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I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning-
Harry faded from view as the bright light around Albus turned brighter, too bright to still see. He closed his eyes against the intensity, but the light was so bright that even the inside of his eyelids lit up. The Afterlife had been a curious thing so far. The light dimmed back down and the professor opened his eyes again. He was still in the station, everything still a white-grey blur.
Now that he thought of it, a train station had a certain magic to it. People coming and going. It was a place of leaving, of tearing loved ones apart as they parted ways, but it was also a place of returning, bringing together what had been separated. Harry had left him now, just as he had left the world of the living.
But one day… hopefully very far into the future, there might another train, bringing the boy who lived here, to be reunited with those he lost so long ago. Albus imagined a young Harry, hanging out of a train window, his face amazed as the train rolled up to the platform and he was greeted by all those he lost. His mother, his father, Sirius, Remus, Hedwig, Dobby… maybe even Severus.
It was a nice thought. Dumbledore hummed to himself as he walked down the platform. He felt like he was waiting for something, but didn’t know what. He sighed a little forlorn. His work was done, there was no more scheming to do, no more plans to make.
He was pulled from his reveries when he heard a train whistle. Surprised, he looked up to see a train arriving at the platform he was standing on. The train was a white and grey colour, just like everything else here. The whistle blew once more when the train came to a full stop and the door to the wagon right in front of him opened. A man stepped out.
“I hope I didn’t make you wait too long.”
Gellert. If Albus still had been alive, his heart would probably have skipped a beat.
Smiling softly Albus replied, “Only most of my life.”
It was a younger Gellert. Not the old shrivelled thing he must have been in Numengard. Nor the boy he once met in Godric’s Hollow. It was the Gellert he had once met for tea in the 30’s. Only a more playful, unburdened version of that Gellert. One that was no longer plagued with the destructive want to change and conquer the world. He was dressed in a nice dark grey suit. Albus looked down at himself and saw that his own appearance had changed as well. He too, was now the man he had been in that tea parlour, wearing his own grey suit, a few shades lighter than Gellert’s.
Gellert descended from the steps and walked towards Albus. For a moment he looked sad and regretful, “Whatever may have been, our wait is over now,” then as if a switched had been flipped, he tilted his head and gave Albus a coy little smile, “Tell me… would this be one of your regular haunts?”
Noting both Gellert’s reference to a moment long ago and his little pun on being dead and haunting, Albus laughed. In the same spirit, he replied, “I don’t have any regular haunts.” The mirth was audible in his voice, “Or I don’t have any… yet. I haven’t seemed to have found a place I want to haunt yet.”
With a smirk Gellert stepped closer, “Or maybe you were just waiting for the right person to do your haunting with.”
Feeling flustered, Albus averted his eyes for a second. After all these years, Gellert could still make him feel like that. He bit his lip, pausing, then looked back up. “Maybe I was.”
Gellert's smile widened and he closed the remaining distance between them, Albus met him midway in a heartfelt kiss.
Although they no longer had the need to breathe, they separated after a while, only putting the minimal distance required to talk between them.
Gellert beheld Albus with an affectionate look in his eye, smiling at him when he asked, “I haven’t been here for long, so enlighten me… how does this... thing, the Afterlife I presume, work.”
“I have been here for a while, but I still have no idea. However, we seem to be in a train station…” Albus chuckled.
Just like when they were younger, Gellert finished his thought, “… we could board a train to wherever we want.”
“I do believe we once planned to see the world together," Albus said and gave him a smile that he hadn’t seen since their youth.
“Then why are we still dawdling? We’ve waited long enough. Almost a lifetime I believe,” Gellert grinned and held out his arm.
Full of love, Albus looked at him and took his arm, “An entire lifetime. Let us go then, you and I.”
Gazing at him tenderly Gellert asked, “Where do you want to go first?”
“How about… Venice?” Albus replied, “I’ve always wanted to drift along the canals in a gondola.”
Gellert switched his hold and took Albus’ hand, intertwining their fingers. With an energy and sprightly manner neither of them still used to have in their old age, he jumped back onto the train, pulling Albus along with him.
Stealing another kiss from Albus, he said, “Venice it is.”