Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You wish… to be sent to the year 1925… of your own world…” Death repeated slowly, spindly hands stilling against his tea cup as he gently set it down on the saucer.

Harry nodded along amiably. “Precisely,” he agreed, taking a small sip from his own cup and tasting jasmine - rather refreshing. He added another cube of sugar to it and laced his fingers together, waiting for Death’s reply.

“You…” Death began, then sighed, shaking his head and, with a single snap of his fingers, the tea set, table, and the chairs they’d been sitting on disappeared into the void, Death standing regally while Harry flailed and landed straight on his behind.

He glared up at the being, who simply gave the impression of a raised eyebrow in return.

"Do try not to start another apocalypse," Death tiredly advised, and then he was snapping his skeletal fingers once more, Harry disappearing in a puff of smoke, the perpetual teen's mouth having opened to no doubt form an indignant reply.

-

The next thing the Master of Death knew, he was blinking large, emerald eyes - the only feature of his which remained constant - up towards the faces of his parents, who peered down at him, their expressions ones of clear joy. 

The man - his father - had soft green-blue eyes and long, dirty blonde locks of hair that cascaded in waves down his shoulders, while the woman - his mother - had sky blue eyes and hair so pale blonde it was practically white. 

Definitely upper class, Harry mused, wriggling slightly in the tightly wrapped blanket he was bundled up in and letting out a quiet whine. Here’s to a long childhood, he dryly cheered, resigning himself to the fussing of his parents.

-

Or, perhaps, he wouldn’t have quite the long childhood he’d expected, though he hoped for it to be otherwise. He’d only had a couple of… ‘false starts,’ as he might so delicately put it, and it’d be rather rude of Death to cut the first one Harry had chosen for himself so short.

However, there was no denying the sounds of forced entry from the foyer, nor that of something - a couple of somethings - thumping heavily on the floor. His parents, then. Wonderful.

Harry didn't mean to come off as so callous - it wasn’t as though he had anything against his most recent guardians, no! And of course he didn’t want them dead. Although they’d been muggles, that didn’t particularly change the fact that they were of a decent sort. The only issue was that he’d had to suppress his magical aura even more than he tended to, which of course led to him becoming an Obscurial much sooner than was normal for himself as well, but that wasn’t a fault of their own. He simply hadn’t wanted to risk exposing his accidental magic until he could be sure they wouldn’t run off to the nearest church to have him exorcised, or, even better, smother him. That had been a terribly short life, Harry shuddered.

Even so, although he didn’t feel any ill will towards his parents, it took a bit of effort to muster up more than a heavy dose of exasperation at how events were currently playing out.

But what could he say? You've lived a hundred lives, you’ve lived them all. Of course death seemed rather happenstance to him at this point.

Harry snapped out of his musings as the door to his playroom creaked open, his head tilting up to look into the dual colored eyes of none other than -

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me, Harry choked inwardly.

It wasn’t in horror, though, nor in resignation or terror or anything like that. No, not at all.

Harry forced his expression to remain open and blank, restraining from forming the smile that was practically itching to creep up his lips, and he let out a quiet babble, tilting his head guilelessly towards the man before him.

The Dark Lord mirrored the action, cocking his head and bending his knees slightly while his gaze seemed to pierce Harry straight through, pitch black and cobalt blue eyes seeing more than was present.

It was then that Harry finally let a cherub smile spread across his pudgy cheeks, a tinkling giggle alighting in the quiet room as his eyes squinted in obvious delight.

The man moved to stand, expression having shuttered and turned dismissive, but Harry wasn’t having it, and he slapped his palm against the hardwood floor he’d been crawling across before the disruption.

Time ticked down to a slow crawl.

Gellert Grindelwald tilted his head back towards Harry, eyes narrowed and utterly impassive, and Harry reached within himself to brush against the tight, impenetrable locks he’d strangled his own magical core with. 

It responded eagerly, bursting forth from the tight confines it’d been held in since his birth, and Grindelwald was blown back from the force of the release, slamming into the door he’d entered from; there were shouts coming from the hallway behind the man, but neither Harry nor the Dark Lord paid them any mind.

Instead, for the first time but certainly not the last - at least, if Harry had any say in it - Grindelwald’s expression was one of absolute, utter shock.

For before him, there was no longer any child in sight. 

Floating sedately with the fine edges of its black mist curling like smoke from a fire, was an Obscurus.

Chapter Text

The Obscurus darted forward and Grindelwald quickly cast a wordless Protego, but he needn’t have. The black cloud simply stroked lightly against the shield before darting away, disappearing under the child’s wooden crib.

A loud knock came from the door he was still braced against, and Grindelwald commanded them away with a rough, “Leave,” not needing to check to know his order was followed and instead creeping forward to where the Obscurus had vanished.

No sound came from it, though it was clearly there by the way it lightly rocked its own crib from below, the gentle sway so unlike what Gellert expected such a creature to be capable of, so unlike what Credence had shown. 

“Hello, little one?” he called softly, crouching down so his slacks crinkled at the knees. “I mean you no harm,” he said gently, hesitantly reaching a hand towards the dark confines below the toddler’s cot.

A single strand of black wavered outwards in reply, and he stilled himself and avidly watched its movements, a silent shiver wracking up his spine at the numbingly cold touch of it against his outstretched finger.

Apparently emboldened by his lack of outward response, more of the mist crept out from the recesses, drifting forwards until Gellert’s entire hand was enveloped in black, the chill of it fading away with exposure. 

The black mass was constantly shifting even while remaining centered around his open palm, layers of it overlapping to form black as dark as pitch or lighter, less opaque hues that danced across his wrist.

“Aren’t you a curious thing,” Gellert breathed, stroking above the cloud with his unoccupied hand, fascinated in the way the creature seemed to flutter against his touch.

He carefully shifted himself so he was sitting more solidly, having grown uncomfortable in his previous stance, and the Obscurus seemed to take this as an invitation to trail up his arm, the mass of it settling over his middle, and then from one moment to the next, he had a lapful of child.

“Oh,” he stated, somewhat taken aback, and, after taking a fraction of a moment to process the abrupt shift, he gave the young boy a sliver of a smile and grasped him gently underneath his arms.

The tot still wore a rather pleased expression, eyes impossibly large and gleaming Avada Kedavra green to the point where they nearly seemed to glow, and a small hand reached forward to grasp at his cloak. Gellert was quite sure he’d never felt so befuddled in his entire life, though he kept it from outwardly showing. 

“Would you like to come with me?” the Dark Lord suggested lightly, bouncing the child slightly and earning a small giggle in return; the toddler peered up at him, giving no real response, though that was rather expected.

Gellert shifted to grasp the child more firmly in his hold and stood, settling the blonde - the pale color of it eerily reminiscent of Gellert’s own - on his hip. 

Then he gave a single, decisive nod, and apparated away.

Chapter Text

“Hadrian,” Gellert called, and Harry gave a little puff of a sigh, a few wisps of his soft, silken hair fluttering with his breath.

It’d been a couple of days since he’d been brought to the man’s German safe house, where he was given a name only a few short hours thereafter. And, truthfully, he didn’t mind his given name much at all; he was well aware that it was the closest thing he’d get to a compromise towards his actual name, not that Gellert knew what Harry’s name was. Nevertheless, it wasn’t often he got a name much like his original, though he did have a habit of telling people to call him Harry even when the nickname couldn’t be considered as a shortage of his actual one by any stretch of the imagination.

This time around had been rather pleasant, with the man letting Harry have a bit of input in the name choosing, cycling through Günter, Helmut, Siegfried, and a few other unmentionables before managing to land on the aforementioned Hadrian, which Harry happily babbled in reply to.

“Hadrian,” Gellert called again, and Harry made a questioning noise, turning himself around in his newly acquired crib so he could face the man that was crouched beside it. He received a pleased smile for his efforts, the Dark Lord reaching a finger through the bars of the crib to dot gently against his cheek. “Hello there, little one,” he said softly, the moniker already a common tendency of his.

Harry gave a happy gurgle in reply, pushing away the mild annoyance he felt from being poked, albeit lightly. Gellert’s eyebrows furrowed minutely, but the expression melted nearly just as quickly as it came. 

Even so, Harry had an inkling about the reason behind the man’s consternation, and he inwardly sighed. 

Damn those parenting books the Dark Lord had read.

Yes, the parenting books. Harry had nearly inhaled the toy he’d been mindlessly gnawing on at the sight of it all: the tremendously powerful and nearly unflappable Dark Lord soberly leafing through a book titled “Baby Steps“ with a stack of similarly named reads at his side. 

Simply put, Harry had promptly choked on his spit, which at least served to temporarily distract Gellert from his studies to fuss over a red faced, coughing Harry, though not for long enough.

But, yes, because of this, Harry had his suspicions, the most apt being that the man had likely realized Harry should already be able to speak, infants usually beginning to do so as early as just a year old.

Harry, at just over two, was long past said point.

He was brought back from his musings as the Dark Lord stood, leaning forward over his crib to reach Harry and picking him up with a secure grip below his underarms. Harry clung to the man like a koala as soon as he was close enough to do so, wrapping his short, chubby arms around the man’s neck as his bottom was supported by a forearm and his back by a solid hand.

“Would you like to join me in the study,” Gellert murmured, already moving towards the room and bouncing Harry lightly as he went. 

Harry burbled, resting his cheek against the side of the man’s neck and returning to his own contemplations.

He had good reason for not yet speaking, having made that mistake often enough in his first few lives. The fact of the matter was, no matter how much he practiced or tried to articulate himself as would a child, at some point, he would slip up. That didn’t tend to end particularly well.

Yes, a couple of his more oblivious and… admittedly not the brightest parents merely assumed Harry was a genius and that all clever children were able to speak with the eloquence of a full grown, schooled adult by the age of two.

Most who heard him, however, realized something was very, very wrong.

The less said about those lives, the better.

The point was, Harry wanted to be extra cautious this time around, especially since he was rather looking forward to how things would play out and didn’t want to ruin any of the fun. 

He'd already decided to stay mostly mute for the next couple of years or so - maybe communicating with short replies of ‘yeses’ or ‘no’s’ or something of the sort before then - because a four year old speaking with an odd bit of eloquence was much less dubious than that of age two. Hopefully, Harry could form a positive impression of his abilities by then so it’d only be taken as another eccentricity of his.

Speaking of eccentricities, Harry's form whooshed outwards into a small black cloud, Gellert startling slightly underneath him, this being only the second time Harry had transformed since they’d arrived at the house.

The Obscurus darted ahead of the man and into the office, ignoring the rather sharp call for him to “Wait!” only to stop short half a foot inside.

There was a man there - a man and a woman. The man was tall, though he seemed to have an almost painful looking habit of hunching in on himself, neck craned forwards and spine bent so his shoulders were nearly to his ears. He had a rather dreadful haircut as well. 

The woman seemed to be of Asian descent; she wore a form fitting deep blue dress that melded into the tattoos that covered her legs to the point that barely any skin was left blank.

Both of them were staring at him in complete shock, something that verged on horror glazing the young man’s eyes.

Gellert rushed in not a moment later, stopping so that Harry was hovering just in front of him, a bit above the level of his chest.

Not exactly sure where they stood with the strangers, Harry decided to remain in his amorphous state, drifting outwards so he expanded in what any reasonable person would construe as a warning.

Gellert stroked a hand against his side, and Harry let himself be settled.

“You- w-wha - this, what is this?” the young, dark haired man stuttered out, voice a broken whisper and eyes never leaving Harry’s Obscurus form.

“There is nothing to fear, Credence,” Gellert replied calmingly, tone laced with a silken, soothing quality that made Harry want to roll his eyes at the pure manipulation of it. The woman was clearly of a similar stance, if the way she tensed slightly was anything to go by.

“Nothing to fear?” the man - Credence - echoed, sounding just an edge hysterical as his foot shifted half a step back.

“Hadrian will do you no harm,” Gellert contended, and Harry would’ve scowled at the man if he could. He wasn't wrong, but Harry didn’t exactly appreciate him saying it like he knew it for a fact. Even if it was a fact. But that was besides the point.

Seeing that the appeasement didn’t have as much of an effect as the Dark Lord probably would’ve liked, Harry decided to take things into his own hands. He floated slightly above head level to Gellert and swiftly changed back into his human form, immediately dropping towards the ground with a delighted squeal and laughing gleefully when Gellert caught him with a startled curse, swiftly clutching Harry to his chest. He wiggled around until the grip was somewhat loosened, and he let himself be turned to face their guests once more. 

Credence's lips were parted in shock, and he was staring at Harry with eyes so wide that the boy felt a faint concern they’d pop right out. 

The woman - who he still didn’t know the name of - was hardly doing much better.

“Mm?” he hummed, tilting his head at the duo, who continued to do nothing but stare. 

Gellert coughed lightly. “Ms. Nagini, if you wouldn’t mind leaving us for a moment?” Grindelwald asked the lady, who gave a stilted nod and slipped out past them, the office door quietly clicking shut behind her. The older man waited for a moment longer before fully recentering his gaze on the other. “Credence, I’d like for you to meet my ward, Hadrian,” he smoothly introduced, idly sweeping Harry’s platinum blonde hair from his forehead, the toddler leaning into the touch.

“Ward,” Credence choked out, sounding as if he’d yet to process the term, gaze now centered somewhere to the left of Harry, who was beginning to think that the young man had a bit of a habit of repeating himself.

“Indeed,” the Dark Lord said agreeably, then continued with a more gentle air. “As you have seen, young Hadrian is… quite similar to yourself, Credence,” he murmured, and Harry had to refrain from jolting in surprise.

Did that mean-?

Credence’s brow twitched, hand coming up to hover over his chest before he managed to stop himself. “But… then, how?” he whispered, eyes darting up towards Grindelwald for only a moment before they skittered away.

The older man sighed heavily, moving forwards to round his desk and seat himself on his armchair with Harry easily placed in his lap, and he gestured for Credence to do the same in one of the armchairs across from him.

The youth was quick to comply, seeming to collapse in on himself as he lowered his lanky frame into the plush cushions of the chair.

There was a moment’s pause wherein neither man spoke, the air quickly growing heavy in the tense ratcheting silence. Not holding much appreciation for the atmosphere, Harry slapped his hands against the surface of the Dark Lord’s desk, feeling a bit guilty when the young man across from them startled heavily at the action.

His plan seemed to have worked, though, Gellert bouncing Harry lightly on his knee and addressing Credence, sounding surprisingly frank.

“There is no need to be concerned, Credence; of this I swear to you. Though Hadrian and yourself have been… afflicted, with the same condition, I can assure you that he has gone through no such suffering since he has come into my care,” Gellert expressed, finishing quietly.

Now Harry was confused, eyebrows furrowing slightly as Credence ducked his head, the brief catch of his eyes revealing a flash of shame and… relief? Relief for what? What could he have - 

Ah.

Harry’s eyes widened before he quickly schooled his features, fiddling mindlessly with an ebony quill that he’d managed to get his pudgy hands on. Having spent so long without meeting another, Harry had nearly forgotten how Obscurials normally formed. 

Unlike Harry, who was more or less forced to repress at least the majority of his magic from birth so that he wouldn’t, well, explode, thus resulting in the formation of the parasite, any other child who formed the malady tended to do so under… extreme duress.

His expression darkened, and several tufts of the feathers were crumpled in his small fist. How the man was still alive was a wonder, and he looked towards them with a new light. 

The fact that the clearly extremely anxious young man had, in a sense, confronted Gellert about possibly abusing Harry despite how it could’ve led to a precarious situation for himself warmed Harry's chest.

He shifted back to his Obscurus form, brushing aside the bit of impish delight at Gellert’s small twitch at the sudden action and ignoring the man’s faint sound of admonishment as he sedately drifted towards Credence.

The younger man had stilled completely with his transformation, eyes wide but holding less of the fear from earlier. Although, upon closer inspection, he seemed to have stopped breathing altogether.

Well, that wouldn’t do.

Harry closed the remaining gap between them, came to a stop over the man, and changed back just as abruptly as before to land on the other’s lap, Credence’s arms snapping forward automatically to cradle behind his back so as to prevent him from falling. 

Harry smiled brightly, giving a light pat to the young man’s hand.

The ravenette stared down at him, gaze tinged with wonder and a fair bit of trepidation, and Harry’s smile widened further, large emerald eyes crinkling to crescent moons.

Harry has always wanted an older brother.

Chapter Text

One Week Later

“Um” Credence started, then stopped. He stared somewhat helplessly at the infant before him, who seemingly mindlessly giggled and waved a pudgy little arm through the air that sent his favorite toy block - the blue one with the letter P - sailing towards himself.

Credence just watched - oddly desensitized for only half an hour having passed since he learned that the roughly two year old had better control of magic than Credence himself - as the block came to an abrupt, harmless stop mere inches from the toddler’s face, dropping to the ground with a soft thump. 

As reactionless as he now was, to say he was surprised to learn that Hadrian could use magic outside of turning into his Obscurus form would be an understatement.

No, Credence had literally fallen out of his chair when Hadrian had summoned his bottle of juice to himself and took a dainty sip from the still floating pitcher. The tot then proceeded to give Credence such an utterly unimpressed look that the older had no doubt that, if his skin wasn't perpetually pale, he would've flared bright red. 

As it was, he’d gaped wordlessly for the better part of ten minutes while Hadrian continued to perform feat after feat of both wordless and wandless magic as if it was nothing at all despite showing not even the slightest smidge of a single sign of such affinity beforehand. Credence wondered for a moment if Grindelwald knew, but quickly dismissed the thought - of course he did.

“So, Hadrian,” he started again, albeit still somewhat haltingly, “do you… like it here?” he asked, wincing at his own pitch. 

The pale blonde looked up at him, head tilting curiously as he brought the block up to his mouth and began gnawing at it.

“Ah,” Credence said, giving a somewhat sage nod and slumping a bit more in the already slouched position he was in, sitting cross-legged a couple of feet in front of the child. He hesitantly reached for the other block that was within his reach - a red one marked with the letter D - and awkwardly gestured at it.

As usual, he received no response other than a grin, this one around the piece that was half shoved into the toddler’s mouth. 

Credence worried for a moment if it was safe for the child to do so, but he threw the concern away quickly enough.

In the past week since he’d been made aware of Grindelwald’s new ward, he’d come to the rather disconcerting realization that his primary worries were completely and utterly unfounded. 

That is to say, the day Grindelwald raised a hand against or otherwise allowed harm to come to Hadrian would be the day Credence ate… something… unpalatable. One of the wood blocks, maybe.

He knew that Nagini still had doubts - they argued near constantly about it now when in each other’s presence - but she just… hadn’t seen it. She hadn’t been there, around the two, except for the few scant minutes that first day.

Grindelwald didn’t really let anyone around Hadrian except for Credence or himself, with the rare exception of what Credence suspected were his two closest followers. 

He couldn’t really blame the man because Hadrian was… 

Credence shook his head, but the thought refused to leave with the motion. It kept creeping back into his mind, unbidden. Something he hadn’t yet dared to voice but couldn’t help but wonder. Hadrian’s magic - so utterly undeniable and undoubtedly strong. His eyes, which seemed to glow iridescent in the light at times when his power surged. His unquestionably dark origins, with him being an Obscurial. And his blonde hair that was so much like frosted spider’s silk and so similar to -

No, Credence couldn’t shake off the thoughts like he wished to, even knowing that he was not nearly ready to contemplate such questions aloud. He’d yet to speak of them to Nagini, and doubted he would anytime soon, if at all.

Regardless, in the time he spent in Grindelwald and Hadrian's presence, it wasn't difficult to see how well the Dark Lord treated the toddler, and Credence was beyond doubtful that it was all merely an act in his own presence. There would've been some sign, he knew, if Grindelwald was treating Hadrian differently behind his back, if not in the way Hadrian expressed himself so openly to Grindelwald, then in how Grindelwald reacted towards Hadrian. But, no, it honestly felt a bit like being in some fantastical, impossible lucid dream watching the Dark Lord around Hadrian. To see the man become so comparatively expressive and stoop to be level with an infant... 

Hadrian babbled, snapping Credence out of his reverie, and his eyes darted back to the toddler. He wordlessly, gingerly, handed his own red block over when his gaze alighted on the very obvious grabby hands the youth was making at him.

Then he jerked back a bit when Hadrian snatched the cube from his hand only to feebly toss it to the side, arms too weak to genuinely throw it, resulting in it plonking dejected on the ground only a few scant inches away.

Hadrian paid it no mind, though there was something in his eyes that was almost apologetic that disappeared too quickly to truly acknowledge. The blonde raised his arms again, quite imploringly, and it finally clicked to Credence.

“Um.” he began awkwardly. The toddler repeatedly opened and closed his little fists, expressing his impatience, and Credence hastened to comply.

Even so, he moved slowly and with the utmost care. He grasped Hadrian in a gentle but firm grip under his arms, leaning forward a bit more before cautiously lifting the surprisingly light toddler up. He moved him as swiftly as he dared over to his own lap before carefully setting him down with a quiet exhale, not wanting to risk holding him in the air any longer than he had to lest he somehow drop him.

Hadrian shifted a bit, reorienting himself, and made a noise that somehow portrayed mild appeasement but still a faint discontentment with the relocation. The tot patted against the highest part of Credence’s arm he could reach - just above his elbow - and frowned up at him rather disapprovingly. He raised his arms up again, beseeching.

Credence felt a bead of sweat begin to dot his temple. Yes, he had younger siblings, but… Mother… never allowed him to be near them when they were young, despite her constant ‘reprimandings’ for him not being of enough help during those years. And he’d only been around Hadrian for a week - just a few short hours all together, really - and this was the first time he’d been left alone with the other, Grindelwald having been there to supervise the rest of their interactions.

He cleared his throat nervously. “There there?” he tried to placate, giving a grimace of a smile and a hesitant, hopefully comforting pat to the youth’s arm. 

Hadrian’s expression flattened to a look that was so deadpan Credence choked, hand freezing above the tot’s shoulder. Then Hadrian heaved an utterly world-weary sigh and raised his tiny arms once more, giving him an expectant look. He swore that one of the blonde's thin eyebrows rose a hair.

Feeling as though he’d just taken a blow to the head, Credence dazedly complied in a way he hoped was correct, raising the blonde up once more until he felt diminutive arms wrap lightly around his neck. He cradled the toddler to his chest, feeling a small cheek turn to rest against his shoulder.

“Are you, comfortable?” he asked, just a bit strained, letting out a relieved breath when he felt a small nod against his shoulder, a soft, contented hum accompanying the movement.

They fell into a rather awkward silence after that - awkward to Credence, at least, since he didn’t have a clue as to what he could say. His earlier attempts at conversation had been more than a little mortifying, though not through any fault of Hadrian’s. No, that stemmed entirely from Credence’s own social ineptitude. Or maybe ineptitude in general, seeing as to how speaking with a toddler should not dissolve him into a stuttering mess or complete monosyllabism. 

Thankfully, Credence didn’t have long to let his panic mount in regards to what he should or shouldn’t do, since it was only a few minutes later that Hadrian’s breathing began to even out, becoming a fraction deeper and stretching into longer exhales as he fully relaxed in Credence’s arms.

There was a child. Asleep. In his arms. 

Maybe he would panic.

Credence barely managed to hold back the hysterical sound that crept into his throat, instead slowly scooting backwards until he bumped into the wall behind him, resting his perpetually aching back against the surface and hiking his knees up to support the added weight he now held in his arms.

He felt out of his depth, in a way dissimilar to all the other times he had been.

With his… Mother, he was in a constant state of anxiety. A single misstep would result in his punishment, and he often was unaware of what would result in such a thing until it was too late. His best attempts at complete obedience were never enough; the scars that lined his back and crisscrossed over his hands were clear proof of that.

With becoming a Demon - well, no, an Obscurial, as he now knew - it was complete and utter panic that he felt, overwhelming like a tidal wave that had already begun to crash over him. Inescapable, all encompassing, and world-ending. His own world, at least.

With learning of the existence of magic - of the entire world of possibilities that it provided and he was apparently supposed to be a part of - he felt like a child. He felt like less than that, like something utterly gormless, with him having already entered adulthood but knowing nothing of his own designation as a wizard. 

With joining Grindelwald, with learning of his heritage, he felt as if he’d been thrown into the middle of something he had no knowledge of being in, similar to with the entirety of magic in the first place. He had no concept of the political field he would soon be thrust in or the other side to it.

Now, however, with the toddler fast asleep in his arms, completely dead to the world, Credence felt an entirely new genre to what he had previously categorized as signifying he was ‘out of his depth.’

He had never been trusted around a life so small, so precious. 

He had been scorned by his Mother and looked down upon by strangers in passing on the streets. He was familiar with the distrustful gazes of all those around him, never having known a kind word to be said to him, not without there being a need for something in return. 

Yet here he was, entrusted with the care of this infant - Hadrian - who Grindelwald had recognized as his own ward (though Credence suspected there to be something more) and not only had the man himself left him to his devices with the child, but the child, too, as clearly intelligent and rather able as he was, had placed his trust in Credence.

It was more than humbling to have another completely place their life in your hands. It was utterly terrifying. 

Yes, Hadrian was still young and may not know any better, but Credence was unable to hold back the cresting emotions that swelled in his chest all the same. His eyes burned for a moment, but he blinked the feeling away, taking a slow, calming breath and ignoring the way it still stuttered.

He tightened his grip minutely from where his arms clutched Hadrian close to himself, and he felt a resolution begin to form in his mind before he even genuinely thought over it.

But no; further contemplation would not lead to him rehashing his opinion.

His craned neck bowed low, the underside of his jaw brushing against the downy-like hairs that fluffed the crown of Hadrian’s head. 

He may still feel as though he was lost at sea, land only a far off speck barely in his sights, but he now had a sense of direction. A purpose of his own instead of guided by the hands of others. 

He was like Hadrian, as Hadrian was like him. Hadrian was barely two years old, and yet Credence could already feel how the air saturated with magic whenever he used it. For both these qualities, he had no doubt Hadrian would be hunted, either to use him or to destroy him like Credence had been not so long ago.

A quiet snuffle brushed a gentle breeze against his neck, small arms pressing closer against him, and Credence’s lips thinned, his eyes inky black with something almost malevolent whirling within them. 

Unbeknownst to him or to his sleeping companion, a small, golden orb of light with a strength that was belied by its diminutive presence formed between them as Credence vehemently avowed in his heart of hearts to let no harm fall upon the younger so long as Credence had the ability to prevent it. He swore to himself that he would not let the other suffer as he had, that his power would be theirs to rely upon should they wish it.

The light disappeared with an unobtrusive flash, gone just as abruptly as it came, and Credence felt a sudden wave of tiredness sweep over him. He leaned his head back against the wall. His eyelids felt heavy, as if pressed down by weights, and he let them close.

His grip on Hadrian never faltered even as he was swept away by the tides of a dreamless slumber.

Chapter Text

Hadrian gaped at Credence, then gaped some more.

His eyes flickered from the young man’s chest, to his face, then back again in a seemingly never ending cycle. 

Credence remained oblivious, slumbering peacefully and clutching Harry gently to his chest.

How in the world did this happen? Harry wondered, feeling more than a bit hysterical, his mind’s eye concentrated on the thin, glowing strand of nearly white gold that connected him to Credence.

This… this was from an Unbreakable Vow.

Except not.

Those had to be made with the consent of both parties, and it was practically unheard of to be made without a third person present to connect them. But it being there? Between them? Without either of those factors being fulfilled?

Harry thunked his forehead against Credence’s shoulder, letting out a quiet groan. Of course this happened to him. Since when did Harry start thinking something in his life would stay normal? Or, well, as normal as two Obscurials with one being the Master of Death and the other far surpassing his kind’s average life expectancy could be.

Harry focused back in on the magic swirling between them, untangling the lines - or well, line, seeing as to how it was a one way connection. Which was. Also not done. Credence had somehow, in the however long Harry had been napping for, made a one way Unbreakable Vow with Harry as the recipient. No benefits whatsoever for Credence, then, but it’d take more time to decipher what, exactly, had been sworn.

Credence stirred slightly, and Harry pushed away his contemplations for the moment. He had his doubts that the vow had been intentional, seeing as to how Credence still had trouble with simple spells such as ‘wingardium leviosa’ despite his frankly absurd levels of magic.

Harry lifted his head back up to give the young man a couple of light pats to the cheek in hopes of speeding up the waking process, and perpetually exhausted looking, jet black eyes blinked down at him a few, slow times. Then they widened, and the somewhat loosened arms holding him up reaffirmed their grip. 

-

“H- uh - Hadrian, you’re-” Credence got out, sitting up a bit straighter as he tried to get his bearings, half expecting to see Grindelwald watching him with a disapproving, more than a little menacing stare from some darkened corner in the room. 

But no, it was still only him and Hadrian, and Credence faintly wondered how long he had been asleep. And then the thought resurfaced with a blare of panic that shot him fully into wakefulness, and he snapped his head up to read the clock on the mantle. It was half past twelve - meaning he’d been asleep for nearly an hour - and it was well past Hadrian’s designated snack time. 

He peered down at Hadrian, who stared back up at him guilelessly, a small smile quirking the latter’s lips. A gust of air exhaled from Credence’s mouth, lightly blowing back several soft strands of blonde hair from Hadrian’s forehead. 

Words refused to form on his lips for a few moments as he sucked back in a relieved breath over the fact that, at the very least, the tot didn’t seem overly cross over the tardy meal. “Food?” he managed to get out, jerking his head towards the coffee table that was littered with an array of toddler approved snacks. 

Hadrian did not follow his line of sight, which should’ve been wholly and entirely expected on Credence’s part, considering the fact that Hadrian was two. 

“Food,” Credence repeated anyways, nodding to himself and receiving an echoing nod and a milk toothed smile from Hadrian.

The ravenette unfolded his legs from underneath himself and stumbled to his feet, pins and needles crawling up past his knees and making him wince. Still, he maneuvered over to the table, albeit somewhat more drunkenly than likely acceptable, though a quick glance at Hadrian showed that the tot didn’t seem to mind. There was a thing about that that Credence thought he’d heard before: that kids liked to be swung around - something or other along those lines at the very least. He promptly decided that no, no he would not be attempting to swing a pint sized human through the air no matter how much Hadrian may potentially enjoy it.

Credence shook his head, then shuffled in place for a moment, looking between Harry and the table laden with snacks. He… wasn’t sure what was suitable to pick. Grindelwald had placed the spread with a single flick of his wand before promptly stepping in the floo, leaving everything in Credence’s entirely incompetent hands, if he does say so himself. 

He stared at the table rather dispairingly for a moment, only snapping out of it at a soft pat against his chest. 

He glanced down to be met with Hadrian’s wide green eyes, the tot staring up at him with a look of expectation that made Credence’s heart simultaneously drop to his stomach and leap into his throat because he most certainly did not know how to successfully deal with expectations. He certainly had enough past evidence to corroborate that.

The fact that those expectations came from someone who still had difficulties forming sounds that exceeded a single syllable was completely irrelevant. 

Still, Credence realized that staring at the table any longer wasn’t going to help him come to a decision any better than what he could already do, and he definitely wanted to be done with snack time by the time Grindelwald came back. His soul shriveled slightly at the thought of the man coming in before then, a slight layer of inky smoke wafting up from his forearms before he shook them out. 

Humans - children especially - only needed three basic things: food, water, and sleep. At least he’d provided the latter one of the bunch, even if he clearly had miserably failed at the single two he’d actually been tasked to take care of.

There was another pat on his chest that had him blurting out, “Right!” rather loudly, and he readjusted his grip on Hadrian before bending down somewhat awkwardly to set the tot on his feet. 

Then his gaze darted back to the table and he grabbed the first two items within his reach: a half slice of a peanut butter sandwich and a small pouch of shelled sunflower seeds. 

He crouched down in front of Hadrian, resulting in him assuming what he imagined to be an unfortunately gargoylish position, and held out the prizes with more than a little mild trepidation.

“Um. Hadrian; would you like… sandwich” - he raised the corresponding hand - “or… these?” he asked, raising the other. His innards made a valiant attempt at withering further, as if they could escape his inexorable descent into constant self imposed ignominy. 

Hadrian’s cheeks seemed to grow taut as he pursed his lips, eyes narrowing as he glared up at Credence, and the ravenette felt a bead of sweat dot his temple. 

His heart nearly leapt out of his chest when the tot’s gaze veritably lit up, a tiny toothed grin - one that, for some odd reason, was unfittingly suspicious -  pulling up at his chubby cheeks as he reached forward for the sandwich, smacking his pudgy palm directly into the goopy peanut butter coating the top with a resounding splat.

Credence stared at the hand uncomprehendingly for a few moments, his eyebrows up just a hair as he gazed blankly and his lips parted just a tad. He robotically set the bag of seeds back on the table and wordlessly lowered his hand further so Hadrian could better reach the sandwich he’d clearly thoroughly claimed. 

In that time, his expression cleared somewhat, and he wondered faintly what peculiar amalgamation of fascination, the barest hints of amusement, and frankly horrified dismay was showing.

Meanwhile, Hadrian took hold of the sandwich properly with his other hand, and Credence warily eyed the goopy palm that the tot had apparently decided would appreciate being swung about himself with reckless abandon.

Credence risked a glance at the floo. 

It was still empty - obviously, as there’d been nary a sound to signify Grindelwald’s return.

How strange it was for Credence to so quickly change his opinions on whether he desired the man to be present. Though, he still wasn’t quite sure if he’d reached such a point yet, but he felt assured in the fact that he was absolutely, positively unassured in what he was doing with an infant on his own, and support would be greatly appreciated. 

Rather robotically, Credence took an empty plate and placed a couple of slices of bread onto it, setting that alongside a peanut butter jar onto the carpet between himself and Hadrian - just in case the blonde required more. 

Credence could more than readily admit that he had no clue how much sustenance toddlers required, so he would be erring on the side of caution.

He spared another glance over at Hadrian, only to find that, somehow, the peanut butter that’d gotten onto the tot’s single palm had now spread down past his wrists - on both hands.

What.

 “Um,” Credence said, completely wrong footed - as he tended to be more often than not. How in the world had Hadrian managed to coat his forearms so thoroughly in the condiment in the few, scant seconds in which Credence had slacked in his supervision? He looked around, raising his craned neck with slightly burgeoning panic in hopes of spotting a sink. There wasn’t one. “Alright,” he strangled out after a moment more, clearing his throat. “I’m… I…’ll go look for… tissues,” he informed the tot, unspooling his legs from their criss-crossed position he’d apparently taken without realizing and almost stumbling away, feeling quite like he’d gotten a completely out-of-the-blue blow to the head as he turned around in a bid to find napkins as quickly as he could.

He knew there likely weren’t any in the room they were currently in, as there was no place for food except the coffee table, which hosted only the snacks themselves. Still, he poked around a couple of cupboards to check, only to have his suspicions confirmed.

He threw a glance back at Hadrian, who was still idly munching on his sandwich, and the peanut butter had now migrated to nearly his elbows. Credence thanked whatever minor deity was out there that the tot was wearing short sleeves. 

However, Hadrian’s further impending mess was definitely a good enough reason to make the executive decision to leave - for only a moment! - in order to find some blessed tissues to resolve the problem. 

He very briefly considered asking Hadrian to stop making a mess of himself, but he threw away the thought nearly as soon as it came.

Credence still had nary a clue as to how to interact with the small human whose vocabulary was limited to inarticulate sounds - not that he himself was much better, really - so he couldn’t see any endeavor in which he attempted to entreat Hadrian as being successful.

Even so, he still informed the blonde that he’d “return shortly” before flinging the door open and more or less throwing himself down the hall to the nearest lavatory. 

-

Upon re-entering the room - arms laden with tissues both dampened and dry - Credence stopped short, and blinked.

He blinked again. 

Then again, taking an aborted inhale.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, staring resolutely at the far window with all the resignation of an unarmed man under fire, eyes locked on the one spot so he wouldn’t accidentally look away.

Still, the scene he’d walked in on darted across his mind’s eye like a terrorizing flashback: The general area of about seven feet with Harry at its epicenter could be most accurately labeled as ‘the blast zone,’ with every surface within the range being unquestionably coated in peanut butter, the scent of it heavily permeating the air. The jar from which it’d all indubitably came from was carelessly laid out on its side, the contents scraped out and leaving the container empty. 

Hadrian giggled out a sound of pure delight, pulling Credence back from his reverie and making his eyes unwillingly snap over to the tot and the waking nightmare about him.

Hadrian’s gaze lifted to meet his own, and then the toddler’s palms slowly, unerringly raised to his cheeks where he placed them directly against the pudge before smearing downwards until they dropped off his chin, leaving tracks of creamy peanut butter spread all across his face in an manner oddly reminiscent of camouflaged, tribal warpaint.

“Hadrian,” Credence whispered, undoubtedly sounding utterly horrified - as he was.

Hadrian let out another burbling laugh, slapping his hands against the tacky floor that took a moment to release the tot’s palms from its sticky grasp with a squelch. 

Credence idly noted that the tissues had fallen from his grasp and now laid at his feet. That matter was hardly of consequence now.

No, now he had a much larger issue at hand.

In fact, to simply refer to it as an issue was a horribly erroneous use of the term, as the situation at present could not be suitably described by such a limiting term.

No, not even referring to the matter as a complete and utter disaster would be suitable. 

Credence crouched down, suddenly unable to bear the weight of it all while remaining standing, and he only just managed to resist the urge to bury his face in his hands. 

This was a catastrophe.

Was he being dramatic? Most likely. Did that change his perspective? Not at all.

He watched dazedly as Hadrian continued to further coat himself in peanut butter, soft strands of his delicate, blonde hair beginning to stick together and turn a honey brown as the tot ran his copiously covered hands through it.

Meanwhile, Credence’s mind continued to race a mile a minute.

First and foremost, he was well aware that a considerable portion of his panic stemmed from the fact that Mother - the Matron, he corrected inwardly, as he’d been trying to do as of recent - would have had his head if a similar situation had occurred while he was left ‘in charge.’ 

Not only was Hadrian presenting himself as a complete and utter disaster on his own with how he somehow looked as if he’d managed to bathe himself in his clear condiment of choice, but the entire general area around the tot looked as if it’d entered a food-based warzone. Well. Peanut butter specifically, yes, but just the color in and of itself definitely did not help matters, since, to put it bluntly, it looked like someone had taken a massive, explosive shite across the room.

Credence carded a hand through his hair somewhat frantically, exhaling out an almost whistle-like breath.

The more relevant issue was how Grindelwald would react.

It was true that the man hadn’t treated Credence harshly  - unwarranted or not. And yes, Grindelwald had said he would support Credence in his endeavors and that they had been tasked onto the same side, but.

There was a difference between an almost business-like support and actual care, and Credence was quite certain in his perspective that he had not - and likely wouldn’t ever - crossed the line into the latter in the eyes of the man. 

That meant that there was doubt in Credence’s mind. That there always would be doubt. 

Which was relevant in this moment in a completely convoluted way that Credence’s thoughts raced to work through.

Because of his own importance being based purely off of his worth towards helping Grindelwald in the man’s endeavors, then that also meant that if - or, more likely, when - Credence’s worth ran out… well. Suffice to say, Credence couldn’t see himself being kept past that.

Some would likely find it curious that Credence chose to remain by Grindelwald’s side while knowing this likelihood. (‘Some’ more than definitely including Nagini). 

There were several reasons, however.

Firstly, and what some would call rather shamefully, he was dependent on the man. Not just in the sense of being financially and educationally supported, either. It was childish, and likely more than a little self-demeaning considering that Credence was now considered an adult himself, but he felt… something close to content, at being able to rely on another as he did with Grindelwald. Yes, the man had only begun backing him because of Credence’s value in his eyes, but that didn’t change the foremost fact. Nor did it change that Grindelwald was the first to do so. To show him care - no matter how conditional and placational it may be - and to not have used it to hurt him. Because that was the crux of the matter. Yes, Credence was being more or less used, but if being cared for on some level - valued, appreciated - meant that that was the price? Then so be it.

It wasn’t as though there was anyone else Credence could turn to, anyways. His memories of that final night in America still remained hazy in his mind, with faint remembrances of a tunnel and a rusty-haired, coltish man flashing through, but he recalled enough to know that the other side - the one that Nagini whispered to him would take him, both of them, in - had attacked him. Credence. 

Could he fault them? 

Well, no, how could he? Credence himself still struggled not to view himself as a monster. As in, he still viewed himself entirely as just that.

But it didn’t make him anything close to willing to go and subject himself to the whims of those who had already made what was likely an attempt on his life.

Which, in turn, brought Credence to another matter of course. His life. Or, well, his life span. Yes, Grindelwald had been rather blunt in his teachings regarding Obscurials, and one glaring fact was that Credence was, to put it bluntly, an outlier. Seeing as to how most with Credence’s ‘condition’ didn’t even make it to their teenage years, let alone adulthood, that was putting it lightly. 

He hadn’t a clue as to what allowed him to survive where others had not. Grindelwald mused that it may be due to the strength of his powers allowing his body to continue to support itself where in others they had crumpled under the pressure, and Credence supposed that that was plausible enough. Regardless of the reason, however, he doubted that his ‘luck’ would last forever - or for long at all. Credence discovered that, in the most recent years and with a steadily increasing frequency, he had been displaying signs that the spare few children recorded having had been Obscurials had suffered from as well. The most obvious of the list being how his spine seemingly curled inwards on itself, forcing his shoulders up and his neck out in a vulture-like posture that he struggled to straighten, which only furthered the additional aches and pains that weighed down on his fraught bones. 

At times, he fruitlessly attempted at convincing himself that there was nothing wrong. That the issues and his maladies were all in his head or were caused by his upbringing rather than by the suffrances of the parasitic entity that’d fused itself with his soul.

More often than not, however, he accepted the matter for what it was. 

He was not long for this world.

Whether that meant weeks, months, or a few, meager years, he was unsure.

Regardless, his point in the matter was not to wallow in a continually deepening spiral of self pity - no, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

It related to why he had remained with Grindelwald despite suggestions to do otherwise, going so far as to overlap with several of his previous reasons as to why.

It was rather simple, really. Here, Credence was… content, as he’s mentioned. 

It was likely a bit of a stretch to say as much, but, in terms of how he’d lived his life thus far, the present time was as close as he’d been able to get to feeling such a thing.

With his - with the Matron, there was never a moment’s peace for as long as he could remember: if he wasn’t being punished for some mind-bendingly inconsequential infraction or another, then he was living in constant fear of waiting for that exact inevitability. 

In his spare moments of being away from the orphanage, his life wasn’t much better, if at all. He’d always been seen as an outcast - as something unwanted, something that others innately recognized as being different. Apparently, neither he nor the masses had realized the extent of the truth in that regard. Nevertheless, even without a true reason as for why, others had never been kind to those they considered as not one of their own. The amount of times Credence had been dragged into backstreets - if they even had the decency to do as much - and been beaten and bloodied only to return home for further punishment as a consequence of ‘causing a fuss’... well, he lost count, really.

And the only life he’d known other than that has been now - with Grindelwald. 

The man had given him a taste of something so tantalizingly close to freedom that Credence had instantly been addicted, so much so that he’d willingly fell into a gilded cage of his own making. 

So, yes, Credence knew he was being used. And, yes, he knew he wasn’t anything even close to being synonymous to free. But. This was the best he’d lived thus far. And it’d be laughable to take a shot in the dark chance - to go to living in strife for a chance at prevailing in the future - considering the fact that ‘the future’ wasn’t something Credence expected to live to see much of at all. 

So it was quite straightforward, really. As long as he performed well and listened to Grindelwald, he wouldn’t suffer. And after the life he’d lived, he was more than willing to receive what sounded like so little while giving what was likely too much.

That wasn’t to say that he was laid back or anything of the sort, no. He was anxious - a complete and utter understatement of the word for a lack of a better one. He felt the symptoms of it near constantly. He honestly couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t constantly fraught with nerves, which often caused alarming blood-pressure spikes unbelievably quickly with how easily they were set off, so it wasn’t as if his current state surprised him. 

It wasn’t that he thought Grindelwald would suddenly turn on him or anything of the sort - well, not logically, at least - since Credence felt tentatively secure in his somewhat temporary position at the man’s side. But knowing and believing were to separate things, and his mind often felt like it was disconnected into two quite separate parts: the sphere in which he intellectually acknowledged himself as a necessity in the playing field, and the sphere where he was always a hair's breadth away from ruining the balancing act of a compromise he’d achieved by obtaining a position at Grindelwald’s side.

It didn’t help that, as much as he’d like to believe Grindelwald’s assurances that he wouldn’t further Credence’s condition by following the Matron’s track, it was more than a little difficult to simply take the man’s word for it. Not to mention that there were more ways to make someone suffer than physical abuse.

Credence didn’t have any solid assurance that he could actually hold Grindelwald to. He only had the man’s word. 

It wasn’t as if he was Grindelwald’s ward - like Hadrian.

Which was another matter in and of itself.

Hadrian - who showed up only a few short weeks after Credence himself - was something of an enigma. 

Yes, Credence had his suspicions of the tot’s origins, but the fact that they remained completely unconfirmed waylaid them into remaining as a mystery.

That was without mentioning that the two year old was already an Obscurial like Credence himself - and one with seemingly complete control over his relevant powers. Well. All his abilities, really. 

And all this to say that, despite being physical proof of Credence’s lack of permanency, Hadrian’s continued existence at Grindelwald’s side served as another tick in Credence’s mind as to why he was nearly wholly decided in remaining with the dark lord.

Because, as he faintly recalled promising himself before falling into a faint slumber so shortly before, Credence would not let the boy fall into obscurity like Credence himself had. He was too late to save Hadrian from succumbing to the malady of the Obscurus that plagued them both, but he could protect him as best he could from any further torment than that of which had caused the transformation in the first place.

He knew some may find it odd how quickly he’d felt himself become attached to the tot, but was it really so strange?

Credence had no family to speak of; his ‘Mother’ had hardly even tolerated him referring to her as such on the rarest of occasions, and his ‘sisters’ were closer to vague acquaintances that he happened to share a roof with with how uncommon it was for them to deign to speak with him. The new information he’d gained on his blood family didn’t currently help him, either, since Grindelwald had yet to clarify much further than stating he was an heir to a powerful, magical bloodline, and he had an inkling that he wouldn’t be positively reconnecting with anyone in that regard, either. As for the dark lord, that matter spoke for itself, and he’d already deduced as much: to the man, Credence was a tool. No matter how well Credence was treated, he didn’t think he’d ever reach past such a value. 

And, finally, Nagini. She’d been the closest relation he’d had since… ever, really. They were all each other had had for a time, depending on one another to survive, to escape, and to continue forth. And with her malady, he’d felt a sick sort of bond with her as well: the both of them suffering from their near parasitic forms sucking the genuine life from them. 

But, as of recently, he and her seemed to do nothing but disagree. Argue, really, and intensely, at that. In a way, Credence was almost envious of her outlook on life - on how she strived and held strength in her heart that the faintest of opportunities meant that they should hold out hope. That, despite the risks and the odds being completely and utterly out of their favor, they should take the leap towards the light. Quite literally, in a sense.

She was adamant that remaining with Grindelwald would result in nothing but a gruesome end and that being turncoats would result in a vast improvement in their lives. 

It sounded more like an utterly fantastical desire to Credence. He’d tried explaining to her that he’d already been attacked by this ‘other side’ that she preached for, that they clearly saw him as a threat to be eliminated regardless of whether they held sympathies - or, more likely, pity - for his plight, but she refused to listen. 

And Credence couldn’t bring himself to explain to her what he’d only barely managed to shamefully admit in his own mind: that he was something close to fulfilled here. That he was willing to be used if it meant he achieved some bare level of peace. 

Not to mention that any and all notions of escaping from under Grindelwald’s nose seemed utterly absurd considering that they were in an obscure location that Credence had only recently been made aware of being in Germany, and neither he nor Nagini had proper control of magic, and also, ah, yes: Grindelwald was more or less the most capable magic user in the entire Northern Hemisphere. At least.

Credence blinked, abruptly snapping from his thoughts as Hadrian made another sound, and the current predicament came rushing back to him with a pounding throb through his skull.

All his reasonings and logistics seemed to fly straight out his ear from where they’d formulated in his mind, leaving his laterally denoted half of his brain that relied more on instinct and previous experiences to panic all on his own, rational thought having promptly decided that this was not a matter for its discourse.

Credence sprang to his feet and darted to the edge of the reasonably dubbed ‘peanut butter zone,’ staring in complete dismay at the mess that, unfortunately, had not decided to have disappeared and be left as a visual hallucination during the last minute in which Credence had been lost to his thoughts.

If anything, it seemed as if the blast zone had spread. How, exactly, Credence wasn’t sure, as there was a comparatively limited amount of peanut butter that could’ve been in the jar compared to the amount that was spread over the floor, walls, cabinets, table, and Hadrian himself, the final of which genuinely held the appearance of a babe who’d just narrowly escaped drowning in a vat of mud. 

Credence felt a faint tremor race up his hands as he attempted to force the synapses in his brain to fire off more quickly in a vapid attempt at finding an utterly impossible solution to the disaster at hand as his mind decided it was the perfect time to blare raging sirens inside his head that clashed with his stumbling, panic induced thoughts.

There were a plethora of reasons that Credence was panicking, he knew, even as he debated the merits of attempting to reach forward to pick Hadrian up from the mess. The tot seemed exorbitantly in favor of the idea, what, with how his arms were raised up high just as they had been earlier and with the imploring look that was still somehow discernible even under the thick layer of peanut butter coating his normally angelic face.

Credence let out a despairing sound in the back of his throat. He no longer had any concept of time in regards to when Grindelwald would be returning, and every imaginary tick of the clock seemed to ratchet his heartbeat up another notch.

It wasn’t simply that there was a mess that made Credence’s breath begin to come out in short, puffy gasps, nor was it that Hadrian himself was covered in said mess, either.

Yes, it was true that Credence assumed Grindelwald would inherently be displeased if confronted with a mess, but it wasn’t the inherent scene that currently set the young adult off, no.

Instead, the more selfish reason was that Credence utterly and undeniably feared what Grindelwald’s reaction would be to Credence having failed a seemingly quite simple task laid out for him. All he’d been expected to do was take care of a two year old - a child whose basic needs consisted of food, sleep, and water and who had yet to gain an affinity to talking so couldn’t cause any issues on that front. For God’s sakes, Hadrian hardly even walked. And Credence had somehow, clearly, failed spectacularly in that regard. Which sent him on a spiral of conjecturing how Grindelwald would react and in turn how it would affect their future interactions and if this one incident would cause a doubt in Grindelwald’s mind over whether Credence’s worth was truly at a high enough value for him to consider using or if he would need to subdue Credence to make him understand his position just as the Matron had -

Yes, somewhere in the far, far corners of the faintest recesses of Credence’s mind, he was well aware that his current thoughts completely disregarded his previous analysis, but that was before he’d lost the majority of his rationality in favor of genuine, bone shaking petrification that had black wisps rising from his form as if he were steaming. 

Not to mention the matter of Hadrian himself, who, of course, was the culprit of the current situation no matter how innocent or unintentional his actions had been in causing a scene. 

This was the bit in which he knew he was genuinely losing it, since he knew - he knew - that Grindelwald wouldn’t take his frustrations out on the tot, no matter the situation, and of course not in response to something comparatively minute as a dirtied room. 

And, yet, that didn’t stop Credence from scooping Hadrian up from the floor and cradling him to his chest, pulse racing in his throat and mind disregarding - or, more accurately, not taking note in the first place - how the tot froze in his grip for the first few moments as if the action of being lifted had been completely and utterly unexpected from his end despite having clearly wanted as much.

Instead, Credence backed away from the mess, ignoring how he could feel his shirt, the underside of his chin, and his arms become just as covered as Hadrian was in the goopy condiment that seemed to all but flood his nostrils with its normally mild scent.

“Okay - okay,” Credence muttered to himself, gaze darting left and right and towards the back door as if wondering if he should dart towards the exit in some completely inane attempt at escaping.

Not that he would.

Or could.

He was just panicking. Severely. Since he had no idea what to do or what to expect and he had nowhere to go and he had no time frame as to when Grindelwald would be returning -

Hadrian shifted slightly in his arms, and there was the telltale rushing sound of the floo being activated, and Credence barely resisted the urge to duck and cover as if expecting an immediate blow.

He didn’t, though, instead standing as straight backed as he could with Hadrian braced in his arms, one of Credence’s palms cradling the back of the tot’s head. 

This meant that he was witness to the entirety of the blast zone clearing back to being just as pristine as the rest of their surroundings with only the faintest snap. Distantly, he noted the sensation of his own skin being cleansed in a similar manner, though he didn’t have the time nor the forethought to physically check before a green fire roared up from the pit and Grindelwald stepped through without even the faintest hint of ash catching on his crisp robes.

“Credence,” the man greeted, brushing a hand down his front as if to smooth away invisible creases.

Credence opened and closed his mouth a few times, only managing to make a faintly strangled noise in the back of his throat. 

Grindelwald raised an eyebrow, and Hadrian made a sound, drawing the man’s attention down to him. “Hadrian,” he belatedly greeted with a small smirk of a smile, striding a few steps closer to the pair before directing his attention to Credence once more. “Were there any issues while I was gone?” he questioned, eyes narrowing slightly at Credence’s no doubt completely flummoxed expression.

“N-not really, sir,” Credence managed to sutter out, throat clicking. 

“‘Not really?’” Grindelwald echoed, taking another step closer.

Credence swallowed, peeling his eyes away from the other and dropping them down to the top of Hadrian’s head, somehow still faintly surprised to find it completely smooth and clean despite there having been no reaction from Grindelwald to suggest otherwise. “He-” Credence licked at his suddenly chapped lips, “-he just. With the food. Had to clean up a bit.”

The blonde man made a noise that was neither disagreeing or agreeing, though it leaned closer to the former of the two. More of a disbelieving, if not bemused, sound, really. Still, he said nothing more of the matter, instead peering down at Hadrian once more. 

Hadrian made a pleased noise, no doubt wearing a cherub smile, and shifted in Credence’s grip so that he could extend his arms up and out towards the dark lord. His little hands opened and closed in demanding, grabby fists, and Grindelwald’s expression softened minutely.

Credence barely restrained himself from thrusting Hadrian forwards when Grindelwald reached for the tot, instead carefully extending Hadrian out towards him until the other man had a firm grip on the small blonde, the dark lord's lips quirking in an indulgent half-smile at the crown of Hadrian’s head.

Credence swallowed convulsively, blood thrumming through his ears even as it slowed, limbs feeling weak as the adrenaline that’d been pumping through them finally began to slow. He needed to leave. Quickly. To find somewhere out of sight that he could collapse in order to take the weight off his new-born-foal-like knees.

“I - bathroom?” he said, internally bashing his head against a wall immediately thereafter.

Grindelwald gave him a look that was distinctly amused, if quite blunted. “Of course; by your own leave, Credence. I am glad the two of you seemed to have enjoyed each other’s company,” he replied.

Credence bleated out a laugh, already taking a few steps back towards the door as he nodded in a jerky agreement. “Yes. Very m-much so. Enjoyed. Enjoyed so much. I mean. Yes. Thank you!” he blurted out in a rush. And then he promptly turned heel and high tailed it out the room as quickly as he could without seeming as though he was doing exactly that.

-

As Grindelwald carried Harry away down the other end of the hall, Harry couldn’t help but feel rather bad for his attempt at a prank on Credence.

He’d only been trying to get back at the ravenette for having given Harry such a bombshell of a revelation to wake up to just before, even if the young man himself wasn’t fully aware of what he’d done. 

And, yes, it’d been quite inordinately amusing to watch Credence flounder around for the first few minutes over the mess, but, after realizing the genuine panic that belied the other’s actions, it would’ve been a task to even try to dredge up amusement over the situation anymore. Harry was many things, but an enjoyer of the undue suffering of another wasn’t one of them. And that was exactly what it felt like he’d been witnessing just moments before Credence had hurriedly lifted him off the ground - an action that had been surprising in and of itself, seeing as to how Harry had been a complete, literal mess at the time.

Regardless, the point was, Harry had rectified his mistake shortly after having realized it, and he hoped Credence wouldn’t hold it against him. Though, he likely wouldn’t, largely considering the fact that he thought Hadrian was two and therefore impartial to the whims of basing actions on grudges or pitiless spite. 

Harry winced. 

Yes; definitely not one of his finer moments.

The rumbling of Grindelwald’s chest against Harry’s sternum brought the smaller back enough to listen to the man’s words.

“- enjoy your day with Credence?” the dark lord asked, tilting his head down slightly so he could meet Harry’s gaze after the tot unhooked his chin from over the man’s shoulder.

Harry bobbed his head in a clearly delighted nod, breaking into a radiant grin that further widened when he saw how it made the corner of Grindelwald’s lip twitch up seemingly on its own accord.

“I will see to it that the two of you are able to meet more often, then,” Grindelwald said decidedly, and Harry made an affirmative noise, inwardly looking forward just as much to the statement as he was outwardly showing.

Credence genuinely seemed to be a good-hearted young man, if somewhat traumatized, and Harry hoped to get to know the other Obscurial better - especially outside of Grindelwald’s company since Harry could be less restrictive over his own behaviors under the lack of such a keen eye.

Yes, he would rectify his relationship with Credence.

He'd decided they'd be brothers, after all.

Chapter Text

The child is screaming, was Gellert’s first thought. It came to him in something of an absent discernment, in the way one would note ‘it’s snowing,’ while idly gazing out a lightly frosted window.

That is, until he summarily processed what he’d just heard and bolted upright from his seat, chair screeching backwards in a sound that grated harshly against his ears due to his haste with the sudden, intense rush of adrenaline that flooded through his system in a manner that had his head pounding in time with his pulse, which in turn throbbed resoundingly against his skull. 

Because Hadrian was screaming. The sound of it was fading in and out, coming in abrupt bursts of high pitched shrieks that held no pattern Gellert could follow - at least, not in his current state. Not that anything would change if he could find one. A pattern, that is. No, nothing would alter the situation in any drastic way if he could somehow discern what on this Merlin-bloody-be-damned Earth was causing his ward to make such a sound. 

He snarled soundlessly. Though, at least if he had some inkling of a clue as to a potential cause for Hadrian’s cries - because he could only refer to them as that or the screams that they undeniably were - maybe Gellert would not be so currently swept under a torrent of racing thoughts that were so sickeningly drenched in the cruelest and most horrifying of possible situations imaginable that could be occurring just down the hall where he had so gullibly believed his - his Hadrian to be safe. 

The endless possibilities raced through his mind’s eye, and his knee banged sharply against the corner of his desk in a sudden stint of incoordination that was completely at odds with his typical self. 

He cursed vehemently and rounded the table regardless - before he’d even realized, almost - as his steps thundered against the wooden floor in his rush to the door of his office, which he flung open with abandon. The frame slammed into the connecting wall with a booming crash, the sound of oak splintering doing absolutely nothing to sedate his agitation - his ire.

Yes, ire. For who in Merlin’s be bloody well damned hell could have gotten to Hadrian? And regardless of whom it was, they would soon find there head no longer attached to their neck.

Gellert vehemently cursed himself for not having set any wards onto the tot to immediately give notification if any harm or even potential harm came to the boy’s person. It was the infantile mistake of a lesser wizard, was what it was. Gellert had always commended himself for carefully maintaining the balance between confidence and arrogance, but it was clear to him now that he must have strayed towards the latter without having consciously realized, as there was no other explanation as to how he could have so blatantly missed an attack set on his ward if not for his own obviously wrongly held belief that Hadrian would be safe simply because he was within the walls of Gellert’s heavily fortified, fideliused, unplottable castle.

There was another loud shriek, and Gellert’s lips twisted into a snarl as he whipped his wand from its holster and apparated straight into Hadrian’s room with a thundering crack.

It took him a moment to process what met his sight.

First was Vinda Rosier, who was frozen in surprise, a light flush rising to her cheeks from what seemed to be embarrassment. Her presence was not unexpected, as Gellert had approved her to be Hadrian’s supervision for the day, since Credence was otherwise occupied - as Gellert had been himself. Despite this awareness of his, he only just managed to stop himself from sending a spell so dark in her direction that the air around his wand had enveloped itself in shadows, and the putrid smell of rotting flesh wafted readily from its surface. 

Instead of releasing the spell, however, he took an imperceptible, calming breath, and further analyzed the current situation.

Since Rosier was crouched down, Gellert trailed his eyes from her to the only other presence he’d taken to be in the room: 

Hadrian. 

The tot, too, looked quite surprised, though whether that be due to Grindelwald’s sudden presence or the ear-splitting sound that had announced his arrival was difficult to ascertain. He was sat on the floor and situated to be facing Rosier, his head now turned towards Gellert instead. He was wearing the same clothes Gellert had selected for him that very morning, except his feet -

Gellert’s eyes flicked back up to Rosier, whose face had darkened further in hue, features pinched in an expression that on the surface seemed to be sour dismay but in truth was clear mortification as she withdrew the feather from where it’d been hovering over Hadrian’s small, bare foot. 

“M- my Lord,” she stammered, an action incongruous to her typical behavior as she rose to stand, giving a slight but no less deferential bow. She took several discreet steps away from Hadrian.

Gellert hummed in acknowledgement to her greeting but gave no other indication for how she should proceed. His pulse had calmed back to a normal rhythm, and he smoothly tucked his wand back into its holster. 

Rosier swallowed audibly, gaze flickering from Gellert to Hadrian, the latter of whom was staring up at the pair with blatant curiosity. 

“I… apologize, my lord, if we have disrupted you,” she finally said, surreptitiously tucking the feather away into the hem of her skirt, much like how Gellert had with his wand mere moments before.

Gellert raised a brow. “Oh?” he murmured, tone a silken, near velvet smooth sound. “‘We?’” he echoed with a near imperceptible tilt of his head. 

Truthfully, he’d already deduced what had been occurring within moments of having apparated into the room - not that it had been a difficult matter to have discerned. Of course, it was not exactly something he had previously contemplated as a possibility - largely due to the fact that, in his admitted… apprehension, he had not considered that a scream from a child could have been from joy, of all things. 

Well, if shrieking intermixed with laughter from being tickled with a feather could be considered joy.

Gellert focused himself back towards his subject as Rosier visibly steeled herself, the woman’s eyes squeezing shut for only the briefest of moments before she returned her gaze to meet his. “Me, sir,” she both corrected and admitted, clasping her hands behind her back in a nervous tick that she likely only allowed herself due to its doubling as an act of respect.

Gellert hummed, shoes tapping mutedly against the plush carpet as he approached Hadrian, smoothly picking the tot up in one swift motion and noticing how Rosier tensed from the corner of his eye. 

Hadrian, on the other hand, squealed happily, pudgy little hands coming up to fist at the front of Gellert’s cloak, invariably wrinkling the material as the boy tugged and squeezed. 

Rosier shifted slightly, and Gellert resisted the urge to click his tongue, idly giving Hadrian a couple of bounces in his arms to settle him, winning a burbling laugh in reply.

Idly, he noted that it was quite clear that Rosier had grown attached to Hadrian - a shockingly large amount, in fact, both considering that Gellert didn’t make it a habit of leaving his ward in her or anyone else’s care and the fact that Rosier herself tended to be rather emotionless and coldblooded, regardless of the situation. 

She was a loyal follower and one he trusted to not attempt to break his strict commands, but she was a brisk and often icy woman nonetheless. 

Yet here she was, having made a game of making the tot laugh in ‘tickled’ delight and now looking at her own lord with the barest signs of unease hidden within the depths of her gaze as it flickered between himself and his ward. 

Hm. It would seem that Hadrian truly did have a considerable effect on people, more so than Gellert himself had expected, and certainly in a different regard than what he had been planning to use.

This effect too seemed to be the case on Credence, who never turned down the opportunity to spend time with the tot despite the clear apprehension that lined his features every time he so much as stood within the same room as the smaller without someone - Gellert namely - as a buffer between them.

There was Carrow as well, who he’d left Hadrian with on exactly two occasions, and yet the woman had seemed inexplicably and rather exorbitantly saddened to see the tot go during both occurrences. It would have almost been amusing, had it not stirred some foreign, dully throbbing emotion deep within his breast.

Which in turn, of course, had Gellert considering Hadrian’s effect on himself, as it was utterly impossible to say that the tot resulted in no changes in his own being considering how much of his life and plans had shifted to incorporate the young boy. It was rather alarming, in a respect, to consider it all, since the coalescence of every bit of his daily routine and overall objectives that had been indubitably affected by the tot’s presence was, to put it simply, absolutely astounding.  

A matter to contemplate for another time, however. 

For now, he turned his attention to Rosier once more, giving a dismissive jerk of his head, and she quickly gave another bow before sweeping from the room, letting the door shut softly behind her. 

Hadrian let out a quiet whine, and Gellert tipped his chin down to meet the tot’s pouting gaze, raising a pale, manicured brow. “Was she so entertaining?” he questioned the boy, tilting his head to convey his… disfavor, he supposed, at the thought. 

Not that he could find much of a reason for such a sentiment.

Guileless, Hadrian’s lips parted in a smile that seemed to agree in the positive despite Gellert’s apparent distaste, head bobbing happily as he tugged on the man’s lapels. 

“Her company was… enjoyable?” Gellert asked in confirmation, shifting Hadrian higher up in his arms so his own neck no longer felt like it was on its way to forming a crick from being bent so far forward. 

Hadrian’s head continued to nod up and down; Gellert had half a mind to wonder if it hadn’t stopped from the first prompt.

“Would you rather be in her presence than mine?” he proceeded to query blithely, idly freeing one arm to tap a finger against Hadrian’s nose. For no discernible reason at all.

The tot’s features scrunched up with the action, eyes crossing to stare at his finger even as it retreated, porcelain face listing to the side as if pondering the question. The boy frowned, tugging again at Gellert’s suit, a questioning sound coming from his throat as he tipped his head back to meet Gellert’s gaze.

“Well?” Gellert prompted lightly, a casual smirk gracing his lips as he gave Hadrian a few more bounces in his arms. Part of his expression was feigned, as it often was, but he could privately admit that he found the boy’s own mien to be amusing.

Hadrian’s brows furrowed further, lips pursing tight and eyes squinting into narrow crescents as he continued to stare into Gellert’s dual colored own, looking absurdly deep in thought for someone who had likely been toilet trained for less than six months. 

Despite himself, Gellert found he didn’t mind the wait, content to observe the minute shifts in Hadrian’s facial expressions as the tot worked to solve whatever inexorably difficult problem he was slogging through in his developing little mind. 

And it was after more than another minute having passed before his ward - frown still set on his brow but lightened into a look similar to determination rather than the perplexingly deep contemplation it had been entrenched in before - nodded decisively, released Gellert’s cloak, and gave a single, firm pat to Gellert’s chest above his heart as he childishly proclaimed, “Dada.”

Promptly, a klaxon of wailing sirens blared out through Gellert’s utterly blank skull.

Chapter Text

Was Harry having a bit too much fun? Oh, most definitely. Some would even say 'a bit' was an understatement, really, and Harry wouldn’t at all disagree, since he was most definitely taking far too much entertainment simply from the look on Grindelwald’s face. Oh, how Harry wished he had access to a pensieve so that he could place this memory within it and treasure it as it ought to be. It was an utter sin not to be able to keep record of this time’s greatest Dark Lord’s expression upon being summarily knighted by a child as their father. 

Harry was therefore admittedly quite disappointed at how quickly Grindelwald regained control of himself, even though such composure wasn’t at all unexpected. 

Grindelwald let out a small cough that sounded more like a low choke in the back of his throat, pursed his lips to swallow just on the edge of audibility, and directed his gaze quite literally anywhere else but at Harry in the room. The last one was quite the feat, especially since Harry was still firmly held in his arms and tugging impatiently at the lapels of his robes. 

“Dada,” Harry said again, insistent, delighting in the flash of panic that flared through Grindelwald’s eyes.

The man finally dragged his eyes back to Harry and gave him a stilted smile. Harry held back a wince; that expression looked painful, honestly - or pained, rather. “Hadrian,” the Dark Lord started hesitantly, giving him a gentle pat on the back, “are you… missing your parents?” he tried. 

Harry held back an amused scoff at the near hopeful look in Grindelwald’s eyes. The poor sod quite obviously did not expect a side effect of essentially kidnapping Harry under his guardianship to be this, of all things. Of course Harry would not give Grindelwald the reprieve he so desired. Instead, he twisted his features into a pout, lower lip jutting out, eyebrows scrunching, and a thin, black mist wafting off his shoulders as he gave a harsh, pointed tug against the Dark Lord’s robes. “Dada,” he said firmly, looking directly in the man’s wide, heterochrome eyes. 

Harry could practically see the frantic calculations being performed in the man’s no doubt upturned mind, and he couldn’t stop his own brows from raising in surprise as Grindelwald quite suddenly calmed, entire posture relaxing from a tenseness even Harry hadn’t realized had been so taut. The Dark Lord sighed, a quiet exhalation of near peace, and softly brushed Harry’s hair back from his forehead. “You are right, of course, Hadrian,” Grindelwald agreed in a near croon, smiling gently. “I am most honored to be known as your father.”

Harry refrained from gaping unseemly at the man by sheer force of will, and, after several seconds, he slowly, inwardly, grinned in unequivocally vicious, astonished delight. Oh, what an absolutely conniving bastard. 

Outwardly, Harry’s grin was much more innocently elated, and he let out a giggle that was just off the side of manic. Of course he should’ve known that a master manipulator such as the current Dark Lord himself would find a way to use Harry’s admission to his advantage. While Harry was still somewhat miffed about not earning a more extended, floundering reaction from the man earlier, he was pleased enough to see that his own words - or word, more like - would not simply be brushed aside. Things would soon be getting much, much more interesting. 

-

Credence was… Credence was panicking.

He could quite easily admit it. 

Was this something new, unusual, or strange in any way, shape, or form?

God, no. 

But Credence was really, really panicking at the moment, and it was definitely over something of much more consequence than Hadrian having made a mess of himself. 

Ohhh yes, this was definitely, unequivocally worse. 

A noise that could almost be construed as a broken off laugh - one that was definitely well on the side of hysterical - escaped him as he continued to pace the length of his room, hands winding their way into his knotted hair and tangling themselves into his roots as he tugged harshly, a high pitched hum emanating from the back of his throat.

He was alone, at the moment, only having just left his previous company, and he had far more to think about than he wanted to. 

It felt like he’d only just settled into his place here - as much as he could, at least - and now this. 

He’s been living under Grindelwald’s roof for hardly two months, wherein his apparent duties had been bafflingly lax, largely because of some sort of outside upheaval that Grindelwald had been focusing the majority of his attention on. Which in turn meant that Credence had been spending much more time around Hadrian, who, thankfully, had yet to cause any more heart attack inducing scenarios. Strong emphasis on ‘yet,' except, of course, for his blasé use of magic and Obscurial form, both of which never failed to send Credence halfway into cardiac arrest. 

However, the current issue was, for once, not centered around Hadrian. All the thinking Credence had been doing about the security of his own position? Well, he was considering it again now in order to parse through his mind’s workings to determine if he could maybe, possibly consider himself situated just well enough to not be on the razor’s edge of a precarious balance in security that he could actually do something and not risk falling utterly out of the Dark Lord’s favor. 

God, that hardly made sense to Credence himself, and he was the one thinking it. 

He gave another harsh tug at his hair, eyes squeezing shut and shoulders hunching closer to his ears.

Why did this have to be happening?

For once - for once - it wasn’t his fault, even indirectly! And yet, at the same time, it was exactly his fault exactly indirectly because he was the one who brought her here.

Because that was what this was all about: 

Nagini.

His companion, his closest thing to a friend and confidant. 

The person who had just admitted to him her plans of escape to be followed through come nightfall.

“Shit,” Credence swore, voice pitched high so the word sounded strangled as he whirled around and paced back the other way, quickening his strides. 

Part of him wished that she’d never told him - that she just left in the cover of night without him having ever been the wiser. Guilt simmered in him at the thought, but he never claimed he wasn’t a coward, and it really would be better for them both if he hadn’t been told.

Nagini had finally seemed to have understood that he didn’t want to leave, but it was like she thought if she forced the decision on him instead, he’d change his mind. 

The ground shook and rumbled lowly underneath him feet as blackened vapor began to seep from his pores, and Credence gave a sharp shake of his head, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a few deep, forcefully evening breaths. After several moments, he squinted an eye open and sighed in tense relief to see that the pitch colored mist was gone. 

Alright. He could think things through calmly. He just needed to… calm down. Of course. Because thinking calmly usually required being calm. 

Credence sucked in a slow, deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, and exhaled steadily. Calm, yes, he could do calm. Credence Barebones, the epitome of cool and collectedness, the calm doer, the man with an inner monk. 

He ignored the swelling urge to sob and bash his head against the wall at the same time. Neither of those were conducive to his new mentality regardless of their seemingly growing appeal. 

He desperately needed to think things through. Call him a pessimist if you will, but Credence didn’t hold much faith in Nagini being able to escape - with or without him. And it would definitely be without him. 

Unfortunately, however, he couldn’t find a single way to convince her to stay, to just keep her head down and be satisfied with having some life left to live. He’d tried everything he could think of. Hell, he’d even admitted to her some of his own spineless reasons for wanting to stay, but the look on her face in response… it still stung. 

He’d pointed out Hadrian too, and how they’d be leaving him behind with Grindelwald, but that had opened a whole different can of worms with her. She’d pointed out the suspiciousness of Hadrian’s existence, and eventually outright claimed that Grindelwald was the most likely to have turned the toddler into an obscurial in the first place. Credence had tried to deny it - he was the one who saw the two interacting, and he had his own thoughts about who Hadrian might be to the Dark Lord that he kept to himself - but she wouldn’t listen to him. She thought that Hadrian was just another example of why they had to leave from under the Dark Lord’s thumb. Credence didn't tell her how much he was against separating from Hadrian - more than even he himself had expected - but she clearly saw something of it written across his face, as she’d even tried convincing him by saying that they could take Hadrian with them. 

Credence had immediately balked at that notion. Even if he went with Nagini - which he wouldn’t - the idea of taking Hadrian with them? He was absoultely sure that Grindelwald would track them down either way, but if they took Hadrian too... Credence had not a single doubt in his mind that Grindelwald would hunt them down to the ends of the Earth until he found them and, upon doing so, most likely kill them. Slowly. Credence’s mind had helpfully come up with a whole slew of the worst ways possible that the most powerful Dark Lord in recent history might end his pitiful life. He was imaginative like that.

And that was without mentioning what the other side would do with Hadrian should he somehow, by some impossible 'luck,' come into their dubious care. The 'light' side had tried to kill Credence; who was to say that they wouldn’t do the same with Hadrian? That was without mentioning other sickening possibilities too. Sure, they might ‘cull’ Hadrian while hiding behind claims about safety, but they could just as easily decide to experiment on him. Hadrian was an Obscurial, after all, and while that did offer him some protection, he was also just two years old. He wouldn’t always be able to defend himself. 

Suffice to say, Credence was quick to shoot down that proposal of Nagini’s. He wasn’t claiming that Grindelwald would never make use of Hadrian and his… condition, but, like every other choice Credence had had to make recently, letting Hadrian stay with the Dark Lord truly seemed to be the lesser of the two evils. At least here, there was a chance the tot wouldn’t be treated as an abomination; he might even be treated as... well. No point in voicing his suspicions. 

Regardless, all of this was to say that either Nagini would fail to escape (and failure… failure likely wouldn’t leave its victims alive, in a place like this), or she would somehow - by some miracle - manage to escape. Either way, that would leave Credence alone to face Grindelwald and the questions he would no doubt have. And if Credence knew about Nagini’s plans and hadn’t told him…

Credence swallowed thickly, rubbing a hand harshly against his face and dropping into a crouch to wrap his arms around his knees, burying his head in them. 

He didn’t want to think about what would happen to him. He knew it wouldn’t be anything good. He knew it would be an end to the almost peaceful life he’d been allowed to live here thus far. The almost peaceful life that had been better than his entire life before it. Truly, this might mean the end of his life completely. It could mean Hadrian would be forced to take on the role Credence was no doubt being prepared to do, so young and being used as a weapon.

Which meant… 

Credence ground his teeth harshly, bitten nails digging into his elbows as he both physically and mentally struggled to hold his body together - to keep it from exploding outwards and destroying everything around him in an eruption of rock shards and splintered wood.

...It meant that Credence had to inform Grindelwald.

Chapter Text

Gellert had not planned to spare the woman.

When Credence had slowly, painstakingly informed him of Nagini’s plans as if each word he uttered was the equivalent of wrenching one of his own teeth free from his bloodied gums, Gellert truthfully hadn’t felt much towards the Maledictus except for a flash of irritation followed by the casual dismissal that often accompanied his perception of a witch or wizard whose existence would soon no longer be a problem. 

Even as Credence fell forwards onto his knees in a plaintive, disturbingly pathetic attempt to sway the decision he could likely sense Gellert had already made, the pale blonde’s resolve had not flickered. 

Tangentially, he had been pleasantly surprised by how well Credence managed to reel in his Obscurus, as only a slight show of the parasite had appeared for a fraction of a moment in the form of pitch black mist wafting over the young man’s forearms.

That had been Gellert’s only positive sentiment during the course of the utterly one-sided conversation, however. There was simply no reason for him to spare Credence’s… friend, especially when the Dark Lord would only receive continual disloyalty and no doubt further attempts of treason from the woman in return. 

However, it was then, shortly before he had reached the limits of his patience, that Credence spouted an absurd idea intermixed with his pleas that had finally given the Dark Lord pause.

“She could - you could erase her memories!" Credence blurted in a rush, eyes shining with a panicked, borderline manic fervor. "O-of us - of you, and me, everything - of Hadr-Hadrian - then she wouldn’t be a danger a-at all, because she wouldn't remember anything," Credence emphasized, both an epiphany and a plea. Where the boy had learned of Obliviation was a wonder; though, perhaps he simply believed it possible in the way most muggles believed magic brought fantasy to life. He wasn't wrong, in this case, even as he prattled on. "S-sir... sh-she wouldn’t have anything to tell anyone, then. I - p-please, sir - N-Nagini, she... she'd cared for me, before you fou - saved me; I -" here he seemed to falter, head bowed low enough that Gellert had full view of the cropped, damp hairs at the back of his neck. The muscles there pulled taut, and Credence choked out, "I swear to you, this shall be th-the only thing I ever ask -”

Gellert raised a hand, and Credence’s jaw clicked shut as if he’d been spelled to do so. Sweat beaded against the young man’s brow, and the unnatural curve of his spine and neck coupled with his position on his knees along with his hands clasped together in front of his heaving chest made it appear as though he was attempting a grotesquely malformed attempt at fervent prayer. 

Truthfully, even before Credence's final beg for mercy on the woman, Gellert may have decided to take consideration of the boy’s words, if only outwardly. It would serve him well to refresh the bond between himself and the Obscurial by ‘fulfilling’ this wish of his, even if with an empty promise. Between dealing with MACUSA's recent stint alongside the DMLE on top of having to care for his... Hadrian, Gellert had been remiss in his duties as Credence's 'mentor.' As such, it would hardly be difficult to put on a show for the boy by allowing the Maledictus to 'leave,' only to discreetly have Rosier or Carrow follow her out and kill her.

However, Credence’s prattling over Obliviating the girl had given the Dark Lord pause. Oh, no, Gellert wouldn’t have simply decided to free her even if he eradicated her memories of every single interaction between herself and Credence, Grindelwald, and Hadrian - he did not suffer fools nor traitors, after all- but there was another possibility somewhere between the two extremes, one which gave the girl actual use to him. 

He would not let her live with her memories, nor would he let her live without. Allowing her to keep a select few, however… 

Yes, that would work quite well for him indeed.  

“I must apologize to you, Credence,” Gellert abruptly said, causing the young man’s head to snap up uncomfortably as a painfully obvious mixture of hope and fear warred within his dark eyes. “I had… forgotten, of the bond you and Ms. Nagini had held before your arrival here,” he continued on. Here, he paused once more, allowing his features to soften into an expression closer to what he would give Hadrian, and he smoothly dipped his voice into a silky, indulgent tone laden in false warmth. “You show promise, Credence, to have determined this way in which both we and your previous companion can separate without risking harm to either of our parties,” he gently praised, clinically observing the dull, hesitantly pleased flush that rose against the boy’s perpetually pale cheeks. 

“Th-thank you, sir,” Credence breathed, once more bowing his head.

“None of that now,” Gellert replied briskly, discreetly shrugging his shoulders as if he was letting his previous facade drop like a particularly uncomfortable second skin. He motioned for the young man before him to rise. “I shall have Rosier fetch Ms. Nagini.”

-

Harry was bored. 

He stared narrow-eyed at Carrow, who gave him a wavering, stressed smile. 

He knew it wasn’t exactly fair to subject the poor woman to his ire simply because she was the only person in the room to direct it towards, but it simply wasn’t fair. 

Despite Grindelwald’s claim that he’d accepted the role of being Harry’s father, Harry hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the man since then. 

Admittedly, it’d only been half a day, but still. Harry had managed to rouse an unprecedented level of excitement within himself on the premise of being able to mess with this time’s greatest Dark Lord, and here the man was ruining his fun, foisting him off on the next available person to run off like the coward Harry now knew the man was. 

“Dada,” he muttered petulantly, crossing his arms.

Carrow audibly choked, and Harry snapped his head up to look at her, a bit wide-eyed. Whoops. He hadn’t meant to oust that tidbit of information just yet. Too late now, he supposed. His lips quirked up before he forced them back down, and he scrunched his nose and willed tears to well up in his emerald-green doe eyes. Might as well make the best of it, he decided. Someone ought to entertain him, after all. 

“Dada,” he repeated, sniffling weakly and clutching at his buttery soft infant’s sweater (honestly, adult wear wasn't nearly half as comfortable as those for children - it was a travesty). He glanced at Carrow through the fine wisps of his pale hair that’d fallen into his eyes. 

Ah, who would’ve suspected that Gellert Grindelwald’s right hand woman’s notorious spine of steel would fold like a deck of cards in the face of a lone infant’s tears and plaintive utterance. 

A quiet, cracked whimper escaped the woman’s lips, the sound a poor attempt at consoling - though whether she was attempting to console herself or Harry was up for dispute. She crouched down in front of him, tucking her long skirt neatly over her calves, and haltingly murmured, “Shhh, it’s alright, Hadrian,” as she reached a tentative hand out for him.

Harry slapped away the offending appendage with a pathetic pap. 

He might as well have viciously savaged Carrow’s wrist with a sharpened dagger with how hard she flinched backwards at the action, a harsh gasp of air sucking its way back into her lungs as she reeled. 

“Mm-mm,” Harry denied her, shaking his head resolutely. His bottom lip jutted out and began to tremble. “Dada,” he warbled - quite pitifully, if he did say so himself. 

Carrow sat there speechless for several long moments, up until the thick droplets in Harry’s eyes threatened to cusp over his bottom lashes and no doubt release a downpour, at which point she hurriedly waved her hands in front of herself with small jerks of motion. “I - I’m sorry, Hadrian, but Lord Grindel - your, ah - G-Gellert is busy at the moment,” she practically pleaded, looking far too harried so soon. 

Harry again narrowed his eyes at the woman, and he let his tears dry back up with no effort at all. It seemed they wouldn’t do him any good. He tsked, the sound odd with how his not fully developed tongue added a lisp to it. Carrow mouth fell open as she gaped uncomprehendingly at him, speechless yet again. Harry was rather fortunate that the woman didn't have any children herself; as it was, the witch would no doubt be unable to determine with surety whether Harry's actions were utterly out of the norm. Ha. The Master of Death inwardly cackled to himself at the thought with perhaps too much fiendish amusement than was warranted.

Despite the temporary distraction, however, Harry had not forgotten his main objective; it would seem that he would just have to find Grindelwald himself. 

With not a single moment’s hesitation, Harry’s form evaporated into the black mist of his Obscurus, and Carrow let out an unholy screech, flailing backwards. 

Harry ignored her and flew to the door, easily slipping through the cracks in the seams before solidifying into a cloud once more on the other side. Carrow desperately called out after him, but Harry paid her no mind even as she threw open the room’s door and chased after him.

The distance between the two of them quickly grew as Harry floated down the long hall, unmoored by silly human restraints such as gravity. Carrow, on the other hand, had yet to consider removing her heels that were clearly posing a life-threatening risk to her ankles’ continued well being. Honestly, the woman supposedly fought in battles alongside Grindelwald himself. What in the world was she doing in heels? 

Harry hummed to himself, merrily continuing on his way as he turned the corner into another hallway. Carrow let loose a noise reminiscent of a dying whale. 

In all honesty, Harry hadn’t a clue where he was going, but he supposed he’d stumble upon the Dark Lord eventually. There were only two possibilities, really: Harry would either find the man, or the man would hear about his disappearance and find him instead. Either option came to the ideal result. 

Harry let out an excited trill at the thought, the sound translating through his Obscurus form as a deep, rumbling bass that caused the glass light fixtures overhead to vibrate precariously. 

He was a bit surprised to not have run into anyone yet, seeing as to how many rooms he’d passed by - both with doors opened and closed - but Harry supposed he hadn’t seen much of anyone at all since his arrival - except for a select few, of course. He belatedly realized that only Gellert and a handful of others must actually live within the castle’s walls. The risk of outsiders gaining access to information about the place grew exponentially with every person who had knowledge of it, after all, let alone who lived within the place itself. 

In the far distance, Harry could faintly hear Carrow desperately calling for him, and he inwardly winced, feeling a tidge remorseful. Still, it was fortunate for him that only Grindelwald was able to apparate within the castle; it meant that Carrow didn’t stand a chance at catching up to him. Harry would be sure to advocate in her favor should Grindelwald attempt to punish the woman for ‘losing’ him.

Up ahead, far closer than Carrow behind him, Harry could hear the low murmur of voices, and he perked up, the edges of his Obscurus form spiking out for a moment as if he’d been electrocuted before settling back down to its usual, more amorphous form.

It seemed that he had found his prey, and it had company.

Harry let his form sink low to the floor as he crept forward towards the room from which the sounds were emanating from, curiosity piquing as the words being spoken began to filter clearly. 

“No!” A woman’s voice shouted, followed by a harsh banging noise and a very familiar voice growling, ‘Petrificus Totalus.’ There was another dull thud and then shuffling, and Harry peeked into the room from under the doorframe.

As far as furnishings went, it was relatively empty except for an opulent, varnished wood desk on the right side along with a single, grand chair behind it. Large windows that spanned practically from the floor to ceiling lined the fair side of the room, the curtains for them a deep, nearly black red and pulled back by coarse, golden ropes. As for the occupants, standing in the center of the room by a bold, grey-brick fireplace were Grindelwald, Credence, and the woman he’d seen once before - Nagini. She was frozen stiff - definitely having been on the receiving end of the curse Harry had heard uttered only moments before - and held upright by Credence, who was at her back and had his arms hooked under her shoulders, looking far worse for wear despite showing no physical signs of harm. Grindelwald had his wand pointed directly at Nagini’s face, and he whispered a single, nearly sibilant word as he stared intensely into the woman’s wide-open eyes. “Obliviate.”

Oh? Harry wondered, his metaphorical eyebrows raising as he slowly, carefully crept fully into the room. He made sure to stick close to the walls, where the slight shadows from the late afternoon light enabled him to pass by relatively undetected.

He was quite sure that Nagini had been close with Credence, for all that Harry didn’t interact with the woman himself. Based on the young man’s stricken, contorted expression, Harry assumed that had indeed been the case.

Which, of course, made him ponder over what could have possibly caused this particular situation. It seemed unlike Grindelwald to waste his time on Obliviating a woman who - as far as Harry’s admittedly somewhat limited knowledge went - was not of any major importance. More to the point, what on Earth could the Dark Lord be Obliviating the woman of? 

Grindelwald withdrew his wand, casting a muttered counter-curse to the earlier petrification, causing Nagini to stumble forwards and out from Credence’s loose grip as she blinked rapidly. 

Grindelwald did not give her a chance to recover. “You will recall only having seen Credence in passing during your capture by the Dark Lord Grindelwald, and you will not remember having seen any other persons of interest excluding a brief sighting of myself,” the man uttered with finality, flicking his wand to the right and causing Nagini’s body to ragdoll with the motion directly into the unlit fireplace, barely stopping her from colliding with the wall within.

Harry’s form puffed out in interest, and he floated a bit closer and off the ground, eyeing Grindelwald and his fabled Elder Wand with piqued curiosity. That had been wordless magic. Harry had known the man was theoretically capable of performing such a feat - especially since the Dark Lord could perform wandless magic on top of it - but it was still somewhat of a shock to observe firsthand again, especially when the man did so using Harry’s own future-past wand. 

Nagini’s eyes darted frantically about the room as she slowly began to come back to herself, her flickering gaze landing on Credence, then Grindelwald, before finally alighting upon... Harry himself. 

Ah. Well, that was… less than ideal.

Neither of the other two occupants seemed to have noticed Nagini’s staring at a particular spot behind them, as Grindelwald seized a pinch of floo powder from the tin hanging next to the fireplace and reeled his hand back in preparation to toss the ashy substance forth.

In the same moment, the doors to the room were slammed open, and Carrow came barreling through with an incriminating shout of, “HADRIAN!” just as she spotted the Obscurial.

It wasn't dissimilar to watching a train wreck occur in slow motion. Grindelwald’s hand flinched forwards, releasing the floo powder into the fireplace at Nagini’s feet. Carrow finally tripped over her accursed heels and practically dived onto the carpeted floor. Credence whirled around a fraction of a second before the Dark Lord himself, and the two spotted Harry nearly in sync, their eyes widening with an almost comedic amount of shock and immediate horror. Nagini - with her mouth agape in uncomprehending surprise and burgeoning terror - disappeared in a roar of bright green flames. 

Harry twisted himself back into his toddler self, plopping down onto the floor and quickly adorning his most innocent expression, staring guilelessly up at the two men who seemed to be forming gray hairs by the millisecond. Carrow wisely stayed face down on the rug; there were equal odds between whether she was still conscious or not.

Harry brought his wrist up to his lips and mindlessly began chewing on the edge of his sleeve, smiling gaily at the pair from around the quickly drool-covered fabric. 

Oops.

Chapter Text

Newt still wasn’t quite sure why he was here. Here in this exact, particular location, that was.

Yes, he had largely fought in favor of MACUSA against Grindelwald in New York, and yes, he did not support the man nor his outspoken ideologies in the least, but Newt was quite sure that those facts still failed explain his presence here.

To clarify, ‘here’ specifically referred to the interrogation room within the bowels of the main building of the MACUSA. Though, in truth, he had half a mind to wonder why he was still in the country at all - or, well, no, why he was in New York, he supposed, since he had yet to drop Frank, his Thunderbird rescue, off in the state of Arizona. 

The central issue, however, was most certainly in regards to his specific location in this very moment. 

“And how can we be sure you aren’t a plant from the man himself?” Tina demanded, her open palms slamming onto the metallic table between her and their current interrogatee with enough force to send the rickety surface rattling with a harsh bang that had Newt aborting from an instinctive duck.

Nagini - as the woman had introduced herself as - squared her shoulders rather than cowering back, her expression steely yet simultaneously entreating. “I’m not - I swear it,” she insisted earnestly, her brow twinging - likely in frustration, if Newt had to say.

The two women had been going back and forth for nearly twenty minutes already; Tina harangued the other - Nagini - who was thoroughly immobilized in her chair, while Nagini continued to switch between itchingly vague and meticulously detailed statements, both of which were highly concerning in their own rights. 

Newt, for his part, stood huddled in the far corner of the room with his briefcase hugged to his chest, undoubtedly appearing just as out of place as he felt he was. 

In truth, there was a reason, he supposed, for how he had ended up in this room, and it was a very straightforward reason, in a sense: it was because nearly the entire offensive department of the MACUSA had been forced to leave the building not even half an hour prior due to another Grindelwald-instigated incident, which meant there had not been a person with a lick of common sense or - more importantly - authority to stop him. 

Though, perhaps that was less of the reason and more of the explanation for how he had come to find himself allowed to be here at all.

As for Tina’s presence despite the current mass exodus of the building, she had been an exception in remaining behind - obviously - since she was technically still on probation, much to her very vocal displeasure.

To more descriptively preface what had occurred to lead to their current predicament, however, Newt would start from the beginning, less than an hour before.

He had come to visit Ms. Goldstein - Tina, as she’d insisted he call - in her office, largely due to Queenie having baked some treats for her sister and then having tasked Newt with delivering them. Newt had dutifully accepted the pleasantly given order disguised as a request and made his way to the MACUSA building, whereupon he had been grudgingly allowed to enter with only several dubious glances towards his most definitely completely inconspicuous suitcase. 

It was only when he had begun to make his way up the stairs inside the building itself that the chaos began. 

First, blaring sirens nearly punctured his battered eardrums as flashing red and magenta lights lit up the entire interior of the edifice in a harrowing disarray of clashing colors. Shouts arose from multiple directions as witches and wizards shot to their feet and raced around each other in every which way, heading for the floos, shooting down the stairs, or apparating directly. Newt had made the wise decision to duck for cover after one witch came far too close to clipping his ear off with her particularly sharp stiletto heel as she flew over him on a broom he couldn’t recognize the name of, and he’d clutched his suitcase protectively to his chest as he quickly finished clambering up the rest of the stairs and skidded under a nearby table just in time to avoid being barreled over by a pair of wizards hefting what looked worryingly similar to a magical cannon. 

From there, he’d managed to carefully creep his way over to an open room nearby just in time to catch Mr. Graves growl out a firm, “No.” before the very man apparated away and left behind who Newt then noticed to be an inarguably infuriated Tina. 

Things had mostly calmed down from there - and by ‘things’ he meant their environment and not exactly Tina herself, as it was - and Newt had decided to remain with Tina while they shared Queenie’s snacks and waited to hear back from any of the officials who went to the scene.

Tina had decided for the both of them that they would remain in Mr. Graves’s office while they waited, which admittedly had been slightly discomfiting for Newt, but it had all been relatively well and good from there - for a short bit. 

How the temporary, tense peace had led to now was really quite straightforward:

A woman had burst through the fireplace covered in ash and wearing an expression not dissimilar to a man Newt had once narrowly saved from the jaws of a Quetzalcoatl (a distant, flying cousin of the more commonly known Basilisk), immediately falling unconscious. Only Tina’s quick actions had saved the poor woman from braining herself on Mr. Graves's table corner. 

Then, since the stranger had not been a recognized member of MACUSA nor of any of its associates as far as he or Tina were aware (which, he could admit, was perhaps not the best metric to centralize their beliefs around - though his worries were put to rest after Tina had double checked using a specific, MACUSA-recognized spell), Tina had quickly cast an Incarcerous on the woman and brought her down to one of the facility’s interrogation chambers, ushering Newt along with her.

Twenty or so minutes later, there was a fair amount that they had learned from Ms. Nagini despite her strange, and at times evasive, way of speaking.

Primarily, her memory had definitely been tampered with. While it was possible she was simply a particularly good liar, the far more probable reason for her multiple lapses in knowledge or recollections was due to the use of an Obliviation. With this likelihood, MACUSA would have to take care with what they chose to believe, since her own ‘remembered’ memories may be contorted as well. Although, the use of a Pensieve would at least be able to clarify such latter issues. 

If he were to give the blunt truth, Newt certainly wished Ms. Nagini was misremembering things. He could not find it within himself to believe such an option would not be a far better alternative to the story she had painstakingly laid out upon them: the horror-instilling recollection that not only was Grindelwald indeed in possession of the Obscurial from before - young Credence - but he had another one as well, whom Nagini knew nothing of except for a possible name: ‘Hadrian.’

It was soberingly sickening to even contemplate, should her words be the truth - which Newt had a horrible, sinking feeling they were. With the way an Obscurus was formed within a child, the fact that not only one but two existed that they knew of in this present time - and together, at that - was a crippling blow for wizardkind’s supposed care for young wicca in the Western world. At least with… with the young girl from Sudan (who Newt never went a day - and rarely ever a night - without thinking of and heart-wrenchingly regretting in his crushing failure to save her as she - as much as (if not more than) any child - had deserved to be), her abuse remaining undiscovered until far too late could be attributed to her having had the ill-fated misfortune of coming from a less developed country lacking a proper wizarding government to uphold the wellbeing of its community’s most vulnerable. The same could not be said for Credence, who was raised in the very city in America renowned for the presence of MACUSA’s center, and Newt could not help but wonder from where this new, unknown child (Hadrian?) who had faced terrible suffering (and may still be) could have hailed from. 

He doubted ‘Hadrian’ was close in age with Credence, considering how much of an outlier the elder Obscurial was, and it made Newt physically ill to consider how a man such as Grindelwald could be manipulating such a young, impressionable and abused child for his own twisted designs.

In the back of his mind, Newt was already formulating an itinerary for himself to hasten his return to Europe. Where, exactly, he would begin his search for the two youths was an undertaking for him to contemplate posthaste.

He knew that word would soon spread of the presence of this second child, and it would be a blatant lie for him to say he did not dread it. After MACUSA's response towards Credence, he had little faith that they - or any other government or law enforcement group, for that matter - would restrain themselves from attacking Hadrian in a similar manner, regardless of the child's age. Which meant Newt would have to intervene first.

It would have been preferable for him to be able to somehow convince Tina to keep the matter private (which would be an undertaking in and of itself, since, despite their recent adventures, Tina was, at heart, quite the diligent, rule abiding woman), but he could already see that there would be no convincing Ms. Nagini to do the same. 

Newt had never been the best at understanding human sentiments, not as he could with creatures, but even he could discern the volatile mixture of emotions bottled to bursting in the young woman before them. He picked out fear, prominently, amongst the exhaustion and determination that set themselves in a dichotomy against the woman’s shoulders, but there was also a desperation to it. One that he could not help but feel had roots far deeper than simply for convincing Tina to accept her word as genuine truth. 

Newt shifted in his spot in the corner, breathing quietly through his nose and subtly jerking his head to flick away strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes. He might as well take a seat. 

Careful not to disturb the two women who were once more in a heated debate, he folded his legs beneath himself, keeping his briefcase tucked against his chest as he smoothed his thumb against the latches in a manner that had become habitual, ensuring both clasps were properly closed.

As he turned his head to situate himself more comfortably, his eyes caught on movement underneath the desk, which he immediately realized to be from Ms. Nagini crossing her legs.

As soon as the notion had registered, he flicked his gaze away and willed his discomfited blush not to climb his neck as his shoulders rose to his ears, but then he paused. His brows crept together, and his eyes narrowed in thought as he stared at the smooth tiles that made up the interrogation room's flooring. There had been… 

He’d only caught the briefest of glimpses, as his glance had been unintentional in the first place, but now that Newt had seen, he could not seem to toss the image from his mind. His intentions were not at all inappropriate, though; his focus was not in any way unscrupulous. However, there was something about the patterns seemingly tattooed into the skin of Nagini's legs, the ones that trailed up from her pointed shoes and continued until they disappeared beneath her knee-length dress. It was something that his cycling brain latched onto without his conscious say, and it was now niggling at him - the what or the why the strange, swirling and flowing patterns seemed almost familiar to him. 

The very woman’s voice snapped him free from his thoughts, her tone edging itself into panic as she interrupted Tina to question, “- God - what time is it here now?” she pleaded, struggling to rise even though she was thoroughly spelled to the chair.

Tina seemed just as befuddled as he was, for she stuttered for a few moments to respond.

By then, it was too late.

Ms. Nagini let loose a choked, gasping groan as her entire form contorted, her neck snapping backwards as her spine arched off the chair, her legs pretzeling around each other in a morbid imitation of her previous crossing of her legs as every available surface of her skin began to take a dark sheen. It took less than two full seconds for the entire process to occur, and Tina yelped loudly and stumbled backwards as the massive body of the snake thumped onto the ground, hissing weakly. 

Newt only had the breath left in his chest to murmur a soft, stunned, “oh.” His hands around his briefcase slackened, and he slumped more heavily where he sat, his mind finally stilling long enough to land on a single thought. 

Of course the patterns on Ms. Nagini’s legs had been familiar. They were the late stage markings of a victim to the Maledictus blood curse, after all.