Grindeldore oneshots

8

the devil you know

Laeveteinn

Summary:

Upon rising to power, Voldemort needs a way to dispose of Dumbledore without killing him personally. He decides to lock the old coot up in Nurmengard, to be efficiently murdered by his oldest enemy.
(Voldemort may be missing some relevant background, where Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald are concerned.)

Story:

Odd. Perhaps he won’t die alone after all.

Gellert awakes to red eyes, two fiendish slits set in a cold, stone-white approximation of a face. It is a chilling picture, one he had foreseen many years before.

And Gellert laughs, suspecting this is a dream and not caring to check. “Kill me, then. Get on with it.”

(Language has turned into a faraway prize, the words requiring gymnastic contortions of the tongue.)

This monster’s gaze bores into his head. Too bad. Gellert’s Occlumency is all that’s left.

When the staring contest grows tiresome for them both, the stranger draws back his lips in a parody of good humour.

“I will not acquiesce just yet, Lord Grindelwald,” he says, with a mocking lilt to his tone. “Instead I bring you a gift: a chance to fulfil your greatest desire.”

Gellert would retort that death is the best gift he could ask for, and quite cheap too, but an impolitely timed flash of light cuts short the joke.

When Gellert next regains his senses, it’s to the warmth of a crackling hearth. This surprises him so thoroughly that he rouses himself at once, where he usually strives to prolong the illusion of nothingness.

His eyes snap open and find a scene beyond comprehension. The room is as small as it should be, but the details are off. The stone floor has been covered over with a plush, red rug. A stout silvery brazier stands attached to a wall, bearing a merry, entirely unfamiliar fire. And there is a second bed by the same wall, where there should have been only a cold expanse.

This is scarcely the first time Gellert has failed to recognise the place around him. On occasion, he stops recognising himself, instead witnessing his actions from a comfortable remove, as though he is merely controlling a particularly pliable puppet through the Imperius.

His eyes slide over to the oddest feature of the entire scene: Albus Dumbledore sitting on the bed, sock-clad legs swung over the edge. Gellert stares, uncomprehending, at the cruellest trick his head has played yet.

He stares, and Albus stays, stubbornly refusing to flicker back out. Instead he rummages in a pocket of his robes (green embroidery on an orange background, calibrated to hurt the eyes and not just the heart), and then reaches out to Gellert. “Sherbet lemon?”