She didn't mean to read his mind.
Genuinely, she didn't mean to do it. She awoke in his bed, curled up beside him, and she felt the press of his thoughts, swirling in four different languages, pushing against her head. Queenie shut her eyes and tried to ignore what he was thinking in his sleep, but then a vivid dream burst forth and played out like one of the No-Maj silent films that Jacob had taken her to see.
'Gellert.'
A handsome young wizard threaded his arms around the pale, blond Gellert Grindelwald, who put his hands on the boy's waist and murmured softly,
'Albus.'
They kissed then, a long kiss that seemed deep and true, seemed to go on forever until the boy called Albus worked his fingers into Gellert's hair and groaned softly.
Queenie gasped as the dream dissolved in Grindelwald's mind. His eyes slowly blinked open, and she could tell the instant that he turned his face toward her that he knew. He knew she'd watched him dream. She whispered frantically,
"I didn't mean to. It was pushing against my mind."
He sighed, and she felt his Occlumency shields jam up against her. He reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and he said rather wistfully,
"That was a very long time ago."
"You seemed very passionate with him," Queenie noted, but Grindelwald shook his head and insisted,
"Things were very one-sided between Albus and me."
Queenie picked at the blanket and sighed, her mind swirling with questions. She finally plucked up the courage to ask,
"What is it like? Two guys together?"
"Very different from two witches together," he smirked, and Queenie wanted to sock him with a pillow. Instead she giggled and asked more seriously,
"Which do you like better, though? Guys or girls?"
"Well, they're very different. It's impossible to compare the experiences." Grindelwald put his hands behind his head, making his arms look lean and sinewy, and Queenie gulped. Grindelwald seemed a bit cocky then as he declared, "Humans come in all sorts of flavours, Queenie. I like yours best of all."
She blushed at that and shook her head a little, sitting up straighter and staring down at where he lay.
"After everything you've done, I must be very dull."
"On the contrary, my dear," he said, dragging his knuckles over her arm. "You are positively delicious."
He just touched her for a moment, making her shiver, and for a while she considered that perhaps all the attention he'd been giving her was just because he thought she was pretty. Lots of boys had thought she was pretty in her life. Maybe this wasn't any different. But then he murmured, staring at his own fingers,
"Even that kiss with Albus was just... means to an end. Touching people, sex, Queenie, has always been means to an end. Satisfaction. Payoff. But I was not lying when I let you into my mind and showed you my truth. The truth about you. About this."
It has never been anything like this, his thoughts had projected at her, and now Queenie's eyes burned as she stared at his serious face. He flicked his eyes up to her - his pale eye and his dark one - and he mumbled aloud,
"It has never been anything like this."
"Oh." Queenie slithered to lie down beside him, worming her way beneath the blankets, and she faced him as she pulled the blanket up around them. She stared at his face then, and she marveled,
"Soon enough you're going to be in charge of a whole new world."
"I want you with me, Queenie." Grindelwald reached for her face. "Not just as my Legilimens. Not just as a servant or a soldier. You understand, don't you?"
Queenie rolled until she was on top of him, and he grunted as she lined up their naked bodies. She wasn't that wet, so she reached between them with fingers she'd licked, and she slicked herself up. She guided his half-hard cock into her body and started to rock, feeling him firm up inside of her as she moved.
"I'll always be with you from now on," she promised him, and he tipped his head back and let his mouth fall open. He reached up and held her breast firmly in one hand and clutched her hip in the other, guiding her movements as she flushed soaking wet. After a while of rocking, a small detonation took place within her - subtle and unremarkable, just enough to make her clench a little and moan softly. When he came, it seemed equally easy and almost gentle, and suddenly Queenie realised they'd forgotten a contraceptive charm. She panicked as she climbed off of him, and she whispered frantically,
"I'm gonna get pregnant!"
"I'll brew you up a potion." His voice was lazy, and he sounded tired and unaffected. But Queenie touched at her lower abdomen and whimpered quietly. How stupid could she be? Grindelwald reached for her fingers and met her eyes.
"I'll brew you up a potion," he said again, "that will take care of today and the next few months. It's not a concern, Queenie. I'll always look after you, hmm?"
She nodded quickly, feeling his seed leak out between her legs and get all over his sheets, and when she shut her eyes, all she could see was Grindelwald kissing Albus Dumbledore.
Grindelwald rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and hummed a little as he lit a fire beneath his cauldron. He wandlessly flicked open the Potions for Witches book he'd brought in from the library until he reached the Long-Term Contraceptive Potion page. He thought about Credence, about the crew that had left early this morning for England to hunt him down. Was Credence with Nagini even now? Had he already tried to kill Dumbledore? Was Grindelwald too late? Or would Grindelwald's little army manage to intercept the boy and bring him back to Austria?
It would do him no good to contemplate it now, he thought distantly. He'd already had his vision with his Skull. He'd seen all he could see. He'd sent off a group of twenty. Nothing more could be done. And Queenie needed this potion; they'd made a mistake this morning. He licked his lip and contemplated something else - their respective ages. Age had never mattered to him in being physical with another. Vinda was around thirty, he reckoned, and he was forty-four. But Queenie had told him that she was twenty-three, and for some reason that seemed awfully young. Perhaps it was just the youthful demeanour, her bubbly personality, contrasting so vigorously with Grindelwald's own carriage.
He poured sixty millilitres of Standard Potioning Water into his cauldron and brought it to a boil, and then there was a knock on the door of the parlour in which he'd set up his Potioning work. He looked up to see Queenie walking in, looking shy and perhaps even ashamed in a black wool dress.
"I'm sorry you have to do this," she said.
"Easier than casting a spell every time," he said dismissively, using tweezers to pick up dried spiders' eyes and drop them into the cauldron. She watched as he drizzled in kappa blood and stirred with his stirring stick, and then he stood back and folded his arms over his chest. "That needs four minutes."
"You were good at Potions at school?" Queenie asked curiously, and Grindelwald scoffed.
"I was, until I was sixteen and I ran some... experiments... that my Durmstrang instructors didn't like very well. I was expelled."
"You got expelled?" Queenie raised her eyebrows, and Grindelwald dropped a few fairy wings into her potion. He stared at Queenie and said,
"People have a tendency to become frightened of those whose abilities they can't understand, and they often react poorly."
"Yeah, I can relate to that." Queenie sighed heavily. "I used to get into trouble at Ilvermorny all the time because of my Legilimency. So much so that I almost got expelled myself. There was this one time that this girl, she was in Horned Serpent House... I read her mind that she'd been sneaking into the boys' dormitories night after night. I told a teacher about it, and instead of her getting in trouble, I got in big trouble for reading minds. You're right. People don't react well to... to..."
"Gifts." Grindelwald finished, and Queenie nodded. She asked him,
"Were you upset when you got expelled?"
"No," Grindelwald said honestly. "It allowed me to begin my revolution sooner, to begin to gather momentum for the movement."
"Well, I'm glad you got to do that," said Queenie, and he smirked as he dropped in three occamy scales and stirred, then magically cooled the potion and began ladling it into blue glass vials.
"This is going to taste sour," he warned her, but Queenie just asked,
"Will it work to fix what I did this morning?"
"Yes," he reassured her, "and it will protect you for a few months. Drink the entire thing. Here you are." He handed over the vial, and Queenie knocked it back, sputtering at the sour taste. She put her fist to her mouth and looked like she'd be sick, but as Grindelwald began Scouring his cauldron and Banishing his supplies, she coughed out,
"Thank you very much, sir."
"It's no problem," he said seriously, and it wasn't. For some reason, helping her felt...
Good.
He froze at that, at the thought that he liked to take care of her. He stared at her as she Vanished the empty vial and smiled weakly at him, and he sighed. She was his. He wanted her with him as he climbed. And he liked to help her. What did all of that mean?
Suddenly he had the urge to gift her with something, to give her presents, to put pretty things on her. Suddenly he had a vision of playing his mandolin for her, slow songs in German before a fire as it snowed outside. Suddenly he wanted to take her quarters away and move her into his rooms permanently. He craved her. He wanted her, and not just for her flesh. She was his. Rather deeply.
"Have you forgotten the date?" he asked her then, and Queenie blinked a few times as she noted softly,
"It's the twenty-third, sir. The twenty-third of December."
"Don't you think," he said almost playfully, "that this castle needs a Christmas tree? Hmm? Come."
Author's Note: Fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff. Sorry about all that fluff. But, hey, at least we got to hear Grindelwald talk about playing for both teams a little bit, huh? I do realize that this is NOT a popular ship, and I am therefore immensely grateful for any and all readership on this story. I am even more grateful for any and all feedback, so if you can spare a moment to review, I'll love you forever. :) Thanks so much.