_____It was the year the U-Bahn began riding muggles back and forth around Berlin. The day had begun promising sunshine, but near evening, the sky peppered with grey clouds. Rain followed shortly. The man held his umbrella steady despite the water resistant spell he’d casted on himself. He had to keep appearances.

_____As night invaded the sky, pushing the light out, different people slipped in and out of the bar in such a casual manner, as if the visit to "Der Blaue Löffel” (The Blue Spoon) were part of their daily routines. Maybe it was. The man waited, though, for a particular someone to duck into the bar. It seemed like hours had passed by when finally, the honey-colored haired man headed inside.

_____The man tipped the potion he had clutched in his hand up, letting the liquid burn its way down his throat. He kept his composure as his features changed and morphed into someone else: a muggle, a meaningless, faceless muggle to the man, whom he had left behind in some alley after extracting some hair from the man’s head. The man had heard the name “Oskar Rothko,” on the walk here, and so the man would go by Oskar for the night.

_____The lights were dim inside the well kept bar, and he thought the place seemed clean. He saw Gellert leaning casually against the bar ordering a water without the lemon on the side. What a hidden jewel this place was! A wizard’s bar so openly in muggle Berlin, but it was rare an actual muggle wandered inside. The people who came in and out were so dodgy, said the muggle folk around the place. It was the kind of place Gellert would love.

_____“No, just water tonight—I’m fine, I swear!” Gellert said in his best German.

_____“Well, you just make sure you keep spending your money, or I’ll have to throw you out, boy.” The barkeep smirked leeringly at Gellert and turned to tend to other people’s drinks after sliding the glass of water over the bar.

_____The man stared at Gellert for a while before Gellert ever took notice. The way the light touched Gellert’s hair never ceased to amaze and delight the man; even in the dimness of the Blue Spoon, the man could see the shiny strands that Gellert kept up so well. His own hair, when he was not disguised as a muggle, was straw-like, reddish tinted. There was nothing he liked in his own appearance, but Gellert was everything handsome to him.

_____They shared a gaze, and Gellert quickly looked away, his cheeks turning red.

_____Three shared glances later, Gellert approached him, introduced himself, and smiled with the ease that came with confidence, such confidence that the man knew Gellert had always possessed, the confidence that had attracted the man to Gellert: the way he spoke, the way he held himself was all…desirable. Admirable. He never felt envious of Gellert for those things. It was more the other man’s skill that the man envied.

_____“Do you speak German?” Gellert asked, in German.

_____The man nodded. “Broken.”

_____“What other languages do you know?”

_____The man did not want to give away his identity. So, he lied. “French.” The man whose identity he had stolen was clearly German, but one never knew these days. The intermingling of ethnicities, both within the muggle and the wizarding world, was astounding.

_____“Ah. I don’t know French, I’m sorry. What is your name?”

_____“Oskar.” The man ordered a glass of water, too, but with the lemon. He liked the taste of lemon in general.

_____“I see you come to a bar to drink water as well!” Gellert laughed heartily, putting his hand atop the man’s hand.

_____“I enjoy Berlin’s water,” he quickly said, relishing the feeling of Gellert’s touch. “I do not think we should waste time on pleasantries, Gellert.” The man began to smirk, and the two shared another look.

_____They spent another twenty minutes chatting before they slipped off into the night, holding hands.

_____The next morning, the man eyed the flask in which he had kept the Polyjuice Potion. Albus capped it, pushed it further into his backpack, and tucked in the edges of the hotel’s comforter around Gellert. The potion had lasted as long as he had let Gellert stay awake; eventually, though, a strong sleeping potion had been needed to keep Gellert from seeing his true identity. It had been a pain to keep it up, every hour, anyways.

_____It had taken a long time to find Gellert. Unanswered letters had been too much for Albus to handle; he needed to wrap up this chapter of his life. With his sister gone and his brother not speaking to him, he needed to get this out. And since the life he had imagined himself with Gellert had been so unceremoniously thrown in his face on that fateful day, the day that Ariana had passed, he needed this. At least, he had convinced himself he needed this.

_____“I finally got you, you know,” he whispered. “And you’ll never know it was me.” Without another word, Albus Dumbledore left Gellert Grindelwold.

_____He would die without ever revealing this night to Gellert.