Ella's Oneshots

[Ella]

Fandom: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 
Summary: Grindelwald is unable to convince Percival Graves of his ideals, but that doesn't matter. He only ever needed his body anyway...
Words: 2078

Shadows

It’s a shame, he thinks, as he watches how the Obscurus is blown apart. So much wasted potential. Think of the things we could have done, if only they hadn’t – No. They wouldn’t have understood anyway. He can see that now, shackled on the floor in front of them as he feels his body take its natural form. They’re too thick-headed to get it through their skull – they shouldn’t be hiding, they shouldn’t be cowering away from those Muggles as if somehow their safety was worth more than our freedom.
Are we not part of this world?
No, he can hear them answer. Not of theirs, as they are not of ours.
There’s only so long you can hide from the world. He knows it better than anyone. He watches the fragments of black float into the clearing skies. The boy learned a similar lesson. Some things shouldn’t stay hidden.
“Will we die, just a little?”
The copper-headed boy towering over him does not respond, and Grindelwald smiles. They didn’t understand what the future had in store.
It’s a shame, really. Percival Graves hadn’t understood it either. He suffered for his failure.
 

***

 

“Who are you?” Percival Graves breathes into the air, blowing smoke into the cloudless evening. He can scarcely discern the man in front of him, but he knows the answer to the question.
The man lights his wand, his features dark and his complexion old. A whisper, and his black hair grows longer, whiter. His complexion grows harder, despite the moustached lips tugging upwards at the corners of his mouth. His clothing seems to suit him ill and he seems out of place, not just in New York, but in the world. A joke of the cosmos.
“You know who I am, Mr. Graves.” His voice is lighter than expected, and the man smiles. “The question then remains, who are you?”
Graves huffs. “You seem to know who I am perfectly fine.” He should be calling back-up, and he reaches for his own wand.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Graves. By the time they find you, there won’t be much left of you.”
“You won’t kill me.” He says it with a lot more certainty than he feels.
A chuckle cuts through the night as if it were a scream. “What makes you so sure?”
He pushes his shoulders back and looks down at the other. “You know who I am. You know my influence. Surely, if you sought me out, you know I can be… useful.”
“You’re not a fan of Muggles. No-Majs, as you may wish me to call them. Or are you, Mr Graves?”
“No, I’m not.”
“We’ve been in the shadows for too long.” Cold eyes meet. “Let’s take a walk, my friend.”
 

***

They lock him up, but he knows it’s only a matter of time. He’s not the only wizard walking the streets of New York with such ideas. How could he be, when they are oppressed into silence, unable to show who they truly are and what magnificent things they could do if the world was truly theirs.
“How did you get into the United States?”
He laughs. “Surprisingly easy. How did Mr. Scamander and his nice suitcase get in, huh? Did you ever ask yourself that question?”
The Auror is not in the least amused. “Cooperation will show on your record.”
He bares his teeth like the man he is. “I’m sure it will.” He is surprised no one has asked him about Graves yet. He could tell them all about his cooperation.

 

***

 
The room was bare and the grey stone almost smelled of draft. “Say what you have to say.” He couldn’t reach his wand, the other’s weapon still on him.
“You know what I have to say. You’re a politician, you know what my beliefs entail.”
“I’d like to hear them from your own mouth.” He gestures, and sees the dark wizard follow his movements closely, his wand moving along just for good riddance. Grindelwald wasn’t stupid. “I know how the papers can warp things. I am, as you say, a politician. I do a good deal of the warping myself.” He smiles, if only to comfort himself that he is still here, that this is real.
Being glib has never gotten you anyway, he hears his father’s voice in his head.
It did, dad. It brought me where I am. Cold air on his skin.
“I believe that wizards and witches should take their rightful place in the world. That we shouldn’t have to hide.”
“And the enslavement of No-Majs.”
Another smile. “Perhaps.”
“Violence, outside of the law.”
“I begin to sense a little antagonism, Mr. Graves. Surely, if we are trying to overturn a faulty law, it is reasonable we act outside of the law.”
Graves averted his eyes. Of course he’d had similar thoughts. He remembered a dinner conversation a couple of weeks ago, a discussion with his father about the dated statutes. Then, as his punishment, he found Mary-Lou Barebone and her Second Salemers on the steps of the church on his way to work the next morning. He was sure she’d been there before, but it was a reminder. They weren’t safe.
“I know your thoughts, Mr. Graves.”
He thought about the children. The young girls with their stern faces, the boy with his arched back. Poisoned minds. Were they to suffer for the faults of a handful of adults? “You mean to murder them.”
“I mean to end them, whatever that may take.”
“For the greater good.”
“The lawful reform you wish for will never happen, Mr. Politician. Your people wouldn’t accept it. They wouldn’t accept it. I’ve seen you looking at the black woman. You know she wouldn’t stand the idea of witches living amongst them. You have surely seen how she punishes the boy for his ancestry. He’s not even one of us. A squib. If she does that to a squib, what will she want to do to us? Surely, she does deserve whatever fate may greet her?”
He closed his eyes, recalling Goldstein’s confrontation with the Second Salemers. Her accusations. How did Grindelwald know about this? Why did he care?
“I’m looking for a child, Graves. One of them.”
“Why?” He found himself asking out loud.
“An Obscurus.”
He laughed. “There haven’t been any Obscuri for ages now, surely –”
“I’ve seen it, Mr. Graves. Do not doubt me.” His voice took a dangerous tone now. “The boy will help me. I’m not sure how, but I know he will. I see it clearly.”
“Credence.” He could not imagine how the young man could be of use to Grindelwald, but he felt his stomach sink at what that would mean for the young Barebone.
“He will help me. The question is, will you?”
His eyes are a sickening colour, and Graves wonders what the man did to himself. A fanatic of pure magic, dabbling in the most impure forms of all. “Never. I won’t let you harm him.” He reaches for his wand, only to find it gone.
The other holds up the long piece of wood and snaps it, now useless to Graves. He presses his lips together, his eyes narrowing. “I was afraid you might say that.”
“Let me guess… Now is the moment you kill me.” Graves smiles, the only way to expel the shiver from his back.
“As you so rightly said, Mr. Graves, I never meant to kill you.”
“What use am I of you if I don’t share your ideas?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he realises this is a very foolish thing to say. His father would chastise him for it.
Another sickening smile. The man’s face could almost be handsome, if it wasn’t for that smile. “I never said it was your mind I needed.”
 

***

 

“I took his body.”
He says it carelessly, as if it is the most natural thing to steal another man’s form – another man’s [i]l[/i]ife. She realises that perhaps for this man it is. “What did you do to him?”
Grindelwald presses his lips together. “Not telling.”
“You know we have other methods. We’ve used them before.”
“And with how much success, exactly?” He cocks his head a little to the right. “I know the blocks on my own memories. Sometimes even I forget how to break them.”
She is sick of him. Sick of interrogating him, of not finding any answers. The truth was that they had no idea how to get into Grindelwald’s mind. She wishes she could ask her sister to help, but she knows that would mean revealing Queenie’s powers to MACUSA. Not a risk she is willing to take.
“If you won’t tell me where he is, at least answer me this question: Is Percival Graves alive?”
He sits up a little, as if this was the question he had been waiting for all along. He shows his yellow teeth. “Yes.”
She is not sure if that makes it better or worse.
 

***

In the end, they find him. Grindelwald never gave in, never went beyond the single-syllable word, but once MACUSA knew that Graves was still alive, they rest at nothing to find the man. Tina silently wonders why they care so much about this man, about this money and this power, while they were not willing to lower their wands for the life of a guiltless boy. She doesn’t say anything, though. She has learned her lesson. She has her job back, and she’d like to keep it.
When she finally gets to visit him, weeks after his resurface – weeks after the official meetings, the press interviews, the entire circus – he still looks as broken as on the first photos that appeared in the evening papers. His hair is matted, his face has an almost grey tint and he looks as if he has not gained an ounce since he was submitted to the hospital. She bites her lip, and realises that she has hated his face for the past two months. She had forgotten that while Graves was never her friend, he was also never her enemy.
“Goldstein.” His voice cracks as his eyes meet hers.
“Mr. Graves.” She doesn’t know if she should sit or stand. She doesn’t know what is appropriate. What is she even doing here? “How are you doing?” She breaks their eye contact. A stupid question. She knows how he is doing. She’s heard the ministry gossip about the scars on his body, but more notably the scars on his mind.
“I’m alive, something that can’t be said of everyone.”
Tina meets his eyes again, and she sees he’s smiling. For a moment she thinks it may all be true, that he has gone completely mad after being trapped by Grindelwald for so long. Then she realises that it is a sad smile.
“Goldstein. Tina… Can you tell me… Is Credence –” He pulls his eyebrows into an anguished frown and presses his lips together.
She frowns, her gaze hardening. “Is Credence what, Mr. Graves?”
He shudders involuntarily. “Please, call me Percival.” His hands are shaking. “I was just wondering. Is he  –”
“Credence died, Mr. – Percival.” She is taken aback by his question. By his memory of the boy’s name. She hasn’t heard anyone but her, Queenie and Newt refer to him as a person, as something other than the Obscurus he held within him.
“Grindelwald killed him, in the end, didn’t he? He mentioned him to me… The night he – he took me. He needed him, the boy would help him…” Graves grinds his teeth. “He helped him find the Obscurus, didn’t he? Enough children among the Second Salemers. He used him, and then he killed him when he didn’t need him anymore.”
She can’t believe they didn’t tell him. She knew MACUSA had never cared for Credence, but she didn’t think they’d care so little never even to mention his name to a high ministry official.
“I could have saved him, if only –”
“It wasn’t Grindelwald,” she finds herself saying, knowing this is something she might regret, will regret. “You couldn’t have saved him.”
The confused look in his eyes breaks her as she remembers Credence, frightened and alone, their wands all firing in his direction.
“He was the Obscurus, Percival. MACUSA killed him.”
It doesn’t surprise her when he starts to cry. It surprises her when he grabs her hand and she cries with him.