Confession

That week passed by in a painful flurry. I planned my mother’s funeral, put her things in order, and made sure our father’s inheritance had been passed on to us. I came to terms with not going with Elphias, though he sent me his first excited letter, detailing the south of France and all the pretty girls he’d met. It took me somewhat longer to come to terms with my mother’s death.

And, though it is terrible to say it, it took me considerably longer to be reconciled with what looked like my future.

As you know, I was top in my class from the moment I set foot in Hogwarts. Only a handful of students have ever come as close as I did on my O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, and I had invented a fair number of spells before I graduated. I was corresponding with the foremost minds of the time, and I had been constantly told that I was headed for greatness.

So there I was. Albus Dumbledore, the somewhat bigheaded genius, was not going to enter the Ministry, or begin a teaching position at Hogwarts. He was going to stay home and take care of his terminally ill sister, and hope that the inheritance money would not run out.

My brother reacted as he always had, by withdrawing into himself and spending as much time as possible with the goats we kept.

And Ariana, of course, would not have noticed anything wrong if our house had burst into flames of its own accord.

The funeral was a remarkably quick ordeal. Aberforth and I stood solemnly as some yahoo from the Ministry spoke about my mother’s life, and then the small funeral party went to Bathilda’s home for a luncheon that tasted like dust to me. I noticed Aberforth slip off halfway through the entirely tiresome party.

Another week passed. I fell into a somewhat depressing regime. I would rise at nine, find Aberforth making breakfast, eat, ask if Aberforth needed any help feeding Ariana, (he never did) then retreat to my room to read until lunch , after which I would catch up on my correspondence, which had grown considerably over the past year. Then, I would go through my mother’s things and sort out what could be thrown away and what needed to go into storage. After dinner (all our meals were provided by Aberforth, who has always seemed to be a lovely cook, if a bit too much on the limited bar food variety.) I would go for a walk through our neighborhood, sometimes stopping by Bathilda’s.

I do hate to hurry it on like this, but then, this is the entire point to my story.

It was two weeks to the day after the incident when I rang Bathilda’s bell. The sun was just setting on yet another beautiful summer day when, after a moment, the door opened.

There stood perfection.

I am not an overly romantic man, no matter my thoughts on the essence of love. However, seeing Gellert there, his golden hair illuminated by the red sunset was a turning point in my life, and I knew it.

The moment passed, as all moments do, but Gellert was still stunning.

Ah, yes. Perhaps I should explain this. My tale does not exactly hinge on this detail, but it is a rather useful thing to know.

I came to realize that I was attracted to men slowly. At first, it was only confusion that I did not seem to go after the girls as my peers did, though they did in fact come after me. I was about fourteen when I truly figured it out for myself. While it is not exactly frowned upon in the Wizarding world, I still did not feel entirely comfortable with my newfound proclivities, and kept it to myself until Elphias, (to whom, I am sorry to say, I have never found an ounce of attraction) tired of my excuses of never having a date to Hogsmead weekends and therefore tagging along when he wanted quite clearly to be alone with a series of girls, confronted me about it.

My experiences with men had therefore been slim. I was rather timid about the whole thing, and I had never gotten beyond a feverish snog when I was sixteen with a Ravenclaw boy a year older than me.

So you can see what Gellert did to me, answering the door with his shirt casually rumpled and untucked, his long blond hair tied at his neck, and the shadow of a beard growing on his face.

For a very long moment, we stood there, simply staring at each other, all pretenses of awkwardness abandoned.

I was shocked out of my reverie by Bathilda coming to the door, saying in her motherly way, “Who is it, Gellert dear? Oh, Albus! I was so hoping you would drop by this evening! This is Gellert Grindlewald, my nephew from the continent. Gellert, this fine young man is Albus Dumbledore; he lives just down the bend…”

Gellert reached out to shake my hand, and I lost track of Bathilda’s words. His hand was soft and slim, but strong, and I was sweating before he took his hand away.

“Lovely to meet you,” he said, in perfect English but with a strong German accent.

Merlin. I’d forgotten about that accent…

At any rate, I found myself in Bathilda’s sitting room, a cup of tea forgotten by my side as I talked animatedly with Gellert.

You see, the trouble was that he wasn’t just another pretty face.