had talked about a new society, he had talked about dominating the Muggles; that night when they were caught kissing by that boy, he had knocked him out with his spell; he had been absolutely indifferent to Clarice Malling's despair and the terrible relationship that had formed between Albus and his siblings. And above all he had left, he had shamelessly lied to Bathilda, telling her that Ariana had died from the obscurus, and he had left nothing to the young English wizard. He had taken everything with him, even Albus's heart.

Yet the young English wizard had closed his eyes for a long time, as if dazzled by the mighty summer sun, and when he had reopened them he had woken up in a tragedy.

His great friend Elphias had always playfully told him that he was cursed with knowledge and Albus found himself thinking that maybe it was true. Having found someone who for the first time understood all his thoughts and who knew as much as he did had made him foolishly blind to reality.

He thought about that song Gellert had sung that night at Godric's Glimmering Gathering.

Where Oh where have you been my love?

Where Oh where can you be?

It's been so long, since the moon has gone.

Oh what a wreck you've made me.

Are you there over the ocean?

Are you there, up in the sky?

Until the return of my love

This lullaby

My Hope is on the horizon

Every face, it's your eyes i can see

I plead, i pray through each night and day

Our Embrace is only a dream.

As sure as days come from moments

Each hour becomes a life's time

When he 'd left, I'd only begun this lullaby (4)

(4) by Queens of Stone Age

My dear readers,

here we are at the end of summer. Or, at least, the end of the summer of 1899, since for us the summer has only just begun! I therefore wish you all some wonderful holidays, hopefully not as destructive and burning as those of Dumbledore and Grindelwald!

I really hope you had as much fun reading this story as I had writing it. I never thought it would become this big of a project, my initial thought was to write just a couple of chapters, yet, as I went on and came to know the characters better, I incredibly enjoyed exploring them in more detail.

By now pride month is already over, but it's always a good time to celebrate love and I had a great time doing so by writing this story! Another thing I'd like to relish with this work of mine is the diversity of all people and minds of the world. Just like Dumbledore and Grindelwald there are some people that have minds that work a bit differently than the one of most others. Some may consider it a gift, but just like Albus realised it often is a source of loneliness, frustration and misunderstandings. Maybe you have someone like that in your day to day life and sometimes it's important to show some love also to those people who seem distant most of the time, it's not by chance if Dumbledore believed love to be the most powerful magic of all!

Thank you all for the support and some of the amazing comments you left me during these months!

Yours, Eruanna

P.S.= it's stil just an idea, but I might stick with dear Gellert a little longer, or rather... let's say that I'm willing to take a step back into his past with him...