Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

        Theseus woke up tied to a chair, the ropes tight against his skin, a blindfold taught over his eyes.  This wasn’t unusual. One, he and Leta had often experimented with rope in the bedroom when she had been alive. Two, he was an Auror. Situations like this were unsurprisingly normal when you are chasing Dark wizards all over the place.

        But they didn’t have this terrifyingly high tension to them, generally. His heartbeat spiked as he remembered what had happened. They’d been at the German Ministry for Magic, and he’d seen Grindelwald’s sycophants. The ones who had been there when Leta walked into the flames. He’d run at them. They’d overpowered him, and then it had all gone black.

        His stomach sank. Fuck. Grindelwald had him, didn’t he? He squirmed in the seat, trying to see if any ropes were loose. But whoever had tied him knew what they were doing; all his movement did was dig the rope deeper into his wrists and ankles.

        “Il est réveillé,” he heard a feminine voice say. He unfortunately recognized the voice.   Oh, great. Vinda Rosier. One of Grindelwald’s most fanatic followers; his right-hand woman, so to speak. This was going great so far. He was surrounded by psychopaths.

        Footsteps echoed through the room (whatever it was). They stopped right by him.

        “Guten Morgen, Mister Scamander. Sleep well?”

        Anger blazed in Theseus like a solar flare. He lunged for Grindelwald, trying to follow the sound of the Germanic wizard’s voice, but didn’t move much because of the ropes tightly tying him to the chair.

         “You fucking bastard,” he hissed.

        This was Leta’s killer, so close. If only he had his wand…but that wouldn’t have been smart anyways. Grindelwald was one of the most powerful wizards in the world, second only to Dumbledore. Taking him on alone would be suicidal.

        …Which he had done, basically, hadn’t he, by charging after his minions? Damn it. Stupid Theseus, stupid.

         Grindelwald laughed softly.

        “Welcome back to the land of the living. Now, down to business. Where is Albus Dumbledore?”

        “I don’t know,” Theseus snapped back.

Silence. And then, agony. Theseus could barely hear his own screams as the Cruciatus curse swept over him. The pain lasted barely a minute, but it felt like hell.

        “Get Goldstein,” Grindelwald murmured, and footsteps echoed through the room before a door was opened, then closed.         

         Theseus remembered her. The sister of Newt’s girlfriend, Tina. A poor, poor woman who just wanted to love freely. And this bastard was using her like a tool. Like a weapon.

        “You’re going to break,” the Dark Wizard said quietly. “They all do.”

         “Go to hell,” Theseus snarled, remembering Percival. Leta. Everyone who he’d lost to the monster disguised as a man in front of him. He wasn’t going to give in to him.

           “We’re going to get the information anyways,” Grindelwald said, and then sighed. “But have it your way.”

                                  ^^

            Queenie had no idea what she was going to see when Rosier came for her. She didn’t know what was behind those sleek ebony doors, despite knowing the rest of the base easily. Most of  Grindelwald’s allies were quite skilled with Occlumency, so she couldn’t tell from their minds. She knew it would be bad- her time with Grindelwald and his allies had shown her that.

            But she was not expecting the scene she came across. Theseus Scamander, Newt’s brother the war hero and Auror, was tied to a chair in the center of the room. His shirt was stained with blood- probably his own, Queenie thought. It looked quite fresh; the wound might be new, or reopened by the Cruciatus Curse. That sometimes happened. Grindelwald loomed over the imprisoned Auror.

             It was clearly an interrogation. With a mental wince, she wondered what they would do to him/his body to set an example, as he was the head of the British Aurors. Just as she walked in, Grindelwald turned to face her with a smile on his face.

            “Ah, Fräulein Goldstein.”

             Queenie bowed her head to her boss, trying desperately to ignore the look on Theseus’ face. It was desperate, and hopeful- as if he thought she could save him.

          It broke her heart to know she couldn’t. She couldn’t save anyone. She was trapped with no way out.

         “What do you require me to do?” she asked.

        “Search his mind,” Gellert Grindelwald told her.

        She bowed her head and stepped closer to Theseus.

        “I’m sorry,” she whispered, then dove into his mind.

        She saw Leta Lestrange, her warm smile and sharp wit and gentle embrace of Theseus when he was overworking himself; she saw that night in Paris, when Queenie joined Grindelwald and Leta died; she felt Theseus’ grief and rage and guilt boiling like the sun. She saw Dumbledore, briefly- but it was a scene from years ago, nothing new.  She felt Theseus’ mind scream out in agony- they were probably torturing him again- as she continued to search.

        She saw him at the German Ministry, watching Leta’s killers. She saw him talking with Dumbledore and Newt and oh, gods Jacob about the plan.

        She saw Tina. Sweet, sweet Tina. She pulled back as if she’d been the one hit with Crucio. Tears pricked at the edges of her eyes and she stepped back, trying not to see Theseus’ bleeding body.

         Oh, Tina. I miss you so much…I’m so sorry.

         She pictured Newt, searching desperately for his brother, Tina by his side, and winced. I’m so sorry, Newt…Tina…I couldn’t save him. I can’t save anyone. I can’t even save myself.

        “He doesn’t know where he is,” she said truthfully.

        Theseus looked up at her, barely conscious, still blindfolded.  “Please,” he whispered, voice hoarse.

        Queenie tried not to cry as she stepped farther and farther away, leaving Theseus at Grindelwald’s mercy. Fucking hell, she hated this. You’re a monster, now, a dark part of her mind whispered. You let them torture and murder. You are letting him die, you coward.

        There is no going back, Goldstein. You’re really one of them now.

         “You are dismissed,” Grindelwald told her, and she hurried out of the room, Theseus’ desperation  and her sister’s face haunting her mind.

                                                        ^^

        Theseus slumped against the chair as Goldstein left the room. He felt blood dripping down his face from a newly-busted lip, and blood dripping down his inner  thighs from numerous wounds on his stomach and chest. That was his last hope, appealing to Goldstein’s softer side. But she was gone; and Theseus was left to die.

        He was an Auror. He’d been in a variety of life or death situations. But this was somehow even worse- tied up, wandless, bleeding and bruised, left to the mercy of a Dark wizard who had none. Left at the hands of Leta’s killer. And he wasn’t as young as he used to be, either- at forty-three he was no longer as strong as he used to be. He was going to die at forty-three, never to see Newt again. Never to see him and Tina marry; never to see them have kids. Fuck, that hurt. His brother would have to bury him- with or without a body.

        He closed his eyes and pictured Leta’s face, silently bracing for death. After all, they didn’t need him anymore- he hadn’t given any information, and he wouldn’t be worth anything as a hostage.  At least we’ll be together now, Leta. It’s been so long.

        “What do we do with him?” a voice asked; and Theseus remembered it was Carrow’s voice.

        “Kill him,” answered Grindelwald. “Send proof to the Ministry, as an example.”

        “Yes, my lord.”

         I’m sorry, Newt, Theseus thought in his final moments before oblivion. I’m not coming back. I’m sorry. Live for me, okay? Teach this dickhead a lesson.

         Everything went white, and then Theseus Scamander saw no more.

                                                        ^^

        Vinda Rosier blinked at where Theseus Scamander had once been. That Patronus-thing; it had taken the entire chair as well, and now the Auror was gone. She winced, picturing Grindelwald’s reaction to them letting the Auror slip through their grips. They must tell him he was dead if they all wanted to stay alive. Luckily, the man had left a lot of blood. It shouldn’t be hard to convince of his death, she thought.

        She swept out of the room, Carrow still staring at where the Auror had been in slight shock.

                                                        ^^

        To his surprise, Theseus hit the ground with a thump, the chair splintering from the crash. What the fuck? Where am I?

         With a muffled groan, he sat up, and realized his bonds were loose. He managed to wiggle out of the ropes, and bring his now-freed hands to his blindfold. He removed it, and knew instantly where he was. What- is this Hogwarts?

        How did he get from Germany all the way to Scotland in a handful of seconds? He stood up with a wince. He should talk to Dumbledore, let him know he was alive. Maybe the older wizard would know how he got here, and how to move forward in the fight with Grindelwald. (Hopefully he’d be able to make sure Newt knew he was alive, as well.) And with a muffled groan, the brunet began walking towards the distant shape of Hogwarts Castle, knowing he was lucky to survive.

Chapter Text

Theseus was a few minutes into his limping walk towards Hogwarts when he noticed. A tall, tall tree he didn’t recognize loomed in the distance. He frowned at it. Judging by its size, the tree had been there for years, but he hadn’t seen it in his numerous prior visits to Hogwarts. He shrugged. He might be hallucinating from blood loss. That wasn’t unusual. It had happened to him a couple of times after being hit with some nasty jinxes and curses while on the job.

        Being an Auror was a pretty risky profession, after all. But he was pretty sure he’d never hallucinated something as big as the tree before. He pushed the thought aside. He just had to get to Hogwarts and tell Dumbledore he was alive. Then he could worry about the injuries Grindelwald and his sycophants had given him. Then he could worry about what secrets Grindelwald had dug from his mind and the people he had unwillingly endangered.

        His stomach churned as he limped towards the castle. Oh great Merlin, what if Grindelwald had gotten something from his mind? What if Queenie had found some information and given it to the Dark wizard? Who could be at risk because he had been stupid enough to get himself captured? Fuck, he thought, dawning horror rising in his throat. Had he damned his allies- and his little brother- to a fate worse than death?

        He shuddered. If he had endangered Newt, even involuntarily…he would never forgive himself. How could he? He refused to add another name to the list of people who had died for him. He paused, grief momentarily swamping him. Leta. His fiancee. It had been nearly five years since the day she died, in Paris, at Grindelwald’s hands, and he had yet to forget it or forgive himself. He refused to let Newt join Leta. He was not going to fail his brother as he had failed his lover.

        He pressed one of his hands to his side. “Hold on, Newt,” he murmured. “I’m coming home, I promise. I promise.”

        But his promise was short-lived. For  darkness came and swallowed him up like the roaring tide; and all he knew was the beating of his heart in his ears like the crash of time-born thunder.

                                                        ^^

        He dreamed of ashes, and smoke, and flames the color of ice. He dreamed of a raven, carved into the cold marble of Leta’s family’s tomb. He dreamed of fleeting warm touches that were as fleeting as a heartbeat. He saw Newt sobbing into Tina’s arms…over a grave that bore Theseus’ name. Theseus tried to jerk away from the dream, feeling all too much like Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol.

        But something- someone, he thought dizzily, horror sweeping over him like the high tide of the seven seas; held him down. Forced him to watch. And the images shifted. He saw ice-blue eyes- Dumbledore’s eyes- staring at him, the color of tears on midwinter ice. He saw a flash of pure-white ceilings, heard curious voices, before the darkness pulled him under once more like a grindylow drowning a swimmer in the Black Lake.

        He woke with a gasp in the healing wing. To be more precise, Hogwarts’ healing wing.  He hadn’t been in here for years- not since he broke three ribs and a leg in his final Quidditch game as a seventh-year. It looked pretty much unchanged since Theseus’ school days, but something felt off. Something didn’t seem quite right.

        “Good morning,” Dumbeldore said quietly.

Theseus whirled around. “Gods, Albus, you’re so quiet- what the fuck.”

For Albus’ voice came from an old, old man. He had Albus’ eyes, Albus’ voice…but looked at least ninety years Albus’ senior. He was dressed in bright scarlet robes that were almost eye-scorching and had been out of fashion since seventeen eighty-nine. “What in the name of Merlin?”

“Theseus, it is me,” the old man said in Albus’ voice.

“Yeah, and I’m a Muggle,” Theseus retorted. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”

His heart pounded at his chest. He felt exposed without his wand; at the mercy of a random stranger who was apparently trying to pretend to be Albus. He sat up and gave the old man a searching look. Here and there he could see similarities to Albus- were they related? He’d never heard of other Dumbledores, though; with the exception of the Hog’s Head barman in Hogsmeade. It was more likely it was some hermit messing with him.

“Theseus Apollon Scamander, I would never hurt you,”  the old man said sharply. “You know that.”

“...Albus?” he said quietly, shock settling into his bones, “Is it really you?”

The smile he was given was definitely Albus’.

“What the actual fuck!”

^^

        After a lengthy discussion, Albus left him to rest. Theseus collapsed against the cot, feeling as if a thestral-drawn carriage had slammed into him. Seventy fucking years. It had been seventy fucking years. It was now the beginning of the nineteen ninety six school year; and he felt as if his head was going to explode.

         Seventy years. Seventy years of being legally dead. Seventy years of his life, gone in an instant just like that.  He couldn’t fight down the small sob that tore its way out of his throat. Newt, Tina, Jacob; all dead. All gone and long-buried under the earth.

        What had he done to deserve this fate; torn from his friends and his own family and out of his own time? Even death would be better than this- torn through time to a day and age where he had no one left. Sent to a time where someone even worse than Grindelwald terrorized the wizarding world. Fuck.

        What was he going to do now? There was no war to win, no Newt to go home to. No Leta, no friends still alive. We need a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Albus’ words echoed in his head. You’d be safe here, Theseus.

         A bitter laugh escaped the wounded Auror (ex-Auror now, he supposed. You can’t keep your job when you're pulled seventy years through time.). Newt was the patient one. The one good with kids. Him? Not so much.

        That didn’t matter anymore, though, did it? His life was gone. So was his little brother. He was stuck here, in the midst of a war that he didn’t fight in, and had nowhere to run to. Nowhere to find comfort and love; just his old school seventy years in the future. Teaching children how to defend themselves.

        He stared up at the ceiling, cold tears running down his face. Damn this whole situation. Damn whoever had saved him from Grindelwald only to send him to a place of pain. He felt so alone, and he fucking hated it.

        As a child, he’d been around other kids. As a soldier in the war, he had allies around him, Muggles and wizards alike. As an Auror, he’d had his brother and Leta and his teammates. But he had no one now save Albus. Used to noise, the silence was haunting- hanging over him like death’s dull shroud.

        His heart pounded in his ears like the drums of a funeral procession. Damn it. He was used to death and the idea of it; he had seen so much of it during the war and as an Auror. But the idea of his brother- little Newton- being dead? He shuddered. It should’ve been him. Not me. I should’ve died there, in Grindelwald’s clutches; if anyone had to be pulled through time it should’ve been him. Smart, kind Newt; who knows what he is doing with children. Not an ex-soldier, ex-Auror, who just got fucking tortured by Grindelwald.

         He closed his eyes. I’m sorry, Newt. I failed you. And I can’t even make it up to you, because you are gone.

                                                        ^^

        A phoenix appeared at the window of Perseus Scamander’s house late in the night. Perseus opened the window and smiled down at the familiar sight. “Aye, good morning, Fawkes. What does Albus need now?”

        Fawkes made a strange cooing noise and dropped a letter out of his beak. Perseus rolled his eyes teasingly and took the scroll from the bird. “Thanks, mate.”

        He opened it. Albus didn’t owl- phoenix in this case- if it weren’t important, especially not in the current times. Soon after he read it, his eyes (just like his father’s; just like Newt’s) widened and it slipped out of his grasp. It hit the ground with a soft thump.

       Perseus hurried out of the room. “Cassy, darling? We have a situation…”

Chapter Text

Perseus Scamander looked up the wall. There. The photo was black and white, and was worn from decades of being desperately clung to by grievers. His father, Newton (or Newt, as he had been generally called), had his arm around a taller man.

It was Perseus’ uncle. Perseus was the youngest of Newt’s children (he was only 52), but none of them had gotten to meet their uncle in life. Grindelwald had murdered him in 1937.

Or so they had thought.

Perseus brushed a hand against his father’s figure in the picture, his similarly colored eyes glistening.

“Theseus returns from Crete,” he whispered. “Look, dad. He’s home.”

                                     ^^

“Poppy?” Theseus said in disbelief.

His old friend, seventy years older, gasped.

“Theseus,” she whispered. “It’s really you…Albus said so, but I didn’t believe…oh!”

Poppy wrapped her arms around Theseus tightly. “You fucking bastard,” the now silver-haired woman muttered.

“Oh, Poppy,” Theseus murmured, his chest aching. Had his ‘death’ really hurt them so? He stifled a wince; guilt flowed through him like a river’s water to the sea. It was all his damn fault, after all; he’d let Grindelwald bait him at the German Ministry of Magic. He’d walked straight into the trap.

He’d been a Merlin-damned Auror; he should’ve known better! But he hadn’t- and everyone he had loved suffered because of it. Fuck.

He relaxed into Poppy’s death-tight grip, frigid tears burning his eyes.

“You idiot,” Poppy muttered, her head against Theseus’ chest as if she was listening to his heartbeat. “You absolute dumbarse. If you do that again I will gut you and feed you to the giant squid.”

Despite the pain and guilt and grief gnawing at his insides like a starving Hungarian Horntail, a faint smile graced his lips. “I’ll try not to, Poppy.”

“Damn well you won’t,” Poppy muttered, as sarcastic and sharp-tongued yet gentle as ever.

“But what are you doing here anyways? Albus didn’t say anything about owling anyone.”

“I work here, you twit,” Poppy said affectionately.

“Do you mean the hospital wing, Hogwarts in general, or the Black Lake-ow!”

She’d whacked him on the top of the head. “In the hospital wing, you-”

“-There’s no need for name calling, Poppy-”

“-After that stunt you pulled I’ll call you whatever I fucking want, Scamander!”

“Good to know that the kids of today are in your potty-mouthed hands.”

“Why did I miss you,” Poppy grumbled under her breath.
“Because I’m charming. Besides, life was boring without me!”

Poppy rolled her eyes. “You’re going to be an interesting DADA professor, good Merlin.”

Oh. Right. That. Theseus had pushed that offer down to the darkest recesses of his mind. How bad were things that Albus had to offer him the position? It was a wee bit concerning. And in all honesty, he wasn’t sure he would be a good teacher.

Leta had wanted to teach after they got married. “I’m tired of almost losing you because of the job,” she’d told him. Ironically, he wasn’t the one who’d gotten killed on the job. It had been here; beautiful, sweet, graceful Leta- who would’ve been much more suited for this job than Theseus. Despite her issues with babies, Leta had been amazing with children (a thousand times more so than Theseus was). It should be her being offered the job; not him.

But Leta had died seventy-five years ago, with not even a body to bury. So Theseus was alone. Newt was also gone; as was Jacob. Albus hadn’t mentioned Tina, or Credence, or even Queenie. Merlin alone knew what had happened to them.
“...Right.”

“Can’t be worse than the last couple we’ve had,” Poppy reassured him.

“I- what?”

“One was working with a Dark wizard and died, one’s in Saint Mungo’s with his memory removed, one was fired, one was a Death Eater in disguise, and our last one was an absolute bitch. You’ll do fine, Thee.”

Will I? Or will I fail the kids like I have everyone else?

                                                        ^^

The albatross Patronus stared up at Porpentina Goldstein-Scamander. It was her youngest son’s Patronus- Perseus’. He was a wandering spirit, that one; so much like his father not just in looks.

“Mum,” it said in her son’s voice. “Albus has found Theseus.”

Porpentina- Tina- stiffened. Theseus. Newt’s older brother; presumed dead in 1937 after being kidnapped by Grindelwald at the German Ministry.

“Impossible,” the old woman whispered. Grindelwald had bragged about the Auror’s death (he had nearly gotten decked by Jacob and Aberforth for that one, Newt had almost hexed the Dark wizard into oblivion); Queenie had told her that Rosier had killed him. He couldn’t be alive. Not seventy years after the fiasco in Germany. There had also been that German wizard, as well, who’d told Newt that Grindelwald’s minions had killed Theseus.

Though, she supposed, Perseus had never said Theseus was alive. Only that Albus had found him. It was more likely he had finally found his body. She smiled at her miniature picture of Newt that was framed on the wall.

“Looks like the Scamanders can finally rest in peace,” she whispered. “Together for the first time in seven decades. You can rest easily, dear. Your brother’s finally coming home.”

^^

“The term starts in a few weeks,” Albus told him. “For the moment you can stay at the Burrow. The Weasleys are wonderful- I’d trust them with my life. And it’s safer there, with all the protections it has, then the Hog’s Head or anything in London with the Death Eaters so active.”

“Alright,” Theseus told him, a bit glad to finally get out of the healing wing. He was going a bit stir crazy cooped up like this.

“When you come back on August twenty-ninth, we will set up your room and get things ready for the start of term,” Albus said. “Don’t worry about it until then.”

Theseus nodded. “Right. Thanks, Albus.”

Albus gave him one of those mysterious half-smiles that strangely reminded Theseus of Aberforth. It was quite possibly the only thing the brothers had in common (the two were polar opposites in nature). Albus offered his hand. “Ready?”

Theseus hated Apparition. Give him a broom any day over the disturbing, gut-churning sense of Apparition. He sighed. “As I’ll ever be.”

He took Albus’ hand. And the two wizards, both tall but one old and wizened, the other a younger victim of transtemporal travel, vanished into the night.

                                                        ^^

Molly had been setting the table for dinner when someone knocked at the door. Her hand instinctively flew to her wand- in these times, one could never be sure who was at your door. She peered outside and saw Albus standing there, a younger wizard beside him. She opened the door a hair. “What is your Patronus?”

“A phoenix,” Albus replied calmly.

“Of course it is,” the younger wizard muttered. Molly stifled a laugh at his tone. He sounded absolutely done with Albus’ dramatics.

“What is mine?”

“A grizzly bear,” Albus answered. “A fiercely protective mother animal.”

“And Arthur’s?”

“A gray wolf.”

Molly opened the door wider. “Well, then. Come in, Albus. Don’t mind the mess- Fred and George came home from their shop today for dinner. You know how they are. I must say, for such chaotic boys,, they do have a strong flair for business.  And hello! I’m afraid we’re not acquainted.”

“Theseus, ma’am,” the younger wizard said, shaking her hand.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay long,” Albus said. “Urgent matters with the Order. However, Theseus’ll be staying for his own safety. If you don’t mind. We could always lock him up back at Hogwarts.”

“If you lock me up in the healing wing for another month I will kill you,” Theseus said sharply, though Molly could sense there was a layer of joking to the threat.

Molly eyed Theseus. He was broad-shouldered, and tall; but he was thin.

“Of course,” she said warmly. “Come on in.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said quietly.

“Of course. It’s no trouble. And please, call me Molly.”

“Thank you, Molly,” Albus and Theseus said in unison.

Albus gave her a warm smile. “If the kids ever annoy you, you could always sic Theseus on them.”

“Albus.”

Molly giggled. “Hm. Well then, good night Albus. Good luck with the endeavor.”

Albus tipped his pointed hat to her, then strode off and vanished. She turned to Theseus. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. “For everything.”

She smiled at him warmly. “Of course, dear.”

Theseus slipped past her into the house and Molly shut the door behind her.

“Don’t mind the mess, my children are home for the holidays,” Molly said ( not all of them, she thought, thinking of Percy and Charlie) to her guest. “Dinner’ll be ready in an hour.”

“Thank you,” Theseus smiled, and left Molly to her tasks in the kitchen.

^^

The Burrow had a very homely feel to it, Theseus noticed. It felt a bit like his old home, as a child- warm and welcoming and full of life. He heard faint voices arguing, and he smiled to himself.  Siblings, he thought, remembering Newt and the chaos the two had gotten up to as children.

He remembered, then, that Newt had had to hold a funeral for him. His smile slipped off his face. Newt had lived seventy years without Theseus; without his older brother.

Older siblings are supposed to tease, but also protect their siblings. They are supposed to be there for them. And I failed both. I failed him.

A tear slipped down his face, one of Newt’s favorite songs playing in his ears as a painful echo of his brother.

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom

When the jungle shadows fall

Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock

(or of a heartbeat, beating away on the person’s final days)

As it stands against the wall

Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops

(his tears carved paths into his skin)

When the summer shower is through

So a voice within me keeps repeating

You, you, you

Night and day, you are the one

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun

Whether near to me or far

It’s no matter, darling, where you are

I think of you night and day

(You were my last family, my little brother, my closest friend, a legal nuisance but still my kin)

Day and night

Why is it so?

That this longing for you follows wherever I go

(even through time)

In the roaring traffic’s boom

In the silence of my lonely room

I think of you night and day

Night and day under the hide of me

There’s oh, such a hungry yearning

(For my own time, for my lover, for my family, for my job-)

Burning inside of me

And it’s torment won’t be through

‘Til you let me spend my life

Making love (in actuality, staying close to Newt; keeping him out of trouble. Oh, how he wished he could do that again) to you day and night

Night and day

(I think of you every day and night, you haunt me like a dybbuk)

“Night and day under the hide of me,” he softly hummed. “There’s oh, such a hungry yearning burning inside of me…”

Chapter Text

Theseus collapsed into an armchair, exhaustion sweeping over him like a tidal wave. His body ached- clearly the Apparition had pushed his body hard. He yawned. Maybe he could take a quick nap before dinner…

^^

“Dinner!”

“Coming, mum!” Ginny yelled down.

George elbowed Fred awake. “Come on, you slowpoke. D’you want to eat this century or not?”
Fred shot up and glared at his twin. “You bastard-”

“Someone’s grumpy,” Ginny said in a sing-song voice.

“I’m not the one who punched Ron in the face when he tried to wake her up-”

“And I’m not the one who made a swamp in the middle of the school!”

“Yeah, that was 100% us.”

“Absolutely iconic. Best thing we’ve done with our lives.”

“Besides the joke shop.”

“Right, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes is a blessing to mankind.”

“You lot are morons.”

George laughed and pushed Fred out the door. “Oh, if we were morons, the world would have exploded by now.”

“Uh-huh,” Ginny replied, unconvinced, and she followed the twins down the stairs. “ Sureee.”

She paused. “Why is there a complete stranger in the living room?”

“Albus brought him over, dear,” her mother called from the kitchen.

“ Dumbledore?” George said incredulously. “Is this guy in the Order, then?”

“Probably, if Dumbledore brought him here,” Fred reasoned. “We didn’t see him in Grimmauld Place, though, did we?”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Ginny reminded her brothers. “I sincerely doubt all the members of the Order visited Grimmauld while we were there. It’s also probable that not all of them knew about it, for security reasons.”

“Yeah,” George said quietly. “Why’s he here, Mum?” he called.

“You’d think Albus would’ve taught his students to not talk behind people’s backs,” the stranger said, opening his eyes to reveal sharp ice-blue.

George jumped. “What the-”

“Were you awake the entire time?” Fred asked shrewdly.

The stranger grinned and sat up.

“You have a bit of a loud voice,” he said, his pale grayish-blue eyes sparkling like diamond.

Ginny studied him. His hair was somewhere between auburn, blond, and brunet; and he had a tall, lithe frame. But she could tell he had physical strength.

He also seemed eerily familiar, as well. Had she seen him before? He didn’t seem to recognize, then, though; so that seemingly ruled out that possibility. Seemingly. Human memory is not infallible; Ginny knows that all too well. Much of her second year she cannot even remember.

“Do I know you?” George asked, echoing Ginny’s thoughts.

“I should think not,” the man replied, the ghost of a smile on his face and a dark sadness in his eyes.

“Very few people who know me still walk the Earth.”

That was slightly disturbing, yet something she could sympathize with. She had felt so alone her second year…which had been how Voldemort had gotten to her.

Ginny wondered if he was an Auror- or an ex-Auror. That job was one of the riskiest a wizard could have, and death rates could be high. That slight twist of dark humor, that pain in his eyes as if he was used to losing people…the man had most likely, at one point, been involved with the Aurors. He had the aura of a soldier to him.

An aura of death, and pain; of tragedies written into his bones. Of people lost, of loved ones unable to be saved, of memories of violence that echoed decades after they had happened.

Aurors put everything on the line, after all. And sometimes they lost it all. Sometimes in the midst of protecting the world, they were shattered beyond repair.

Ginny offered her hand to him, recognizing the pain in his eyes. She’d seen that look before- in her own eyes, in Harry’s eyes, in the eyes of Bill and Fleur and almost everyone she knew since Voldemort had come back- and she knew the memories he was relieving burned like hellfire.

“Nice to meet you,” she said softly. “I’m Ginny.”

He took it, a faint smile in his eyes. “I’m Theseus.”

                                                                   ^^

It was almost like being home again. It was almost like it hadn’t been seventy years since he’d last seen his brother. Like he wasn’t alone.

He laid stretched out on the couch in the loving room, curled under a blanket Molly had conjured out of nowhere. (Considering she had several children, it was probably one of theirs.) Even now, at nine o’clock in the evening, there were still noises. It wasn’t eerily quiet as Hogwarts usually was after nightfall.

The whole house felt so alive. And he felt so much safer.

He’d been a soldier. A war hero. An Auror. A brother. Silence never meant anything good to him.

Silence meant death. Silence meant something had gone wrong.

He remembered 1918. He remembered when in the cot beside his, one of his mates went quiet. A soldier replaced him in the bed within the hour, his body taken down to be stacked like tinder wood in the morgue, joining the hundreds of others who had fallen to the silent killer.

The soldiers who had turned black and blue, who had coughed up blood, who had bled from their noses. The soldiers whose lungs had been ripped apart by the disease. Theseus had been lucky enough to survive (he almost hadn’t). He lost many good friends then.

It was influenza. Just influenza. And they died so brutally.

He wondered if he was the last one to remember their names. To remember their suffering, their stories and their lives.

Silence was death. When everything went quiet, everything was about to go to hell. Years of experience wasn’t going to vanish in a matter of months, no matter what Albus said.

(He’d used to crave the silence. Now he craved the voices. The noises. The sounds that meant he and those around him were still alive, the noises that meant he wasn’t going to lose anyone else.)

Chapter Text

“Albus.” Perseus Scamander sat right across the table from the older wizard, his eyes smoldering.

He has Newt’s eyes, Albus thought. But that is definitely Tina’s temperament.

His sister Selena Leta stood behind him, her gray eyes cold. Tina and Adonis sat in chairs on either side of Perseus, their eyes on Albus’.

“I am sorry that he is not here-” no, he was not, Theseus would be a great asset- ”but I assure you, he is alive.”

“I am inclined to believe you,” Tina spoke up. Even in her old age, her voice had lost none of its strength. “Newt trusted you.”

Albus pushed the thought of Newt aside. He knew that if Newt had known what he had done, that trust would have evaporated like water over a scorching flame. He knew that if Newt had known that he had lied to Theseus about him having any surviving family members, the usually calm Magioologist would’ve decked him right then and there.

But Newt was long dead. And there was a war on. The time for worrying about morals had disappeared many years ago.

“What evidence do you have that he is alive?” Selene spoke up.  

Albus smiled. He had known that they would doubt him. “Poppy, can you come here for a second?”

The door opened.

“What do you-oh,” said Poppy Pomfrey, noticing the Scamanders. She took a deep breath, as if steadying herself, before stepping into Albus’ office and shutting the door.

“Theseus is alive,” she told them. “I-I couldn’t believe it, either. But it’s definitely him. I would know him- and his mannerisms- anywhere. And…he showed definite signs of torture.”

There was a collective sharp intake of breath.

“That bastard,” Selene hissed. “I’m going to kill him.”

Albus assumed she was referring to Gellert, not Theseus; though one could never be truly sure.

Adonis looked like he was going to visit Nurmengard and strangle Gellert. Perseus had paled, his eyes (so much like Newt’s it almost gave Albus deja vu, it reminded him of when he’d told Newt of Theseus’ ‘death’ despite knowing damn well Theseus wasn’t dead if everything had gone well, knowing that the sacrifice of Theseus having a normal life was worth it; it was a way to make sure that no matter what happened he’d stay on top- power was the only one he could trust anymore) wide and horrified.

If only he knew. He would be even more horrified. But it is for the greater good.

                                                        ^^

1937

“You promised you would come home,” Newt whispered, leaning against the gravestone. His tears slid down the smooth marble, leaving a trail of crystal-clear pain.

“You survived the influenza in 1918. You survived the Great War.  I thought you would be fine.”

But Theseus wasn’t fine. Because Grindelwald had kidnapped, tortured, and killed him like he had done to so many others.

Little siblings should never have to see the day their older sibling was gone. They shouldn’t.

But here Newt was. The last of the family- all alone save Jacob, Queenie, Bunty, and Tina.

They lost their mother back in 1916 to vanishing sickness (it had been horrifying, and still regularly popped up in both Scamander’s nightmares…while Theseus was alive). 1917, on the anniversary of their wedding, their father had died too, to typhoid fever.

Newt remembered that Theseus had been overseas at the time, fighting in Europe. Not long after, the influenza was decimating the world and the front lines, and he had been terrified that he would lose his brother too.

Theseus had come so close to death during the fighting. So, so close. He came close, too, during his Auror years- but both times he’d had other people by his side to help him. To pull him out of the water when he went too deep.

In the end, he did lose his brother. Just not to influenza or a world war, but rather the cruelty of the most powerful Dark wizard in modern times. Theseus died behind enemy lines, all alone but surrounded by the cruelest of Grindelwald’s sycophants. He died because the German Ministry had been infiltrated; he had died because Newt couldn’t save him.

“I hope you can see Leta again,” Newt whispered. “Tell the raven I say hi.”

^^

Present Day (dream sequence)

“I want to go home,” the pawn said to the king. “I want to see my family.”

“You cannot,” replied the king.

“Why?”

“You are nothing but a tool,” answered the king.

The pawn was sacrificed the next round, and the king moved on, for the pawn had never been anything but something for him to use. At least in his opinion.

Others saw the pawn for he really was- a breathing, living figure who deserved so much better than what the king had given him.

But the king always escaped justice. He twisted his web around all around him until they couldn’t see his own crimes.

Until they couldn’t see that he was just as bad- if not worse- than their opponent.

“Why do you run,” asked the girl, the dead sister killed by a freak accident in his quest for power.

“Why do you lie,” said the pawn, whose life had been lost because of the king’s wiles.

“Why do you deny the darkness inside you,” asked his lover, locked in a tower far from the sun.

“Why didn’t you save me,” asked the teen; the boy who drowned in a lake, pulled under by the dead’s cold hands. “You could have.” And the king could have.

“Why didn’t you protect me,” cried the lightning-scarred boy. His life lay in the king’s hands, but long ago he was decided to be sacrificed. All for the greater good, of course.

Every casualty, every lie, every manipulation…it was all for the greater good, if you asked the king.

“You are a king. But all kings fall. At the end of the game, only one remains. Let’s see who it’ll be this time,” said the ginger-haired girl he had almost let die in her second year.

“Power is fleeting. Even if you live, who’s to say your crimes won’t be uncovered?” said the red-head with the horned glasses, the only one of the lot to see through his facade.

“Checkmate,” whispered a younger Salazar Slytherin. His green eyes glowed emerald. “This is for lying- and letting the lies be told despite knowing the truth- about what the Chamber was for. This is for letting my descendant commit acts of violence because you were too lazy to admit that the myths were wrong. This is for manipulating children, you sick piece of shit. ”

“I used to trust you,” said the echo of the girl who died in the bathroom. The girl who had been so incredibly bullied she’d been at her wit’s end by the time death came for her. “But then I died. Then I never grew up. And I realized what a fraud you are.”

“I am no fraud,” answered the king. “I do this for the sake of the Wizarding world. I seek power so I can help.”

“You seek power because it makes you feel in control,” whispered a sixteen-year old echo of Tom Marvolo Riddle. “It is your truest friend. You chose it over your sister, over your brother, over your lover. Over whatever morals you had the beginning. You and I…we are the exact same. We are fashioned from the same clay, Albus. But at least I don’t leave children in abusive households.” His voice dripped with venom. “You could have helped me, you know. What I am today is because you let me stay there, in a place I hated and was hated at. Lord Voldemort…is in part your creation, Albus Dumbledore.”

“It is not,” replied the king. “It is on you.”

“Is that what you tell every orphan that comes to you looking for love, assistance, or anything at all?” the echo asked.

“I see you still don’t take responsibility,” the king’s brother said.

“Who’s the one who sired a bastard son? Shut up, Aberforth.”

“You didn’t save him,” Aberforth whispered. “You didn’t save my Credence.”

“He was doomed to die anyway! That’s how an Obscurius works!”

“You say that you fight to protect, but you lead them all to die,” a phantom whisper echoed in his mind.

Albus- the king- let out a sharp yell and the dream shattered, leaving him alone in his bedroom with nothing but the memories of their sharp words.

You are Death, Albus, Aberforth’s voice echoed. You are cruel and callous, and destroy whole families.

Chapter Text

Theseus dreamed of the ocean. He dreamed of drifting out to sea on a wooden boat, all alone, the skies above him a dark steel but the water crystal-clear.

But then he heard the voices. He heard Newt, distantly, crying. He tried to sit up, tried to look around so he could find his little brother and make sure he was alright- but he couldn’t move. His body felt as stiff as a corpse, unmoving and as rigid as stone.

He realized with dawning horror that he couldn’t hear his own heartbeat. He couldn’t feel it.

“Ad perpetuam rei memoriam Theseus ,” someone said. ( Something along the lines of ‘to the perpetual memory of Theseus’) He didn’t recognize the voice. He did recognize the language- Latin. Most spells, primarily for English-speaking wizards and witches, had Latin names. As such, most wizards and witches were taught Latin to some degree in order to prevent nasty accidents.

And then came the flames. And it swallowed him up; his screams never to see the light of day.

He woke with a gasp, his blood cold as ice. Oh, gods. It looked like not even bloody time travel could take away the nightmares. He sighed and collapsed back onto the couch. Overall, that had not been the worst one, but Merlin was it up there.

He had dreamed of dying, of Newt’s cries, and it felt like he’d just been impaled on a bloody bayonet. He was no stranger to nightmares- he’d had them ever since he’d come home from the war- but bloody hell, they usually weren’t so up in his fucking face. Besides, he was used to the dreams about the influenza and the battles and Leta’s death. Nightmares about his own death? Those generally didn’t happen, and it felt like cold water gnawing hungrily at his skin.

“Don’t leave me,” Newt’s voice sobbed in his ears. “Theseus. Don’t you- please. Please. ”

Theseus bit back tears, the copper-like taste of blood trickling into his mouth from biting his lip so hard. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, despite knowing that everyone he had failed was long dead, walking a path he could not follow. “I’m sorry.”

I was the flames,

You were the water, cold as ever.

I burned it all down to the ground,

A raging inferno that swallowed you whole.

I didn’t mean to break you ,

I didn’t want to fall into the dark,

But wishes mean nothing compared to reality.

And I still fucking failed you in every way I could.

I want to apologize,

I want to tell you how much I love you,

But long have you been gone from this life.

And here I am, blazing in pain,

As the ravens caw their mourning cries;

Bleeding out beneath the ashen skies.

I stand in what’s left of your warm embrace-

Frozen rain, idyllic lies in my broken-down brain-

Stainless steel and blood-stained feels-

Blood in the water that never fades away-

Your voice is in my mind like ghosts out of time-

Echoes of a so much better life.

I want to go home

But nothing remains

But the blood on my hands

And the memories of your laugh

And I am still on the chessboard

Even in death I am never free,

Always stuck beneath a king

I am a pawn, and everything’ll go south

And I hope one day I will find you again

Hope one day I’ll get to come home

                                                        ^^

The next few of his days at the Burrow were relatively quiet.  Mostly, though, he was helping Molly with chores around the house, making himself useful; or monitoring her children as they played Quidditch in the garden as Molly’s husband showed up mostly late into the night and Molly was too busy to keep an eye on the prone-to-trouble teens/young adults. Theseus had to admit, they were pretty good.

“Foul!” George yelled. “Theseus!

Ginny snickered. “Aw, you poor little snowflake-”

“You threw the ball right at my di-”

“-you big baby-”

Theseus laughed. It reminded him a bit of his Quidditch team, back in his Hogwarts days.  Fleamont (who he’d later learned was Harry Fucking Potter, the fucking child who was supposed to save them all,’s fucking grandfather) had always been a menace on the Quidditch pitch. A very talented menace, but a menace nonetheless. He’d pull this type of shit too. One time he’d turned into a crowned eagle and flown straight at Arcturus Black the Third (the prick had absolutely deserved it, though) and gotten the entire Hufflepuff team grounded for a month.

Thankfully, this time it didn't involve Animagi, just sibling chaos. Which he was quite used to.

“It barely hit you,” he pointed out, fighting back a wheeze. Oh, he’d forgotten what it was like to be that age. Even growing up in the midst of the war, you felt invincible. Happy and determined. Like nothing could stop you from doing whatever you wanted to do. How he wished he could be back to that age, if only because it meant he would have his brother and Leta alive by his side, not his own happiness.

George made a dramatic sigh and almost fell off his broom. “Oh, I have been betrayed! Surrounded by enemies!”

The twins left the day after that. Apparently, their joke shop was really taking off. Theseus wasn’t surprised by that- Fred and George were genuinely intelligent lads with a sharp talent for charms, if they had wanted to they would have been amazing Aurors- and in a time like this, a little bit of humor was almost a lifeline. He would know. He had seen far too many wars. A world without humor, without joy, without laughter, is so dystopian it leeches the lives of everyone.

“They grow up so fast,” Molly said nostalgically, eying Ginny. “I still remember the days they were born. How could I not? Those days were the most painful I’ve ever had…but it was worth it, to me.”

“I still remember the day my brother was born,” Theseus agreed quietly. Newt had been born slightly ahead of schedule, and as such was delivered on the floor of the Scamander house at 12:01 am. The only light came from some electric lights (which had gone out due to their mother’s magic screaming out as she went through labor) and some candles, as their father was too dead set on helping his wife to remember to use Lumos. “Even all these years later.”

It was one of the precious few things he had left of his brother, so he clung to it with an iron grip. I still remember how small you were, Newt. It was a miracle you survived.

“But I didn’t,” Newt whispered in his ears.

“You left me, Thee. And I died.”

The nickname, paired with the words, felt like a stab to the stomach (he would know, he’d been stabbed there before).

He knew Newt wasn’t there. Just a figment of his imagination.

So he forced his tears down and moved robotically through his day as if he was carved from lead.

Theseus Scamander didn’t believe in ghosts, but it sure as hell felt like his brother’s was following him relentlessly; a phantom menace, a specter no one else could see.

This is my penance, he thought. For everything I’ve ever done wrong. For everyone I’ve failed.

He watched the clouds drift through the sky like jellyfish floating through the currents; their nematocyst-covered tentacles trailing behind them like the promise of rain that followed the darkening clouds.

Rain will never wash the blood off my hands, though, he thought. Nothing can. And nothing can make me any less alone.

He wanted so badly to go home. But home had been dead for seventy-five years, since Leta had died. It had been dead for seventy years, when he’d been kidnapped and yanked through time and presumed dead. And not even the foundations were left for him to rebuild.

There was blood in the water, turning the tide crimson, and Theseus was drowning far from shore. How could he not; he was the last one standing. All because of a freak transtemporal incident.

He almost wished he had died at Grindelwald’s hands in 1937. Death would be far better than this- fighting another way seventy years into the future with everyone he loved dead and watching others have the life he’d missed out on. Death would be warmer than the frigid black hole of grief that threatened to swallow him, kinder than the steel-tipped memories of a time now long gone.

He was standing on the edges of Yggdrasil, having sipped from Mimir’s well, and he wanted to fall into Ginnungagap. The knowledge was not worth the pain, the sacrifices that had gotten him here. He would rather face eternity in Helheim with Leta and Newt by his side than all the eons of this world without them.

Chapter Text

In 1937, people mourned when Theseus Scamander died. When he became a martyr in the war against Grindelwald. He was a war hero, an Auror, a survivor of so much personal tragedy.

Everyone knew his face.

In 1996, few knew his name. And even fewer knew his face.

Fewer still were the ones who mourned.

His grave was in Godric’s Hollow, where Newt later moved and raised his family. Ironically, it was in the same graveyard as Lily and James Potter’s graves.

It was worn, and easily forgotten, especially being so near to the famed Potter graves. But it was well-taken care of.

Perseus made sure of that. His father had, to begin with; and his siblings before they moved out and dispersed across the world.

Perseus sat down against the gravemarker, between his uncle’s and his father’s.

A black-eyed Susan, some forget me nots, heliotrope, and white hyacinths were planted around the Scamander brother’s graves.

(In his final years, Newt had taken up floriography. Perseus made sure that still blossomed even now.)

It was different, visiting  now, though. Because he knew that his uncle was alive.

Perseus smiled at his father.

“We’re going to find him,” he swore. “Damn Albus. It’s been almost eighty years. He’s coming home.”

We waited so long. It’s about damn time we got closure, no matter what that twat thinks.

                                  ^^

Minerva remembered him. Oh yes, she did. She had just been a girl when Theseus Scamander died, but she remembered it.

She stared at him in shock.

He didn’t look a day over forty-three.

Gods, he looked so fucking young , and Minerva was horrified by the fact.

The man was older than her, he should be in his nineties if not his hundreds by now- but no.

He was exactly as he had been in 1937.

Except for his eyes- oh, his eyes.

He had the eyes of a soldier who had lost everyone, of someone completely alone.

Inside her chest, her heart shattered.

Albus, this man is FUCKING TRAUMATIZED. This poor kid- fuck, man- damn it, he looked too young- he needs to be with what’s left of his family, not fucking teaching and fighting in another army.

He held out his hand, a small smile on his face, all politeness and courtesy. “Hello. I’m the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher. Theseus.”

She silently promised to help him as best as she could. He deserved so much better than what Albus was giving him.

“Minerva McGonagall,” she replied, shaking his hand and making a mental note to punch Albus in the face (or hex him really, really hard) when she next saw him and demand what the fuck he thought he was doing.

And  oh, ask the simple question of how the fuck was Theseus alive. Which mattered less in retrospect than punching Albus and figuring out what the hell was going on.

                                  ^^

Severus took one look at the newbie, and sighed. He felt a headache coming on.

Albus, what did you do, this man is supposed to be dead.

Fucking Merlin, the asshole was pulling people deeper and deeper into his web.

What the fuck is he doing now, necromancy? If he was going to revive anyone, it should’ve been Regulus. No offense, Scamander.

But Severus still missed his long dead friend. One of the few he’d had that he could’ve trusted with anything.

Severus studied the newcomer.

He seemed skilled.

Let’s hope the Death Eaters still think him dead and don’t come hunting for him. I have done many dubious things, but endangering an innocent coworker? Not something I would be proud of doing.

To be fair, though, almost everything he had done in the last sixteen years he was not proud of. Came with the territory of being a double agent.

You have to do things you found horrible and disturbing to keep up the facade. And you tell yourself that you are helping the world.

But at midnight, covered in blood, it is hard to see any sunlight in the abyss of horror and despair.

Severus was used to it. By now he was far more suited to the dark than the pale imitations of sunlight; a creature of night.

He saw the world now in shades of black and gray, and the occasional white; the color had died some time ago with the final bloody sunset.

Not even a Patronus could light up the bloodstained trench he risked his life in.

                               ^^

Sybil took one look at the new Defense Against The Dark Arts professor, and nearly a heart attack. His aura was so, so wrong- so much pain, so much confusion.

He should be dead. He was so young, but death clung to him like a spider clung to its web. His eyes were windows into a dark past, and Sybil wondered what the fuck Albus had done now.

“Nice to meet you,” she said warmly. “I’m Sybil. Let me know if you need anything, alright?”

He smiled back at her, a rugged yet soft expression that gave her an odd sense of deja vu.

“Thank you. My name’s Theseus.”

Her grandmother’s voice echoed in her mind after the name, Sybil’s heart skipping a beat.

“Westward bound the dead man wanders, searching for a home the phoenix burned.

Theseus has come home at last, beneath black sails, a soldier in the war once more.

‘Twas a tragedy when he fell, but even more so when  he was not left to rest, in the halls of heroes with the raven he loved.”

“A blood-red dawn sees him gone, lost to the wiles of the puppeteer,” she whispered once he was gone, continuing her grandmother’s words. “His life stolen, his family broken, destiny seeks out her favorite son.”

“A man out of his time, lost to history, his face forgotten and his name buried beneath with his kin. A way home there is not for him who lived through Minos’ maze, who survived Daedalus’ lies.”

Oh, the soldier returns at last from the war, but there is no home waiting. No family keeps a warm fire burning for the one who fought his all. He believes himself to be all but alone in the cruel coldness of the callous world.

Albus, what did you do?

                                                        ^^

“You cannot tell anyone your last name,” Albus told him. “For your own safety, of course.”

Theseus trusted Albus. He really did. Why wouldn’t he?

“Alright,” he acquiesced. It was a bit of a weird request, but Albus would never do anything to hurt him. Right?

So why did everything feel so off? Why did it feel like Albus was hiding something?

Theseus shook his head, clearing the thoughts,  and looked around what would be in a few weeks his classroom. It was most likely the absurd amount of molds and mildews covering the walls. He was no mycologist, but he recognized at least thirteen different species on the dark and damp walls.

He snorted. “Albus, I’m not a vampire.”

“I know that,” Albus protested.
Theseus rolled his eyes. “Sure, old man.”

“You are almost as old as me!”

“Chronologically, yeah. Biologically? Nah. Suck it.”

“Right, I’ll leave you to it,” Albus said quietly. “And don’t mind Peeves!”

“I didn’t forget about the poltergeist, Albus, he once threw me down the stairs-”

Albus winked at him and vanished, leaving Theseus in the fungus-infested room. He shook his head at Albus’ shenanigans, a faint smile on his face. Now onto the hard part- cleaning this shitshow up and making it (at least somewhat) habitable for human use.

Turns out the room had already been occupied, and Theseus ended up back in the healing wing after sustaining at least six doxy bites.

Poppy nearly had a myocardial infarction when she saw him. “ Doxies? What the fuck? Theseus Apollon Scamander, what have you been doing-?”

“Cleaning my r’m,” he’d muttered.

“Damn it, Albus, you’re almost as bad as Newst,” Theseus slurred at the older man, who peered down at him over his half-moon spectacles.

“He should be fine by tomorrow morning,” Poppy said. “But Merlin above, doxies? Albus!”

“I didn’t know there were any in there!” The white-haired wizard protested.

“First it was Cornish pixies, then dementors, then dragons, Blast-Ended Skrewts, and Merlin knows what else,” the healer muttered. “What’ll it be next, chimaeras?”

“Those are illegal,” Albus retorted.

“That didn’t stop Hagrid  from having a bloody dragon egg in his wooden house!” Poppy borderline shrieked. “And I thought you were the reasonable one here!”

“Nope, that’s Minerva,” Albus replied cheerfully. “And I really did not know about the doxies, Poppy.”

“You better not have,” Poppy muttered. “Or I will skin you alive and feed you to the giant squid.”

^^

Albus watched Theseus carefully, and let out a sigh of relief. The younger man did not seem to remember stumbling across Rolf Scamander’s name on the list of students for this year. Thank Merlin.

(Well, more like Albus’ skill with Obliviate)

Albus did not like messing with memories. It was icky, and often resulted in unnecessary drama. But he had to in this instance. If Theseus knew that he had family still alive…well, all the misery Albus had gone through pulling Theseus through time would be for naught.

And he needed him. The final game was soon to begin, and he needed all the players on his side he could get (even through very morally dubious ways).

“Sleep well, Theseus,” he whispered. “The war is reaching its zenith, and yours is one of the last sacrifices necessary.”

Chapter Text

1917

Somewhere in Europe

Fleamont couldn’t sleep. His bed was far too cold without Theseus in it. He managed to slip out of the tent, ignoring the snores of the other men (Petroski, Woods, Diggory). Outside the tent, it was nearing midnight, but the camp was wide awake. It had to be. They were so very close to the front lines here. Not being awake could mean death.

Thankfully, the healers let him into the tent, and Fleamont lay down beside his unconscious friend.

He couldn’t imagine a life without him.

You better not die on me, love.

He wrapped his arms around Theseus’ sleeping form. “Don’t you dare leave me,” he whispered. “I’ll be so alone, drowning in the darkest waters, without my brightest star to keep me going.”

“I won’t,” Theseus’ voice,  adorably deep and raspy with sleep, replied. “How can I let go of my favourite person?”

Fleamont smiled into Theseus’ neck. “ Merlin,  you’re so addicting.”

Theseus’ answering laugh felt like magic; it had been so long since he’d been blessed with it.

“Only drug you’ll ever touch,” his best friend yawned.

“Damn right,” Fleamont murmured, halfway to sleep already in Theseus’ warm, soothing presence. “And I hope I never have to leave you; because I sure ain’t quitting you.”

                                                        ^^

1942

Godric’s Hollow Graveyard

Purple hyacinths for sorrow. Yellow lilies for the love that they couldn’t express in this world that was so cruel to those who were different. Red and blue salvias for remembrance and an expression of love, of possession they could never share in life. Heliotrope for the love that would never die, even as Fleamont married and raised a family. Even as Theseus lived on secretly seventy years in the distant future.

And hyssop for the sacrifices they made, for the sacrifices no one would ever know about.

All these bloomed around the gravestone in Godric’s Hollow graveyard.

Fleamont leaned against the gravestone, all that was left of Theseus’ warmth and his sharp smile, of his stubborn selflessness that bordered on suicidal. A cold echo of the man he’d known, of the man he’d loved. The ghost of someone he could never have.

“Hello,” he whispered. “It’s been a long time.”

Five years. Five. Five whole years since Theseus had been killed. He could barely believe it.

It seemed so long ago but also so fresh, a battle wound that still ached many years after it was given.

“I’m getting married,” he said to the silent autumn chill. “I found a girl. Euphoria. I met her four years ago, remember? Soon after you left. We’re getting married in March.”

But, oh how I wish it was you. Euphoria is amazing, but I miss you. So, so much. It’s like part of my soul was ripped away when you died.

“I love her. But I love you, too, Theseus.” You were the moon to my sun.

You always said I was going to burn out too soon, go out as a blazing supernova. Ironic. It’s what happened to you.

“We were never meant to be, were we?” he whispered. “The world wants nothing to do with people like us. It’s always ‘marry a girl, settle down, raise a family’. Nothing else. We were doomed from the start.”

But when we had each other, it was so worth the pain. It was so damn worth it. I’d do it all again. I have no regrets in meeting you.

You stole my heart and never gave it back, and I don’t miss it. But I wish you were here.

Even if I still couldn’t have you, you being here would make my heart glow like the stars we watched from the Astronomy Tower.

I’d fight a thousand wars to be able to go home to you. Even if it was only temporarily.

“I hope you’re as happy as me, wherever you are now,” he said, looking up at the gold and crimson sky. “I hope you’re at peace.”

I’ll love you until doomsday. I will wait centuries to see you again.

                                                          ^^

1996

Present day

“My…grandparents are buried here?” Harry asked as the two walked down the street, Dumbledore’s rules and the Death Eaters be damned.

Remus smiled down at him, though his eyes were slightly misty. “Yeah. Euphoria and Fleamont. Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They would’ve loved you, especially Fleamont. He was a damn good flyer. They didn’t get to meet you, though. They got dragon pox in ‘80, right after you were born.”

“Oh,” Harry whispered. Even his grandparents had been taken from him. They didn’t even know him.

“They had your father pretty late in life,” Remus explained as they approached the graveyard. “They’d be in their late nineties, early hundreds now. But if they were alive, you almost definitely would’ve grown up with them and not the Dursleys.”

Damn. So he’d lost two families and had been stuck with the worst one. And of course, the worst people still lived, while the great ones didn’t.

He wondered briefly what it would have been like to grow up with his father’s parents instead of the Dursleys. Anyone would be better than the Durselys, he thought, pushing the thought away. They stepped through the cold iron gate, and walked into the maze of the dead.

He could’ve sworn he saw an abandoned-looking gravestone that had the name Salazar written on it, which made him wonder. Was Salazar Slytherin buried here? If not, then who named their kid ‘Salazar’ and why? What was the story behind the name, and the person beneath the gravestone?

Remus seemed to know the graveyard like the back of his hand, moving between the stones with graceful, fluid ease.

“I’ve been here a lot,” he said in response to Harry’s questioning look. “Seen too many funerals held here. The Potters should be up here, though. Unfortunately, we have a bit of a time crunch. Albus is going to kill me for ‘risking’ you, but I figured you deserved to know a bit more about your family, and to get away from the Dursleys for a while.  Though, if we do run into any Death Eaters, get the fuck out of here, alright?”

“Yep,” Harry replied. “And don’t go dying on me, old man.”

“I’m not really that old-”

“-You act like one, though. You knit, you drink tea, you-”
“-Damnit, you have Lily’s sass,” Remus muttered under his breath.

“I should get you a ‘World’s Best Grandmother’ mug,” Harry mused. “And maybe you can give Hermione some knitting tips; her SPEW hats look like livers made out of wool.”

Remus laughed. “They can’t look that bad.”

“Oh, they do,” Harry grinned, a flicker of happiness bubbling in his chest even in this place of death. “Ron doubts they even count as clothes, since they don’t resemble sane clothing items whatsoever.”

“I’m sure Hermione was pleased by that statement,” Remus remarked dryly.

“Oh, yeah, she just wanted to murder him. Pretty par for the course with them, though.”

“Sounds like your parents before James pulled his head out of his arse.”

Harry snorted. “I’m sure that was equally as pleasant to be around.”
“It was slightly better when they were snogging instead of fighting,” Remus replied. “Slightly.”

Remus suddenly paused, his skinny frame tensing. “Who’s there?”

What-?

Harry’s hand tightened on his wand, braced for a fight, but it just turned out to be a visitor to the graves. A particularly handsome one.

He seemed relatively young, maybe in his twenties or his thirties, with hair that was somewhere between auburn and brunet. His eyes were a pale blue-grey, like the sky before a storm.

For some reason, he seemed…strangely familiar. Like an old family friend thought gone returning, whole and hale as ever but devastated by losses that he had missed.

“Sorry for spooking you,” he apologised. “I was…visiting an old friend.”

Remus relaxed a bit. “It’s alright, just startled me.”

The edges of the man’s lips twitched. Briefly, his eyes slid to Harry, and he seemed a bit shocked, but the expression faded quickly. He dipped his head to Remus and Harry. “Good night.”

Chapter Text

“Right, I think it’s about time you met the rest of the Order,” Minerva told him one day as he was finishing the decontamination of what was supposed to be his classroom, but was more of a habitat for deadly creatures that understandably kept trying to kill him for his intrusion into their home. He was still staying at the Burrow, in theory, but in reality he was spending more and more hours at the school preparing lessons and waging war on his Merlin-damned classroom.

Theseus nearly got bitten by a nesting puff adder. “Didn’t Albus say I should stay here and at the Burrow-”

“I love Albus, I do, but he’s a control freak. It’ll be fine, Mister Scamander.”

…Right. To be fair, though, I’m probably equally as safe with her- she’s one of the most talented witches I’ve met. And I am dying to get out of here before I get myself killed disturbing God-knows what.

(Unbeknownst to him, Minerva had a slightly ulterior motive: she was trying to reunite the remnants of the Scamander family. Also, she was just fucking pissed at Albus right now anyways, so she was taking any reasonable excuse to defy his orders right now.)

Theseus backed away from the venomous-snake infested drawer (if he didn’t know better, he’d say Albus was trying to kill him), his body aching. “Alright,” he replied, yawning.

Minerva smiled at him, but her smile turned to horror. “Theseus-” the first time she’d called him by first name-”are you alright?”

Theseus looked down and found that a puff adder had bit him. “Oh,” he said, and promptly passed out.

Minerva swore and thankfully caught the now-limp Scamander before he could hit his head on the cold stone floor. The last thing he needed right now was a brain injury. “Poppy!” she yelled, picking the younger (through a technicality) man and carrying him out of the room bridal-style. But before she stepped out of the room, she noticed that the snake had blue eyes.

Not any blue, either. They were the colour of tears on the winter solstice, of ice-encrusted diamond; a pale blue like shattered mirrors.

Blue eyes are unusual enough in a reptile. But that one shade of blue…she knew it. She knew it all too well.

And it left a gaping black hole where her heart had once been.

No. No. He’d never do such a thing. He knows how dangerous this is, if we can’t get Theseus antivenom in time. He’d never do that.

But Minerva was being forced to confront the fact she didn’t know Albus Dumbledore at all.

Her eyes blazed like the flames of a Hungarian Horntail. “Damn it, Albus,” she whispered as she carried the unconscious Theseus to the healing wing. “What are you?”

                                                        ^^

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is many things. A bundle of contradictions. Marred by tragedy. A saviour to the broken and downtrodden.

But he throws them away once he doesn’t need them anymore. He uses them like pawns on a chessboard, without any consideration for their feelings.

Life is cruel and harsh. I am just…showing them how cruel it is. I am not the bad guy.

Some would call him manipulative. Albus preferred ‘creative’. The war had to be won, after all, and no one else was willing to do whatever it took to bring down Voldemort. No one else was capable of seeing the bigger picture.

So what if Theseus had lost seventy years of his life? In the end, it didn’t matter. He was going to be one of the final sacrifices to end the war.  He was going to die anyway.

So what if he’d known Sirius was innocent? Harry had needed to stay with the Dursleys. Sirius’ sacrifices had not gone to waste, he had made sure of that.

And for both Harry and Theseus to play their swan songs perfectly, they had to be isolated, left in the dark. Blindly trusting of Albus. And for that to happen, he had to do things people would consider morally dubious.

They’ll thank me, one day, he thought, after briefly turning into a puff adder to stop Theseus from reuniting with what was left of his family. One day, they’ll appreciate all I’ve done for them.

^^

“Why did you call us, Minerva?” Perseus asked  Minerva after he, Tina, and Selene had stepped out of the fireplace and into Minerva’s office.

Minerva looked tired, but there was a slight sparkle in her eyes. “Right…I found your uncle. And your brother in law, Tina.”

The three gasped simultaneously.

“What? How?”

“Albus found him and hired him as the new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher,” Minerva explained.

Selene cursed under her breath. “So he did know where he was.”

“He said he didn’t?” Minerva asked, a dark tone to her steely voice.

“Yeah,” Perseus muttered. Liar. We trusted you.

He briefly wondered what Newt would’ve thought had he been alive to see this. Would he have sided with his close friend, or the brother whose survival had been hidden by Albus?

“Where is he?” his mother asked, a new shine to her eyes that hadn’t been there since Newt had died.

“He’s in the healing wing. He got bitten by a snake,” Minerva answered tersely, looking as angry as Perseus had ever seen her. “Come on.”

Internally, as they followed the stern head of Gryffindor, Perseus was glad that anger was not directed at them. She’d been terrifying enough when he had gone to school. Seeing her mad again would be traumatic for everyone involved, even Tina who didn’t really know Minerva all that well.

His heart hammered against his chest at the thought of meeting his uncle. He’d never thought he’d be able to do so.

Never thought he could get to talk to the person whose grave he visited yearly.

It was one of those opportunities that felt straight out of science fiction; a chance to talk with the ‘dead’.

A chance for a family to get closure, over seventy years after it had lost a member. A member that only a handful remembered.

Minerva opened the door of the hospital wing gently.

“He’s still pretty out of it,” she explained.

“If you need anything,  Poppy’s in her office,” Minerva told them. “If you don’t mind me,  Albus and I need to have a long talk.”

“Get his arse,” Selene nodded to her, and the other woman slipped down the hall.

Tina took a shaky breath, her dark brown eyes misty. Her hands shook. Perseus slipped one of his into her’s, and Selene took their mother’s other hand.

“We’ve survived wars,” Selene said, her voice as steady as steel. “We’ll survive this, alright?”

Tina’s lips twitched.  “You are so much like your father.”

And the trio stepped into the surprisingly frigid room.

                                                        ^^

Tina’s hundred-year-old heart nearly stopped when she saw him. It was him; Minerva didn’t lie. (It would’ve been very out of character for her to do so anyways.) Her brother in law had finally come home, seventy-odd years after it ended.

Oh, God, she’d forgotten how young he had been. His hair was still the light brown-auburn that Newt’s had been a shade or two away from in his youth. He was pale, probably from the snake bite. But he seemed relatively peaceful.

Perseus let out a shocked noise. “He looks so much like dad,” he whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. One of his hands brushed his uncle’s. “Oh, fuck. He’s really here.”

Her little girl, Selene, who shared a name with Theseus’ dead fiancee, made a surprised noise. “He’s so young,” she whispered in shock. She had clearly not seen that coming, then. To be fair, neither had Tina.

“He was forty-three,” Tina reminded her gently. Young. Oh, so young, especially when compared to how long Newt and I had. “Well, is  forty-three. He looks just like he did then.”

“Mrs Scamander,” said a familiar voice, not one she wanted to hear right then.

“Albus,” the over-a-hundred year old witch borderline growled, turning sharply to face the headmaster.

Selene looked up from Theseus so sharply she nearly gave herself a neck injury. She scowled at Albus. “ You.”

“Me,” Albus replied calmly.

For once, Tina was extremely tempted to hex Albus. The bastard, not telling them where Theseus was even though he knew, lying through his teeth when they dared to ask. And Newt wasn’t around anymore to moderate her behaviour. Though, she was sure he would’ve done the same thing. Theseus was his brother, after all.

He lifted his hands. “It was for the greater good, Ti-”

“That’s just what Grindelwald said,” Tina spat, “when he went around murdering people! And Theseus spent his whole life dedicated to this country, so don’t you talk about the damn greater good! ”

“I understand the possible security concerns,” Perseus jumped in smoothly. “But why would the Death Eaters go after him anyways? They think him dead, and it has been a long damn time since a Scamander risked their life in one of your wars.”

“Everyone is in danger with Voldemort about,” Albus replied cynically.

“No shit!” Perseus hissed, his voice deathly quiet. Oh, her youngest was furious. Tina smiled to herself. As he should be. Give him hell, Percy.

He was like Newt in that quiet anger, but his sharp tongue was all his own.

“Stop being selfish, Perseus, this is an all-out war,” Albus retorted.

“You weren’t like this during the fight with Grindelwald,” Tina snapped. “Our family has bled enough for you and your causes, so fuck off with your supposed ‘patriotic and selfless’ attitude. And don’t you dare call my son selfish. I assure you, you will not like what happens if you do so again.”

“He should’ve come home, not been locked in here like a patient in an asylum,” Selene told Albus, her grey-green eyes crystal clear and hard as diamond. “Why didn’t you tell him about us? Why did you lie about knowing where he was? What are you hiding, Albus?”

“I am fighting a war,” Albus snapped frostily. “I have no time to deal with such miniscule matters as these, Miss Scamander.”

“Miniscule? You call the reunion of a - or my- family miniscule?”

“Good day,” Albus said, like a coward, and somehow slipped out of the room, leaving three furious Scamanders at Theseus’ bedside.

“Fuck him,” Selene muttered fervently.

Chapter Text

Theseus dreamed of cold, hungry frost. That brutal, frozen killer that froze Valley Forge; that cruel, callous, silent hunter that slowed entire armies. The glacial and unsympathetic weather that had slowed Hannibal’s approach. He dreamed of snow, and death.

He dreamed of the winter of 1917.  Hypothermia, frostbite, and trench foot had been cruelly rampant among the soldiers he had fought with, taking them in the night or leaving them with amputated limbs. The winter’s coming brought illnesses, as well. Influenza. Pneumonia.  An outbreak of venereal disease as soldiers were seeking comfort in each other and local women.  Even the dreaded tuberculosis, although briefly.

That winter had been a frozen hell. Between the fighting, the numbing and unfriendly weather, and the diseases tearing them asunder, everyone had been convinced they were to die here. On frozen, foreign shores on hostile lands far from home.

Theseus remembered Fleamont. His best friend had been the only reason he hadn’t given up and just let go of life. He wondered deliriously if Fleamont was with him. Of course he is. He’s my best friend. It’s 1937, and no one is gone besides Leta. Leta, my love, who has been gone these five years, leaving me so, so alone.

I was twenty four years old

He’d been eleven. He’d met Fleamont on the Hogwarts express in 1891, a small eleven year old who was desperate to do well and make friends. Fleamont had smirked and offered him a chocolate frog. Theseus had never had one before, so within hours the two were budding best friends and high on sugar. Theseus blamed him for the sweet tooth he now had as an adult.

When I met the woman I would call my own

He’d been in denial about it for a long, long time. But he loved Fleamont. He loved him as he had loved Leta. Theseus knew it was supposed to be wrong; he was only supposed to love women. But then why did loving Fleamont feel so right?

Twenty-two grandkids now growing old

Provided Theseus survived whatever was going on with him right now. Provided he survived the war against Grindelwald. Provided that one day, he and Fleamont could be together, no matter what the world thought.

In that house that your brother bought ya

Fleamont had two brothers. James, who’d died young, and William, who was still alive as far as Theseus knew. He wondered if one of them had gotten Fleamont’s new house for him (he had moved recently, after his old house had been wrecked by a black mould).

On that summer day when I proposed

They’d kissed once. On a warm, summer day in their seventh year, out by the lake. It had felt like a piece of heaven had come down from the skies at that moment. Theseus wished he could kiss him again. But it was never meant to be, was it? His heart, long cold with Leta’s absence, longed for the one he could never have.

I made that wedding ring from dentist gold

And I asked her father but her daddy said no

You can’t marry my daughter

Fleamont’s father,  Henry, would never have approved of them. He probably would’ve cussed them out and disowned Fleamont, if not gotten downright violent. Perhaps it was for the best they could never be together, then; Fleamont would never know the pain of his father casting him out.

She and I went on the run

Closest they ever got to a romantic vacation was the few times during the war they were alone and not being shot at or threatened by influenza.

Don’t care about religion

Religion was surprisingly quiet in the British Wizarding World. Very few people cared what religion you practised or if you practised any at all, a leftover from the time where wizards and witches were strongly prosecuted.  Generally speaking, most wizards were relatively accepting of differences…for the most part.

I’m gonna marry the woman I love

Down by the Wexford border

Damn his feelings. He loved Leta, who was gone, and he loved Fleamont too; what was wrong with him? He had loved Fleamont even when he had loved Leta. Somehow. How can someone love two people at once? How can someone love his dead fiance and his best friend at the same damn time? Merlin, this was so fucking confusing. Why couldn’t his heart be straightforward for once in his life?

She was Nancy Mulligan

And I was William Sheeran

He was Fleamont Potter; he was Theseus Scamander. A love that could never be,  a love that burned down in flames like L’manburg. A flame doused by the cold, harsh water of the society around him, disapproving and judging.

She took my name and then we were one

Down by the Wexford border

Ironic how he never got either of the people he loved. He didn’t get to marry Leta, because she died; and then he never got to marry Fleamont. …when did his verb tenses change? What the fuck?

Fleamont is alive, unmarried, and well, Theseus thought. But something did not seem quite right with that. And for supposedly being in 1937, there was a sorrow clinging to him that was revealing.

He was grieving not just for his lost loves, but for his brother.  Who was alive and well in 1937. But he was dead by 1996.

No, Theseus thought fiercely, vehemently denying the transtemporal nonsense. I’m in 1937,  and Newt and Fleamont are alive. They are.

Well, I met her at Guy’s in the Second World War

He met him before the Great War (Albus now called it the first World War now), back when he still had hopes for a happy future. By now, no matter what year it was, Theseus had long since let go of the idea of having a happy life.

And she was working on a soldier’s ward

He remembered the nights during the influenza where Fleamont had nursed him. After the injuries during the war, how Fleamont would curl up in the cot with him, a flaming warmth in the chilly night air. How when the nurses gave up on Theseus for dead during the influenza, Fleamont never stopped believing in him.  Fleamont had never stopped believing in him. Never. And Theseus had never given up on his best friend.

Never had I seen such beauty before

The moment I saw her

Theseus’ love for Fleamont had been built off of years of companionship. He figured he fell in love with him sometime in sixth year, when he saw Fleamont’s dark hair and eyes like pools of caramel and went ‘holy Merlin, I want to snog him.’

Nancy was my yellow rose

Fleamont had been his hyacinth; Theseus Fleamont’s scarlet rose.

And we got married wearing borrowed clothes

We got eight children now growing old, five sons and three daughters

Newt would’ve- would be a good father, Theseus thought. He’s always so good with kids.

She and I went on the run

Don’t care about religion

I’m gonna marry the woman I love

Down by the Wexford border

She was Nancy Mulligan

I was William Sheeran

She took my name and then we were one

Down by the Wexford border

From the snow white streak in her jet black hair

Over sixty years I’ve been loving her

It’s been over seventy. Theseus couldn’t deny anymore the time travel that had quite literally ruined his life. It was 1996, not 1937, and it had been over seventy years since Fleamont had seen him.

Now we’re sat by the fire in our old armchairs

Theseus was slightly aware of being on a bed, but his mind was jumbled and he didn’t know where he was. He did remember, though, that he had gotten bitten by a snake while cleaning out his soon-to-be classroom at Hogwarts. Somehow. Just his luck to be bitten by a snake in the middle of Scotland.

You know Nancy I adore ya

He hoped the people he had unwillingly left behind knew that he loved him.

From a farm boy born near Belfast town

I never worried about the king and crown

Apparently, they had a queen now. King George’s daughter, Elizabeth. Huh.

Cause I found my heart upon the southern ground

And lost it twice; once in Paris and the other when he found Fleamont’s grave.

There’s no difference, I assure ya

She and I went on the run

Don’t care about religion

I’m gonna marry the woman I love

Down by the Wexford border

She was Nancy Mulligan

I was William Sheeran

She took my name and then we were one

Down by the Wexford border

                                                                ^^

Theseus drifted into consciousness slowly. He could faintly feel the soft feel of a bed beneath his beak, and he let out a confused groan. What the…oh, I’m in the hospital wing. That makes sense, since that snake bit me. How long have I been out?

“Theseus?” a familiar voice, slightly aged, spoke; hopeful and concerned all at once.

Theseus’ eyes flew open, nearly having a heart attack in the process. “Tina?”

Chapter Text

“Tina?” Theseus repeated, in shock.

An elderly woman with snow white hair and dark brown eyes peered at him; shock written on her face.

“Theseus,” the elderly woman whispered in Tina’s voice.

And Theseus shattered like glass.

Tina managed to catch him before he could faceplant off the cot, her arms wrapping around his shoulders protectively. She had lost none of her strength over the years. He melted into the warmth of her grasp like a candle melting beneath the warm gaze of the sun.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice like gentle water against the scorching burns of Theseus’ sobs. “You’re not alone anymore.”

The war hero came undone not by death, but by the sight of a familiar face long thought gone.

                                                        ^^

Tina cradled Theseus gently, but her mind burned with the wrath of a thousand suns. How dare Albus leave him so alone that he broke like this the moment he was with someone he knew. He probably didn’t tell him I’m still alive, either, she thought, with thinly veiled horror. He thought I was gone, like Newt. Oh, Albus, what have you done?

Theseus confirmed that hypothesis a moment later.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “I thought I was all alone.”

“You’re not,” Tina said firmly. “You never have been. And you never will be. I promise.”

Oh, Albus, when I see you again, I’m going to fucking kill you. Who do you think you are, tearing up families and using people like this? It’s no surprise he’s so traumatized, after all he’s gone through, and you’ve certainly not helped.

Newt, Theseus, and I trusted you. And you broke that trust and shattered our family. Do we even know you at all, the real you?

                                                   ^^

It doesn’t hurt me (yeah, yeah, no)

Knowing that Albus had lied, had kept him from the family he had left. Knowing that all that time he’d known him, all the trust he’d placed in him, had been shattered because he had never really known Albus at all.

(If Albus wasn’t under the Imperius curse. And he was too stubborn to be under it, and too secure. The Death Eaters would probably rather kill him if they had that kind of access.)

Do you wanna know how it feels? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

To have the world pulled out from under your feet? To have one of the few people left you could trust turn out to be a liar at best and a manipulative maniac at worst?

Do you wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Do you wanna hear about the deal that I'm making? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Theseus wasn’t a very religious man. But he wondered if he had danced too close to the devil.

You

It's you and me

The war hero and the savior, the pawn and the king. Theseus and Albus. Dancing to the song of death. There were other people, too;  Voldemort and the way-too young kid that was said to be supposed to stop him. Oh, fuck, Harry; Fleamont’s grandkid. The one he’d seen at Fleamont’s grave.

Albus….he’s too young. Far, far too young. He’s just a kid.

And if I only could

I’d make a deal with God

Or the wizard that seemed dead set on playing God. Handling life and death without consulting anyone, with little to no regard on how it affected others. Oh, how had they not seen Albus’ true nature sooner?

And I’d get him to swap our places

Theseus was an ex-Auror. Harry was a child. Theseus had not bled so hard for a man he trusted to use child soldiers. He’d rather die than see the day where Harry had to be the one to fight instead of the actual fucking adults. (And maybe, just maybe, he saw a lot of Fleamont in him. And this was his way of being able to say goodbye to the person he’d loved but been unable to have.)

Be running up that road

Be running up that hill

Be running up that building

Say, if I only could, oh

You don’t wanna hurt me (yeah, yeah, yo)

Theseus couldn’t believe Albus would ever willingly hurt him. But with all the evidence of his friend’s true self…maybe he already had.

But see how deep the bullet lies (yeah, yeah, yo)

How deep rooted his pain, his grief, his misery lay. How far down the roots of despair went.

Unaware I’m tearing you asunder (yeah, yeah, yo)

Oh, there is thunder in our hearts (yeah, yeah, yo)

Did Albus even have a heart anymore?

Or had it long been gone, replaced by selfishness and ambition?

Is there so much hate for the ones we love? (Yeah; yeah, yo)

Humanity has always judged those who do not seek out traditional partners. But Theseus supposed loving a fucking ‘serial killer and international war criminal’ was especially judged. (He knew Albus had loved Grindelwald, once. Once upon a lifetime, Albus had trusted him enough to tell him that.  Clearly the Dark Wizard had worn off on Albus more than anyone had realized.)

Oh, tell me, we both matter, don’t we? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

History only really remembered one, clearly. And it wasn’t Theseus. Even after all he had done and sacrificed, his country couldn’t bring itself to give a damn about it.

You

It’s you and me

The headmaster and the Auror. The commander and the soldier. The puppeteer and one of his many puppets. The man always out of time, and the man who hoarded it.

It’s you and me

Won’t be unhappy (yeah, yeah, yo)

Oh, come on baby (yeah)

Oh come on, darling (yo)

Let me steal this moment from you now

Because they’d never thought they’d have this moment.

Oh, come on angel

Come on, come on darling

Let’s exchange  the experience

Theseus’ pain for Albus’ throne.

And if I only could

I’d make a deal with God

And I’d get him to swap our  places

Maybe Albus would act like he used to if he was reminded of the stakes. Of the pain. Of the grief and misery and malarial-like mourning.

I’d be running up that road

Be running up that hill

With no problems

Theseus was only forty-three, after all; and thanks to being a (ex)Auror he was in excellent shape. (He wondered if he would be good enough to survive this war. He’d already survived one, and fought in two.)

                                              ^^

Perseus laid down by his uncle, who’d passed out again after the emotional exertion of seeing Tina. It was so strange, being this close to someone you had grown up on stories about. It was odd to see a dead man breathing, to be able to get to know him.

It was even odder to know that you were older than your own uncle.

And on top of that, that said uncle who has been dead for seventy plus years is now teaching at the school he had gone to thanks to Albus’ wiles. Oh, and Albus had been manipulating him. Great! Just great! Could things get any weirder?

The answer to that, of course, was yes. Apparently Albus had nearly killed Theseus trying to keep him here. What the fuck?

“I’m going to kill him,” Selene hissed when Minerva told them.

“Need help hiding the body, let me know,” Adonis said in one of his few moments being there (he was usually quite busy).

Tina didn’t say anything. Her dark eyes had gotten even darker, and she was gripping her wand so tightly it was a miracle it didn’t snap.

“I trusted him,” she rasped.

“We all did,” Minerva replied. “He’s quite the actor.” Her voice was as cold as he’d ever heard it.

“So what do we do now?” Selene asked. “Murder?”

“Unfortunately, no. We can’t. Albus is far too powerful and would easily destroy us and hide the evidence. And Theseus is stuck- Albus had him sign a magically binding contract. “

“Goddamnit.”

“We can only do our best.”

Chapter Text

“Get down!” Fleamont yelled over the din, a worried look on his face.

Instinctively, Theseus listened, and barely avoided being cut to pieces by gunfire. He remembered this battle. It had been an absolute bloodbath, and he shuddered to be back here again.

“Thanks!” he yelled back.

“I can’t let my Arthur go off and die, can I,” Fleamont smiled, but his dark eyes were sad. “Not again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I waited so long, but you never came, “ Fleamont whispered. “You never rose from the Lake. Now I am long gone, but a memory.”

Tears pricked at Theseus’ eyes. “I- I didn’t mean to leave you.”

“Arthur didn’t mean to bleed out on Camlann,” Fleamont replied. “Patroclus did not mean to die on the battlefield before Achilles. But they still did. And you still left me.”

Theseus let out a faint sob and tried to make his way towards his friend. Towards the man he loved. But he was stopped every time.

“I would wait forever for you,” Fleamont’s voice echoed in his ears as the two were separated by the havoc of the battlefield and Theseus lost sight of him. “And I did. I waited a lifetime.”

“Don’t leave me,” Theseus choked out. “Fleamont. Fleamont, please!”

His sobs were hidden by the yells, the dying breaths, the gunfire of the battlefield. The sound of horses running amok, many riderless.

“Don’t go,“ Theseus whispered. “I can’t keep going without you.”

“You can, and you will,”  Fleamont whispered gently. “You have to. I am long gone, Theseus. Focus on the present.”

“I don’t want to,” Theseus admitted. “There is nothing for me to live for.”

He felt the faint ghost of a fleeting, warm touch on his lips. Theseus knew those lips by heart, even if he had only kissed them once.

“You’re going to be okay,” Fleamont whispered against Theseus’ lips. “I promise.”

Theseus woke with tears staining his face and a cry trapped in his throat.

Goddamnit. Even in his dreams he couldn’t escape the pain.

He laid back down, his heart feeling empty in his chest.

He stared up at the ceiling. He wish he knew who had saved him and sent him through time so he could punch them. Death would’ve been far more merciful than whatever the hell this was.

Tina was alive, though. The last of them still around. So he wasn’t completely alone. He had her, and Minerva, and Poppy, and even Albus; but it hurt all the same.

He wasn’t supposed to outlive his younger brother. He wasn’t. And yet he had, thanks to this time travel bullshit.

And everyone he had known was but a memory. They still existed only his mind.

                                                                         ^^

And the word burned to cinders,

Beneath the hellfire of the one who played God.

And the rain was made of tears,

Shattering what was left of this promised land.

You said:

Together until the end,

But I wasn’t there to hear your final breath.

When the skies above claim me at last,

My dear, you won’t be home.

The lights are off, now; the house long gone.

I burn in the darkest night,

The last among the wreck.

This world is oh so cold, now;

As I drift along in the Atlantic far from home.

I wake in another time,

In a place so familiar but so different,

And you will never wake again.

You join my moon in the ashen skies,

Walking a path I cannot find.

You were always the bravest one of us.

You were always the best of me.

But now I am alone.

I am a blazing star surrounded by the dead

My light shines side by side with those that are long gone

And those that still have breath.

The other stars have abandoned me, my dear,

So let me go supernova.

One last fight,

One final light.

This is my swan song,

My final act.

And then I can join you

Where no man returns from.

One last war.

And then I can take the hands of the damned,

And let them pull me under.

                                                                      ^^

“Is he…?”

“His heart rate’s going up. I think he’s waking up.”

“About time! It’s been two days without him so much as stirring.”

“Emotional distress, my dear brother, will do a lot to you.”

“Yeah.”

Theseus returned to consciousness slowly, but the voices came almost immediately. He frowned. Who was talking? It wasn’t Albus, or Minerva, or even the much-older Tina; these voices seemed relatively young. Still older than him, but younger than the others.

Hm.

He’d say in their early fifties to late sixties, perhaps.

And why did they sound a bit like Newt?

His heart skipped a beat. Had Albus lied? Did he have nieces and nephews? Did he still have family left?

Theseus opened his eyes slowly, and was nearly blinded by the white light of the hospital wing. He closed his eyes again, and he bit back a groan. Damn it.

It seemed the whole universe wanted him stuck for what was left of his life in a bed. Nauseatingly, it reminded him of 1918; of laying on the cold floor until the man in the bed died and you could replace him. Fighting to survive in an overfull hospital where almost everyone was sick and dying, or soon to be sick. A type of war that was almost worse than the fight against the Germans.

A war that turned people black and blue; a fight that left bodies stacked up in the morgue as if they were tinderwood. A siege that ripped apart families, that tore through lungs as if they were made of paper.

And few could be saved.

It was a ferocious disease that made them all think of the mysterious plague of Athens, that had slayed Pericles; of the less mysterious Black Death that had ravaged Europe and Asia so devastatingly.

It had turned out to be influenza. Only influenza.

An influenza of a ferocity that no one had ever seen, but still influenza. Just influenza.

He shook the memories away. Now was the time for remembering the agonies of the past.

(Would there ever be time? Albus wasn’t letting him mourn. Surely there must be a reason for that, though.)

So he reopened his eyes. And he saw a man with Newt’s eyes, Newt’s face. A man with the face of his dead brother.

And the world turned to ash.

Chapter Text

For the first time in seventy years, Theseus stared into his brother’s eyes. Or at least, the mirror twin of them.

The man seemed to be in his early fifties. He had Newt’s eyes and Tina’s hair; had  the sharp jawline that Theseus remembered as his own father’s.

Like most Scamanders, he looked way younger than he actually was. They had the blessing (if you could call it that) of looking decades younger than they were at any given moment (usually).

Theseus felt a bit light headed. Albus had lied- he clearly still had family left. Because this man looked too much like Newt.

“Good morning,” the other man said. He had a bit of a Welsh accent- Theseus remembered Newt talking about living in Wales one day when they were kids.

He wanted to reply. But his tongue was tied in knots. He didn’t know if he could trust this man, either, even though he looked so much like Newt. Not after Albus’ betrayal, not after the wars, not after his years as an Auror.

And if he couldn’t trust Albus, who could he trust?

The man softened and gently took Theseus’ hand.

“It’s okay, uncle,” he whispered, and Theseus’ heart shattered.

“You’re forty three years of age. Your name is Theseus Apollon Scamander.”

Was it just him, or was the other man- who might be his fucking nephew- shaking?

If this guy was an actor, he was doing a damn good job at pretending to be emotional about this. Theseus had met spies who could act worse than this guy (and spies needed to act to save their lives). And his information was very good. Almost made him believe him.

Almost.

The man looked him right in the eyes.

“You were born on the floor of your grandparent’s house at two in the morning after a six hour labor, on the two-and-twenty day of February. In your sixth year, you broke ten bones playing Quidditch and they almost owled home since you refused to take a break from playing. You ended up taking a month off from playing after your best friend talked sense into you.”

“When you were growing up, you didn’t want anything to do with the Ministry and wanted to be an explorer. You changed your mind when you were seventeen.”

This was a ridiculous amount of personal information that he was talking about. Most of which very few people, especially those left today, knew.

Which meant he was probably telling the truth.

Which meant this man was Newt’s son. That he had never gotten to see his nephew(s) grow up.

Theseus’ eyes widened, his heart aching in his chest.

The man smiled at him sadly. “I’m Perseus Scamander. Your brother was my father.”

“You’re home, Theseus.”

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

I’m breathing in, and breaking down

(Understandably so. Albus has fucking lied, Newt had kids; Theseus felt like his brain was going to explode.)

I feel my time is running out

(No one gets enough time in wartime. Especially the soldiers. Their hearts count down their final hours.)

The fire in my heart will burn me to the ground

(Theseus let out a choked sob and pulled Perseus into a tight hug. Love was so, so dangerous- but maybe it wouldn’t turn into a wildfire this time. Maybe no one would be burned to ashes.)

I did my part, I tried my best

The things I’m fighting to protect

Always shatter to pieces in the end, oh

I’m broken and I’m barely breathing

(His and Perseus’ sobs melted together into a tight tapestry of pain and anguish, of trauma and families suffering.)

I’m falling ‘cause my heart stopped beating

If this is how it all goes down tonight

This is how you bring me back to life

Chapter Text

September First, Nineteen Ninety Six

“You ever know what happened to the guy who was staying at your house? The ex-Auror?” Harry asked.

Ginny shrugged and exchanged a Chocolate Frog with Neville. “No clue. Reckon something to do with Dumbledore, though; last night he was at the Burrow Dumbledore showed up with ‘urgent business’ he needed to discuss with him. And then off they went.”

“Things are looking bad again,” Neville said quietly. “The Order’s losing people left and right, they need all the help they can get. No wonder Dumbledore pulled this guy out of retirement, even if it was caused by a severe injury. We need every ally we can find.”

“Definitely,” Hermione agreed. “Though it does make it easier that the Ministry is actually working with us now.”

Harry glanced at the approaching view of Hogsmeade.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

He wondered what this war would bring when it came knocking at Hogwarts’ doors, and he stifled a shudder.

*

“You’re going to go by Mister T,” Dumbledore said. “Scamander would be too recognizable.”

Theseus nodded, silent as death. Being around Dumbledore after the lies had been revealed to him made him feel like thousands of cockroaches were crawling on him, but he kept quiet, and managed to keep his thoughts off of it.

He was thankful for the times he’d been undercover as an Auror. They’d made him a talented actor.

It felt weird, sitting at the staff table in the Great Hall- every time he’d been here he’d sat as one of the students. But he squared his shoulders, plastered a smile on his face, and turned to face the students now swarming in.

“You’ll be fine,” Minerva whispered encouragingly.

“Yeah, you’re not squared with the way rat behaved Slytherin kids I have ever fucking seen since my classmates twenty-four-seven,” Severus muttered. “Hexing people in public. Lying. Being general dickwads. I get Dumbledore wants the school to hate me, but this is ridiculous.”

Albus wanted the school to hate Severus? What the fuck? Could he get any more shady and questionable?

“Because like you were any better whilst at school, Severus,” Minerva teased.

“This is my eternal punishment for everything I have done wrong,” Snape bemoaned, like the over-dramatic goth he was.

Theseus snorted.

*

“Who’s that in the DADA seat?” Harry asked, his sharp green eyes on the new teacher. “He looks young.”

“Blimey, he’s the guy who was over at our house this summer,” Ron said in shock.

Harry, Hermione, and Neville all turned to stare at Ron.

Ron blinked back at them. “Don’t look at me like that! I’m just as surprised as you are!”

“An ex-Auror,” Hermione mused. “Yes, that’d make sense…and that might’ve been he’d been gone so often as well. Getting things ready for the beginning of the school year.”

She frowned. “I could’ve sworn I’d seen his face before, though. He seems really familiar.”

Ron snorted and stuffed a spoonful of eggs into his mouth. “‘Re ‘y ‘ure ‘e’s ‘t ‘nother ‘Ock’t?”

(translation for those who need it: are you sure it’s not another Lockhart? Basically, Hermione, are you being a simp again?)

Neville giggled, and Ginny grinned. “Aw, don’t tell me you had the hots for Lockhart too, ‘Mione?”

Hermione blushed. “Hey!”

Ron swallowed his eggs. “Could be worse, though. I’m fifty percent sure Percy had a crush on Wood.”

”…Oliver Wood?”

”They were roommates, and oh my Merlin-“

”What’s wrong with gay people?”

“Nothing, it’s just that was one of the weirder things I could remember being similar to Hermione’s crush on Lockhart.”

”Didn’t she snot Viktor Krum?” Neville asked, sounding genuinely curious.

”I can safely say he’s a damn better kisser than Ron,” Hermione smirked, and the tips of Ron’s ears turned scarlet.

”Oi! That’s not my fault, he’s an international Quidditch player, and also hot,-“

”Did you just call him hot?”

”Kindly shut the fuck up, Ginny, before I stab this cod up your left nostril.”

“…and how does Hermione know what Ron’s like as a kisser?”

This time, Hermione was the one to blush, and she turned back to her food. Until Trevor the toad hopped in her food, making her scream. 
Meanwhile, in the chaos, Harry studied the new DADA teacher. Mister T, as Dumbledore soon introduced  him as. He seemed familiar to Harry as well, but he also seemed young. Young and worn, as if he had already seen too many wars. Harry could relate, and he hoped this Defense Against The Dark Teacher wouldn’t try to kill him/be an evil arsehole. He’d like to get to know him. 

Chapter Text

“You’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” Minerva noted.

“It’s my first day of classes, of course I’m running around with my head cut off,” Theseus replied tersely.

Minerva lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Look, Mister Scamander. If Severus could manage to be a teacher, you’ll be fine.”

“I heard that!” Severus yelled, somewhat distantly. He sounded annoyed (he always sounded annoyed).

Theseus snorted. “True enough. If you told someone he was a teacher they’d assume you were having them on.”

Minerva gave him a surprisingly strong shove.  “Go on. Can’t be late on your first day, like Severus was.”

“In my defense, someone pushed me into a lake-“

“Shut up, Severus!”

“Oh, FUCK YOU!”

Theseus fought back a laugh. “Alright, alright, I’m going. Severus, act normal for once in your life.”

“I’m going to get you banned from the kitchens!”

“Don’t you dare,” Theseus called over his shoulder as he walked towards his classroom.

“Children, the lot of you,” he heard Minerva say, and he grinned.

*

“Looks like we have the new Defense Against The Dark Arts guy today,”  Hermione said, glancing at their schedules. “His room is just down the hall.”

“D’you reckon he’ll be any good?” Ron asked Harry. “After all the terrible ones- except for Lupin-?”

“Hopefully, but you never know. Especially after Umbridge,” Harry replied. “Or should I say Umbitch?”

Ron snorted, then looked thoughtful. “He is an ex-Auror, from what I’ve heard. He should be decent, I think. If he’s not a Death Eater in disguise like Moody was.”

Harry shuddered at the mention of that terrible, terrible year. “Oh, fuck no. If that happens again, I’m moving to France.”

Hermione smirked. “Oh, really?”

Harry shot her a look. “Not because of Fleur-“

“-suuuureeee,” Hermione snarked.

“Oi, Ms I-Snogged-Viktor-Krum, you’re one to talk,” Ron said.

“That was two years ago!”

“He’s just salty because you haven’t kissed him,” Harry teased, and got punched in the arm for his troubles. “Ouch!”

“That’s what you get for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, you prick,” Ron said calmly.

“Dickhead.”

“Girls, girls, calm down,” Hermione said absentmindedly.

Ron and Harry made eye contact and definitely didn’t laugh as they joined the long line outside of the classroom. Harry noticed Malfoy standing alone a few meters in front of them, looking even more wan and corpse-like than usual. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, dark circles under his eyes and his gray eyes dull and borderline lifeless.

Hm. Harry wondered what Voldemort had him doing that made him so tired.

Spying, perhaps? That would make sense- a student would be able to get information far easier than an adult would. And Draco’s father was a Death Eater and Draco had also shown similar sentiments before, so it wouldn’t be out of character.

But then the bell rang and the door opened, and Harry’s attention was swept away from Malfoy and his shady activities. The teenagers filed into the classroom and took their seats, unusually quiet. They were waiting to see what kind of teacher this new guy would be, Harry thought.

He took a moment to look around the room. Every teacher made their room their own, with their own flair. Mister T’s desk was in a corner far from the door, the back facing the wall (a sign of the teacher being an ex-Auror).  In the center of the room was an empty space, possibly for dueling or investigating magical creatures.

And there were several bookshelves on the wall by the window which peered out onto the lake. The books all seemed to be about Defense Against The Dark Arts, though he spotted a copy of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them on one of the shelves.

Soon after that, the new teacher showed up. He was wearing pale gray robes, which made his blue-gray eyes really stand out.

“Good morning,” he said. “I’ll be your teacher this year, unless Dumbledore can find anyone else. Hopefully I’ll be able to teach you something this year, but that’s not a guarantee. Any questions?”

Dean’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Mister…Thomas, right?”

“Yes, sir. Is it true you were an Auror?”

“Yes, Mister Thomas,” the teacher replied, a faint smile on his lips. “I enjoyed it. I was always skilled with Defense Against the Dark Arts in school- less so with potions. But I suffered an injury, and had to retire early. Any other questions? Right. Let’s get started.”

As the class went on, Harry got the impression the guy actually knew what he was doing. Which was rare in their DADA teachers after Lupin. I hope he stays, Harry thought. The school needs a teacher who knows what he’s doing. Desperately.

The rest of the class went well. They did mostly review, going over curses, magical creatures, and jinxes they had learnt in previous years. With the exception of the Unforgivable Curses- which was a good sign that the new teacher was sane and not a Dark wizard. 

They miraculously only had one incident. Some genius let in a punch of very, very grumpy Cornish pixies (which gave the entire class flashbacks to their second year, and the utter disaster that had been Lockheart). Thankfully, though, this teacher actually fucking knew what he was doing, and they were dealt with quickly. Another point to the new teacher.
 

He seemed competent and a very smart, at least. Harry left the class when the ball rang actually looking forward to coming back to this classroom again. Judging by most of his classmates’ faces, they felt the same. Well, except for Malfoy, but then again the pale haired Slytherin seemed almost corpse-like. 


It was a bit surprising he hadn’t fallen asleep in the class, or not paid attention at all. But his sharp, gray eyes had been focused on Mr.T the entire time. Not for the first time, Harry wondered what it was like inside Malfoy’s head.

Chapter Text

I am so sorry. I just…have a bazillion other projects and zero ideas for this. 
ao for now it’s being abandoned and placed for adoption. If anyone wants a continuation, give me credit and link me plz.

May come back to this later but rn just don’t have the inspiration. 
thank you guys for all the support and the love, it means a lot 🥹 

- JustAShark

Edit; there is a new story based on this, please check it out if you liked this one!

Chapter Text

I have made a new work based on this one, basically a rewrite. If you liked this story I would appreciate it if you read the new version!

link: 

https://ao3-rd-18.onrender.com/works/67534606/chapters/174541651