Dumbledore/Grindelwald (Dumblewald? Grindeldore?) prompted by castiel47

Prompt: Harry is nosy, looking through Dumbledore's memories, and sees him with Grindelwald. Young Dumbledore/Grindelwald.

Author's Note: This is the first non-drarry I've posted on here, so PLEASE BE GENTLE WITH ME. It's a new writing experience... in which I sort of channeled Drarry anyways... LOL. I cheated. Shh.

Also, since this is a prompt, I cannot promise that all or any of the information in this story is canon. Seriously though. It's been a while.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or any of their sneaky, secretive ways.

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"Professor?"

Harry peered into the Headmaster's office, frowning—Dumbledore had sent an owl asking Harry to meet him in his office after supper, and Harry had come right away after saying goodbye to Ron and Hermione. The man had insisted that it was urgent; Harry figured it had something to do with You-Know-Who… Harry shuddered as he thought of the last time that Dumbledore had called him into his office for these matters: it had resulted in the previous year's Occlumency lessons with Snape. Gods, that had been terrible… But if this case was similar to that, where was the urgency? Still frowning, Harry went inside, letting the door swivel shut behind him.

"Hello? Professor Dumbledore?" he called out.

It was so quiet. Harry was far too aware of his own footsteps as he walked further into the darkened room; the bottom of his trainers slapping the tiled ground with loud, sharp echoes. He canvassed the area and shook his head. Seriously, where was the Headmaster? It wasn't like him to be late. In fact, Dumbledore was one of the most meticulous, precise men that Harry had ever known in all of his sixteen years of life, and the Headmaster would most definitely frown upon even the slightest bit of tardiness. Harry shook his head again. The man must be getting old.

After a few more minutes of meandering around the office, Harry shrugged and plopped down into his usual chair, glancing around. Merlin, it was awfully dark in here… The curtains were all drawn—even the portraits were mysteriously missing from their typical perches. Not even one soul, living or dead… Harry realised that he was completely alone. Well, bollocks. He should have just gone up to Gryffindor Tower for a bit to wait; this was ridiculous. It was just as well.

Before he could ponder the idea any longer, however, his wandering eye caught on a sole light source—the slight, dim glow of Dumbledore's personal Pensieve. Hm. Harry peered at it and knitted his brows together. He had only seen a Pensieve once or twice before, and with his previous experiences with memory watching (again, Occlumency with Snape…), he hadn't ever had the desire to tamper with one. However… Harry looked to his left, then to his right. Dumbledore was nowhere to be found, and Harry was starting to get restless. Honestly, he could be playing chess with Ron right about now in the Common Room—it couldn't hurt to kill a bit of time, right? He might as well explore it.

Harry stood up from his seat now and strode over to the Pensieve, hovering over the large bowl and peering inside. At first, he could only see his own reflection; slightly blurry and with a ghostly blue tinge, but then Harry recognised the tiny swirls in the liquid: Dumbledore's memories. Inquisitive, he stuck a finger into the liquid and gasped at the coolness of a sliver of memory slipping past his skin—these memories must be rather old, considering… Hm…

Harry glanced around again. Dumbledore was still absent, and now he was more than ten minutes late. Of course, it would only take a moment for Harry to dive in and take a quick peek… But would it be right to pry into Dumbledore's private memories? Harry bit his lip and continued to hover over the bowl, conflicted. It seemed wrong. It was wrong. But honestly, it was as if the man had wanted Harry to look into the Pensieve—he'd left his office open for Harry, with the Pensieve sitting there like a heavenly beacon in the dark, just begging to be noticed…

Harry nodded a bit to himself. Well, when he figured it like that, it made sense. Sort of. He took a deep breath and lowered his face a bit. It might be interesting to see what the great mind of Albus Dumbledore really held… Right?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Harry quickly dunk his face into the Pensieve. The blue liquid began to swirl and bubble around him, and he was suddenly falling, falling deeper and deeper into the Pensieve, away from Dumbledore's office and towards somewhere currently unknown. Harry's stomach dropped, but he had nothing to hold onto—gods, this was actually terrifying!

His heart beat faster and faster as he descended down; a clear blue sky and green grass and tiny houses now coming into view below him. Harry started violently, yelping as he headed towards his imminent doom: the cement street. Who knew that all it would take to destroy Harry Potter was a big, grey slab of concrete? He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact, but curiously, it never came. Confused, Harry opened his eyes—he was now standing upright, slouched against a nearby tree overlooking a few park benches. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked around. Where was he?

A pack of kids ran into him, almost grazing him over, and he turned to shout at them: until he realised that they were literally running into him. He gaped, inspecting his hands and feet with bewilderment. He was transparent to them! Invisible, even, and apparently as silent as air… like he didn't exist at all in their worlds. Harry frowned. Oh. Well, he supposed he didn't. This was a memory, after all.

Harry looked around again. It was a pleasant place, but where was Dumbledore? He strained his ears to listen. The chattering of the kids had faded, but now, he could hear voices drifting nearby… Harry peered around the tree once more to find two teenage boys loitering on the previously empty benches. Harry frowned and inched in a bit before realising that they couldn't see him; he strode over there with ease after he remembered. The boys were sitting side by side—so closely that their thighs were touching—and talking in hushed whispers. One boy was slightly bigger than the other: he seemed taller, and his sandy blond hair just brushed the tips of his eyebrows, which moved up and down animatedly whenever he spoke. The other was slimmer and sat with quiet regality, nodding when his companion said something and appearing to listen with rapt attention—his blue eyes had just widened at some notion from the other. Harry walked nearer still to hear it.

"It'll be great, Al, just think of it!" the taller boy exclaimed. "You and me, seeing the world come together by our hands, under our brilliant command, on our terms."

Al? Harry gasped. The smaller boy was Dumbledore! This was obviously a memory of the great wizard when the man was only a teen… Harry inspected the auburn-haired bloke sitting in front of him—Dumbledore seemed only a year or two older than Harry currently was himself. But why was this memory significant enough to keep in a Pensieve? And who was this other boy?

"I don't know, Gellert," young Dumbledore said, quite a bit more unsure than Harry had ever heard him say anything before. "It seems rather… risky."

Gellert. Gellert Grindelwald? Harry frowned. The name had just popped into his head automatically; he had no idea why. Why did it sound familiar? It seemed like something that Hermione might have mentioned to him once before, perhaps in an attempt to study, but Harry wasn't prone to listening then…

"Risk is the fun part," Grindelwald declared, shooting his friend a winning smile. "Besides, do you honestly believe that there is anything that we cannot do together? We're unstoppable. We're the most intelligent beings alive!"

Young Dumbledore chuckled. "Now you're just acting full of yourself," he quipped.

"And of you," Grindelwald countered, bumping into him playfully. Young Dumbledore blushed a bit at the gesture. Harry stared at him in wonder. He'd never seen his Headmaster act like that before. It was almost… giddy.

"Come on, Al. Albus. Allie-boy," Grindelwald pleaded in a singsong tone, causing the other boy to redden even more. "You know you want to."

"You're impossible," young Dumbledore mumbled, clearly unwilling to speak of it any longer. "I have no idea why I call you my best friend."

Grindelwald laughed easily. "Use your brain, Albus, you're good at that," he teased, getting up and holding a hand out for young Dumbledore to take. The other boy took it. "There must be some fantastic reason for a prat like you to befriend an Adonis like me."

Young Dumbledore let his friend help him stand before fake-scowling at him. "It certainly wasn't because of your modesty," he retorted.

"Well then, it must've been for my charming ways and devastatingly good looks." The blond smirked, and then tugged on his friend's hand. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Harry had to jog to keep up with the two boys as they ran over the park hill, past the playing children and towards a neighbourhood filled with small, pleasant cottages. As they ran by the street opening, Harry read the sign: Godric's Hollow. The name sent shivers down his spine for no reason apparent to him. He kept running.

Grindelwald and young Dumbledore paused at one of the houses, and Grindelwald turned and ran into the alleyway between two of them, tugging his friend along. Harry followed them there and almost collapsed on the ground, exhausted from the sprint. What were they doing here? As soon as the boys skidded to a stop, Grindelwald shoved young Dumbledore up against the side of one house, pinning him to it. Harry was about to gawk with concern, his protective instincts spiking immediately, but Grindelwald only chuckled a bit and took a huge breath, still panting hard from the journey.

"Honey, I'm home," he murmured, licking his lips and shooting young Dumbledore a devilish smile.

Young Dumbledore was blushing even harder than before, and it didn't seem completely a result from the run there. He shook his hair from his eyes and gulped. "Hey, Gel, what are you doing?" he asked, squirming a bit under the other boy's hold. "If my brother catches us out here, he'll alert the authorities again. And your aunt…"

Grindelwald snorted. "We were careless then," he breathed. "Now… we're not. Besides, last time we were just testing out some old, banished spells. And now, again… we're not."

Young Dumbledore bit his lip; his eyes flickering down his friend's smirking face, and Harry was surprised to find a bit of desire flashing in those friendly blue eyes that he was used to seeing gaze at him so fondly… It had never been that fondly. Young Dumbledore took a large breath. "What then, are you planning now?" he asked.

Grindelwald smiled again. "You and me, Al," he repeated from earlier, getting dangerously close to Harry's destined mentor. "We're going to be something great together—a force to be reckoned with. These Muggles, well, they aren't like us. We shouldn't be mixing them with our kind, our pure, brilliant kind—and Al, we're going to make the world pure again. We're going to make it our world."

Wait. Grindelwald was a pureblood supporter… Harry gaped at the two boys now, shaking his head and backing up until his hands scraped against the side of the other house. Oh gods, Harry remembered the name now! How could he have forgotten? Gellert Grindelwald had been the Dark wizard responsible for the brutal deaths of Muggles and other wizards alike—the man had taken over countless European countries; Hermione had quizzed Harry on it just last month, and she had said that he was the equivalent of an earlier Voldemort… oh gods—Harry stared at Grindelwald and young Dumbledore still mashed together on the other end of the alleyway. Sweet Merlin. Dumbledore had been his best friend.

Young Dumbledore frowned a bit. "I'm not quite certain that you're thinking straight. It's obvious that we cannot coerce anyone or anything without someone getting hurt. It's wrong."

Grindelwald pressed closer to the other boy. "It's not wrong if it's their rightful places," he pointed out. "And we will not have to use coercion. We're intelligent enough, strong enough… Muggles should be serving us. We are the superior blood. We could destroy them, or we could control them—and honestly, I'd say we'd be doing the world a favour either way. For the greater good."

Young Dumbledore seemed hesitant. "But Gel—"

Grindelwald interrupted him, smiling that winning smile again. He tilted his head and moved in further still, his face so close to the other boy's that they were almost bumping noses. Harry sucked in a breath and grimaced; it was highly uncomfortable watching his Headmaster become so obviously infatuated with the soon-to-be evil wizard—he was so blind, so trusting, so… not the Dumbledore that Harry knew.

The blond licked his lips for the second time. "Shh," he whispered. "You don't have to decide right now… but think of it, Al. You and me."

Without warning, Grindelwald lurched forward, pressing his lips against the other boy's, kissing him roughly and pushing him back into the wall as he did. Young Dumbledore made a gasping noise, and then another kind of noise that Harry had never wished to hear in his entire life. Oh! Harry yelped and stumbled to the floor, scrambling. For Merlin's sake, that was his professor—his wise, kindly, old professor—getting literally plundered silly by another bloke's mouth. Harry shriveled and covered his eyes. Oh gods, no!

After a few minutes, the smacking noises stopped. Harry peeked out from his fingers; the two had paused and were now staring at each other: Grindelwald with quiet calm, and young Dumbledore with euphoric shock. It was clear that the boys had never done that before.

"Gellert…" young Dumbledore whispered. "Why did you…?"

Grindelwald smiled carefully. "Don't you want this, Albus?" he asked. "Don't you want me?"

Young Dumbledore seemed to inspect him once more, and then he nodded, almost dumbly. Then Harry was surprised to see a grin bloom on his face, a grin not unlike the one he'd just seen on Grindelwald's moments before. It looked like power, like dominance. Harry could hardly believe that this young, confident, naïve boy would later become the great Albus Dumbledore… and Harry's own greatest idol. It sort of felt like betrayal.

Now young Dumbledore was leaning in for another kiss, but Grindelwald held back a bit, teasing. The blond laughed when his friend pouted. "So what do you say, Al?" Grindelwald asked, still grinning. "Are you with me?"

The smaller boy paused for a moment, and then looked up into his friend's eyes. "For the greater good?" he asked.

Grindelwald's grin grew in a way that made Harry uncomfortable. Of course, to young Dumbledore, it looked like reassurance, but to Harry… it was pure evil. Grindelwald came forward and crushed another bruising kiss onto young Dumbledore's lips before speaking again; the grin had been replaced with a prideful gaze.

"Yes," Grindelwald affirmed. "For the greater good."

Before Harry could balk, the alleyway began to spin and he found himself flying again, hints of liquid blue flashing before his eyes as he soared farther and farther away from the two boys pressed up against each other in the alley between the two houses. "No!" Harry screamed into the air, his hand reaching out towards young Dumbledore, whose face was shining with faith and ease as he gazed up at Grindelwald. "Don't listen to him!"

It was gone. Harry was catapulted out of the swirling blue, and suddenly he was tripping backwards into Dumbledore's office, panting. He fell back onto the edge of the large desk, shaking a bit and still out of breath from shouting so hard. It didn't seem real. How could Dumbledore have been so innocent, so youthfully susceptible? What had it been about Gellert Grindelwald that had captivated Dumbledore that way? How had Dumbledore escaped it?

Harry rubbed his forehead and glanced around, blinking rapidly as he observed the familiar surroundings of the office. At least he was back where he was comfortable with things—the red velvet chairs, the bookshelves lined with novels of all sorts, the portraits hanging on the wall, staring at him…

Wait.

Harry's head snapped to the left. The lights were on! And Dumbledore… Dumbledore was… Well, where was he?

"Good evening, Harry," Dumbledore said loudly, from the right corner of the room. What the—Harry almost fell backwards again. Instead, he whirled around and gaped at the man. Dumbledore was clipping leaves from the plants on the window ledge. "I must apologise for my lapse of punctuality," he went on. "The staff post-dinner meeting ran a bit later tonight."

Harry continued to stare at the Headmaster. Had he seen…?

"Remarkable, isn't it?" Dumbledore said now, putting down his clippers and admiring the plant he was currently tending. "How a mere bud can grow into a blossoming flower. With the proper nurture, of course."

"Sir?" Harry asked nervously.

Dumbledore looked at him and smiled. "My boy, it is not fitting for a young man like yourself to gawk like that, at least, not in the presence of an elder."

Harry shut his mouth. "Sorry, sir," he muttered. Well, it seemed that he had miraculously dodged a Bludger on that one. Phew.

"And Harry," Dumbledore continued. "It is also not fitting for a young man like yourself to nose around in other people's personal Pensieves."

Harry felt himself go hot. "Oh gods, Professor, I'm so sorry," he blurted. "I didn't—I didn't mean—"

The man didn't flinch, nor did he seem angry. "Which one was it?" Dumbledore asked simply, turning and striding towards Harry now.

"Sorry?"

Dumbledore sat down at his desk. "Which memory did you watch, Harry?"

Harry backed up a little and moved towards his usual chair to sit down. "I… I kind of… It was random," he muttered. "You were young, not much older than me. You were with a… friend."

Dumbledore's pleasant countenance did not change. "A friend?"

"…Yeah. In a park, mostly. And then an alleyway of some sort… A place called Godric's Hollow."

"Harry." Dumbledore placed his hands on his desk and leaned forward, looking serious now. "I want you to understand that it was a long, long time ago. I do hope that you will not think differently of me because of what you saw."

Harry squirmed. Right. After seeing what he'd seen, he was probably going to try to block the whole thing from his mind—perhaps Occlumency lessons weren't such a bad idea, after all... "I won't," he assured.

Dumbledore smiled again. "Good. Now if you will, I would like to discuss…"

"Wait." Harry bit his lip. "I just want to know one thing. About the memory."

"What is it, dear boy?"

"How did it…? I mean, when did you realise that it was wrong?"

Dumbledore sighed and looked off towards the window. "There is a time in your life, Harry, when you believe that the world is yours," he remarked. "You are young, strong, intelligent—invincible. You have everything." He paused. "But there is also another time in your life, a time that will show you that you cannot own the world, and if you try, you will lose everything."

Dumbledore's old face crinkled a bit. "The memory you saw… that was the first time. I do admit that I was rather foolish then. Gellert had a way with words that I simply could not resist. I had believed that we were unstoppable together."

Harry remembered quite well. He shook his head. "So how did you stop?" he asked.

"I… had to realise that I was flawed," Dumbledore confessed. "At some point, if we want to live our lives properly, we all have to realise it… and for some, it takes a higher toll. Sometimes, I still catch myself. Unfortunately, Gellert Grindelwald never did."

Harry was quiet for a moment. "But he was your best friend," he pointed out. "Didn't you try to reform him?"

Dumbledore glanced back at him now. "I didn't get the chance," he answered, a strange look forming on his face. "By the time I had my realisation, it was much too late for us."

"Too late?" Harry asked, frowning. "Even for a friend?"

Dumbledore nodded. "You will learn, Harry, that friendship isn't always black and white," he said. "Sometimes... it is rose-tinted." He smiled a little at the thought. "You know, he had told me that it was all for—"

"The greater good," Harry finished quietly. "I know."

"Then you should also know that he truly believed it," Dumbledore said. "To this day, I fear that my greatest mistake was letting him."

Harry shook his head. "He was your best friend," he restated, thinking now of Ron and Hermione and Ginny and all of his friends. "It should have counted for something."

"It did," Dumbledore said gently. "I loved him."

Harry bit his lip and smiled, despite himself. "I understand, sir."

Dumbledore looked towards the window again, leaning back into his chair comfortably. He looked a fair bit more vulnerable and lost than Harry had ever seen him before, and for the first time in a long time, Harry could see just how battered Dumbledore really was—in age, in mind, in heart. It was rather sad; the toll Grindelwald had taken on the Headmaster, the burden that would forever live in his memories.

"I apologise, Harry, but I do believe that I must reschedule this meeting," Dumbledore murmured now, pulling Harry from his thoughts. Harry nodded and stood.

"I'll come back tomorrow," he promised, stepping away. The old Headmaster was gazing off a bit again, a sort of melancholy look in his eyes. "And I'm really sorry for prying," Harry added.

Dumbledore waved him off a bit. "Oh, do not be," he said. "I have too many secrets as it is. I rather fancy the idea of getting into the habit of letting them go."

Harry nodded again. "Goodbye, Professor."

He began to walk towards the exit with thoughts of park benches and running children and street signs and alleyways whirling through his mind. It was mental how different things were back then, and yet, how similar. Because Harry could be making the same mistakes that Dumbledore had made as a young man right now, and he wouldn't even know it. Not until much later, that is.

Just before he stepped into the swiveling door, Harry turned around and looked back again. Dumbledore was standing now, hovering over the open Pensieve, staring down into the blue liquid with an unreadable expression. Harry shook his head and stepped around the revolving statue; he could just imagine what was flashing through the old man's mind at that instant—Gellert Grindelwald in all of his youthful prime, the glint of his eyes, the straw-colour of his hair, the loudness of his laugh, the warmth of his touch, the feel of his lips... Except now, the Dumbledore staring back at those things was not gullible or naïve or young anymore. He was battered. But... he was also stronger because of it.

That was the last glimpse Harry saw before the revolving door swept him out again.