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Chapter Text

When Graves can finally see, he's chained to a wall. Grindelwald stands over him with look of grim satisfaction on his face, rattling the chains almost mockingly. "There you are, nice and snug," the man says without a hint of accent and then turns away before Graves ca try and shake away the last dregs of confundus. "Master… wakey wakey… we have company."

Graves blinks and tugs at the chains uselessly as he looks up, across the stones of the floor and the dirt and shattered glass, and to the opposite wall. It's a knee jerk reaction to still when he sees the other person there, his position mirroring that of Graves himself. Arms spread and held aloft by enchanted shackles, head hung limb to his bare, dirty chest, stained with rust and dried blood.

Grindelwald grabs the other prisoner by the hair and pins his head back against the stone floor with audible thump. The prisoner grunts in pain and his eyes, visibly grimy and red, peek open painfully. He has dried blood under his nose and down his chin, mementos of old nose bleeds, and his face is thin and gaunt. Whoever he is, he's been here for a while.

Grindelwald grins at thin, bloody man, bowing down to get to his eyelevel. "Good morning, Master," he says with mocking reverence. He pronounced the word, Master, in ludicrously exaggerated the British style. Maastah. "I brought you a friend – look."

The man looks, his face lax and his eyes listless and Graves gets the impression he can't actually see him. The bloody man's eyes slip shut again, only to squint open painfully when Grindelwald bangs his head back against the wall again. "None of that," the German says in sibilant whisper. "Don't be rude now, Master, you can't just go and fall asleep in middle of the introductions!"

The prisoner's dry, cracked lips move but no sound come out. Grindelwald seems to be able to read the words just as well as Graves can. Fuck off.

"How rude," Grindelwald says and reaches out. With all the dark, dried blood all over the Master's chest, Graves hadn't even noticed the bruises, but apparently Grindelwald knows them well – he digs a single knuckle into the Master's side, just over what must be a cracked if not a broken rib and the man lets out a wheeze of pain. "We can't be rude to our guests, Master. Pay attention now," Grindelwald says, amused, and turns to Graves.

Graves leans back, against the cold, rough wall behind him. It makes him realise that like the Master, his upper body is bare – he can also feel the bruises all across his back from where Grindelwald had attacked him. He smothers the wince, though. Judging by the looks of the man across from him… bruises are the least of his worries now.

"This is Percival Graves," Grindelwald says, gripping the Master's chin to lift his head up, forcing him to look at Graves. "The Director of the Department of Security in the Magical Congress of the United States of America." He says it with mocking awe. "One of the Greatest and Strongest Aurors of our time!"

The Master stares at Graves and if he feels anything other than pain and exhaustion, none of it show on the man's worn, bloodied face. Graves swallows, raking his eyes over him, noticing the cuts, the bruises, the obvious loss of weight – the broken fingers, broken nose, broken ribs…

"Percival," Grindelwald says and his eyes snap to the madman. "I hardly think that it will mean anything to you, but this," he shakes the Master's head a little in indication. "This is the Hallowed Master of Death."

Graves squeezes his hands into fists. It doesn't mean much to him, outside fairytales maybe, but connotations are obvious. A necromancer of some sort, then. Possibly Grindelwald's rival, maybe his teacher. It's hard to tell the Master's age, his face is so worn and bloody that he might've been ancient under all the grime. His hair is black, though, no hint of grey or white in sight, but that might've been a magical effect.

"I do hope you two get along," Grindelwald says and releases the Master's chin, letting the man's head sink down. "You'll be together for a long time."

Then he turns his attention completely to Graves, almost forgetting the Master entirely. Soon after, so does Graves.

It's maybe few hours, maybe few days, before Graves can pay attention to his cellmate again. The Master hangs where Grindelwald had left him, arms spread and hanging from enchanted shackles. His head isn't hanging low right now, however – he rests it on his left bicep, one of his eyes shut and the other peering expressionlessly across the room at Graves.

Graves struggles to climb out of the mire of pain and confusion. "How long?" he asks, and his voice cracks with dryness. His shoulders are burning in their sockets, a insistent pulsing pain that every minute shift of his body only seems to make worse.

The Master doesn't answer, just stares at him. Graves takes a breath and then pushes his weight up to his knees as much as he can. The groan of pain slips free unbidden as he gets his weight off his shoulders and he clenches his teeth, taking a deep, slow breath.

"The year."

The voice is so thin and weak that Graves for a moment thinks he must've imagined it. When he look up again, the Master is mouthing the word again. "The year."

"It's… 1926," Graves answers slowly, his eyes widening a bit.

The Master closes his single open eye for a moment, just breathing. Then he too shifts where he hangs, trying to get his knees under him. He doesn't quite manage it, and Graves winces a little at the sight of him collapsing to hang by his arms again. Considering how much his arms hurt… it must be agony for the man.

It's not as if there's anything he can do to help, though, so Graves turns his attention down, to take in the damage. He's not bloody, so Grindelwald hadn't broken his nose – but there are bruises all over his chest, peppered here and there like spots of paint, dyeing his skin red and purple and black. It was almost… contemptuous, how Grindelwald had gone about it.

Magical torture was so much more effective than what he'd done – and still he'd opted for slow barrage of blows rather than the cruciatus curse. Why?

Because he needed Graves' mind intact to extract his memories.

Graves swallows and then looks up at the Master again. The man is leaning his head back against the wall and staring down at Graves down his bloody nose. It makes him look even more like a skeleton, bringing out the jutting collarbones and the sharp, starved line of his jaw.

"Auror," the man mouths almost soundlessly. He has blood in his teeth.

Graves grunts. He could justify the ease with which Grindelwald had captured him by saying that the man had caught him by surprise – which he had – and attacked him from behind – which he also had. It didn't really seem to matter now, though, and all it really did was demonstrate how utterly unguarded he'd been.

"And you?" Graves asks instead.

The Master smiles, and his lip splits. Bit of blood trickles out, a line of gleaming red wetness in the dry, cracked ruins of his mouth. "Auror," he mouths again. "Director."

"Yes, well," Graves grinds out in irritation and shakes his head, looking around them. He'd love to think that it meant that his people would find him post haste, but… he knows too much about Grindelwald to think it would be that easy. As it was, the madman had eluded the best aurors in Europe, including Theseus Scamander, and that was no small feat.

Best chance of getting out of this he has is if he manages it himself. Waiting for rescue will get him nowhere.

To that end, he peers up at the shackles holding his wrists. They are all too familiar – not quite as the same ones MagSec uses, but very much alike, with the same magical dampening runes he could've drawn himself in a pinch. Sadly, he knows them well enough to know how impassable they are, too. It takes a physical key to get these shackles open, and magic would never have an effect.

Still he turns his wrists as much as he can and tugs at the chains to test their strength, to see how much slack he has. Not much at all, and the shackles are pretty snug against his wrists. Soon they'll be biting into his skin the same way they are already biting into the Master's skin, judging by the trails of dried blood on his bare arms.

"Shit," Graves mutters and tugs at the shackles one more time, peering around his wrist. They are attached to the wall with metal hoops, imbedded in the stone. It will take more than a man's strength to pull them out. And he can't get close enough to the hoops to even check if the stone is firmly attached, as he is held suspended between the two chains and unable to move much in either direction. He can't even stand up, the shackles barely let him get up to his knees.

Grindelwald had situated the chains just in that sweet spot where there was no way to rest, no way to get one's weight off the chains without expending energy to do it. It was almost ingenious in it's sheer insidiousness.

The Master stares at him listlessly as he goes about checking the shackles, and the corner of the man's mouth twists, not a smile nor a frown but some weary mixture of both. It takes Graves moment to notice the man is trying to speak, and he is already halfway through the sentence when he goes. "… the lock," the man mouths and glances at his right hand. "He broke my fingers after that."

Graves looks and then grimaces. Each and every finger on the man's right hand is crooked, the middle and forefingers both pointing upwards in gruesome angle. "You – can pick locks?" he asks. "Without using magic?"

"Well," the Master whispers and flexes his hand. Only his thumb still moves – other than that, he can barely make the broken fingers twitch.

"Can you teach me?" Graves asks, glancing up at his own shackles.

The Master looks down at him. "Do you have needles?" he rasps. "Hair pins? Sticks? Something thin enough to fit in the lock?"

Graves takes a breath and leans his head back. He had his collar pin, but… those are on his shirt and who the hell knows where his shirt is. His belt maybe, but there was no way to get it…  He sighs, aggravated, and bangs the back of his head against the stone behind him, trying to think, but nothing comes to mind.

He has nothing.

The Master stares at him. He doesn't look disappointed, just resigned. "Yeah," the man mouths and closes his eyes with a sigh. "Didn't think so."

Graves gets thirsty first. Just a mild discomfort at first, nothing he can't handle. The hunger slithers in not much after that, but it too is bearable at first, vastly overshadowed by the pain.

Then thirst turns into dehydration. The air in their little prison is nasty and just damp enough to tease at his throat as it slowly drains of moisture and he goes from slightly thirsty to parched. The Master, when he's conscious, eyes him like he understands, as Graves swallows and swallows until his mouth finally stops producing saliva and then its just dry, dry enough to ache, to crack, to tear.

Hunger turns to starvation, and it's even worse. The Master lowers his eyes the first time Graves gags out of the sheer twisting ache in his guts. Apparently he knows that too.

Grindelwald comes around again and again and what Graves had at first considered a weirdly soft form of torture shows it's fangs, as the pain goes on and on, not really peaking and never receding. That is the thing about physical torture, he soon realises. It doesn't pass the way magically induced pain does – it doesn't stop once Grindelwald leaves.

Instead it sticks around, lingering and clawing at him and never letting him rest. The bruises accumulate slowly, bruises over bruises, and yet isn't even nearly as bad as his arms. What starts out a low agonised burn turns into incessant throbbing, into never ending ache he can only escape for a moment when he gets up on his knees – and he can't keep that up forever.

The exhaustion doesn't as much creep on him as descends, dragging him down slowly every time he manages to push him up. It's like gravity gets heavier. He's so tired, so, so tired. There is no way to rest, not without the pain descending on him a thousand fold, tearing at his arm sockets, threatening to pull his arms clean off his body. There is no way to sleep.

And the hunger and the thirst get worse and worse, tearing at him and at what little remains of his strength.

It's almost a relief when Grindelwald comes not for him but for the Master – and he comes for the Master a lot. The abuse he inflicts on the man is almost routine – he prods and pokes at all bruises and broken bones, twists his fingers, occasionally whips his wand out and lands new ones. It makes the Master shake and sob and cry – but never talk.

"Master, Master – there are so many things I could learn from you, such great things I could do, if you just gave in!" Grindelwald growls and rests his wand on the man's temple – but nothing comes out, not even a hint of silver. The madman growls and slaps the man across the face, almost contemptuous blow after all the rest. "If you just gave in we could put all this behind us. Just give me what I want, what I need. Just tell me where they are!"

The Master hangs his head, and keeps his knowledge to himself.

How the man resists the pull of memories, Graves has no idea. Somehow even after what must've been months and months of this existence, the Master is still keeping his mind together, and not even in the midst of starvation, dehydration, exhaustion and pain does he let a single memory slip free. Maybe it's some skill, some arcane mental art unknown to anyone but necromancers, who knows. Graves almost admires it.

He would've, if he hadn't known that he had no such defences. And he knows his time is coming fast.

It's alarming but hardly surprising, how fast Graves weakens – how quickly he descends into aching delirium. The Master flickers in and out his vision and soon he knows he's not much better off than the starved man, hanging from his shackles weak and helpless and slowly dying.

And that's when Grindelwald comes.

"There we go," The man smiles at him and Graves barely musters up the strength to look up. He has a wand in hand and for a moment Graves thinks, maybe he could… maybe he would…

No such luck.

"Let us begin, then," Grindelwald says and touches the tip of his wand to Graves' temple.

It's almost a sweet sensation, when the memories are drained straight off his head. It's cool and for a while Graves can't feel anything but that draining pull in his head. For a moment he even musters up a hint of anger and indignation, for a moment he even manages to fight and hang onto his memories, onto himself… but it fades into agony the instant Grindelwald takes his wand off and stops.

The terrible respite makes it all so much worse – it all aches a new, every bruise, the tear of his shoulders, the twist of his stomach. Graves hears a reedy whine and knows it comes from him. It's pathetic and he can't stop.

"Now, now," Grindelwald says sweetly, and digs his thumbs into Graves' shoulder, into the soft flesh and hard bone where the pain is the greatest. "None of that…"

Graves cries out and then hangs his head, and the Master stares at him with terrible look about his face. Grindelwald watches him, digging his nail in until Graves sobs out and then the madman presses his wand back to Graves' temple. "Open your mind now, there you go," Grindelwald murmurs and releases his shoulder, taking hold of his chin. He turns Graves' head almost gently as he draws out the memory – something about his office, the cabinets, the safe where he keeps his files… "There you go."

Graves' vision blurs between the sweet, momentary respite of having his mind tampered with, and the pain and hunger and thirst and exhaustion trying even so close in on him. And the Master stares and stares and stares.

He has green eyes.

Graves hadn't noticed that before.

Then he can't see anything but the flood of his past, being bit by bit stolen away.

He's given food and water every time Grindelwald manages to steal his memories.

It's always a fight not to throw it all up again.

Who knows how much time passes. Hours, days, years – it all blurs together in waves of pain cresting seemingly higher and higher with each one. Graves' sense of time is shot out of the window fast between bouts of unconsciousness and the Master is no help – he doesn't even know what the year is never mind the month or the day.

And then Grindelwald walks in wearing his clothes.

"What do you think?" the man asks them, all but whirling in place in Graves' coat, wearing his shirt, his waist coat, his neck tie, his collar pins, everything. He has his hair cut and his moustache shaved and if it wasn't for his face…

And then man turns to him and whips out his wand. The cut is fast and sharp against Graves' cheek, trailing down to his chin, and as he gasps with the sudden sting, Grindelwald takes out a silver flask and holds it under the trickle of blood, capturing several drops before capping the bottle and shaking it.

A sip, a twist of his face and ripple of skin, and then Graves is staring at himself.

"What do you think now?" the man asks and smiles as Graves stares at him in speechless, mute horror. The man has his mannerisms, his posture, his expression, he even runs his hand over the front of the waistcoat in Graves' own gestures.

Grindelwald hadn't studied his memories.

He'd consumed them.

Grindelwald smiles Graves' smile with Grave' face, and takes out his wand. "Now, let's have a final look, shall we?" he says and Graves can feel the Master's eyes on him as he tries, and fails, to get away.

Graves comes in and out of unconsciousness, his mind bleary whirl of things that happened months and years ago. He's in Ilvermorny, in his home with his mother, at the office meeting with Picquery, talking with one of his junior aurors – he's in a dirty cell and there's man across the room, his body twisted in awkward angle – he's in the Blind Pig and Gnarlak's hands are the Master's hands, fingers broken, twisted up.

There's a grunt of pain and clatter of metal against stone and Graves blinks through the haze. The Master is up on his knees, shaking with the effort of keeping himself suspended. The man's head is turned against the wall, facing his right hand. His wrist is twisted against the wall, broken.

Graves stares at it as reality swims into sharp, aching focus.

The Master grunts and there is a crunch of bone. The man gasps and draws a rattling, wet breath and Graves can see blood tricking down his nose sluggishly as he gathers himself for another attempt. The Master turns his wrist again, and the sound is stomach turning – and so is the sight of his wrist turning, but his hand staying pinned in place by the shackle.

"What… what are you doing?" Graves asks.

The Master doesn't answer – he breathes and pushes at his hand. The hand flops, the angle of it sickening, before he turns it awkwardly and tucks it in as deep as it gets in the shackle. And then, he pulls at his arm, pinning the hand in place, and turning.

Graves stares, swallowing, as the man irreversibly mangles his own hand. The Master is slowly twisting his own dislocated hand, it's already at a terrible backwards angle and he just keeps going. Through the confusion and head ache and constant pain, it takes Graves a moment to figure out what he's trying.

Of course. His thumb is already dislocated and it's still not enough to pull the hand through the shackle. It's snug, terribly snug, in that point between the man's wrist bones and his hand. There is only one way to get it free.

"That will never work," he says, more in denial than actual disbelief, swallowing through the blood and taste of bile lurking down his throat.

The Master pauses, breathes for a moment, and then keeps going. Push through the shackle, awkwardly manoeuvre the hand to a different angle, tuck it into the shackle to pin it in place, and turn. Rinse and repeat, as bit by bit the hand turns. It's almost torturous to watch him – watch the skin finally tear at his wrist, watch the blood spill out. Twist, turn, twist, turn…

There is a crunch and wet, terrible tearing noise and Graves gags dryly, watching with wide eyed horror as the almost torn off hand flops down, hanging by thread of muscle and tendon. He can see bones just for a moment and then there is just blood, spilling heavily over the cut, spilling down the shackle, down the torn wrist –

Another tearing sound and then a loud clatter of metal as the Master slumps down. The hand falls, a wet splat against the bloody floor, and the chain swings away noisily, hanging loose from the wall. For a moment the Master just gasps for breath, the bleeding stump of his right hand cradled against his already bloody chest. He's trying to staunch the blood flow, Graves thinks, but it's useless.

"Come on," Graves says, because if the man passes out now it will all be for nothing. "Come on, get up. Don't pass out now – if he finds you like this –"

The Master draws a breath and nods. He's shaking all over and his movements are sluggish as he turns to the other wrist, still hanging from the chain. As Graves watches, the man looks down, searching almost blindly for something.

"I can't see them," the Master mouths. "My glasses. Where are they?"

"Your glasses?" Graves asks with disbelief. "Forget your glasses. You need to open the other shackle –"

"My glasses," the other man rasps insistently. "Can you see them?"

Graves grits his teeth. He knows blood loss can take away man's ability to reason faster than anything but he'd hoped the man could hold out for long enough to actually be of use…

Then he notices them. Only a broken, mangled frame remains of what had once been a round pair of spectacles.

They have metal handles. Thin and sharp. Thin enough to go into the lock.

"They're not far, on your left – move a bit to your left, use your foot," Graves instructs quickly, directing the man as he shakily, clumsily drops his thin, bare foot over the mangled frame and slowly drags them closer. With his right hand utterly out of commission, the man bows down as far as he can get and takes the frames to his teeth.

It's a new form of torture to watch the man try and tear one of the handles off the frames, awkwardly twisting and turning the frames with his teeth against the wall. The man is weakening fast, Graves can see it in the flex of his bony spine, the way his knees sluggishly push against the floor as he works at it.

"Come on," Graves urges him on desperately. "Come on, come on, you can do it, come on…"

The man grunts, almost annoyed, and then there is finally a snap and the frame falls off, leaving the handle alone in the man's bloody teeth. He breathes slowly and awkwardly situates the thin, ragged piece of metal straight forward in his teeth. Then he turns to the shackle.

It's almost anticlimactic, how easily it clatters loose.

Graves takes a deep breath as the Master turns to him. The man leaves smears of blood on the floor as he crawls over to him, and he's even paler than before. Close up, Graves can smell the stink of him, blood and bile and sweat and even worse things, but he's really not about to complain when the man takes the stick of metal to his clumsy left hand, it's fingers still mostly unbroken, and turns it to Graves' right shackle.

The man almost slices his wrist open with the damn thing before getting it into the lock, but thank Good Sarah, he gets the shackle open. Graves barely manages to keep himself from slumping down and putting his weight onto the remaining shackle, as his arm suddenly swings down, free.

"The other one," he rasps at the Master and as the man turns towards it Graves reaches out and grabs the man's bloody stump in his hand. The man lets out a wheeze of pain but nods as Graves quickly puts pressure onto the thing, slowing down the bleeding. And so, with blood spilling over his fingers as he tries to keep the man from bleeding to death, Graves watches the Master clumsily opens his shackle, freeing him.

That is, it seems, the limits of the other prisoner's strength because as soon as the deed is done, the Master slumps down into his arms, raggedly gasping in pain and exhaustion until going utterly limp. Graves grips the stump tighter and hauls the man up to his arms and then concentrates.

Apparition doesn't work. Shit.

"Alright, fuck," Graves grumbles and looks over the Master. He's thin enough to be carried, but the bleeding…

Rolling his shoulder once more Graves turns the man to lie on his back on the floor and then grabs the fallen handle of the broken eyeglasses. It's sharp enough to cut, thankfully, and though he thinks he scratches the man a bit, he manages to tear the Master's dirty trouser leg off. Graves cuts it to ribbons hastily and though he doesn't do the best of jobs tying the makeshift bandage around the man's wrist, it seems to staunch the flow enough.

Then, mustering up all his strength, Graves hoists the man up to his shoulders and sets out to look for a way out.

Chapter Text

When Percival Graves had been eleven, just entering Ilvermorny for the first time, he'd made a decision. It had been made on the back of a broken wand. His own broken wand,

There had been no dramatic incident, no one had grabbed his wand and broken it in front of him, no. The cause had been offensively mundane. He'd been a kid, nervous and eager to please, he'd listened to the elder students too hard, believed their tales of having to face challenges and prove his magic. He'd been holding onto his wand, prepared do anything, and then he'd dropped it when another student, just as star struck as he'd been, bumbled into him – and then he'd stepped on it. Just like that, his first wand had broken before he'd ever cast a single spell with it.

He'd stepped up onto the Gordian Knot holding the two pieces of his wand, horrified and furious with himself, as the entire school watched him. It took him years to live it down.

The teachers had been understanding and sympathetic and when fixing the wand had failed they'd scheduled for him to be sent home for the weekend to get a new one. Still, that first week stung and he remembers it to this day, the way his classmates send him glances as they were instructed through their first spells, wingardium leviosa, and he couldn't join them because his wand was in two pieces in his pocket. He was That Boy Who Broke His Own Wand and who couldn't do spells because of it. How pathetic.

The only reason he hadn't been mocked for it worse than whispers and few giggles badly hidden behind open palms was because he was even then a Graves – and you did not mock a Graves, not to their face. Still, the laughter stung, the whispers stung, the looks stung. And none of it met the expectations he'd had of Ilvermorny – of finally finding himself among his peers, of finding friends and allies, of finally being better than the youngest member of illustrious family with long legacy who had nothing to give and everything to prove.

In the end, even in Ilvermorny he had everything to prove, and the first impression he'd made on the school – and the school on him – set him on a furious spiral. He'd sworn then that he would never, ever be completely reliant on his wand, not when it was so damn easy to snap, when a mere accident could suddenly leave him without any.

By the end his first year he was still That Boy Who Broke His Own Wand. But he was also the boy who could levitate objects without it.

Graves waves a dirty, bloody hand over the horrified nomaj's face and drains the expression from it. "We'd like a room for two, with a bathroom," he says in dry croak of a voice to the portly man. "And later dinner, delivered to the room."

"Right, of course, sir," the man says, blinking under the confundus heavily and turning away to the cabinet of keys behind him. He considers it and then opens the glass door, grabbing a key from the hook. "Number 4 is free for the night – third room on the right in the second floor. Here you are sir. I'll have someone deliver dinner to you in approximately a hour. Will that be alright, sir?"

"That's fine. Thanks," Graves says, accepting the key. Then, hoisting the unconscious Master slightly higher on his shoulders, he heads towards the stairs, leaving the nomaj blinking after him in confusion. Graves would probably have to obliviate the man later on, and maybe the rest of the hotel staff too, but right now he just wants to set the damn necromancer down somewhere.

The Master might be thin to the point of being nearly skeletal, but after couple hours of carrying the man around Graves is beyond ready to drop him.

The room they'd been given is neat and clean, with twin beds and table in between, couple of arm chairs under the table with coffee table in between them. Graves considers the clean linens for a moment before hauling the unconscious Master instead towards the bathroom. It's just as clean with grey floor tiles and white walls, with spacious bathtub and well polished faucets. Graves doesn't pay much attention to the cleanliness though – too busy hauling the Master down and into the tub.

The stump has stopped bleeding now, but the makeshift bandage he'd made is soaked through, red and grimy where the man's wrist should've continued onto a hand. The wrist under is swollen and hot to the touch, which makes Graves grimace. Already on it's way to infection.

"I'd tell you you're too much trouble, but seeing as I owe you a debt," Graves mutters, moving onto check the rest of the Masters injuries. He has lot of them, the worst after the wrist being the broken ribs and the shoulders which now are swelling up as well, turning stiff after the long strain of having supported his weight. The man also seems to have couple broken toes, possibly cracked if not shattered ankle, something wrong with his knee cap and numerous, numerous cuts all over his chest and arms.

He's also filthy to the point of being disgusting. So, shaking his head, Graves reaches out to turn the faucet, and starts filling the tub.

First thing he does though, even before he thinks to plug the tub, is lean in and drink and drink and drink. The water comes hot and it burns his parched throat, sitting ill in his twisted gut, but Mercy is it sweet.

And then he almost throws up, gagging over the unconscious Master for a moment as he tries to get his stomach to settle, and then having to lean over the edge to heave out all the water he drank onto the floor. It comes out foul, hot and putrid, and his throat aches trice as hard afterwards.

It's not bad enough to stop him from turning back to the faucet and drinking again, though this time only with small mouthfuls he lets linger in his mouth for as long as he can. His stomach still roils in objection, but this time he doesn't gag.

Now that he's no longer carrying the man and trying to get away, his own injuries are making themselves known, the aches of bruises, the burn of his arms made worse by the weight he'd been hauling around. The water is hot and it stings against his skin as it splashes over his bruised chest and for a moment he's tempted to just get under it, maybe it would soothe the damnable ache…

But the Master is far worse off than he is.

So, with mouthful of water over his dry tongue, he reaches for the plug and starts filing the tub around the unconscious man. As it does, he struggles to get the man out of his filthy, broken trousers and underwear, grimacing at the state of them and wishing he'd managed to master a wandless banishing charms. In the end, he sticks them into the trash can and leaves them there.

The Master wakes up just as Graves is pouring half of the liquid soap all over him. He comes to with a deep, sluggish gasp and looks up blearily, before jerking in alarm in the water, making it slosh everywhere.

"Calm down," Graves says, and his voice isn't so dry now. "We got out – we're in a nomaj hotel. I befuddled our way in."

The Master draws couple of shaky breaths and then shifts, trying to sit up in the tub, looking around. His feet kick weakly at the tub and he looks down, frowning.

"You're filthy," Graves explains. "I'm trying to clean you up so that I can see what I can do, and I'm not going to waste my magic on cleaning charms when there's a tub here. Didn't think a hot bath would be unwelcome anyway."

"Water," the Master rasps, note of terrible longing in his voice, staring at the running faucet.

So, Graves hauls the man's right arm over his shoulder to keep it from the water and supports him by the waist, helping him lean in. The Master can't quite manage to dip his head under the faucet, his back is too stiff, so in the end, Graves has to cup a hand under the water for the man to lap it from. "Slowly," Graves says. "I already threw up once, and you're in worse state."

The Master just grunts, weakly sucking the water from his palm. It should have been pathetic – it probably would be, to an outside viewer. To Graves it just looks a little painful, how the man sags with terrible gratitude and almost drowns himself in the soapy bathwater.

Once he's sure the Master has had about as much as he can manage, Graves pushes him back against the back of the tub, resting the injured arm over the tub's edge and above the water. The Master lays there, listless and just breathing, until he finally seems to remember the hand.

"… bollocks," the man mutters in breathy, voiceless whisper, staring at the ragged excuse of bandage over the stump. "I was hoping I dreamed that."

Graves snorts. "You're one crazy son of a bitch," he says, leaning onto the tub's edge. "But thanks. I'm in your debt."

"You could've left me," the Master answers and rests his head tiredly against the tub's edge. "You didn't. Debt paid."

Graves nods, watching him as the tub fills. "Who are you? What did he want from you?"

The Master closes his eyes, swallowing. "Location of some things," he says. Though it's still bit of a wheeze, voice is growing bit stronger, strong enough for the accent to sound through it. British. "Thought they would give him power."

"Some things," Graves repeats. "Necromantic artefacts?"

The Master peeks one bleary eye open. The red around it only makes the green of his iris more vivid. "Actually yes," he agrees with a mirthless twist of a smile. "Something like that."

Graves nods grimly. Later he would have to look into that – later he might have to actually arrest the man who'd saved him. Right now, though… "We need to have look at that wrist," he says. "I can do bit of healing wandlessly. I won't make promises but…"

"Yeah," the Master says and closes his eyes again. "Do it."

Unwinding the ragged bandage is task and a half – it soaked through and the edges are dried hard. In the end he has to soak it in the soap water, ignoring the Master's pained breaths as he tears the thing off bit by bit, revealing the ruined wrist underneath. It is really in a gruesome – the way the cut had been made hadn't left much flesh behind, and what's there is in ragged tears. With the water washing away the blood, the bones are in clear view.

His stomach roiling anew, Graves cleans the swollen, hot flesh as well as he can and then concentrates. It's bleeding again, red spilling over his fingers and into the water as Graves smoothes the ragged tears of flesh over the bones, and presses his thumbs over them, pinning them in place and concentrating, trying his best to do something for it. He owes the man enough to put all his effort to it.

The Master gasps in pain and almost tugs his arm away as Graves presses on with his magic, forcing as much of it as he can muster into the wound. It's draining him fast and there's a spike of pain right through his head as he pushes and pushes. His fingers tingle and wrist in his grip seems to burn even hotter. But the flesh shifts.

The Master gasps and then turns lax in the water, gasping for pained, desperate breaths. Slowly Graves peels back his fingers, examining his handiwork. It's not perfect, there are still tears – but he's managed to close skin over the bones and torn sinews, closing the worst points of bleeding. It's still in terrible need of a proper healer's touch – his knowledge in healing was limited to first aid and he can already see the blood, welling up inside the closed up flesh. The veins are no doubt all messed up.

"We're going to have to put pressure on this," Graves says, his voice a dry croak once more. He falters a little when getting up but the Master seems beyond noticing as he shakes in the water, swallowing his sobs of pain.

The bed sheets thankfully make much cleaner bandage than the Master's trousers had made. Graves uses them to bind the stump tightly, putting as much pressure onto it as he can without sending the Master into whimpers of pain. Hopefully it would keep the thing from swelling up.

"I have - so much more respect for Moody now," the Master mutters shakily, once Graves it done and the bandage is tied up tight. He stares at it for a moment and then looks away. "Thanks."

"Yeah, don't mention it," Graves says shakily, turns to the toilet, and throws up again.

After the ordeal of the wrist, helping the Master wash up seems almost like a respite. They're still both aching and shaky and weak, but somehow it helps to just ignore that for a moment and concentrate into something as mundane as cleaning themselves. Even though it only reveals more bruises, more cuts, more broken bones, it's almost soothing, after all the rest.

It turns out the Master isn't ancient. Graves can't quite pinpoint his age – somewhere between thirty and fifty, probably, but who knows how many years the starvation adds. His eyes are sunken in their sockets and the shadows under them are almost blue and his skin is drawn tight over the starved bones, forming tight wrinkles around his eyes. He doesn't have an old man's sag to his skin, though, and once the hot bath is done, he for a moment almost seems to have a healthy glow under all the abuse.

"How long did he have you?" Graves asks, draining the bathtub. The water is almost brown with blood and filth and utterly disgusting.

"I have no idea," the Master answers and leans against him as Graves lifts him up from the bath. One thing they'd discovered was that the Master couldn't move his left foot much at all – the knee, it seemed, was indeed broken. "Months. Maybe a year or two. He moved me around, didn't exactly help with keeping track of time."

"That wasn't the only place he kept you?" Graves asks.

The Master shakes his head. "The man travels a lot. He took me with him. Where are we now?"

"United States," Graves says. "Hopefully not too far from New York, but I didn't exactly get a chance to look into it yet."

The Master nods and grunts softly as Graves sets him down on the toilet seat. After making sure the man isn't about to tip over, Graves grabs one of the two bathrobes hanging from nearby hook, and drapes it over the man's bony, red shoulders. "You good there while I wash, or should I take you to bed?"

The Master looks up to him and somehow manages to arch a sarcastic brow at him. "My my, I though you'd never ask," he says, and his voice cracks.

Why it makes Graves laugh, he has no idea. It's pitiful, pitiful attempt at a joke, delivered by a pitiful looking wreck of a man, but even so he finds himself grinning like a idiot, inhaling giggles. Giggles which then, in shuddering gasp, almost turn into sobs. The Master watches him with a weird sort of knowing, the corner of his lip twisting vaguely upwards in a painful charade of sympathy.

Shaking a little, Graves turns away from him and to the bathtub, kneeling down on it. His hands shake as he plugs it up again and as he turns the faucet on, and if he then stops to smother strangled gasps into his palms, the Master thankfully says nothing about it.

The nomaj bringing them their dinner almost gives Graves a fucking heart attack. He's just carrying the weakly shivering Master to bed when the knock sounds in the room, and he almost drops the man in instinctive reach for a wand that isn't there.

"Ow," the Master says weakly as Graves sets him down, a little faster than he probably would've liked to.

"I have your dinner here, sirs," a female vice calls cheerfully through the door.

"Just a moment," Graves says, grimacing as he runs shaky hands through his hair. Then, after making sure there is nothing too suspicious about the man visible – like outward signs of abuse – he turns to the door. The woman behind it smiles at him and the stares, horrified, at his face – at his cheek. It's only then that Graves remembers that Grindelwald cut it to get blood for his polyjuice potion.

"Sir – your – " the woman says, and the stops when Graves lifts a hand in front of her face. He's almost wrung dry after all the healing he'd done before, but her eyes still go blank and softly confused under the haphazard confundus. She smiles, her eyes little hazy. "Your dinner, sirs," she says and motions at the metal trolley. "Roast chicken with mashed potatoes and steamed carrots."

"Thank you," Graves says, and tugs the trolley in.

"Just push the trolley out onto the hall when you're done," she says confusedly. "Have a good night sirs."

Graves closes the door after her and takes a few slow, calming breaths.

"You should probably heal it," the Master comments feebly from the bed. "It'll scar soon, you know."

Graves shakes his head and then pulls the trolley in, to stand between the beds. After moment of consideration, he sits on the Master's bed instead of his own. "Do you think you can keep this down?" he asks, taking the cover off one of the plates. It smells almost stomach turning good and the hollow that is his belly aches fiercely.

"Probably not the chicken, or the carrots," the man admits ruefully and struggles to sit up. "You don't have to feed me," he then says, giving Graves and his choice of seats a meaningful look. "Just feed yourself."

"Right," Graves says, somewhat dubiously, and offers him a fork.

They make a pathetic showing off it, all told. It's as much a delight as it is peculiar form of torture, to first stop himself from wolfing the food down – and then to stop himself from throwing it up afterwards. The Master is little better – and like Graves had expected, he can't feed himself, not without spilling food everywhere. In the end, Graves settles on feeding them both from the same plate, eating the chicken an carrots himself and letting the Master have the mashed potatoes.

The Master has even harder time keeping the food down and he only manages one third of the meagre serving before he has to press his single remaining hand over his mouth to try and keep the food down. "Water," he croaks, and Graves holds it up for him to sip from, grimacing.

They really are in a state, aren't they?

"I never did catch your name," Graves comments, while the Master fights to get his stomach under control.

"Yeah, well, I completely forgot yours," the Master answers and clears his throat awkwardly. "It's Harry, anyway."

Graves arches his eyebrow at that. "Harry the necromancer. That's…" he trails off when the Master gives him a look. Shaking his head, he turns back to the plate, intending to finish the chicken at least. "Percival Graves," he says. "I'd say it's nice to meet you but…"

"Percy the auror," Harry the necromancer says with a weak snort and falls to rest against the pillows. "I'm not a necromancer."

"He called you Master of Death," Graves points out. "And you have necromantic artefacts."

"Master of Death doesn't mean anything," the other man says tiredly and closes his eyes. "It's just a fairytale. And I don't have them, I just know where they might be."

Graves eyes him side eyed for a moment and then, his stomach twisting in pain now, sets the fork down. He takes few sips of water, but it doesn't really soothe the ache much. "What are they then?"

The supposed Master of Death scoffs and opens his eyes. Bleary eyed, he stares up at the ceiling, at the walls, the curtains hanging about the window. "Why'd you take us to a muggle hotel anyway?" he asks confusedly.

Graves grimaces. "I can't apparate," he admits begrudgingly. "I saw the sign for this place and… it seemed better than hiding in someone's backyard to be honest."

"Why can't you apparate?"

Graves lowers his eyes, grimacing and pushing the food trolley away. It's wheel squeaks sharply as it rolls off, clattering softly against the wall by the door. "He confused my memories. I can't… remember places," he admits. "Not clearly enough to form the destination."

Harry stares at him silently for a moment. "How close are we to where we were?" he then asks.

"About hour's walk," Graves says and shakes his head. "It was an abandoned building – we were in the basement. He might be able to track us if he wants to, but… anyone would think we would've apparated out by now."

"Hmm," Harry hum, staring at him. "I'm too tired and I ache too bloody much to be worried," he sighs finally, blinking blearily. "If we're in USA, don't count on me apparating us anywhere later on, though. I've never been here before."

"Yeah," Graves agrees and looks at him. "You should rest. We'll… figure something out in the morning."

"Yeah," the Brit says and sighs, his eyes slipping shut. Then he snaps his eyes open and looks at him. His eyes are still terribly bloodshot, but now they're almost teary, rather than grimy and dry. "Hey, Percival Graves," he says weakly and his left hand clumsily seeks out Graves'. "Thank you for not leaving me there. Thank you."

Graves grips his fingers as tight as he dares in his and nods, his lips pressed to a tight line to keep them from shaking – and then he watches the man slowly slip through haze of exhaustion and into unconsciousness.

Only then, safe from the man's knowing eyes, does Graves let himself break down properly.

Chapter Text

Harry is still out cold when Graves gets up and strips his bed clean off sheets. His hands shake and his eyes burn dryly with the lack of sleep as he turns the sheets in his hand, stretching the fabric out and punching it back in, trying to force his magic to work.

People think there is a limit to how much you can achieve wandlessly. The same way you can't chip a block of marble with your fingers you can't just go and transfigure things without tools, they say. You need a chisel, you need a wand, other wise you just scratch endlessly at a hard surface and best you'll get is bleeding fingers and cracked nails.

What people forget that magic is already a tool, and one far more versatile than bit of metal and block of wood. All it takes to use it is willpower.

Willpower which Graves thinks he should have aplenty at this point. As it is, his fingernails are already cracked and his fingertips have bled, scrabbling at the stone wall of Grindelwald's little basement. He should have this.

The vague, wordless horror of before is still there. It lingers at the edges of his thoughts, a fog of experience that seems to taint his every breath and every memory. The pain is still there and incessant, not quite severe enough to merit healing but ever-present – but the knowledge is worse. The knowledge, which with time his mind fits into the frame of law enforcement.

Kidnapped. Tortured.

Victim.

Graves takes a shaky breath and stretches out the fabric again. White linen, soft and worn with use but still strong enough to hold shape. Supple material for simple transfiguration, all he needs is to force it. And he should damn well be able to force one fucking piece of cloth under his control.

His heart is pounding in his chest as he holds the sheets stretched out between his clenched fists. He forces himself not to try and tear it – it would make him feel better for a moment but it wouldn't help in the long run. He needs proper clothes more than he needs outlet for the fury that's finally starting to burn at him. Clothing – shirts at least, trousers for Harry.

The sheet twists, the direction of the weave twisting between his hands and for a moment he sees the shape of a collar trying to push out. It snaps away and back into it's original rigid grid pattern moment later and Graves releases a breath, irritated and shaken.

He really should've tried wandless transfiguration before this.

His arms are shaking now and he lowers them, resting his elbows on his knees for a moment and turning to look at Harry. The man is dead to the world, lying on his back with the duvet over his chest. He looks exhausted even in sleep, older and younger at the same time. The stump rests spread out at his side, and his arm is swelling up at the edges of the tightly wound bandage, looking red and hot even in the darkness. It's bleeding into the layer of skin Graves had made, probably infected, possibly about to kill the man.

The man needs a healer.

Running a hand over his face Graves tries to picture locations in New York again, any locations, trying to form a coherent picture for apparition. His house, streets, shops, his office, anything. It all blurs – he knows the places but he can't get the details right. The stairwell at MACUSA snakes up weirdly and streets go up and down aimlessly, buildings weaving in and out. It's like his memory is a picture under water, waving with currents, details blurring in and out.

Had Grindelwald done it intentionally? It could be a curse he's never heard of – it certainly has the effect of one. Some sort of apparition centric confundus. It's certainly a more promising option than the idea that Grindelwald's theft of his memories had permanently mangled his visual memory.

If he ever gets his hands onto the bastard, he's going to claw the man's eyes out, his fingers a chisel to Grindelwald's block of marble. It would be so satisfying.

He almost manages to picture it – but then he remembers himself on his knees, arms spread eagle with Grindelwald's wand digging bruises into his flesh and the grim promise of revenge fades into a shudder.

Trying to breath through the strange, ringing horror, Graves almost misses the sound. Almost. It's one his ears are attuned to, however. After a long career as auror, you never could miss the sound of someone trying – and failing – to suppress the crack of apparition. It's coming from outside. Fwuph, fwuph…

For a moment he's still, for a moment he doesn't even think.

Then he throws the sheets over Harry and gouges the man up from the bed. The Brit startles into him, gasping in pain and then going still and silent and stiff. Graves shushes him under his breath and ignores the man's startled stare as he hurries to the door, unlocking it and opening it awkwardly and then hurrying to the hall.

If they're competent, they would be able to track wizards – or rather, they'd be able to track people while disregarding the nomajes, thus leaving only the wizards behind. Running Graves would get nowhere – apparition is always faster. Hiding, if their opponents can track properly, would be useless… but it would buy them time.

There are sounds coming from downstairs, down the hall, so Graves heads to the opposite direction, Harry cradled tight against his chest. The Brit must've gotten the idea that something is wrong because he relaxes enough to not make carrying him difficult, and looks over Graves shoulder.

"What is it?" Harry mouths silently

"Wizards," Graves mouths back, and ducks behind corner in the hallway just as steps sound the hall, hurried enough to carry. Pressing his back against the wall to minimise sounds, Graves breathes in slow and silent and then glances around the corner.

Dragon hide trench coats and fedoras. Aurors.

For a split of a moment, Graves feels the slightest spark of optimism. They must've captured Grindelwald, they'd found out about the kidnapping, they'd came to find him. He could step out, announce himself, and this whole mess would be cleared out. They'd go after Grindelwald and undo whatever damage was done, discover whatever the madman was doing and fix it…

Then he sees them holding wands in white knuckled grips and silently backs away behind the corner again.

Grindelwald had assumed his identity, and he'd not only done good job at it but he'd all but digested Graves' memories to make it believable. He'd be in control of the MagSec now to some degree at least and he wouldn't be stupid enough to send aurors after Graves if there was any chance of him revealing the truth and them believing it.

"I'll cover you," one of them says in hushed whisper. It sounds like Wilkins, a complete greenhorn. "You go in."

"Yeah – yeah, alright, I'll just," another voice and another junior auror, Arendsen, whispers back. "Yeah, I'm ready."

Graves leans his head back against the door. He can almost imagine it, Grindelwald going to these two young idiots, entrusting them with important mission of capturing two dangerous wizards, puffing them up with their own importance. Normally, he would've laughed at it.

Normally, he had a wand and the power of Director behind him. Normally, he wasn't recovering from torture. And Wilkins and Arendsen might be wet behind the ears, but they still got through their auror training with good enough marks to get into the department – they'd stun him and Harry before they could get word edge wise. And after that…

Well, Grindelwald would reward them all, wouldn't he?

"Three, Two –" Wilkins counts, like a complete idiot, and there's a clack of lock. Quickly Graves turns away and hurries, as silent as he can, down the hall. Harry winds his good arm around his shoulder and watches their back as Graves looks for a way out. There's a window at the end of the hall – they're in second floor, but it would have to do.

"You know any wandless cushioning charms?" Graves asks without much hope.

"No, but I can levitate a bit," Harry answers, looking around at the window and tightening his arm around Graves' neck. "Just jump and hold on tight."

Graves doesn't let himself the time to get hung up on the idea that the man can apparently fly. He just shimmies the window open as quick as he can while still holding Harry securely in his arms and the shouts of "They're not here!" are just sounding behind them as Graves hoists his leg over the window ledge and jumps.

It's the weirdest sensation, to jump while holding onto someone who then goes first weightless in his arms and who then almost stops falling. Graves goes from holding onto Harry to clinging to him as their fall slows and stutters. They still fall, though, somehow both faster and slower than Graves assumes and he stumbles almost to his knees as his feet hit the cold, damp ground below.

Harry grunts as gravity collapses onto him again, and Graves really does fall to his knees as the man goes from weightless to heavy again. Graves almost wants to comment on it but can't – because straight ahead, there is someone with their wand tip lit.

"You! Stop!" the Auror Graves can't quite identify shouts – and then Graves shoots out his hand, almost dropping Harry as he sends desperate a wave of wand less magic out, knocking the witch off her feet. Hoisting Harry up again, Graves jumps to his feet and then runs towards the nearest shadow he can see, desperate to get out of line of sight – and thus, out of spell range.

Too late.

"Stupefy!" the witch shouts and Graves can feel his back tensing – but Harry moves before the spell hits, almost writhing around in Graves' arms as he throws his hand out behind them. The Brit jerks, his arm thrown back and then he's unconscious, his hand singed red by the spell fire.

Graves doesn't have the time to appreciate his quick thinking – he ducks behind the nearest obstacle he can see, an automobile, and gasps a breath, trying to think. He needs to apparate, he has to get out of here – running won't get them anywhere. But locations are still swimming in his head, blurry and intangible and he can't grasp them clearly enough. New York is a vague promise of safety that infuriatingly keeps eluding him.

"Stop!" the witch shouts, and Graves recognizes her voice now – Lund, another fairly junior auror. "Sir, you are under arrest for the unlawful impersonation of law enforcement officer – please step away from the vehicle –"

Graves mourns just for a moment about the state of his department – what had they taught these young fools in their introductory courses? "Article 4-dash B," he snaps back at her, "demands clear and unquestionable identification of a target before application of magical force in a nomaj setting."

That seems to stop her short just for a moment before she doesn't answer right away. It gives him a moment to try an turn his brain for something, anything to use, and then she snaps back, "You levitated! You're clearly a wizard. Now come out with your hands where I can see them or I will be forced to use force greater than mere stunning spells!"

"4 dash B still applies," Graves throws back at her. "Have you identified the target, Lund?"

"… How do you know my name?" she growls dangerously. "Just how much intel did you steal, you bastard?"

So impersonation and stolen intelligence, Graves thinks grimly. He could try and assure her that he hadn't stolen anything, that he was who he appeared to be, that he knew her name because he'd stamped her file himself… and it would get him nowhere. Damn.

She's shining light on the automobile now and somewhere behind her he can hear steps, the other junior aurors hurrying to the scene. "There's nowhere to run. Come out," she orders him. "Slowly."

Graves leans his head back a moment, holding Harry's limp form close. There are clouds over head – it had been clear skies before… before when he'd ran away from Grindelwald's dungeon. Frowning, Graves concentrates – and image sharpens. It's a risk, but… being captured and taken back to Grindelwald would be so much worse.

"When exactly is the impersonation of law enforcement officer lawful?" he throws over the hood of the automobile and concentrates.

"… what?" Lund asks even as Wilkins and Arendsen take stand beside her, shouting orders.

Graves disapparates before he can make out what they're saying.

Escaping Grindelwald's little dungeon again doesn't make Graves like the experience any better, even if it's far more easy this time. Harry is yet again dead weight in his arms, but at least Graves has a bath and meal behind him and isn't quite as terribly off as he'd been last time. Still, he would've liked it quite bit more if he had gotten even a bit of sleep before hand.

He avoid nomaj houses this time, steering well clear of the light of street lamps. He should've known better, really – though minor, he'd still confounded a nomaj to get in to the hotel, and that was enough to register, if only for a moment, on the Clock. And for someone looking for such small insignificant disturbances in that particular area – like say Grindelwald with couple of escaped prisoners…

So Graves sticks to the forest and shadows for the night, resting when he absolutely has to, and keeping his eyes and ears open. So as long as he doesn't make incident with a nomaj, the Clock won't be able to detect him, but better be safe than sorry – as it is, he's hoping to spot a street sign, anything to indicate where they might be.

Leaving a place called Town of Newton, apparently, somewhere in Sussex county in New Jersey which at least gives him some distance and direction to head to. East to New York. Problem is, it's anywhere from 60 to 40 miles.

No way can he walk anywhere near that far in one night, carrying Harry the whole way. And the chilly weather is not exactly helping, especially since they have little more than stolen bathrobes and sheets to keep them warm.

"Well this is a wonderful disaster, isn't it," Graves grunts while taking another break, hidden on a copse of trees with Harry set down for a moment so that he can rest his aching shoulders. "You know I wouldn't mind if you levitated a bit more," he comments to the man, who's now wrapped in the sheets which Graces had given up on trying to transfigure. "Would make this a whole lot easier."

Harry, being unconscious, doesn't answer. Sighing, Graves reaches out and tries to wandlessly ennervate him again, with no success. "I'd slap you but I think we've both been slapped around enough at this point," he mutters and leans against an old oak, sighing.

He spends a while trying to exhaustedly picture some location, any location in New York, without much success. Even the famous landmarks blur in and out and it's fine day indeed when he can't even picture the goddamn Statue of Liberty. Still he keeps trying because the idea of walking forty to sixty miles barefoot is not appealing to him in the least.

Graves wakes up the sound of wood snapping and almost grates his spine against the oak bark in his alarm. It's light out, sunlight screening through the leafless branches, and Harry isn't where he left him. Alarmed, Graves looks around, fingers clenched and ready to throw as much magic as he can muster.

Then he sees Harry, half lying half sitting little further way, snapping bits off what looks like fallen branch.

"What the hell," Graves asks and then grimaces as the aches and a terrible, cold stiffness makes itself known. He'd fallen asleep, he realises belatedly, and it had done him precisely negative amount of good.

"I'm trying – to make a crutch," Harry answers and snaps another smaller branch off. He examines the branch and then, using a near by tree for support, attempts to push himself onto his feet. It's awkward, wretched effort with him only able to put his weight on one leg, but somehow he manages.

Then he tries to use the branch for support in place of his not so functional left leg, and almost falls over again. "Bloody – " he grunts and shifts the crutch, all but stabbing it against the ground, and stays standing, somehow.

Graves stares at him for a moment, too exhausted to even try and muster up a pretence of being impressed. The man's a wreck, pale to the point of being blue and the morning light does him no favours – and neither does the by now dirty bathrobe and sheet he has on him. He looks like a corpse fresh from grave, really.

Graves irritated and hurting enough to tell the man as much.

"Thanks," Harry says as he leans onto his branch-crutch. "You're a model of morning glory yourself. A practical ray of sunshine." His voice cracks a little and he coughs, swallowing with a grimace.

Graves snorts and slowly levers himself up to his feet. Every movement aches. "I think I saw a brook near by," he says. "Come on."

Harry makes slow walker, every step a struggle, but as they go he gets a little better at it and Graves isn't about to belittle the effort by offering to carry him – the man wants to walk, let him walk. Thankfully the brook isn't far and though there's no telling how clean it is, neither of them are about to distain it.

Harry has to drink from Graves' hands again, unable to quite reach for it himself without falling right into the brook. Neither of them say anything about it – there isn't much to say, really.

"So, self levitation?" Graves asks.

"So, wandless magic?" Harry asks back, arching an eyebrow.

"Fair enough," Graves answers and sighs, rubbing at his shoulder. Damn but he would've liked another hot bath right about now.

"So, we got away," Harry says, casting him a look.

"Hm, barely. But I know where we are now, roughly speaking. Sussex county, in New Jersey," Graves says.

"That tells me pretty much nothing," Harry says and shakes his head. "I'm not exactly familiar with the local geography."

"Fifty or so miles northwest of New York," Graves explains and points. "We continue on that way and eventually… we should get to the city."

Harry blinks, following his pointing. "Fifty miles," he repeats, sounding about as dubious as Graves feels.

"Yeah," Graves agrees and stands up with a grunts, stretching out his arching arms. "Best chance we'd have would be if we managed to catch a lift with a nomaj vehicle, somehow. There's a road not far from here, and I could hear bit of traffic, but…" he looks down at himself and then at Harry.

The Brit looks down as well and sighs. "Yeah, we inspire a lot of confidence, don't we," he mutters, shifting where he sits so that he can take his weight off his lone good hand. For a moment he looks at it, glancing at the stump and then away. "Apparition still not working?"

"Not with places from before – I can apparate us back to the basement, though, for all the good that it does us," Graves says mirthlessly. Then he looks at the man on the ground. "Are you sure you don't know anyplace in New York? Even if you've never been, you must've seen pictures."

Harry glances up at him and then smiles, wry and mirthless. "Any images I might've seen are a little… unreliable. Out of date, you could say."

Graves arches an eyebrow at that. Well he is a Brit – Brits are pretty keen on their damn traditions. Chances are the man hasn't ever even touched a book from the past century, never mind something as terribly modern and revolutionary as a photograph. In Britain they were still trying to decide if moving images were misuse of nomaj technology.

"How about the Statue of Liberty?" Graves asks pointedly. "You must've seen that at least."

Harry frowns a bit at that, thinking about it. "Sure, if you want to apparate in the ocean," he then says, sarcastic.

What an asshole. "Right," Graves mutters and shakes his head, looking away.

He can feel the man watching him and then there is a grunt as Harry levers himself up to his feet again, a slow and pained process. "What are you going to do there, though?" he asks. "Assuming Grindelwald isn't a complete idiot, he'll be traipsing around as you right about now. If you go in, he's just going to have you arrested, isn't he?"

"You don't say," Graves mutters and runs a hand over his face. "There are people I can count on. People who will… if not believe me, then doubt me enough to check for themselves." Picquery is out of question – going to her under any suspicion would just get him killed. There are aurors though, better ones than the idiots Grindelwald had sent after him…

Goldstein, for one – and her sister, the handy little legilimens.  

"And anyway, whatever Grindelwald is doing, he's doing something, he's planning something, and it can't be good," Graves says grimly. "And chances are only we know."

"… yeah, I guess you're right," Harry says and leans his head back, staring up at the sky with a strange sort of exasperation. "And I guess this has gone far enough anyway that it can't really be helped anymore," he mutters under his breath. "I bloody hate dark lords."

Graves blinks at that. "Dark lords," he repeats and arches his eyebrows. "He's a terrorist and revolutionary, sure but… a dark lord?"

"Well, just give him time," the Brit says mirthlessly.

Graves eyes him for a moment, itching to ask what he knows – about Grindelwald, about Dark Lords, about what is going on here and just who the hell he is anyway. The look Harry gives him makes him grit his teeth, though – it tells him plainly that he wouldn't get answers there until the man was well and ready to give them.

"Right," he says. "Let's try and catch a ride to New York, then."

Chapter Text

"So you fellas, you've run into some, ah, trouble?" the nomaj asks, sending them sideways looks as Graves and Harry sit, rather cramped, on the seat next to his.

"I'd really rather not talk about it," Graves mutters, tugging at the dirty, formerly white bathrobe to cover his still bruised chest better. Beside him Harry seems to have flat out given up on modesty, if he even had any in the first place – but then, he didn't even have trousers on. And of course, once you had your hand torn off, modesty probably didn't seem all that important.

"Yeah, sure, it's just that…" the nomaj looks them over, at the bathrobes, the sheets Harry has wrapped around himself haphazardly to keep warm. "It kinda seems like I oughta take you to hospital, is all."

Nomaj hospitals, Graves thinks derisively. With the leeches and whatnot. And considering Harry's shattered knee cap and possibly broken ankle, he'd probably end up with another amputation as it happened. "No thanks, we'll just need to get to our… friends."

"Right, right," the nomaj says, obviously disbelieving, sending them glances. "I'm sorry, you both look like death warmed over. Guy can't help but worry. And, you're wearing…"

"Yes, yes, we know," Graves sighs in irritation and glances at Harry. The man could say something, but he's too busy prodding and poking at the edge of the ragged bandage around his stump. The skin there is almost vivid red and swollen misshapen. "I assure you we'll be just fine. Could you please just look ahead of you?"

"Uh-huh," the nomaj says, glancing at the road and then looking back at them. Around them the death trap that is the man's truck shudders and bounces with every bump in the road – and there are many of those.

Graves can't say he's fond of automobiles. This isn't his first time in one, as it happens, but those few times he'd had that dubious pleasure it had been in New York City, on the city streets. This road is little more than dirt and not the best maintained at least on this stretch. There isn't a single bruise or aching joint that isn't complaining.

How Harry isn't beset with agony with his injuries Graves isn't sure. Maybe that's why he's prodding at the stump – it kept him distracted.

"So, ah…" the nomaj says. "I didn't catch your names."

Graves glances at him, wishing he'd just stop it with the Mercy damned small talk. "Theodore," he says brusquely then and nods at Harry. "And this is William."

"Right," the nomaj says and arches an eyebrow. "Brothers?"

"Cousins."

"Right," the nomaj says dubiously. "Well, I'm Jacob – Kowalski," he says and offers his hand for a shake. Graves stares at it for a moment and grips it in his. The nomaj grins. "You know, I don't think you're bad people," the man says. "But this is weird. This is really weird. You can't blame a guy for being curious."

"Yes, alright, Mr. Kowalski," Graves says and sighs. The man had offered them a ride, and it wasn't his fault that the situation was poor and the ride was terrible. He was just helping. "We did run into some trouble, yes, but we'll get help in New York."

"Well I hope you do," Kowalski says and nods at Harry. "Because that looks a lot like infection."

Graves glances at Harry, at the stump, and grimaces.

"It's going fine," Harry says and lowers the stump into his lap with a bit of a wince. He's looking a little flushed under his pale blue pallor and there is sweat on his brow. Fever, starting to set in. "So, are you from New York, Mr. Kowalski?"

"Oh, you're a Brit," the nomaj says. "Just call me Jacob, alright? And yeah, in Rivington Street. You've ever been?"

"No, this will be my first time in New York," Harry answers and slides down on his seat until he's low enough to lean his head against the edge of the backrest. "What's it like?"

"Oh, it has it's ups and downs." Jacob says and then starts to regale them on the better and worse aspects of New York. Graves lets the chatter wash over him and concentrates instead into more important things – like memorising the road ahead of them in case he has to apparate out of the death trap of a vehicle, and planning what to do in New York.

In the end, the safest thing to do would be to go to the Goldstein's first and foremost. They aren't close enough to him to be under Grindelwald's immediate purview, especially not with Tina Goldstein's demotion, and hopefully wouldn't be under any orders or spells by the madman. The legilimens could prove Graves' real identity by reading his mind – something he is most definitely not looking forward to, but which he would endure out of necessity.

Then he would find out what Grindelwald has been doing in his name. And put an end to it.

"It's a nice, uh, vehicle you have," Harry comments awkwardly. "Very robust?"

"It's not mine," the nomaj admits with a laugh. "Borrowed it from an army buddy of mine for the day."

"Oh, you've been in the army?" Harry asks curiously.

"Yeah, I was part of the expeditionary forces – came back in twenty-four," the nomaj answers. "It was just peace keeping and whatnot after the war ended mind you, but even that was a lot of work," he shrugs and glances their way. "Did you do any service, William? I mean, being British and all…"

"Well," Harry answers and closes his eyes. "In my own way, I suppose I did. I wasn't ever really a soldier though."

"Sever rat?" the nomaj asks curiously. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with that – I did my own share of digging."

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that," Harry says and winces as the shuddering vehicle bounces over a rock.

Graves glances at him and then at Jacob. "How long until New York'" he asks with a sigh.

"An hour or so," Jacob answers and leans back to take out a pocket watch. He glances at it's two simple hands. "We should be there by eight."

"Good," Graves grumbles and leans back in his seat.

"You're up and about early, Jacob," Harry comments with a yawn, settling in even deeper in his seat.

"Had to get something from my uncle's farm – a cookbook," the nomaj says and grins. "My grandmother's special cookbook. Mind you I know her recipes by heart but it never hurts to be certain. You see, I'm hoping to open up a bakery…"

Graves almost swings at the nomaj when the man shakes him awake.

"Hey, whoa, alright there," Jacob says and pulls his hand back quickly. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you – you fell asleep for a bit there, and I thought it was better to just let you two rest, seeing that you look dead on your feet. We're here now, though, and I don't rightly know where you're actually headed."

Graves grunts out and then almost whines at the feel of his shoulders. It's like they're carved from stone, they're so stiff. And his stomach is twisted into hungry, pained knots again. Beside him Harry is still out cold, his breath rattling in his nose with every shallow inhale.

"So, where you headed?" Jacob asks worriedly, peering at him and at Harry, who in sleep looks infinitely worse.

"It's, ah," Graves says and tries to think. It hasn't been that long since he had a look at Goldstein's file, the address should be right there. What was it… "West 26th – no, West 24th Street," he says and runs a slightly shaky hand over his face. "It's a brownstone."

"That's a bit of a ways way, but sure," Jacob says and turns to the wheel again. "I'll get you there, no worries."

Lowering his hand Graves looks ahead. New York is opening up in front of them. They're still on the outskirts, but already the idea of being that much closer to home both makes him heave out a sigh of relief – and tense with anxiety.

Home, sure. Home, where Grindelwald is pretending to be him.

"Really think I should take you straight to nearest hospital though," Jacob says, more to himself than Graves. "Your cousin isn't looking too well."

Cousin? Oh, right. "He'll be fine," Graves says and looks at Harry. Frowning he reaches out a hand and rests it on the man's forehead. It's wet to the touch, and blistering hot – and still the man is shivering with chills. Damn.

Well, with bit of magical healing and potions, the man would survive. Hopefully the Goldsteins would have something in their place to take the edge off.

It's a long, painstaking ride through the city. Graves scans the scenery outside the automobile's windows, desperately trying to press everything to his memory, every street, every building, every alley they pass through. Of this whole damn debacle, the inability to apparate had been one of the most frustrating aspects and he's half decided on starting to carry photographs with him after this, just in case. He'll never, ever be so helpless again.

By the time they make it to the right street, he has a bit of a head ache and Harry is still out cold – and snoring slightly from his open mouth. Graves reaches out to snap his mouth closed and then peers around in the street. It is, thankfully, not exactly a magical hot spot and as far as he knows the Goldsteins are the only magical people living there.

Tina would be in work now. Her sister… hopefully not.

"There, the six seven nine," Graves says.

"Uh-huh," Jacob says and turns the wheel, edging the automobile closer through the people milling around in the street. He stalls the engine there, at the foot of the stairs leading into the brownstone. "Now, you sure you fellas are going to be alright?" he asks, turning to them.

"We'll be just fine," Graves says, hopes, as he peers up at the building. Then he turns to the nomaj. "Thank you, Mr. Kowalski. I don't have anything to repay you with."

"That's alright," Jacob says with an awkward smile, still looking worried. "Happy to help, but… you really should go to a doctor."

"We'll be fine," Graves says and then, with a deep breath, pushes the door open. "Thank you, Mr. Kowalski."

"Yeah. Take care, Ted," Jacob answers, shaking his head. "And I hope William will get better soon."

"Yeah," Graves agrees grimly. "Goodbye, Mr. Kowalski. Good luck with your bakery."

He makes a small scene, he knows, as he hauls Harry put of the car and into his arms again, but he resolutely ignores it. His shoulders complain the entire way and Harry's weight seems even worse after the respite of before, but he ignores that too in favour of walking up to the door of the six-seven-nine. The door is locked, but it's nothing he can't deal with.

The sister's live in the second floor, he thinks, and then hauls Harry up the stairs. He's half way up, when a door below opens and woman's voice calls out. "Queenie, that you? And shouldn't you be heading to work yet?"

Graves pauses for a moment and then glances down just as the woman, a nomaj, steps out of a lower floor apartment. She stares at them on the steps in horror for a moment and then she shrieks. What in Howe's name…?

"Who are you, what are you doing here – how dare you – did you break in?!" the nomaj woman howls at them, pointing a finger. "How dare, how dare you, you bastards – get out, get out right now I will call the police!"

Graves stares at the screeching woman in speechless horror and then looks up sharply as a door is thrown open in the upper floor. It's Queenie Goldstein and for a moment she just stares at Graves – or rather, into him. Below them the nomaj woman is still shouting abuse, loud enough that Harry wakes up with a pained groan and Goldstein looks down at him instead.

Her eyes widen and her breath hitches and for a moment he's sure she's going to cry which is the last damn thing they need. Graves grits his teeth and pointedly glares at her as she draws a rattling breath – and below, the woman is shrieking, "Get out, get out!" like a Mercy damned howler.

Then Queenie leans over the railing. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Esposito!" she calls and her voice shakes. "It's alright, these are – our cousins – and Harry is terribly sick!"

"What?!" the woman below asks in outrage.

"Harry, our cousin – he's sick, he's – he's lost his hand and –"

"Queenie Goldstein!" the nomaj shouts, indignant. "Are you lying to me!"

"She isn't," Graves snaps, just about done with the damn woman, and hauls groggy Harry around. "Just look at him, you -!"

The nomaj draws a breath to shriek some more and then she stops as Harry waves his red, swollen, stumpy arm at her. Then her eyes widen for a whole new reason.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Esposito, I know it's all of sudden and everything, but there was a terrible accident," Queenie Goldstein says hurriedly, even as she waves at Graves to get up the stairs and get in. "And they got no other place to go, and I know we're not supposed to have men here, but they're family and it's really a emergency and I'm really sorry –"

"Queenie, I – what in God's name is going on –" the nomaj woman demands, even as Queenie all but pushes Graves into the apartment.

"I'm really sorry, Mrs. Esposito – family emergency," Queenie calls at her, and then slams the door, shutting the woman's shouting outside. It doesn't quite muffle the noise completely, but it's still a blessed respite.

Graves clears his throat while the witch stares at them and Harry blinks blearily up at him. "I'm – I apologise, I know this is on short notice, but –" he starts to say awkwardly.

"No, no, I know, I understand, oh good grief," Queenie says, looking pale and wide eyed even as she gives them a confused, trembling smile. "Ah, come on, you can set him down here," she then says and points.

They set confused Harry down on the Goldstein's bedroom, where Queenie wrings her hands for a moment. "Ah, pain relief – and I should have something for infection – I'll be right back –" she then says and bustles off. It's only then Graves notices that she's only wearing a very skimpy slip and that her hair is sticking every which way.

The shrieking must've woken her.

"So, uh, what's going on?" Harry asks, leaning back against the pillows

"We're in New York," Graves explains. "That's Queenie Goldstein - she's a witch, a sister of one of my former aurors, Tina Goldstein. Hopefully they'll be… some assistance."

"Okay?" the Brit answers.

"She's also a legilimens," Graves tells him with a slight grimace. "Which while usually a bit of a nuisance, lends some credibility to our cause here."

"… okay?" Harry answers, frowning a bit.

"You don't know what that means, do you?" Graves asks flatly.

"No, I do, I just… never mind," Harry says and swallows dryly. "What happened to Jacob?"

"He left, I'd expect," Graves says and then looks up as Queenie hurries back in, carrying a wooden box which, judging by the sound of the glassy clatter, is full of potion phials.

"I have a pain killer, a fever reducer, and here, this should help with the infection," she says as she hands out potion phials to Graves and smiles. It trembles a little. "It's not as good as healer's kit, but I do have an auror in the family, so we're pretty well stocked here."

Graves accepts the potions and checks them over to make sure they can be taken all at once. There are no warnings in the label – the potions are probably too weak to clash. "Can you take these?" he asks, turning to Harry.

"Try and stop me," the Brit answers and reaches out his shaking left hand. "The pain killer first, please."

Queenie wrings her hands for a moment and then rummages through the kit again, coming away with a jar salve – "For the swelling," she says and with roll of gauze. As Harry drains potion after potion, Graves turns to his right arm and examines it before starting to unwind the makeshift bandage around the stump.

It looks gruesome underneath. The skin is both red, bruised and pale all at once, having been strangled under the bandage, and there is actually a bit of blood seeping through the skin Graves had healed previously. The wound is bleeding internally, Graves thinks grimly. It really needs a proper healing – by a proper healer.

"I don't suppose you –" Graves turns to Queenie.

"Well, no. Katja – she's a Healer at Parkers – owes me a favour, but she's a terrible gossip, and I don't think she could keep you being here a secret," Queenie says, tugging at her nails nervously as she looks between him and Harry. "James maybe but – he's such a stickler to rules, he wouldn't stay quiet either."

"It's fine, I can manage without healer," Harry says, after draining the last potion phial. He closes his eyes for a moment, swallowing several times and obviously fighting to keep the potions down. "Could I please have water, though?" he then asks, a bit plaintively.

"Yes, right, of course," Queenie says and jumps to her feet, hurrying out.

"This isn't going to heal on it's own," Graves says, examining the stump grimly. "And with your ankle and knee…"

"They're not going to kill me right now," Harry answers and sighs. "Oh thank Merlin the painkiller's working," he says and slumps down a little. "Bloody fuck that's… that's better."

Graves gives him a look and then looks at the stump. After moment of consideration he holds it between his hands and gently strokes his thumps over the wrinkled, warped skin, pushing magic inwards to try and heal the damage. Harry grunts in discomfort but doesn't say anything as Graves does what he can for him.

Queenie returns, watching for a moment as Graves works over injury, and then walking around the bed to offer the glass of water she's carrying to Harry. She still seems shaky, but Graves ignores it in favour of doing what he can for the mangled wrist.

"Thanks," Harry croaks and accepts the water. It shakes in his hand and he almost splashes it over himself as he drinks in quick, small sips.

"I – ah, should I call for Tina?" Queenie asks worriedly. "She headed off to work just hour or so ago."

Graves considers it and then shakes his head. "No," he says. "He'll be in full alert with us two on the loose and anything out of ordinary will catch his interest now," he says and looks at the skin he'd been trying to heal. It looks… a bit better, but still far from healthy. At least now the skin covers the terrible cut completely, and there are no bones peeking out.

Queenie gags beside him, and he knows she'd picked the memory from his head. "Oh by Bridged Bishop's nipple…" she swallows and looks away, closing her eyes.

Graves sighs and then reaches for the salve. Harry though is staring at Queenie strangely. "You don't need eye contact?" he asks.

"What's that, honey?" Queenie asks, sounding a little ill.

"You don't need eye contact to use legilimency?"

"Um… I don't use anything - and why would I need eye contact?" she asks and looks at him. She frowns a little at him. "You're very quiet, you know, I don't hear you at all. And people hurting are usually the easiest to read – how are you doing that?"

"Occlumency," Harry answers with a shrug.

Graves frowns, looking up at him. Queenie purses her lips, confused. "What's occlumency?"

Harry looks at them, blinking first at her – and then at Graves. "Alright… You don't use legilimency, and yet you are legilimens. That's – like being metamorphmagi, isn't it, a natural ability and not something you learned?" he says and then slumps down against the pillows. "And you don't know what occlumency is. You know, that explains a lot," he says at the ceiling.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Graves asks with a scowl. "You can't learn to be a legilimens. It's not a damn spell."

Harry doesn't answer, frowning at the ceiling. Then he looks down at Graves. "So," he says. "Now what?"

Graves glares at him for a moment and Harry arches his eyebrows in turn. "I'm going to get answers out of you, eventually," Graves threatens grimly

Harry arches his eyebrows and glances down at his stump of a hand, still held between Graves' palms. The good luck with that is heavily implied in the flat look the Brit gives him.

Queenie wrings her hands for a bit and then smiles tumultuously. "How about I make us some breakfast for a start," she says nervously and then glances at Graves. "Some nice porridge, do you think you could – alright, I'll make it runny. And I'll add heaps of butter."

"Thank you, Ms. Goldstein," Graves says with a irritated sigh. "That would be lovely."

"Oh, Mr. Graves, no need for that – don't think I can't hear you calling me Queenie in your head," she says with a slightly wider smile. She then glances at Harry a little uneasily and then turns away. "I'll be right back."

As she all but flees, Harry arches his eyebrows at Graves who gives him another glare. There's a moment of silence, before the Brit lets out a sigh and looks away. "Occlumency is the art of occluding the mind," he then says, somewhat begrudgingly, almost apologetically. "It's a mental defence against legilimency – and the theft of memories."

Graves pauses at that, looking at him. "That's why he couldn't take your memories, because your mind is protected," he says in realisation.

"Yeah," Harry admits and shakes his head. "I was so confused about why he kept trying to do that, when it was never going to work. I didn't… realise occlumency wasn't a wider known talent, that's all."

"Well I've never even heard of it, so neither probably has he," Graves mutters and frowns, looking down at the bandage. Then he starts unwinding it, getting ready to bandage Harry's stump again. "I wouldn't mind learning something like that myself," he admits gruffly. Not that it would make much of a difference now.

"I bet," Harry says and looks at him thoughtfully. "Maybe once this is all over, I'll teach you."

He's lying. Graves cracks a crooked smile at it. "I'd like that," he says, also lying. He's still not completely convinced the Brit isn't some sort of necromancer and Grindelwald's bitter rival. "Try and not kick the bucket before then, alright?"

"Prat," Harry answers and settles down with a sigh. "Bloody hell we got away, didn't we?" he mutters in realisation. "We got out."

Graves winds the bandage slowly around the discoloured wrist. "We got away," he says darkly. They aren't out of the woods yet, though. Not by a long shot.

Chapter Text

"Have you seen him lately?" Graves asks while idly poking his spoon at the very watery porridge Queenie had made. They're sitting in the guest room, for Harry's benefit, and both Graves and Queenie are carefully avoiding being sympathetic at Harry who is painstakingly slowly eating his share.

"Him, you mean, you?" Queenie asks and shakes her head. "I haven't had much reason to go to the auror offices since Tina got demoted and it's not as if the Director of Magical Security comes down to the typing pool. I did pass him by the other day." She thinks about it for a moment. "I… didn't feel anything unusual from him. He felt like, well… you."

"He took a lot of my memories – he'll be using them as a cover," Graves says with a shake of his head. "So there's been nothing unusual about him?"

Queenie hesitates. "Well," she says and even Harry looks up at the tone of her voice, embarrassed and mischievous all at once. "I mean, there' been the whole thing with the attacks so we all sort of assumed you, he, was just under some stress and maybe slipping a bit, but… there has been a rumour," she says and leans in. "About you… finding a sweetheart."

Graves lowers the spoon and stares at her. "Excuse me?" he asks with disbelief.

"I caught it floating about," Queenie says and looks down at her bowl, trying not to smile. "Apparently he pops out of the office every now and then and comes back looking… satisfied. And it's not that he's gone investigating because people know when he's gone investigating. So…"

Graves leans back a little while Harry casts him a thoughtful glance. "A… sweetheart," Graves repeats and fights the urge to make a face. Grindelwald, using his face, to… It takes actual effort not to make a noise of disgust at the thought.

Harry clears his throat. "How much do you know about Grindelwald?" he then asks, looking at Graves.

"I know he's Mercy damned lunatic," Graves mutters and turns his eyes down onto his bowl of porridge. He takes a spoonful – it's runny and bland, but Queenie had done her best to make it good. "Supports an ideology of magic makes right – our superiority over nomajes. Wants to expose us to them, start a war, bring us into the light."

"Yes, that's what he wants, but what do you know about the man?" Harry asks.

Graves frowns, glancing at him. "I… know he gives charismatic speeches. Has a sway back in Europe, and is good at avoiding capture. Friends in high places, people think."

Harry eyes him for a moment. "Well that's something," he says and lowers his spoon. "Grindelwald is… good at figuring what people want. And using what people want against them. He is very charismatic, yes, but he's also seductive. Do this thing for me and I'll give you all you want, that sort of thing. He makes people… want to side with him. Even when their ideologies clash."

"How do you know that?" Graves ask suspiciously.

Harry shrugs. "It's what he tried first, before giving up and chaining me in his basement instead," he says and looks down at his bowl. "Anyway, if he's coming back looking all satisfied, that's probably what he's doing to someone. Turning them to him, making them his."

Graves eyes him for a moment and then looks at Queenie. "Has he been paying any particular attention on anyone?" he asks, wondering if Grindelwald was using his face to actually accumulate a following in New York.

"Not that I know of," she says and shrugs her shoulders. "From what I hear he's just been busy with the investigation. The attacks."

"That's still going on?" Graves asks and then frowns. "How long has it been since it started? When the first attacks happened?"

"About a month, I think?" she says and then looks at him with shock. She swallows and answers his unspoken question, "It's… It's the sixth of December now."

Graves stares at her, mouth hanging open for a bit. "Sixth of December?" he repeats, his voice faint. "It's only the sixth?!"

"What is it?" Harry asks, looking up.

"He… I think he only had me for five days?" Graves asks and turns to him. "He only – how has it only been a five days? I thought it was…." Weeks, months. And yet it was only the sixth. Only the sixth.

Blinking, Graves looks down at himself. Queenie has, kindly, cleaned the bathrobe he's wearing, not that it improved the situation much. Under the robe he's still bruised and aching, and his shoulders are still pulsing with pain after having been hung up for so long.

But unlike Harry, he hasn't suffered prolonged starvation. Aside from the long period without – no, had it been a long period without food? He'd been so starved, he'd been so thirsty he'd thrown up, and yet… "Five days?" he asks again with outraged disbelief.

Harry sighs and shakes his head. "It was only three. We escaped yesterday, remember?" he says and then looks down at himself. "And don't blame yourself for losing track of time. You were tortured, and he's very good at that, good at making it last – good at making it seem prolonged."

Graves looks up at him. "So… every time I lost consciousness…"

"It was only for few minutes," Harry agrees.

Graves looks down for a moment, swallowing. He'd thought he'd lost weeks, months of his life. He'd thought he'd come out to find the world entirely different – completely ruined by the man pretending to be him. And yet it had only been a few days? He can't wrap his mind around it.

Well if anything goes it explained the exhaustion. Three days with no rest...

"How has no one noticed him being missing?" Harry asks, turning to Queenie. "Even if has only been few days, it still took Grindelwald a bit before he assumed his identity. Did no one notice him missing?"

"He… wasn't missing, from what I've heard," Queenie admits and frowns a little. "I think he might have taken a day off the other day though, because I couldn't hear anyone thinking about him."

Graves scowls down at his bowl of porridge, trying to think, trying to put it all into a time frame. His mind keeps getting hung on the starvation. He still felt like he hadn't been eating properly for weeks, his stomach still twisted inside him – how has it only been few days…

"Percival," Harry says, making him look up. He has that damn knowing look on his face again. "If he can take your memories, isn't it possible he can insert some in, too? Also, putting you in with me wasn't accidental – it was all planned to make your short stay seem longer. It was all designed to break you faster."

Break him.

Graves grimaces and shakes his head, looking away sharply. "So, he was pretending to be me even before he showed up dressed as me?" he asks, trying to draw his thoughts away from the loop they seemed stuck on. "Just enough to go in to take a leave of absence until he had the act perfected…"

"Probably," Harry agrees. "It's what I would do."

"Of course you would," Graves mutters and takes another spoonful of soup. His hand shakes a little. Even if it's true and the starvation hadn't been long – hell, it probably never even happened aside from the time on run – his stomach still objects to the food. He pushes through it grimly.

"This is good new for us, though," Harry says. "He's only had few days to do whatever he's doing, and seeing as he hasn't rang any alarm bells yet, whatever he's doing, he's doing it quietly. But he was still in a hurry to get to it," he adds thoughtfully and then frowns. "What attacks?"

"What?" Graves asks.

"You said something about attacks – what attacks?"

"Um, I have the paper, I can show you," Queenie says and sets her empty bowl down to hurry out of the room. She comes back with the New York Ghost. She holds it for Harry to see.

MAGICAL DISTURBANCES RISK WIZARDING EXPOSURE the front page pronounces.

"It's been going on for a while now," Queenie explains while Graves reaches out to grab the paper from her hands. "No one knows what it is – according to Tina it's just this… dark force that appears and tears through everything and vanishes."

"Huh," Harry says slowly. "Any casualties?"

"None yet," she says quietly.

Graves scans the front page grimly. Sixth of December, it tells him – along with the fact that not only are the attacks still going but they're escalating. A whole building had been brought down by the force – MACUSA had tried to cover it up as gas explosion, but the excuse is wearing thin now. And the International Confederation of Wizards was getting involved too now. Picquery must be real happy about that one.

"And this has been going on for a month?" Harry asks thoughtfully. "Started before he kidnapped Percival?"

Graves looks up. "You think…"

Harry nods at the paper. "Risk of wizarding exposure," he points out. "I'd say that catch his attention, alright."

Graves scowls at the paper and tries to think what he can recall of the attacks. They'd started out small – a sink hole opening up in a street, windows blown up, that sort of thing. Nothing as severe as collapsed building. They had been getting violent, though – his original theory had been that it was a wizard causing it or, at worse case scenario, accidental magic of a child. But with a whole building blown up…

"And he's still investigating this?" Graves asks, turning to Queenie. "Is he honestly investigating or making a pretence of it?"

"I don't for sure. It seems like major issue, though, most of the Auror department is abuzz with it," Queenie says, shrugging her shoulders apologetically. "It's almost all they ever think about, these last few days – and he always goes out to see it for himself, I know that for sure. It's, ah… ticking off some of the senior aurors, him doing on the field like that."

Yeah, it would – a superior butting into their territory. Graves scowls and leans back a little, eying the paper for a moment longer. "So, something about the attacks…"

Harry reaches out to take the paper in turn, spreading it out over his legs. He stares at the date for a moment, no expression on his face, before his eyes flick downward to read the titles and the articles. "They say here they think it's a beast some sort," he says and narrows his eyes. "I've never heard of a beast like this."

"There are a lot of beasts out there," Graves comments.

"Yeah, but incorporeal ones that can destroy buildings?" Harry asks, and rubs at the skin around his bandaged right wrist. "Poltergeist is the closest thing and those aren't nearly strong enough for this."

Graves gives him a look. "You know about magical creatures?"

"I had a good Care of Magical Creatures teacher," Harry shrugs and frowns. "And my friend married into pretty prominent magizoologist family – the stories those people have…" he shakes his head and looks up. "Anyway, a beast. That's… interesting."

He starts turning the pages slowly, peering curiously at the articles. There's a quiet for a moment before Queenie clears her throat. "What are you going to do now?" she asks, turning to Graves.

Graves takes a breath and then sets his bowl down, half finished. He needs to expose Grindelwald somehow, but considering the man has his memories and is passing for him well enough that a legilimens couldn't tell the difference… if he tries to go to MACUSA now, it would probably only get him arrested, and back at Grindelwald's mercy. And just a moment alone with the man would be enough to ruin his chances.

"I need him to expose himself," Graves says, making Harry look up. "I need to somehow trick him into revealing who he is. For that I need to figure out what he's really after here, what he's planning."

The Brit eyes him for a moment and then looks down at the paper. "I guess you need to figure out what's going on, then," he says and folds the paper up, so that the headline alone is in full display. He hands it over to Graves.

Graves accepts the paper, but keeps his eyes on Harry, frowning. "You're pissed off at me again," he says, though at this point he thinks maybe the man is constantly pissed off at him, just very good at hiding it when he wants to.

"I'm pissed off at myself. I'm no use to you," Harry admits with a scoff and looks down at his knees, covered by a duvet. Even through the cloth, the swelling of his left knee is obvious. They'd bandaged it, used as many potions as they could on it – but the kneecap was still shattered, and his ankle was still broken.

Graves presses his lips tight together and then glances at Queenie. "You wouldn't happen to have papers from these last five days?" he asks. It wasn't quite as good as getting access to Major Investigations' intel, but it would do in a pinch. If there had been more big attacks, they'd be on the Ghost.

"Yeah, we should still have them," Queenie says and stands up. She collects the bowls with a slight smile. "I'll get them."

There's a beat of silence after she steps out, with Harry glaring at his own knees and Graves looking at the floor between the two guest beds. "It's not exactly your fault," he then says, awkward. "It isn't as if you broke your knee."

 "Thing is – I did," Harry snorts, making him look up. The man waves his stumpy right hand with a mirthless, crooked smile. "You think this was my first attempt?"

Graves swallows at that and yeah, he can imagine it. Especially in the light of having seen the man do it, having watched the man twist his own hand off with cold and brutal determination. For a moment he wonders at it – about whether Grindelwald had chained him in some other way, maybe not chained at all first, and the gruesome solution Harry had eventually landed on. Thing was, Graves was pretty damn certain Harry could've done it earlier.

"Why'd you do it?" he asks, before he can think better of it.

"I wanted to get out," Harry says simply.

Graves stares at him silently for a moment, searching his face. There's nothing on it. "Did you, really?" he finally asks. "You know, we got out yesterday and we've been together ever since and never once have you mentioned… anything. No mention of going someplace, seeing someone, contacting anyone… You've just been following me."

Harry frowns a little at that, looking away. "Where am I supposed to go?" he asks. "I'm injured and probably bleeding to death and I can't apparate far enough to get anywhere."

Graves smiles a little and looks down at his own hands, two healthy hands. "You could ask Miss Goldstein for an owl. Send a word to someone."

He sees from the corner of his eye the face Harry makes at that, a twisted mirthless smile. "You, sir, are a right bleeding bastard," Harry says and eases back on the bed a little, lying down against the pillows. 

Graves almost laughs at that. No one send word to, then. "Yeah," he agrees and runs his hands over his hair. "Pretty much."

The thought that this man tore his own hand off almost solely for Graves' benefit rings in the back of his mind, terrible echoing bell, and he shudders. People have done a lot for him over the years, the gestures of respect and expressions of gratitude had been many. But nothing would ever top this one, not for severity and probably not for the nightmares it would give him for years to come.

If he survives this mess, anyway.

Mercy Lewis damn it all.

"I got the papers," Queenie murmurs from the doorway. "Every Ghost from the last week. Um…" she hesitates, biting her lip. "I was also thinking, I could make you some clothes. We have enough fabric here, I could… transfigure some for you."

Graves takes a breath, running a hand briefly over his face and then forces a smile. "Thank you," he says, accepting the papers. "Looks like I'm accumulating more and more debt to you, Miss Goldstein."

"You can pay it by having Tina reinstated?" Queenie offers with some humour,

"I… will consider it," Graves promises with some guilt and she narrows her eyes at him.

"Oh," she says in realisation. "Mr. Graves you conniving little…" she points a finger at him. "Tina was utterly heartbroken you know! It absolutely shattered her, to have you shoot her down like that, after all her hard work –"

"Ms. Goldstein –"

"Don't you Ms. Goldstein me!" Queenie snaps. "Why were you so harsh on her when it was never going to be permanent? She thinks it's going to be on her record forever – she thinks her career is ruined!"

"Well," Graves says awkwardly, clearing his throat. "To be fair, it is going to be on her record forever."

Harry looks between them with interest. "What happened?" he asks curiously.

"She attacked a nomaj in broad day light, in front of other nomajes," Graves sighs and turns his attention awkwardly on the papers while Queenie glares righteous fury at him and Harry arches his eyebrows. "Your sister is a promising Auror, you know," he says to Queenie. "But she doesn't think ahead – she's impulsive and lets her feeling lead her. And they led her to an incident with nomajes – with magic hating nomajes at that. She risked exposure."

"So you taught her a lesson by temporarily demoting her?" Harry asks and nods. "Harsh but effective."

"Hm, usually," Graves agrees and glances at Queenie. "Truth to be told, your sister needed to be brought down a peg. Graduating with top marks like she did, it gives auror a sense of superiority, of infallibility. And we're not. And we're certainly not above reprimand. If I'd let her continue as she had, what kind of senior auror would she eventually make?"

He imagines it, rather pointedly – imagines some of the older generation aurors, from time before Picquery, before they'd fought tooth and nail to weed the department out of that mindset. The arrogance, the self-importance – the distain they had for those lesser. Rappaport's law had been less a guideline and more a torch they'd used to club anyone and anything over the head with.

MACUSA is still likened to a nomaj mafia at times because of that old mindset – still more feared, than respected.

Queenie stares at him with her lower lip trembling a little and Graves looks away. "You let aurors run rampant unchecked once, and they run rampant through their entire careers," he says. And those aren't the sort of aurors Graves wants to lead.

Tina Goldstein has makings of a excellent auror, and Graves hopes she will become one. But she also has that seed of righteousness on her that ruins many good law enforcement officers. When she feels she is right about something she doesn't listen to arguments against her feelings all that well. Which is exactly what she'd done with the nomajes.

"… but you're going to reinstate her eventually?" Queenie asks, her voice small.

"If I get the chance," Graves sighs and spreads out the papers.

Harry looks between them, glancing from Graves to Queenie and back as the silence stretches. "Well, I reckon I missed about half of that conversation," he says thoughtfully.

"There about," Graves agrees gruffly.

Queenie clears her throat awkwardly. "I'll, uh… I'm going to grab my sewing kit," she murmurs. "See what I can do about clothing for you."

She heads off, looking troubled, and Graves glances after her before shaking his head and turning back to the papers. There's a moment of silence before Harry speaks. "Why'd she attack them? The, um, nomajes?"

Graves sighs. "It was because of these kids," he says quietly. "Goldstein was climbing the walls, too damn smart for a quiet desk job, so I put her on an old case – an on going one. There is this magic hating nomaj society in New York, related to the Scourers distantly – they've been going on for a while now. Turns out the leader beats her children. Auror Goldstein's took offence."

Harry is quiet for a moment, watching him. "I think anyone with a heart would," he comments then.

"Yes, but of all the ways of expressing her feelings, she decided to do it on broad day light, on an open street, surrounded by nomajes, most of them with previous tendencies of extreme prejudice against all things magical," Graves says flatly. "I honestly expected better of her."

Harry hums in agreement.

Graves shakes his head and screens through the headlines of the New York Ghost. Auror Goldstein and her sad lapses of judgement wasn't exactly a key issue here. "Know anything about investigation?" he asks, glancing at Harry.

"Oh, this or that," Harry answers, turning a bit where he lies, wincing as he gets weight off his bad leg. "You're going to have to give me the earlier facts first," he then says. "I'm not exactly up to date on New York City gossip."

"Right," Graves agrees. "Well, the first incident was about a month ago…"

Chapter Text

There is no rhyme or reason behind it. The attacks, they seem to scatter all through out Manhattan randomly – this street dug up by invisible force, that building brought down, those automobiles thrown against the walls… The only thing that connected them was the fact that they all took place on lower Manhattan but aside from that it was as if someone had pinned a map on a wall and thrown darts at it, for all the connection the attacks seemed to have.

They are escalating though. They had been escalating before, bit by bit growing worse, more severe – from shaken windows to entire four story apartment utterly crumbled. The thing, whatever it was a beast or a spirit or even a wizard, was getting stronger.

"Or just losing restraint," Harry comments, peering at one of the articles that featured a witness account on a recent attack. "The fact that it started small doesn't always mean that it was a small thing behind it – it could just be that it was more careful in the beginning."

"Careful," Graves scoffs and glares at the map he's making. Queenie had let him use he street map, and he'd been marking it with all the incidents he remembered along with everything that had made it to the papers. It was a mess. "Everything is gaining momentum here. These incidents, they're not just getting stronger but they're speeding up too – from couple incident a week to a daily occurrence."

Sighing he runs a hand over his face. "There's no reason behind any of these locations though. It really does look like it's a beast of some sort, a hitherto unknown one, that's just lashing out senselessly."

"I find it a bit curious that there hasn't been any casualties," Harry says as he spreads the paper out on his knees, pointing at the article. "I mean, listen to this: It came up to my face, I saw it clearly – black smoke but like liquid, it was, with bright white eyes. It looked straight at me, I swore, it did!"

Graves glances up. "It's how all the witnesses who saw it described it," he says.

"Yes – but the thing came up to this bloke's face, looked at him, saw him – and did nothing to him?" Harry says and glances up. "The man lived to tell the tale, and so did everyone else who's given witness reports. If it's a senseless beast, it's being very careful about human casualties."

Graves hums in agreement. That was his hang up before too, before Grindelwald had kidnapped him. So many people had been in danger, but none of them had been hurt. It implied a sense of care that a senseless creature or mindless magical force wouldn't show.

"Could be a coincidence," he says without much faith.

"Yes, because you're obviously a man who believes in coincidence," Harry snorts and shakes his head. "It would be down right miraculous at this point if it was a coincidence. Statistical anomaly even."

Graves frowns at him and then shakes his head at the weird wording. "So say we assume this thing has some intelligence," he says. "Either that or it's being controlled by someone with will who is squeamish about hurting people. What we end up is a extremely destructive force with a will behind it. It's not exactly comforting thought."

"No, but it would explain Grindelwald's interest," Harry muses and looks down at the paper. "You realise he knows what this is, right?" he then says. "I mean, assuming it's the reason why he's here and it's pretty good assumption to make… he knows what it is. And he wants it."

Graves frowns. "Yeah," he agrees grimly. Grindelwald wanted it bad enough to kidnap him, torture him, and to actually assume his memories which even under controlled circumstances was a damn dangerous thing to do. Whatever it was, it was important enough for Grindelwald to risk permanent mental damage on himself. Another not exactly comforting thought.

"So, it's not a beast then," Graves says, shaking his head and frowning at the map again. "He wouldn't be telling people it's a beast if it really was. And if it's not a beast…"

"Then it's either a spell or a being – and the thing has eyes," Harry says.

Graves nodded, running a hand over his chin, idly scratching at the five day's worth of stubble. Then he heard voices coming through the walls, muffled and distant but clearly the voices of multiple people. Glancing up, he listened. "I do believe Auror Goldstein is home," he says and sighs. "Finally, hopefully now we can get some in-depth information."

"I thought she was demoted," Harry comments.

"She's also extremely nosy," Graves answers. "And I'll be very surprised indeed if she's managed to keep away from the investigation all this time." She certainly hadn't before.

There's steps on the stairs and then door opens and soon after closes, and then they can hear Queenie, greeting her sister. "Teenie," she sounds surprised. "You brought men home."

Graves tenses at that, turning to the open door. He can't see the entrance, or the newcomers, from this angle, but he can hear them, moving about

"Gentlemen, this is my sister," Auror Goldstein says and then pauses. "Queenie, what are you making – that's…"

"Well," Queenie answers and Graves can hear her moving about, her voice growing louder as she comes closer. "As it turns out, I have guests too. Tina – don't be alarmed now. Come here."

"Um, if you have guests over perhaps we should –" a male voice, British, soft. Graves arches his eyebrows at Harry, who tilts his head a bit, looking curious.

"No you don't, Mr. Scamander – and you, sit down before you fall down," Tina answers. "Queenie," she then says. "What do you mean you have guests – Mrs. Esposito –"

"Pots and kettles, Teenie, you brought men in too – here," Queenie says with a little laugh, and then the sister's are at the doorway. Graves gets only a glimpse of Auror Goldstein's serious, suspicious face before she has him on want point.

"Hands where I can see them!" she snaps at them.

"Goldstein – " Graves says, even as he drops the paper he'd been holding and lifts his hands. "We can explain –"

"There's a bulleting out for a man attempting to impersonate Director Graves," Tina says tightly, looking between Graves and Harry, her eyes flicking to Graves' wounded cheek, the bruised wrists, and then to Harry, gaunt and starved and only holding up the one remaining hand. "Queenie," Tina says sharply.

The blond sister reaches out to touch her wrist. "They've been here for a bit now," she says gently, pushing at her sister's wrist. "And Mr. Graves hasn't fought me a bit. He's the real thing, I promise – put that down now."

Tina glances at her, then at Graves, taking him in. "Explain," she demands, flicking her wand at him threateningly.

"I was taken five days ago," Graves says slowly, as calmly as he can manage. "I don't remember exactly how – I woke up in basement with him," he nods at Harry. "With Gellert Grindelwald standing over us. We escaped yesterday – but not before he took what feels like most of my memories, and my identity with them."

"Queenie," Tina demands.

"He's telling you the truth," she promises gently. "Put your wand down."

It takes a moment before, in hesitant jerks, the former auror lowers her wand. "Mercy Lewis," she then says, her eyes widening a bit as the truth settles in. "Sir?"

"Goldstein," Graves answers and lowers his hand. "Apologies for barging in, but… I rather needed your sister's abilities to prove myself."

"Oh. Oh, right," Tina says, blinking, glancing at Queenie who smiles awkwardly and them back at Graves. "I just – we just saw you in the Woolworth building," she says faintly. "It was… Grindelwald? How in Wardwell's name – I never would have – Sir, I'm so sorry, I didn't suspect a thing, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary."

"I'm not surprised. The man stuck my memories into his own head," Graves scoffs and then looks past her shoulder.

There's a man there, in vivid blue coat, peering curiously if somewhat awkwardly into the room over the sisters' shoulders. Tina follows Graves' gaze and then whirls around. "Mr. Scamander," she snaps. "Hasn't anyone told you sneaking up on people is rude?"

"I'm sure they have," the man says, his accent clearly English, looking between Graves and Harry with a worried sort of curiosity.

"Scamander?" Harry asks with recognition.

Graves arches his eyebrows a little, taking the other British man in. "I've met Theseus Scamander personally," he says slowly, suspiciously. "And that's not him." They had some of the same features though – the same red-brown hair and freckles everywhere.

"Yes, I'm sorry, I'm not Theseus," the man in blue coat says, ducking his head a bit.

"I don't… even know who that is," Harry answers with a shake of his head and looks at the freckled man. "Any relation to Newt Scamander?"

Scamander looks up, looking startled. "Um. Yes, well – I am Newt Scamander?" he says, sounding confused.

Graves is looking at Harry, so he doesn't miss the way his eyes widen just a little before the man quickly schools his expression. The smile on his face isn't quite fake, though it is somehow restrained. "It's an honour, sir," he says.

"It is?" Scamander asks, sounding even more confused. "Um, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are."

"You wouldn't," Harry agrees and automatically holds out his right hand. Then he stops, glancing at the stump and lowering it awkwardly. "You can call Harry."

"How do you do," Scamander says automatically, frowning – not at Harry, but rather at his stump. Awkward, he squirms back the confused Goldstein sisters, stepping into the guest room. For some reason, he's carrying a large leather suitcase – he almost hits Queenie with it. "That looks recent," he says, still looking at Harry's arm. "May I?"

"By all means," Harry answers and holds the amputated arm for his inspection.

Graves eyes them and then glances at Tina, his eyebrows arched. "Who is he?" he asks, because knowing what little he does about Harry, the fact that the man knows this one – and apparently respects him – puts him a little ill at ease.

"Ah, well," Tina coughs awkwardly. "This is Newt Scamander – he has a… crazy creature in his suitcase, it made an incident in a nomaj bank…" she trails off, making a face.

"What is it?" Graves demands.

"No, I just… I just told this to you little while ago. Him – Grindelwald," she says. "He didn't believe me."

Graves narrows his eyes at that. "A creature you say," he says, eyeing Scamander with greater suspicion. "What kind of creature?"

"It's just a niffler," Scamander mutters, glancing at him. "He's perfectly harmless if… a bit unruly."

"You released a niffler on a bank?" Harry asks, looking like he'd be grinning if Scamander hadn't been poking at his wounded wrist. "I can imagine that causing an incident."

"Oh, you know them?" Scamander asks with surprised delight. "And I didn't release him – he snuck out, the thieving thing. It was trouble and a half to catch him too."

"Yeah, I bet it was."

"What's a niffler?" Graves asks impatiently, glancing at the Goldstein sisters.

"I have no idea, sir," Tina sighs and runs a hand over her face. Then she looks at him. "Sir, if Grindelwald is really infiltrated the MACUSA…" she says. "We need to do something about that!"

"Yes, we do, and we will," Graves says, glancing at Scamander, who is prodding at Harry's bandaged wrist curiously. "What is going on at MACUSA?" he then asks. "What is he doing?"

"I don't really know sir, I haven't been allowed onto the Auror levels much at all," Tina admits. "Madam Picquery is very vehement about it. They are investigating the… incidents," she trails off, looking down at the papers, her eyebrows arching. "And so are you, apparently."

"We think the incidents are reason why he's here," Graves agrees and motions at the headline for that day. "That this being is the reason he came here."

"Being – I thought it's a beast?" Tina asks with a frown, stepping closer to look.

"It's fair to assume Grindelwald knows what it actually is – and according to this," Graves takes out the paper for 4th of December, which included few words from Director Graves of MACUSA Department of Magical Security. "He calls it a beast. And if it's really what he's after, he'd be misdirecting the investigation as much as possible, don't you agree?"

"Incidents?" Scamander asks, glancing up. "What incidents?"

"Apparently a ghostly smoky liquid dark force with white eyes is going around smashing buildings and whatnot," Harry says and peers at him thoughtfully. "You wouldn't happen to know what that is, Mr. Scamander?"

Graves looks at him with surprise and then looks at Scamander who has visibly stilled.

"Ghostly… smoky liquid dark force," the man repeats faintly. "With white eyes?"

Harry nods, watching him with something like awe. "It can fly, go through walls and appears and vanishes without a trace," he says. "Started out month ago, breaking windows and whatnot – then started to escalate. Now it's destroying buildings."

Scamander's throat works silently for a moment and then he swallows.

"Mr. Scamander?" Tina asks slowly. "You know what it is?"

The British man looks up, almost jerking – and Harry lets out a hiss of pain as he accidentally tugs at his wounded wrist. "Um," Scamander says, releasing his wrist quickly. "Ah, yes, maybe?" he says, looking at Tina and then at Graves. "I – ah, encountered something like it just three months ago, in Africa – in Sudan. A little girl, she…"

"You mean to say this is a person?" Graves asks suspicious.

"Well. Not a person, exactly," Scamander says helplessly. "She – she was an obscurial, you see. And liquid black smoke with white eyes – that's… that's a fairly accurate description of an obscurus."

There's a beat of silence as they all stare at him. Obscurial, Graves thinks and his mind twists in horror as he connects Grindelwald's interest in the incidents and then the concept of a magical child abused to a breaking point…

"What's an obscurus?" Harry asks in confusion, wincing a little as he rubs at his bandaged wrist.

"There are no obscurials left," Tina says quickly, looking between Scamander and Graves. "That can't be it, can it?"

"Scamander?" Graves asks suspiciously. "How, exactly, do you know this?"

"I told you, I met one three months ago. I was investigating the incident, they thought it was lethifold or something of the sort," Scamander explains. "Lethifolds don't leave bodies behind, however, so I looked into it more deeply until I… found her. Locked way, in the darkness…"

"There hasn't been recorded obscurials in hundreds of years," Tina says, shaking her head in denial.

"They used to be more common, but they still happen," Scamander says sadly and draws a breath and turning to Harry. "Obscurial is what happens when a magical child is punished for their magic and tries to suppress it. They develop what is called an Obscurus. It's a… growth of sort, of magic, that expresses itself as dark force. Like liquid black smoke. It lashes out in pain, causes destruction and death… until the host dies."

Harry stares at him, his face falling expressionless.

Graves scowls, looking at the papers. Like any American wizards he knows the history of obscurials well enough. America had had… many of them, following the Salem Witch Trials, they'd swept the land like plague for years for decades until Rappaport's law had came into effect. But even so, he doubts he would have recognised one even if he'd came face to face with one.

"Grindelwald knows," he mutters to himself. "He knows. How would he know? And what would he want with an obscurial?"

There's a moment of silence. "What happened to the one you met?" Tina asks, looking at Scamander.

"I… tried to help her, but…" the man bows his head, his shoulders slumping a bit. "She died. She was eight. There has never been an obscurial who lived past ten."

"No, there has," Harry says, making them all look up. He has a distant look on his face. "There was a girl Grindelwald knew when he was younger – sister of his friend. She had an… incident with some muggles and according to her brother it destroyed her. Her magic turned inward and… " he frowns and looks up. "She was fourteen when she died." 

Graves stares at him. "Now how the hell do you know that?" he asks slowly, dangerously.

Harry presses his lips together and he looks away. "I never knew it had a name. Obscurus," he murmurs, staring at his wrist. "That's… interesting."

"Harry," Graves growls.

The Brit shakes his head and looks up. "Just take what you can get, alright?" he says tightly. "It should be pretty obvious by now that I'm not going to tell you everything."

"And it should be pretty fucking obvious it's pissing me off," Graves snaps back.

"Yes, it is – but little gratitude wouldn't go amiss," Harry says and waves his stump. "I'm giving you as much as I can here, alright? I don't know how far I'm gone here yet. Just… take what you can get."

Graves hisses out a curse, but the wrist, swelling in it's constrictive bandage again, puts a rather efficient stop to his objections. It turns out it's extremely hard to demand more from a man who's literally given you their right hand, as much as the man annoys and infuriates him.

So, he grits his teeth and swallows his bitter objections, helpless in his anger and guilt both.

Scamander looks between them, his eyebrows arched a little. Then he glances back, at Tina, who is similarly confused. "Um," he says awkwardly. "I… realise I'm possibly in the middle of something I don't really understand, but… what do you intend to do?" he asks, turning to Graves. "Concerning the obscurial, I mean?"

Graves blows out a breath. Fuck, it's all suddenly so much more complicated. He wants to oust Grindelwald, yes, but before that they really had to stop him. What the man wants with the obscurial didn't even matter – what mattered was making sure he didn't get what he wanted. "Find them and keep Grindelwald from getting to them," he says. "Somehow."

Scamander nods. "I… would like to help," he offers. "Can I please help?"

"Mr. Scamander," Tina says. "You've let creatures on the loose in New York, remember?"

"You what?" Graves asks sharply.

"His suit case – it's magically expanded. And the niffler got out again," Tina says wryly.

"Yes, well… I hardly doubt any of them can cause more harm than an obscurus," the man offers awkwardly, looking away.

"Them?" Tina asks. "Just how many escaped? How many creatures do you have in that case?!"

Scamander coughs. "I am not entirely sure how many got out. I would have to check, really," he says awkwardly, glancing between Tina and Graves who is starting to feel an enormous headache building up, and Harry who is looking rather worn out now.

"First, though," the freckled Brit says. "I think we should possibly do something about this."

He motions at Harry's wrist.

"It's fine," Harry says with a sigh. "Honestly I'm getting used to it now."

"It's putting a terrible strain on your heart and thanks to interrupted, torn veins and the infection it's leaking toxins into your bloodstream, straining your heart even further," Scamander says frankly. "Honestly, if we leave it like this you might not live to see tomorrow."

Graves looks ups sharply as Harry stares at the man, his eyes wide. "Oh," Harry says faintly. "I… see."

They all eye the stump for a moment in horror. It looks bad – but that bad? Graves swallows and looks at Scamander. "Are you a healer?" he asks. "Can you fix it?"

Scamander hesitates. "I imagine going to a proper healer is out of question right now," he says and looks at Harry. "I know enough to try, but chances are I might have to re-amputate it higher up, for a cleaner break."

Harry shrugs, staring at the wrist. "I already lost the hand," he says and swallows, looking up – and Graves. "I'd rather not die just yet, though, if that's all the same."

Graves narrows his eyes, not sure what the man is trying to convey. It's heavy, in any case.

"Alright," Scamander says. "I need to get some tools from my suitcase," he then says and then stands up, moving to the side to set his suitcase down. "I need to get something for Mr. Kowalski too. I'll be right back."

Graves stares at him with disbelief as the man climbs into the suitcase. He shares a look with Harry who just shakes his head with confusion. Tina lets out a breath. "Mercy damn it, I completely forgot about him," she mutters and turns around, leaving the room.

Graves quickly stands up, walking to the door way to see what else was going on. Queenie had ducked out at some point, he hadn't even noticed – she's now sitting by the kitchen table with none other than Jacob Kowalski, flirtatiously leaning in.

"Oh, Ted, hello." Jacob says, waving at him somewhat clumsily, looking flushed and ill with what looks like bite mark on his neck. "Though I heard a familiar voice."

"Ted?" Tina asks, making a face at him. "Who's Ted?"

"He's Ted," Jacob points at Graves.

"Sir?" Tina asks with disbelief.

"What is going on?" Graves asks, not entirely sure he actually wants to know. "Why's the nomaj here?"

"Well it's… a long story," Tina says with a grimace. "You see, Mr. Scamander and Mr. Kowalski accidentally switched suitcases at the bank and well, there was another incident, I'm afraid. One of Mr. Scamander's creatures bit Mr. Kowalski and…"

Graves sighs, shakes his head, and backs away in middle of the explanation. He turns to Harry, who is giving him a knowing, sympathetic look in the face of the sheer exasperated exhaustion Graves knows is plainly visible on his face.

"Weird things come in threes, I've found," the Brit says almost conversationally. "So really, it was almost to be expected."

"Oh shut up," Graves mutters and buries his face in his hands.