A/N: I had an idea once for a Harry/Voldemort story with Grindelwald as Harry's mentor. I wrote this chapter a few years back but I still have ideas about how I would continue it. However, I have so many stories that I've started and would like to post so this one will be just a one-shot for now.

I'm excited about a lot of my stories and it is really hard for me to choose which ones to focus on. I'd love to get to the point where I'm updating stories based on what reviewers are interested in reading. So, if anyone is interested in reading more of this story, please leave a review and let me know. If I get ten reviews asking for another chapter, I promise I'll write one. Thank you for reading!

— CHAPTER ONE —

Harry dreamed he was walking upstairs again, in an upward spiral that seemed endless. He had found himself walking up these same stairs many times before without ever reaching any destination. It was a reoccurring dream and it was maddening.

Hermione had, of course, read a few books on the meanings of dreams and she seemed to think the dream was symbolic of his struggles in his waking hours to meet the unrealistic and unobtainable expectations that the wizarding world had for him. She said that his unconscious mind interpreted his feelings into something like climbing a staircase without ever reaching the top. It was a classic psychological metaphor.

Harry personally thought that explanation was a load of crap but he hadn't had the heart to tell Hermione that - she'd been so pleased with herself for puzzling it out.

Tonight, however, the dream felt different in some way that Harry could not quite put his finger on - crisper, perhaps, or more real. This time there was a strong draft and it blew right through him. He felt the cold in his bones. He continued up the stairs out of habit, not expecting the dream to play out any differently than usual.

But then he heard it - a low, wordless humming that made his skin prickle and his hair stand on end. He took off at a sprint up the stairs before he had even decided to run. Abruptly he stumbled out onto a landing and fell flat to the floor, only barely getting his hands up in time to keep his head from smacking into the ice-frosted stone.

The humming stopped and an unfamiliar voice said, "It has been a very long time since I have had a guest."

Harry's head snapped up and he watched a shockingly handsome young man stand and move close to the line of iron bars that divided the circular room. The stranger stared straight through him. His bizarre violet eyes were piercing in intensity and so much older than the man appeared. Harry remained frozen where he was, trying to wrap his mind around this abrupt shift in his dream. The man smiled very slowly and said knowingly, "Ah, you must be Harry Potter. I have dreamed of you before but never have I had the pleasure of seeing or speaking to you in person. What a grand treat!"

"This is a dream," Harry replied, his voice strained.

The man chuckled, violet eyes shimmering with profound amusement, "Indeed it is. That doesn't mean it isn't real. You are a Seer. The nature of our kind does not allow for the traditional sort of fanciful dreaming. When most people think of how things might be, they invent possibilities. When Seers think of what could be, what we see is typically not a product of imagination."

"So this is the future," Harry said, sitting upright and crossing his legs.

"No, this a dream," the man replied, leaning against the bars now, his long fingers wrapped about the cold, iced steel. He continued on cheerfully, "Your dreams just happen to parallel reality. There are two types of people who are considered Seers, Harry. Individuals from the larger group of the two are called Vessels. They are called thus because they are so weak of mind and spirit they can be easily manipulated by outside forces. These people do not actually see, but they can parrot prophecies - like Sybill, who teaches at your school."

It was hard to focus when it was so bitterly cold. Harry didn't know how the purple-eyed man was so unaffected by it. Harry rubbed his arms, wishing he was wearing a coat instead of his pajamas. With that thought, he was suddenly fully dressed in his warmest clothes. Harry was distracted briefly by this phenomenon then he quickly wrote it off as dream-weirdness. He asked the stranger, "Do you know Professor Trelawney?"

The man shook his head once, "I have never met her. As I was saying, there are the Vessels and then there are the Sighted, like you and me. The Sighted are the only true Seers, in my opinion, but that is only my opinion."

"Well, what makes us Sighted?" Harry questioned curiously, humoring the dream man.

"Power, Harry," the prisoner replied simply with a slight, wistful smile playing across his full lips. His eerie eyes shifted to the thin windows that surrounded the room, staring out into the bright white beyond. The frigid wind pushed his pale, wavy hair into his eyes and he pushed it away with a distracted flourish of his long and graceful fingers.

Harry demanded suddenly, "Who are you and why are you behind those bars?"

The answer hadn't mattered before but it mattered now. Harry was feeling a vague but nagging twinge of unease and he suspected there might be real-world consequences for whatever happened in this so-called dream. Those violet eyes turned back to Harry, fixing intently upon him once more and revealing a hint of surprise and also a mischievous delight, "Those are very good questions. Perhaps you can answer them."

Harry had no patience for riddles or mind games and he frowned in irritation, "I wouldn't have asked if I knew the answers."

"You asked out of habit and because you know no other way of getting answers. All the knowledge in the world is at your fingertips, Harry. If you want to know me, then know me. Expand your horizons and insert yourself beneath my skin."

The man smirked and his white lashes lowered in a coy, sultry fashion. There was a devilish, not-quite-sane amusement shining within his eyes as he added lowly, "Fuck me without touching me, Harry."

Harry went beet-red in the face, absolutely scandalized, "I can't- I mean, I won't! Bloody hell, why won't you just tell me?"

"Why won't you just look?" The stranger replied mockingly, straightening and turning away, then walking over to a low stone bench and lying down. "I can only suppose you do not want to know all that badly."

Harry stared at the man as he laid there, eyes closed and handsome face peaceful - as if he was done talking to Harry and he actually intended to take a nap.

Harry stood slowly and walked closer until he was standing just before the bars. He set aside his anger and wondered how to go about touching someone without actually touching them. He stared hard at the object of his frustrations for a long moment, then, inspiration struck him suddenly. It was not in his nature to pause long enough to think things through so, he didn't. He felt for the magic pulsing within him and cast it out like he would for a spell, thrusting it forcefully at the damnable, all-knowing blonde.

Blinding light flared with a deafening crack and the tower shook on its foundation with a sound like distant thunder. The prisoner's eyes snapped wide open and he stared at Harry with an expression of genuine shock.

Harry stared back at him, a lifetime of memories flaring and dying behind his eyes. It was all much too sudden and too vast to comprehend consciously, but… the man was no longer a stranger to Harry. Harry murmured, "Gellert Grendelwald. Before Voldemort you were the most feared Dark Lord in our world. Professor Dumbledore defeated you."

Gellert's violet eyes shuttered and Harry was cut off, but he'd already seen everything. Harry continued hesitantly, "You are immortal, truly immortal, and that is why you are locked up here. It was the most they could do. You… Dumbledore was your lover."

Harry's lip curled a bit with disgust as he processed that unexpected and unwelcome revelation. Harry could not help but to imagine the elderly headmaster he knew having sex and it was a decidedly unpleasant image that his imagination conjured up for him.

However, deep within the recesses of Harry's mind, there was a foreign memory that surfaced now - one of a significantly younger version of Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him only because of his iconic, sparkling blue eyes. Those familiar eyes were filled with love and need as they looked up at Gellert Grindelwald.

Gellert closed his eyes tightly but Harry felt his pain. The man whispered quietly, "Yes, Harry, he was."

"What happened?" Harry murmured, trying to understand what he'd seen.

Gellert's gaze turned distant and dull, "Albus chose the world over me."

Harry had never experienced such profound heartbreak and hoped he never would.

Those violet eyes sharpened as they snapped to Harry, "Will you follow in his footsteps, I wonder? As Albus was my match in every way, so too is Tom Riddle yours. You alone have the power to destroy him. Will you?"

"He… is evil," Harry said uncertainly, scrambling mentally to fit what he had just been told into his fixed and narrow views of the wizarding world. He could not.

"You will know no greater love than his in your lifetime," Gellert replied, with perfect certainty. "Evil and good are relative terms. Love, however, is not. Love is absolute."

"Then why did Dumbledore choose what he thought to be good over you?"

Gellert closed his eyes again, but only briefly, "You will understand, if you know Albus long enough, that he is very naive in some respects - his views on good and evil, for one. Albus sees everything in black and white. In his mind, black can never be white nor can white be black and there is no such thing as grey. I sought to burn this world to the ground and build it up anew - a stronger, better world. Albus believes that even if the current system of government is hopelessly flawed it is still worth protecting. He believes that any loss of life is an unacceptable loss, except when it is unavoidable for the greater good of all. He is an idealist and a dreamer."

Gellert paused in his tangent and shook his head, "But what was between Albus and I, is between Albus and I. You should think about your relationship with Riddle."

"What relationship?" Harry demanded incredulously. "The one where he keeps trying to kill me and I end up thwarting and/or killing him instead?"

Gellert was unfazed. "He, like you, is a Seer who was never taught to properly utilize his gift of Sight. It is a skill and like all skills it must be learned and it must be practiced. Albus is the only other Sighted Seer in this country that I know of and he likes to keep his cards close to his chest. He may be firmly entrenched in his ideals but he is a man who knows the value of knowledge. He doles out information only when it benefits him to do so and he likes to stay at least ten steps ahead of everyone else. He truly believes that no one in this world knows better than him. That is is fatal flaw."

It seemed to Harry that Gellert could not help but to talk about Dumbledore. Harry didn't blame him, knowing what he now knew, but he tired to get the man to focus once more with a gentle prompt, "You mean Voldemort doesn't know what I could be to him."

"Precisely. Forgive me, I do tend to ramble on dreadfully. A consequence of too much time spent alone, I think. Isolation is bad for anyone's sanity," Gellert trailed off but then his demeanor brightened once more and he questioned hopefully, "Speaking of which, perhaps I could prevail upon you to free me, Harry?"

Those violet eyes gleamed malevolently in the half light that had fallen suddenly in the wake of Harry's magic. Harry hadn't noticed before but his excess of expelled magic seemed to have seeded a storm within the dream. Thunder growled lowly outside and Harry felt the vibration of it in the floor beneath his feet.

Harry replied cautiously, "Even if I wanted to, this is only a dream."

"One day, years in the future, it will be within your power to free me," Gellert replied with certainty. "If you are willing to consider doing so, I am willing to share my knowledge with you in return."

"You are willing to do that for only the chance of freedom?" Harry questioned. He was more than a little skeptical.

Gellert shrugged, faking an air of nonchalance, "I am immortal. I will be free one day, it is only a question of when. Considering that it is entirely uncertain as to whether or not you may decide to free me in the future, and I have no way of compelling you to do so… Well, presently it is your company that would be most valuable to me."

Lightening struck the ground beside the tower and the ensuing roar startled Harry enough to wake him from his dream before he was ready. He still felt chilled, even though he was twisted up in a thick cocoon of warm blankets. His hands and his face were ice cold - just as they had been in his dream.