Lord of time (chapter 41-107)

86

Newt grimaced as he sat, his leg twinging painfully, but the weight he'd just taken off his leg eased the pain considerably. He hadn't been sure of coming here, but in the end he felt the need to put an end to this particular chapter of his life. He didn't want to believe what Hadrian Peverell-Slytherin had told him all those months ago. Yet it continued to eat away at him, plus, with everything else he found out...it made it seem like it was true, including the blood pact that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had made to each other. "I'm fine, the injury is already healing," he hadn't really felt it after the battle, it wasn't until he got to the Ministry that cries of alarm and concern reached his ear that made him realize he was bleeding profusely. They'd had a healer brought up, as he informed them of what had happened, everything after that was sort of blurry, he knew he'd had a conversation with the Minister before he left talking about a conference call with the French Minister for Magic.

"What has happened Newt?" Albus asked, hiding his impatience, he had learned long ago how best to put people at ease, and Newt was easily spooked so he always had to watch and moderate his tone around him. He was as skittish as his beasts he loved so much. He didn't bring up everything the Minister said, or the rumours or anything of the sort, he wanted the truth. Trying to wheedle things out of him would just make this conversation become side-tracked.

Newt reckoned Albus and Gellert had to have been real close to have sworn a pact never to fight one another. It's not something you did between best friends, which left him with only one conclusion to draw out of it all. Lovers. Which wasn't all that uncommon, although there were some Muggle-borns who had a deep seated prejudice against two men together. The purebloods however, didn't so much as blink, although they did prefer their offspring having a wife, at least, to procure a heir, one that was of a union between two wedded parents, so it wasn't a bastard so to speak, a male rarely got pregnant even with the help of the potion, it had happened maybe four or five times since recording begun.

Shaking off his thoughts, pondering on how best to tell Albus what happened...if this had been his lover at one point it would hurt. He couldn't imagine losing Tina, and he wasn't with her, but he did like her a lot. Did he just tell him or did he try and break it delicately? Was there a way to tell him without him being hurt?

"Newt?" Albus asked, his tone becoming softer, a little bit worried by Newts continued silence.

"Grindelwald is dead," Newt explained, not able to meet Dumbledore's eyes, "I...er...have a newspaper?" it would explain in detail what exactly happened better than he would.

Albus closed his eyes, breathing out shakily, so it was true, he'd suspected as much but he'd hoped that it was the Ministry making one last desperate manipulation in order to get him to let up the list of his demands. Its exactly what he would have done to make things go in his favour. Desolation swamped him, barely able to swallow past the lump in his throat.

"Here," the word had Albus opening his eyes, before accepting the newspaper in front of him. bleak desolation thrumming through him, just seeing the headline. Clenching his jaw shut, Albus opened the paper fully and began to read the information in front of him. All the while his heart pounded erratically, eyes popping in disbelief as he stared at one particular sentence, he'd been taken out by a misaimed severing charm? By Tom Riddle? No, no, no, it was no mistake, no misaim, Tom had done this with deliberate moves, everything he did was deliberate, he was going to become the next Dark Lord. His soul was dark already, he was taking his so called friends and Hadrian Peverell down with him. He could do nothing to stop it, he was stuck in Azkaban for a few more years, Merlin help him, what on earth could he do to stop this..."Newt...Newt you cannot trust the Peverell-Slytherins, do you understand me? You cannot trust them," he urged the young man.

"That's funny, Hadrian said the same about you," Newt muttered, but whether Albus was supposed to have heard it or not well, Albus wasn't sure. He didn't want to fight with Albus about this, he was hurting right now.