#kaheelsi

Albus didn’t know where the tears came from, or even when they had started; his first clue that they were there at all was the drop of moisture which dripped from the end of his long nose to smudge the ink on the old record of Olaf the Oaf’s about the resurrection stone that he and Gellert had being poring over.

  “Albus?” Gridelwald’s voice questioned anxiously. Blonde, rich, popular… Albus didn’t think Gellert had seen many tears in his short life time. It didn’t matter though, Albus had seen enough for both of them.

  “Albus, what’s wrong?” Gellert asked again. Albus finally raised his head in time with an enormous sniff which only succeeded in releasing more tears. Surely there was a spell to keep one’s nose permanently clear, and if not, he definitely needed to invent one. Albus stored this musing away for a later, more convienent date, preferably on an occasion when he wasn’t blubbering like a baby in front of his best friend. Speaking of….

  “Albus, this isn’t funny. Honestly, what is wrong?” Gellert’s voice had rose in tandem with his level of anxiety and Albus was pretty sure if he got any louder the entire town would be knocking on the door, wondering where the fire was.

  Albus sniffed a final time before he opened his mouth… and promptly shut it again. He shook his head furiously and quickly wiped his cheeks with the backs of his long-fingered hands.

  “Today is the anniversary of… of… of, well, what happened to my sister,” he finally gasped out the words that he hadn’t even realised had been plaguing him all day.

  Grindelwald didn’t answer. He simply wrapped his arm around Albus and pulled his head to his shoulder. Albus shuddered as the tear, now sobs actually, wracked his body. It had been so long since he had been held, so long since someone had been his literal shoulder to cry on. Since his mother died, perhaps even since his father was sent to Azkaban, he had acted as the strong one, the unbreakable, the man of steel, if you would. But he wasn’t really, and it was days such as these, the day Ariana had been hurt, the day his father was arrested, the day his mother died… Too much tragedy can damage anyone, and Merlin, sometimes you just need a good cry.

  Albus had no idea how long he hand been sobbing for, but he was quite certain that he must have looked like death warmed over when he finally pulled away from Gellert to look him in the eye. Indeed, his eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were streaky, his auburn hair was woefully dishevelled, and his nose was a colour bordering on puce. But you wouldn’t think it if you saw the way Grindelwald was looking at him. Albus turned mauve under his gaze, and finally broke it to examine the extraordinarily interesting piece of lint on his cloak.

  “Albus, look at me,” Grindelwald said softly, but he didn’t exactly give Albus a choice, as he hooked a tanned finger under his chin and rose his face to scrutinise it closely, “Albus, I cannot pretend to understand what you must be going through today. I may be intelligent, but even I cannot read minds.” At that Albus chuckled, unable to help himself.

  “But Al, I can tell you this: happiness can be found, in even the darkest of times, if only one remembers to urn on the light.”

  Albus laughed, and informed Grindelwald that he would be sure to write that down: it would sound excellent in speeches. Gellert had joked with him, and, rather unfortunately, of course, somehow managed to distract him with a game of I’ll-let-you-taste-my-saliva-if-you-let-me-taste-yours to the point that Albus completely forgot to write down the words he said.

  However, he didn’t forget the words themselves, and years down the line, no matter how evil Grindelwald became, how cruel, how violent, how different, Albus never forgot. He didn’t want to, for how better to remember his ex lover than as a man who inspired happiness in him at perhaps the darkest point of his life(as opposed to the evil maniac he had been forced to hunt down and duel), by simply making him laugh again (and kissing him senseless, naturally).