The Bath

Gellert Grindelwald woke that morning with the most stupendous, amazing, unflappably brilliant idea yet and felt the urgent need to tell Albus, his new best friend of exactly one month to the day, forthwith. He had attempted owling, their usual means of immediate communication, but the owl had returned with the letter unopened. Perhaps Albus was too groggy to open the window, Gellert wondered. Gellert had a habit of leaving his window open at night for just such an occurrence, obviously Albus did not share the same foresight (or did not have the obsessive need for instant gratification.) The active, ambitious mind of (the soon to be great) Gellert Grindelwald could not abide waiting, as patience was a virtue he decidedly lacked. After moment of indecision, he decided to nip over the the Dumbledore household in person to wake the sleepy sod up and tell him in person. Luckily the house was only a few doors down.

Straightening his waistcoat and hair one last time (for the next thirty minutes), Gellert dashed out and was soon knocking on Albus' front door. He stood there, on the front step, rocking back and forth on his heels, when finally the door cracked open and a head poked through. Unfortunately for Grindelwald it was Aberforth, "What do you want?"

For some reason yet unknown to Gellert, Albus' younger brother had never really seemed to like him, "I really must speak to your brother," Gellert said impatiently as he attempted to peer around Aberforth into the darkened house.

"Well, sorry to disappoint, but he's in the bath," was the somewhat acidic reply, and with that Aberforth began to shut the door.

Quickly grabbing it, Gellert cut in, "That's really not a problem… I could come in and wait—"

It had quickly developed into a tug of war, Aberforth pulling the door closed, Gellert pulling it open.

"No—"

"Or better yet, speak to him through the door!"

"I don't think so."

"Oh no, I'm sure Albus wouldn't mind."

"Well, I'm sure he'd rather would!"

Both of their words had become a bit strained with effort of pulling.

"When it comes to what I have to say it won't be a problem!" and with that Gellert yanked the door open, being older and just a touch stronger, and quickly darted inside before Aberforth could close it up.

"Hey!" Aberforth shouted, "Get back here!"

But Gellert had already shot up the stairs like a bullet and was searching for a door that could possibly lead to the bathroom. Perhaps the one with the steam seeping out….

"Albus?"

"Gellert?! What are you doing here, I'm in the bath!"

"Sorry, I just had the most amazing idea that simply could not wait!"

"Well," said Albus, a bit weary, "what is it?"

Gellert began explaining his idea, speaking quite rapidly and throwing in some German every now and again, as he was wont to do when he was excited (or drunk). However, his lengthy oration was soon interrupted, "Gellert… Gellert! I really have no idea what you are saying, my dear fellow. It's all gotten muffled through the door."

"Oh," he did some quick thinking, "may I come in?"

"In?" the question seemed to catch Albus by surprise, "Oh… well… I suppose—"

At the mere hint of assent Gellert flung the door open and stepped in. He was greeted with quite a sight. Albus was neck deep in the lion-footed tub, his knobby knees just poking out; but, what was most remarkable was the large pink bubbles completely covering the surface of the water, some were even floating in the air. Gellert wasn't quite expecting that.

"For goodness sake Gellert, close the door! You're letting the cold air in!"

After promptly shutting the door Gellert pulled up a stool and once again began expounding his marvelous idea, which fine tuned the take over of the world, muggle and magical, with Albus making the occasional noise of assent, or clearing up a foggy point with a well phrased question. After a fair amount of time, however, Albus interrupted completely, (something Gellert could get quite touchy about), "Gellert… could you step out for a moment?"

"Why?!" he asked, a little affronted.

"I do believe if I stay in here a minute longer I will become prune," Albus held up his hands to demonstrate.

His fingertips were indeed quite wrinkled.

"Oh! all right," Gellert ducked out, slightly shame faced.

Later that day, after Gellert had returned home for dinner with his great aunt, Aberforth couldn't help but comment, "That was a bit long, for a bath, Albus. I wonder why that could be?"

"Humph," Albus returned indignantly, "You'll understand when you're older. Some conversations are more important."

Aberforth rolled his eyes and mutter under his breath, "For someone so supposedly brilliant, you sure are thick sometimes."

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing."

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German, because I was debating about it, and since I don't know if it was ever really said exactly where he was from. I mean, his last name is apparently a town in Switzerland, but his first name is apparently Hungarian, and this is according to internet sources, which are notoriously misleading. So I decided German was the simplest and safest bet, for now.

A short story that's been floating about my head for some time now. I was thinking about writing a longer story about these two, but I'm notoriously bad at following through on long projects, so I thought I'd write this (I hope) humorous one shot. I also hope haven't completely lost my meager touch for writing.

If that last bit was a bit too strange (I think strangly sometimes), I'll explain my sometimes odd sense of humor, just in case: what Aberforth is to "understand" when he's older is having a conversation so pressing you'll talk over it in the tub. Aberforth understands other implications of extended tub time, and thus feels the need to label Albus as thick, at least about innuendo.