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cilliansgirl · 4 months

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'tis the season, i guess — CL16

pairing: charles leclerc x fem!reader

summary: cold winter days bring unexpected company to your bookshop. or in which your ex needs help choosing a book for his girlfriend.

words: 3.5k

tags: angst, SO much angst, dark academia vibes for some reason?, genuinely heartbreaking. some fluff but not much!

note: this was based off of this request but i got a bit carried away and wrote a whole thing! also am now obsessed with listening to sabrina carpenter... i hope everyone likes this even though it is very painful, but lmk your thoughts pls!!

The bookshop was basically empty, all the noise you could hear being yourself trying to rearrange the books in alphabetical order, and soft music playing in the background.

you stood on your tiptoes in order to reach a book at the top of the shelf, knowing a bench was available but being too lazy to go get it. Wuthering Heights refused to reach your fingertips despite your efforts and soft curses to yourself a bit louder than usual due to the emptiness of the shop.

"Need help?" a male voice called from behind, causing you to roll your eyes. Here we go, you thought to yourself, another man who catches you alone in the shop and tried to hit on you, and you'll have to find him funny and play delighted to be in his presence despite how bothersome he is, despite the ring on his finger.

"No, I'm okay, really-" you started replying, putting on your best customer service smile, fixing your hair as you turned around to face the stranger. but the person who you faced wasn't a stranger in the slightest.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you" he said as he reached behind you for Wuthering Heights, taking him zero effort to do so, increasing your frustration and disbelief.

those brief moments of closeness brought to you a thousand heart clenching memories, time standing still as his scent hit you softly.

"Try this one" you tried to stop giggling as you held the dark brown bottle in your hands and asked for his wrist.

"Tobacco Vanille? I don't want to smell like cigarettes!!" he joked, although he let you spray his wrist gently, so happy just for the sole fact that you were happy.

Your smiles reached your eyes as they met for brief seconds, waiting for the smell to hit his skin. Reactions weren't needed as your expressions turned from smiling to shocked, mouths widening at the scent that seemed to fill you both.

"It's AMAZING!" you half screamed excitedly as he smelled his wrist in confirmation. "Charlie, it smells so good I could eat you right now!"

He laughed at the nickname, at how pretty you looked, at how simple it all was. He kept laughing with the perfume in a perfectly wrapped package in his hand, the other holding yours.

"Uhm, hi" you said, as his big familiar hands stretched out to hand you the book, which you hugged tightly to your chest in an attempt to hide or disappear in it, you weren't sure "Thanks."

"No problem" he replied politely, almost annoyingly so, the tiptoeing already starting before more than a few words could be uttered, his hands in his pockets as he looked everywhere but you.

It was uncomfortable - the silence, the stillness, how both of you stood there like ghosts, waiting for some direction, something to do, something to happen. "So uhm... what brings you here?"

"Oh, I'm a wedding crasher" the stranger next to you replied, black tuxedo slightly touching your arm, a drink in his hand and shirt slightly unbuttoned.

"Really?" your eyebrows raised as you took in what he said and his appearance – the nose, especially the nose.

He laughed slightly, taking a sip of his drink and looking back at you "no, I'm friends with the bride," his finger pointed in the direction of the beautiful woman dressed in white, but all you could see was how big his hands were, adorned with rings. "And you?"

"I am an actual wedding crasher" you replied, cheeky smile adorning your lips despite the shyness you felt as your eyes locked with his. It was his time to raise his eyebrows and your turn to take a sip of beer as he repeated what you had asked seconds before. "Really?"

"No, I'm friends with the groom" you replied winking, enjoying the stranger's company and humor, his smile causing small dimples to appear in his cheeks as he looked down at his lap.

"You got me," his hand suddenly stretched towards you, palm open and inviting, "I'm Charles."

He kept shrugging and avoiding your eyes, despite the fact that he had willingly chosen to go to the place where you worked. It was making you impatient and angry, those emotions replacing the initial shock and sadness.

"I need your help choosing a book," his voice sounded weak and embarassed, shame coming through every vowel. You stood still, waiting for him to continue, wishing he'd speak faster, explain himself already or just leave and forget he even came. "For my girlfriend"

Those words twisted inside you like a sharpened knife that knew the cut would merely hurt, not kill. Despite that, you knew better, you refused to let him notice any sort of hint of how that information affected you. "Oh wow," was all you could say at first, turning around to keep placing books in shelves, distracting at least your body since your mind was restless "birthday?"

"Uh? Oh no, 6-month anniversary" he muttered, almost inaudibly. You were too aware suddenly of how your clothes felt on you, how ironic red was in the necklace you were wearing as you placed Anne Boleyn's biography in its correct place, tight between the other books. You refused to look to him now, nodding intensively so he would understand that you had heard what he said, your skin prickling as you struggled to move. Calculations ran through your mind, trying to place those 6 months in the timeline of both of your lives as he moved awkwardly behind you.

"It's funny actually, she really loves reading, I guess I do have a typ-" he began, trying to lighten the mood, but each word he said felt like another grain of salt being thrown at the open wound that was your heart.

“What does she like to read?” you interrupted him, purposefully so, knowing how clear your intention to move from the subject was.

“I read a bit of everything, but I love the classics,” you said as the cappuccinos arrived and sat prettily in the café’s table. You stared at Charles as he stared at you; his entire expression seemed to give you undivided attention, registering every word and movement of yours. He smiled at all the correct times, nodded at your statements and frowned at certain parts of your narrative almost as if he had been custom made for you.

“What’s your favorite book?” he continued, sipping his drink, some foam remaining on his top lip, a feature you smiled softly at, bravely leaning over with a napkin and cleaning it. “Thank you” he said as he noticed your blushing expression, his way of both reassuring you and brushing it off as something mundane, and you bit your lip, holding back a bigger smile than necessary.

“This is such a cliché,” you started, rolling your eyes at your answer, trying your best not to say it. “Go on” his hand suddenly stretched towards yours, resting on top of it gently, like a sheet perfectly fitted for a bed. Your body burned with the touch, what is symbolized, what it promised silently in that small café.

“It’s Catcher in the Rye,” you both burst out laughing.

“She loves Fitzgerald,” his hands touched random books, looking for something to do, fixing them, opening some of them and putting them back in place, reading the backs of them as if he was paying attention to anything they said.

“Good taste,” you tried the compliment route. You didn’t want to sound bitter, and you weren’t bitter. It was just a lot to take in so fast, his presence as painful as his words, the way both made you feel so small for such a big place, so big for such a tight room.

“That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” you quoted the author as you contemplated the choices available for a lover of Fitzgerald. Work could fill your mind. Pretending it was just one more client made it easier. “Any other author or book? Help me out, Charli- Charles” you cut yourself off before the nickname could come out, hoping he wouldn’t notice, knowing that he did. You felt his entire body tense behind you as yours did, making it seem like a picture frozen in time in place, The Star-Crossed Lovers.

Charles seemed so silent that you unconsciously felt yourself turning back to check if he was still there, if he hadn’t been a fragment of your imagination after all. He stood in place, for a moment his eyes looked at you as if they hadn’t seen you in his entire life, examined you as if you were as unknown as letters in a freshly printed page. That soon faded as he snapped back to reality, registering the question with incredible delay. “Faulkner. She also likes Faulkner.”

“Aaaand Faulkner is done” you brushed some of the dust off of your hands as you stood up, looking at the now organized Classics section. “At least for the next week! Thank you for staying with me, by the way,” you said to the phone, as its screen indicated that you had been on a call for 2:45:17 hours.

“No problem,” Charles smiled. You knew he did although you didn’t see him, and that sheer though made you smile as well. “Can you do me a favour though?” he asked, his voice filled with excitement, a puppy-like tone that you cherished “open the door, I’m freezing.”

At first you were confused at his request, and you were close to questioning it until it hit you. You didn’t believe it. There could be no way he was- you rushed to the bookshop’s door, opening it while still holding your phone. Heart racing, you opened the door and saw Charles’ frame standing there, the lights illuminating his red cheeks and nose from the cold, one hand awkwardly holding the cellphone, the other trying to balance two warm drinks. He was wearing a beanie that made him look younger, softer, a puffer jacket that seemed to hug him perfectly- “Is there a code or something?” he jokingly asked, his breath visible due to the cold air outside, and you realized you had been staring for too long. You stood aside, turning the phone off as he placed the cups on the counter and removed his extra clothes.

“You didn’t have to,” you started. “I wanted to.” “You’re so sweet I could kiss you right now.” “Do it, then.”

You started browsing through the spines of the books in the shelves in front of you, looking for answers to more than one question, relying on pulling you sleeves down to your hands to mask your nervousness.

“How have you been, though?” his voice made you jump a bit, pulling you back to reality as you pulled 2 books and held them against your chest with one hand, trying to keep them from falling by lifting a leg – an awkward stance, you were sure. “Great, actually” you replied, unconvincingly so.

Things were hard after what happened with Charles, and you had taken many different routes to get over it all at first – waking up hungover in strangers’ beds, not leaving the house, breaking hearts for fun, letting people use you for fun, meaningless moment after meaningless moment, where the highlight would be hearing a voice that sounded even slightly similar to his. They got slightly better, of course, a year had passed, you could function, yet it hadn’t scarred yet – it wasn’t even close. The wound was open and bleeding and hideous and his presence, his voice, his smell, his request, it all just made the blood spill harder.

“Really?” “Hmhm,” a nod. A cough from behind you, making you turn around. His face was stern, serious. Charles was considering if coming was a good idea, what even drove him to do it in the first place. There were so many bookshops, so many other gifts he could give, yet he felt like showing up, like seeing you, at least once. Now he was there and he felt peculiar. Something close to guilt crawled on his chest, but he wasn’t sure what he was feeling guilty of, which in turn intensified his guilt.

You reached for a third book, and as you did so, the ones you were holding fell once again on the old wooden floorboards. “Shit” you muttered, crouching to grab them as Charles did the same, you two being so familiarly close, the irony of the cliché overwhelming the both of you. Getting up, Charles felt the need to offer his hand for you to hold, a support you refused to take and acknowledge, pretending you didn’t see it when it reality it seemed to be screaming at you loudly and intensely.

“So here are my recommendations, I guess” you sighed, letting him assume it was due to tiredness, knowing that he wouldn’t. Placing the 3 books on the nearest table, they faced the both of you as you stood next to each other, his arm brushing against yours, eyebrows furrowed as he examined their covers and details carefully.

Mrs. Dalloway, Age of Innocence, and One Hundred Years of Solitude sat perfectly, yet stared at the both of you defiantly, knowing their words could cut through both of your souls if they pleased.

“Don’t let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love” Charles read aloud, laying in your bed next to you, your head resting gently on his chest as you felt him laugh softly, lying naked in . “You’re right, I think I like this author.”

You laughed alongside him, both unaware of the fact that you were laughing for different reasons.

Charles’ eyes glanced quickly towards you, the same memory haunting your minds as if you were locked in a cinema of nostalgia. Shyly, his hand reached towards the hardback edition of Age of Innocence, its soft colors drawing him attention when the other options were either too painful to grab or not as tempting for his eyes.

You leaned against the polished table, looking at the way he touched the pages tenderly, fingers brushing them with a softness that reminded you of times that had gone by yet seemed to close and so recent.

His features seemed so focused, eyes moving slowly across each sentence, eyelashes prettily adorning them, his throat bobbing up and down as he swallowed dryly. He almost seemed unreal, a mirage of a stranger who was once so familiar to you, breaking the spell when he chuckled softly. “What?” you asked, whispering, too afraid that a sudden movement might make him disappear entirely. The normalcy of the moment was as terrifying as it was comforting, a moment in which it seemed like you two were the same again. “Nothing it’s just, one of the sentences I stumbled upon…”

“Which one?” you rested your chin in your hand while looking up at him, forgetting the previous moments, the previous year, every previous instance in its entirety as he looked back down at you and bit his lip nervously.

“I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that -categories like that- won't exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter.” the room went cold and silent as the night.

“I can’t give you a relationship” he stood in his own kitchen like a foreigner, a man you almost did not recognize. “Why not?” “Because I don’t do relationships and I don’t like labels and I don’t want to hurt you by convincing you that I can.”

Your ears rung as you fought back tears. You wouldn’t cry. You were too proud for that, to show him this mattered way more to you than to him. “If you don’t want to hurt me then try, Charles.”

He shrugged, arms opened in defeat and eyes looking at the window, the snow falling down outside, locking you both in this confrontation. “I can’t.” Frustration invaded your bones and skin as you asked why once again, though your voice was tired and broken.

“It’s not because of you, I just- Can’t I just love you?” “That’s what I’m asking you to do by staying,” you reply cut like ice, and as he moved closer to you and held your face in his hands, you knew you had lost. “I can’t. Because I can’t do relationships.”

“But you will” you pushed him away as you left, knowing you were leaving your toothbrush, spare underwear, and heart there.

He interrupted the stillness before you did, clearing his throat and his mind, failing to relieve you of the pain of the past. “I’ll take this one” he said, now too polite, too frigid to go back.

You held the book and moved towards the counter, aware of his footsteps behind you, following you. You knew he was doing it because he had to pay, because he was a customer, because that’s what you’re supposed to do – yet part of you wanted it to be for a different reason, wanted his hand to suddenly reach for your wrist and tell you it was all a lie, a big prank, he was sorry and he took it all back.

You wanted him to say something daring enough for you to explode at him, to scream everything you’ve been holding inside for a year, to go back to that kitchen and its dimmed lights. To dare yourself to ask how dare he come into your workplace and throw everything at you, all politeness and fragrance and small talk, like it was nothing when you felt everything.

Instead, you wrapped the present nicely, placing a bright ribbon at the top while he fidgeted with his wallet from the other side of the counter. It was almost done, this exchange, and you didn’t know how to feel anymore. You were tired. So tired.

“Why did you come here?” you asked, facing him fully, staring at his green eyes that tried their best to hold your gaze. “Seriously, Charles, why did you come here?”

At first, he stayed silent. You refused to break the silence this time, even if he left without an answer you knew you had asked it, you did not save it for late nights lying awake. “I know you think I didn’t love you, but I do” he said.

It didn’t seem like a reply to your question, it seemed like a statement he was waiting to get out since the moment he walked in, the phrasing odd with its verbs being intentionally used in different tenses that didn’t seem to matter, at least not anymore. All you could do was laugh in disbelief, anger, or hurt, or a mix of both spreading throughout your body.

“You were- are- very important to me. You helped me realize a lot of things and if I could, I would go back in time in a heartbeat. But I can’t” he grabbed the present, hinting at the fact that he was going to leave, yet it didn’t seem fair to you. This wasn’t an apology, and was nowhere close to it, your hands trembling were a proof of such.

“You never can” you raised your chin, pride fighting against hurt as tears threatened to roll down your cheeks, jaw tense and firm, “not when it comes to me.” And there it was. What you both knew was true, said aloud like a forbidden fruit that was now bit into.

“It’s more complicated than that. And it’s alright for you to hate me, but I genuinely do love you. I care about you and think about you more than I should-“

“Do you love her?” it was a stupid question, and you knew that. You knew whatever answer he gave you would be a slap in the face, unsatisfying and painful either way. You hated yourself for the slight jealousy you felt towards a woman you barely knew, who wasn’t at fault at all, whose only problem was being too lovable.

“I do. I wouldn’t have known that if it wasn’t for you” “Oh wow. Thanks for that one” you crossed your arms across your chest, making yourself smaller, trying to hide while looking at the clock – 15 minutes left until the shop closes. 15 minutes left of the last time you’ll ever see him.

“Why wasn’t it enough? Why wasn’t I enough?” he wanted to reach for you and hold you, a moment of involuntary movement almost drove him to do something he couldn’t possibly do, not anymore, at least. You looked at his sudden jerk of movement, how he stopped as if his muscles burned and prevented him from acting upon his instincts. It was the best answer he could’ve given you.

“I’m selfish. I want to look at a bookshelf and know a piece of you is there. I know I’ll never fucking see you again, and I’ll leave you alone, but God I need something to remind myself that you’re real” he said, eyes closing in shame or frustration, you couldn’t say.

“You took a part of me with you that night. And I’ll never get it back. And you walked in today and took a bit more. More than that book. And every time I think of you, you take another piece. So when you look at that book, think of your girlfriend. I am real. But what we had wasn’t. Not anymore.”

You started closing the register, ignoring his presence, hoping he’d go away. The only reason you noticed him leaving was the small bell that rang as he opened and closed the door, and you finally succumbed and let the tears run free.

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cilliansgirl · 5 months

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this miniseries feeds my delusions 😭

slip of the tongue part 4 - the last train home

Theseus Scamander x Reader

summary: you are kidnapped by grindelwald and theseus is stranded alone, unaware, at a train station--he's left to believe that you do not love him and you are left in enemy custody with no one coming to save you. the world always had a way of finding out what you loved and taking it from you. but you always found a way to hold onto hope until your hands were bloody, and you always hoped you'd still make the last train home...

fem!reader. theseus scamander x reader.

category: hurt-comfort. romance.

warnings: none

part one / part two / part three / part four

author's note: yeah i wrote another long chapter again sorryyyyy! also there are no sexy times in this one haha.. this is actually the last part of this fic! taking requests for other theseus fics after. hope you enjoy :)

November, King's Cross Station

"Don't come. Don't come," Theseus thinks. "Be safe and happy and do not come."

And then, with a selfish tug of panic, he relinquishes the hideous truth of his desire:

"Come. Please come."

Theseus is standing at Platform 9 3/4, craning his neck over the crowds of wizards in their mismatched regalia, some in whimsical velvet robes and long caps and others in London business suits. The existence of the magical world alongside this one always did seem to him an impractical, impossible thing. Clunky and disjointed parts clacking together.

Until, until...

You. Muggle girl, born and bred, but you were the best wizard he'd ever met. The whole world seemed to make sense, suddenly, with your introduction into his life, these two worlds, magical and unmagical, were contained within your very existence, perfectly.

For the first time in his life, the thought of you brings him pain.

"She'll come," he thinks again. Banish the pain. Banish all that isn't useful or good.

The train whistle blows, his wristwatch reads 7:14. There's hardly anyone on the platform anymore.

He knew, knew that you wanted him too. Loved him. He saw it in your beautiful, hopeful face every time he reached out and touched you, you were so willing to fall into his touch, to surrender yourself. Sweet angel in his bed, in his arms.

"Last call!" A train attendant leans out from the car up ahead to shout it. Misery snakes around his heart. It's an icy and menacing revelation, that you might not choose to be with him.

He has never asked much of you, was always afraid to as your boss and your friend. But in these last days he's realized he's underestimated you, critically. He was so afraid of scaring you off he hadn't recognized that you don't scare easy.

He glances at the train attendant's cinched expression and then around the platform again, with blind urgency, eyes darting to every face, hardly seeing the strangers at all.

"I didn't push her too far this time. She'll come. She'll come."

"Last call!" The train attendant calls again, irritably. She's doing him a favor by waiting at all.

When Theseus steps up into the train car he politely apologizes to her. He even smiles charitably. She returns it with a blush, but rolls her eyes, taking his ticket.

He settles down and pulls out his book to read. Orders a coffee. Nothing is out of the ordinary.

Theseus has always been a sensible man, a capable one. He'll tell Newt you didn't want him. He'll put his energy and efforts into the resistance against Grindelwald. He looks fine, and maybe one day he will be.

He knows, logically, that you will be too. But he cannot deny that part of him was left on that platform tonight, and he cannot deny that it might remain there for good.

----

January

The woman lingers in the shop, her gaze flitting from shelf to shelf without much intention.

Theseus knows that he's ceased to be a novelty. Small as Hogsmeade was, he's been living there for a little over two months. The village's residents no longer looked to him or Newt, or Newt's "friends," with any curiosity or suspicion. If the woman is loitering around, it's because she wants to speak to him.

"Mrs. Beaumont," he inquires, trying to be as patient as he can, wiping his hands off on a rag before placing them flat on the counter. "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh!" She seems relieved he's broached conversation, walking eagerly to the front counter that he's behind. "Mr. Scamander, I just wanted to say how very happy we are to have you and your brother here. Apart from the students, it always gives me hope, seeing young people and newcomers moving here."

He nods warmly, offers a closed-lip smile, but says nothing. He knows Mrs. Beaumont is one for long, chatty, pointless conversation. If he struck one up he'd never hear the end of it.

Theseus wants to close up for the evening. He wants to return to his living quarters at the inn. The potion shop was supposed to have closed ten minutes ago.

From Head Auror to humble assistant shopkeeper. If he thinks about that disparity too much he starts to go insane. Veritably insane. But he tries to rid himself of useless pride, something he'd been so occupied with before. Tries to remember what he's doing here, what's at stake. The position at the potion shop was just a cover. The evenings and long nights--that's when he, Dumbledore, and Newt did their real work.

Mrs. Beaumont shuffles out of the shop, made shy by her confession.

It's unseasonably warm for mid-January, the snow patchy, in wet-looking, thin sheets of ice spread over yellowing grass. Most days the sky is mercifully blue, bright and pale. But the sun still sets early, and it's a purple evening by the time Theseus locks up.

"Dammit," he curses softly. The key gets jammed in the lock sometimes. He's sure there's some way this could be made more efficient through magic.

The potion shop where he works is at the very edge of the village. The back window overlooks a white, roaring river that crumbles rockily down the hillside towards the Black Lake. Theseus starts his walk back towards the inn, back into town, unseeingly.

He knows the way so well by now that sometimes he just winds up in his room, with no memory of the walk at all.

Theseus looks forward to meeting up with his younger brother tonight.

Their relationship has improved, considerably, within the last two months. At nights when they have no other work to do and no Grindelwald-related assignments from Dumbledore, Theseus helps Newt on his book about magical beasts. Newt's notes were these soul-crushingly disorganized collections of writings and sketches, his findings all haphazardly piled together in a barely-bound journal. Theseus had been helping him turn his work into a more readable format, maybe something that could one day be published. Theseus had forgotten how much he enjoyed working with magical creatures in school, had forgotten that he was quite good at it too.

A loose paper currently adhering itself to his boot breaks him out of his reverie. It crunches when he tries to walk. He stops to kick it off, unsuccessfully. It looks quite old, half-torn and filthily brown, and a bit frozen as well. He leans down to pick it from his shoe with a grimace, lifting it up in curiosity.

WANTED.

The image of your face on the paper is enough to make him stop walking completely, stop breathing. At first he thinks he's hallucinating, he'd always known you'd come back to haunt him.

He's in an alleyway, one he doesn't take often, he doesn't know what compelled him to take this route today. He looks up in horror at the grey brick walls. They're plastered with the same, tattered poster of you, the one calling for your arrest, who knows how long they've been up.

WANTED: Have You Seen This Witch? Y/N Y/L/N.

Contact the Ministry of Magic immediately if you have any information concerning her whereabouts.

The posted reward money makes his stomach turn. But the sight of your face, that does something far worse to him.

The photo they used of you is from your first day at the Ministry. A cropped and zoomed-in image of you smiling, with eye-welling pride, in front of the huge wooden door to the Auror Office. In the image you move after smiling for the picture, you look around with an anxious, unsure sort of happiness. He draws his thumb over the dirty paper, the picture of your face.

This isn't possible. This can't be real.

He runs to the inn. His lungs are burning from the cold, dry air, but he doesn't stop. He pushes through the doors and Aberforth stands up from one of the tables by the bar, startled.

"What do you think you're-"

Theseus ignores him, breaking into the back room and falling to his knees before the fireplace. Wand shaking in his hand, he places a Floo Call to Thatcher Birchen. He's an Auror. More importantly, he was Theseus's friend from his Hufflepuff days. He wouldn't betray Theseus, not willingly.

When Thatcher's face materializes in the coals of the fireplace it looks unhappy to see him.

"Theseus, you shouldn't be calling me here. You didn't leave us on the best terms-"

"I know, I'm sorry. I wouldn't reach out if it wasn't an emergency."

"I'm not keen to talk to you regardless," Thatcher snaps. But he doesn't end the Floo Call.

Theseus realizes with a pang that Thatcher is scared. But Theseus doesn't understand why. He's diligently avoided all news press and talk about the Ministry these last two months, hoping to avoid you. No Ministry talk, no new editions of The Daily Prophet, just work with his hands. Moving a rag over the wooden counters at the potion shop, running the numbers and taking up accounting. Restocking boxes of ingredients.

This seems to him, now, to have been a great and careless mistake.

He thought you'd be running the Auror Office now, taking names, that Newt could reach out to you at a crucial, appropriate time.

"Did..." He has to ready himself to say your name aloud. "Thatcher, did something happen to Y/N? I saw a flyer today that said she's missing, that she is wanted under suspicion of espionage. Did something happen while she was working as an Auror?"

Theseus doesn't want to reveal too much. He's worried bringing you to the gala in Berlin and the Mausoleum in France that weekend in November might have already incriminated you.

"Theseus," Thatcher explains in a hushed tone. "Y/N Y/L/N never filled the post at all. I-I heard something about a potential offer the day you quit, but she disappeared that very night."

Theseus can hardly hear the rest of what Thatcher is saying, his whole body has gone numb.

"No one saw her in the weeks after her disappearance. It was assumed she'd taken up with Grindelwald. It had already been proven that she'd stolen some important documents from the Ministry Archives-"

"How?" Theseus's voice breaks on the word, miserably.

Thatcher sighs sympathetically.

"They found her wand and analyzed it. Found a spell that made copies of documents associated with the Ministry Archives. Hence the assumption, hence the wanted posters they put up a while ago..."

Theseus knows this could never be true. You and Grindelwald.

"What do you mean by 'found her wand''?" He asks with sudden, horrific clarity. You've been missing this whole time. Without a wand.

"That same night you resigned. They found it in front of Kings Cross Station."

The air is sapped from the room, Theseus unthinkingly flings some fresh coals onto the Floo Call with a limp palm, it collapses the shape of Thatcher's face and the call crumbles into nothing. He didn't say goodbye, he has to get some air.

He's so taken aback, reeling with nausea, that he has to brace himself against the wall with both hands. He keels over and dry heaves for a few seconds.

Two months you'd been missing.

And they'd found your wand at the station. You'd been coming, coming for him. This whole time he'd thought...

Newt bursts into the room, Aberforth is standing behind him looking uncertain, alert.

"Theseus! Aberforth told me--But... What's going on?!"

Theseus stands and closes the door so it's just the two of them. He's wearing the apathetic, half-conscious expression of a sleepwalker.

Newt takes a seat in the wooden chair.

"Newt... Grindelwald has her. He's had her this whole time. Since the day I quit the Ministry."

"I..." Newt's reaction doesn't satisfy Theseus. He looks troubled, but only vaguely.

"Newt," Theseus starts again with newfound frustration, passion. "While we were laying low, writing your book, restocking shelves, while we were brought up to the castle at Christmastime, Y/N has been in his custody! Tortured, starving, alone, I don't know. When I think about it, it kills me. I can't handle it-"

"We don't know if she's even alive, Theseus," Newt says this rationally, albeit unhappily. "Grindelwald doesn't keep prisoners unless they are valuable, important. She might be dead. When I heard she wasn't promoted to an Auror in November-"

"November?"

Cold rushes into Theseus's veins. There is no silence as deadly as the one that follows. He can feel his blood crystallize and crack, it’s too bodily a sensation to even call it shock. It’s betrayal.

“You knew?”

All those months collapse into nothing, they mean nothing to him.

For so long Newt kept his distance, felt misunderstood by Theseus and their mother for the path he chose in life. And yes, perhaps Theseus did misunderstand, did judge him for it, never took his career or his interest in magical beasts seriously. Maybe he was berating at times, suffocating with his good, brotherly intentions, and they’d drifted apart as adults.

But these last eight weeks in Hogsmeade they’d mended that, delicately, bruisingly, as one mends small bones, with small intrusions and concessions. Quiet conversations, sessions where Theseus helped him turn his work into something resembling a book, living together for the first time since they were children.

But that means nothing to Theseus now, nothing.

Newt doesn’t meet his eyes, the shame too heavy to lift his head. He’s sitting, hunched over in his chair like it is mounted to the floor.

“No,” Newt breathes out. “No, Theseus. I knew she never became Head Auror. I knew it went to… to someone else, but I didn’t know she was missing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?" His voice is torn-sounding. More hurt than enraged. "You didn’t even suspect—you didn’t reach out once?! I don’t believe you.”

“I swear it to you—“

“You should’ve told me.”

“You told me she didn’t love you!” Newt looks up at last, eyes wild with the panic of a cornered animal. “That she didn’t choose you! I-I don’t know what we could’ve done for her even if we did know…”

That there is a new wound, it blackens Theseus’s heart to hear it.

“I know Dumbledore knows where Grindelwald is. Christ, it was Y/N who stole those documents from the Ministry archives, those maps! We can go to her."

Newt just keeps shaking his head at the floor. It makes Theseus want to go up to him and shake him.

"If it were me, Newt, you would’ve come for me….”

“That’s different. We don’t do these sort of rescue missions, they’re too dangerous. Grindelwald, he—he’s untouchable.”

“You make me ashamed. You have always, always been braver than me. I didn’t realize it before, when we were kids, but you have. You were never a coward, Newt. Don’t let this fight change you.”

“Theseus, if we try to rescue her we will lose everything. I cannot risk this, cannot risk them.”

No one else is in the room but Theseus knows who he means. Jacob. Tina. And the other ragtag insurgents who have found their way into Newt’s crew over the last two months, who have decided to set aside their lives to fight.

Newt is staring at him pleadingly. Theseus feels he doesn’t recognize him anymore, feels as if he is standing in the room all alone. The space between them stretches and stretches until Theseus speaks again.

“No,” Theseus’s throat is dry, his voice subdued. He shakes his head. “No, I wouldn’t ask you to… I’ll go alone.”

“Theseus, please don’t—“

He turns and leaves, cutting the conversation short.

This has never been negotiable. He let you slip away from him once, asked you to, encouraged you to in his last letter.

He would not let you be lost again.

———

You almost miss being tortured. Well, no, that isn't true.

But anything seems preferable to this ever-expanding, engulfing nothingness. After that first week of torture and questioning in which you revealed nothing they wanted to hear (thankful that Newt had kept you in the dark), none of Grindelwald's followers entered your cell. They don't even feed you often enough to keep you alive, but it seems more like carelessness, derision for your muggleborn blood status, than like they are trying to kill you.

If it weren't for Queenie you would've starved to death.

The first time Queenie slipped into your cell to sneak you some bread you tried to kill her. Her reading your thoughts and reciting them aloud, frantically, as if they would save her or prove her allyship, actually did save her. She stunned you into a dumbfounded stupor. You'd never met someone with her abilities before.

She was a funny woman. A devoted follower of Grindelwald who revealed little and had an oversensitive disposition, but you soon grew to appreciate her clandestine visits. She was kind. Remarkably so. Not only for feeding you, but for sitting and talking to you at all. That was its own kindness.

You thought you knew loneliness before, but this...

You knew your mind was a hostile place, even before you were brought here. But being left alone with yourself was the worst torture Grindelwald could've thought up.

You distract yourself with your less injurious thoughts, and avoid thoughts of Theseus at all costs.

Those are so painful you dare not think his name. In your mind, a blotted, blacked-out figure remains in his stead, a hole you've torn out yourself. In those first days, you'd repeated his name out loud, like a mantra, and thought of him liberally and without pause, even while you were being tortured.

"Theseus. Theseus. Theseus. Come save me. Please, come find me."

What waste. No one was coming. All you had ahead of you was this nothingness.

Sometimes, lights move outside the slit in your wall--too pathetic of an opening to be called a window. You can’t even see out of it, it just lets in cold air. Those shadows and flashes of light are the only color in your world. Sometimes when you look down at yourself, even your hands look black and white, made sepia and sickly gray.

The lights are sometimes orange, swooping lights, like arcs of fire being dropped overhead. Sometimes green, watery, glowing darkly like moonstone or bioluminescence. What you see aren't the spells themselves, but just the brilliance they cast into your room from the courtyard.

You don't know what Grindelwald is doing, what sort of spells are producing these bursting, sporadic hues.

You lie sideways on the floor and stare at them playing out against your wall, soft glowing spots sinking and rising.

They remind you of the magical lights, bobbing and hanging mid-air, that the Ministry decorated the Atrium ceiling with for the annual Christmas party. That was one year ago, though it feels like a past life, or a dream...

----

One Year Ago, December

You'd never heard the Atrium so full of people and life. It was usually bustling with conversation and noise, but this sort of noise, the happy noise of laughter and popping champagne bottles and high-spirited chatter, that was new.

You crossed your arms, glass in hand, watching contentedly from the sidelines. You never knew how to conduct yourself when Theseus was with Leta, you strangely felt as if you'd be caught doing something wrong. So you endeavored to avoid them both.

And besides, it had shocked you, the dull knife-turn of pain you felt watching him with her, talking to her in the corner at the beginning of the party.

You'd gone mute for the night, head swimming, gazing at the decorative lights floating overhead. All your thoughts felt buoyant, distant and hard to grasp, bobbing in and out. You knew you were spacing out, but you couldn't stop, maybe it was the mulled wine.

You had just turned down the promotion earlier that day.

"We're going to you directly to ask if you want it. We wanted to ask you first," the department head had said with great satisfaction, like he was delivering you a personal gift. "We know if it were up to Theseus he'd have you by his side 'till he retires!"

The last part was said with a half-joking laugh, but you'd tilted your head in confusion.

"Sorry, what?"

The man scoffed.

"He likes you very, very much, Y/N," the man said, like it was obvious. "He's made that explicitly clear to his colleagues who were hoping to share you as an assistant early on. It was his express wish that you work with him alone."

'He likes you very, very much.'

The idea of being liked, chosen by him... It was like a shooting star crashing over your head, light falling around you in bright shards, fatal, dazzling, undeserved.

You startled when you felt a hand on your forearm.

"Y/N," Theseus said, pulling you out of your thoughts. "There you are."

He'd been looking for you. The thought made your heart soar, felt like being chosen all over again.

There was a wild merriment in his eyes. You couldn't tell if he was tipsy or just happy to see you.

"Here I am," you echoed in confirmation.

"Dance with me?" Before you could answer he cautiously pulled both of your hands, winding his fingers through yours and slowly guiding your arms in and out to the rhythm of the song.

You couldn't help but give into him, smile, laugh, you were never not going to say yes.

"Where's Leta?" You didn't want to ask, to ruin the moment, but it seemed right to.

Theseus shook his head and made a tutting, disappointed noise, twirling you around.

You dipped your head back and the lights whirled overhead, too radiant to be stars.

"She left. She doesn't like to dance. Doesn't like parties, actually."

As if afraid you were going to leave him, as if just to hear your laugh again, he spun you once more, more vigorously.

"Dance with me, Y/N," he bemoaned.

You laughed again and let yourself be spun and caught by his arms.

"Aren't I doing that now?"

"Good," he said resolutely, pleased. His smile was infectious. "Don't stop."

You felt like a girl again, weak in the limbs and susceptible to all sorts of hope, the dangerous kind. His hands in yours, the dazzled look in his eyes as they beheld you.. You regretted nothing.

"I won't leave until you tell me to, sir." You added in the honorific sarcastically, to keep the tone light, but the look on your face was terribly earnest. "I promise. You'll have to send me away."

----------

You don't remember falling asleep while looking at the lights on your wall. You didn't mean to think about the Christmas party, about him.

More often than not, more often than even the nightmares about rabid dogs and black water rising and the orphanage, you dream about the last train home. About the night your parents died.

Your family was poor. You did not hold this against them. You were too young to do anything but love your parents dearly, indiscriminately. You were barely seven years old, but you worked most days in the factories of East London and were happy to help, to not be burdensome like the hungry, needy children in story books.

That evening after work you'd been distracted, playing with a stray dog with some other children, and you missed the last train home. You resolved to sleep at the station, flat on the ground of the platform, and take the first train in the morning.

Your parents had gone out looking for you and were killed in a nondescript alleyway, found with their empty pockets turned-out. You dream about that night, that platform on the London Overground, you fear missing that train.

And, now, that is not the only missed train that haunts you.

Someone's here.

You wake, instantly. Your eyes open with a dispassionate immediacy.

There's no train. Fingers twitching, you instinctually reach for your wand for what must be the thousandth time, to protect yourself. Its absence feels full-circle almost.

You remember how you couldn't sleep your first year at Hogwarts, you'd stumble to class with tormented little dark circles under your eyes. You were too terrified to sleep, kept fearing you'd wake up and be back at the orphanage, that it would all be taken away from you if you didn't keep your eyes open.

Strangely, since you arrived in this cell, you haven't had any trouble sleeping at all. You sleep most of the day away curled up on the floor like a baby.

"Queenie," you mutter, sitting up falteringly. "Watching me sleep, are you?"

Queenie is standing with perfect posture in the corner of your cell, by the door, wringing her hands.

"I don't know how you sleep like that, on the floor..." She seems genuinely upset when you look up at her. “You must miss all your things. Your home. Your family… I’m so sorry this has happened to you.”

You shake your head slowly.

“No. I was born with nothing, nothing. This room it feels…” You glance around, as if seeing it through Queenie’s eyes, seeing it for the very first time.

Metal chair with a missing leg in the corner. Filthy blanket on the floor. It’s more barren than awful, anyone could’ve lived here.

“It feels familiar to me," you admit.

Queenie says nothing, eyes wide. Since you met her here, she’s never seemed at ease, never seems to know what to say. For a moment the two of you just sit there in vacant silence, neither of you really present.

"You don't say his name anymore."

You don't even want to acknowledge the comment, you stare at the corner of the wall and hope what she's said will just go away if you don't.

"Theseus," she says explanatorily, as if you didn't understand her. The word is an affront from her mouth, worse than a slap, it makes your stomach twist. You feel exposed. "Do you...Do you feel betrayed by him? That he hasn't come..."

You close your eyes to gather your bearings.

"No," you say. "It would be very strange, almost a pleasure, if anyone in the world could betray me. Stab me in the back. I don't trust or know anyone well enough for that. I wish."

You're trying to sound self-deprecating, maybe even funny, but there's no energy behind it.

Queen looks at you sadly, sympathetically. Sometimes you forget about her ability to hear your thoughts. How futile it is to lie to her now. It embarrasses you, that you still care what she thinks. That you're still attempting to shirk off your pain for her sake.

“But Queenie,” you turn your head to her, defeat written all over your face. “Queenie, my God, what am I doing here?”

Your life is in tatters again and you don’t even know why. They tortured and questioned you when you first arrived, but you hadn't seen anyone but Queenie since.

“You’re a spy. You were working with the Scamanders,” she recites this as if reading off a rap sheet. It’s clear it’s what she’s been told, and is the flimsy, defensive logic she’s using to justify you being here.

“So why hasn’t he killed me already?” You can’t help how lifeless your voice sounds, almost bored.

Too much pain is a deadening, desensitizing thing. At some point, it ceases to be effective. Grindelwald’s followers have pushed you past that point.

Queenie’s expression shutters closed.

She always seems so conflicted, whether she’s helping you or following Grindelwald’s orders, there’s some secret turmoil eating her up inside.

“Please,” you say.

“Grindelwald thinks you could play an important part in his plans, in the Spring. It’s… Do you know The Predictions of Tycho Dodonus?”

You know it from school. You think back to the Lestrange Mausoleum, to what Newt told you.

“Prophecy 20? But Credence he can’t be-“

“No, Prophecy 21.”

You stare at her, not following.

When she speaks it’s as if her voice comes from behind her, not from her. The prophecy tumbles from her painted mouth and fills the desolate cell:

“Come bleeding springtime,

come new leaves, come bone:

A lone daughter destined,

Without bloodline or home,

To transform darkest skies,

With great power, unknown.”

She looks at you meaningfully.

You scoff.

“Kill me then. That I am living…. Your Grindelwald is a fool.”

Queenie bristles defensively. “No! H-He is a great man who-“

You wave her off, weakly.

“There are plenty of muggleborn witches without homes, Queenie. Just head to the orphanage Hogwarts plucked me from in North London and you’ll see. The prophecy is not about me. I’m nothing special. I’m nothing…”

You know your fatigue isn’t natural. Despite Queenie’s best efforts, you are malnourished. Made simple-minded and irritable because of it. Frail.

You don’t hide your spell of faintness as well as you hoped to. Your eyelids are low, sedated.

Ever the mother hen, Queenie rushes to your side, kneeling.

“Let me sneak in more food, honey. Just give me a moment, I can-“

“Wand,” you say, your voice battered and forceless. It’s a strain to lift your eyes to meet Queenie’s then, to open them. But you make a point to.

Your voice is feeble, but your eyes are challenging, fierce.

“Queenie, if you really want to help me, get me a wand.”

“Y-You’re too weak. Even if I could get one to you, it would be too difficult for you to escape, to fight them, there’s—“

Your laugh is so deranged sounding, so sharp and unhinged that it silences her, cuts through the empty room bright and blade-like.

“Queenie,” you sigh. “Why do all wizards talk like that? Magic is the easiest thing in the world. Besides, you haven’t seen me fight.”

-----

No one expects it.

You've been so docile and half-alive after being tortured, the guard who brought your meal is so confused he doesn't fight back at all, merely tumbles backwards with astonished, wide eyes until you're able to knock him unconscious.

When Queenie brought you the wand earlier that day you'd tried in vain to convince her to come along with you. To escape and return to her sister, Tina.

She hadn't even said no, she just said, "I'm sorry."

Your legs wobble with every hurried, barefoot step. God, you don't know when the last time you walked was, nevertheless ran. It doesn't help that the castle is foreign to you. Queenie's succinct directions did little to capture the sheer, gargantuan size of the building.

Turn left. Down the staircase. Turn right. There's a locked door at the end of the hall. There might be guards on the other side.

You recite the instructions again and again, more to stay sane than to memorize them.

You round a corner too fast and are met with three men, dressed in dark tailored-suits. You unleash three spells, one for each, quick, tearing through them before they can even turn. You don't breathe, you don't miss.

You feel sorry for it, but you can't afford to be delicate or careful or merciful. Every second you're here is a moment Grindelwald could realize what's going on and come kill you in a heartbeat.

Hearing the ruckus, another man comes flying down the main hall, snarling.

"Avada Kedavr-"

You spot the exit and don't stick around, ducking your head and tumbling out into the courtyard, twisting your ankle but not missing a beat.

You keep running forward, stumbling, half-delirious, out towards the main iron gate.

You're shocked to find yourself at the summit of some snowy mountain. The world is blindingly white. The building you've come from is some stony fortress, more grand than you'd imagined from the bleak confines of your cell.

The air is arid, thin and dry with brutal cold. It burns to breathe in. Cuts like sandpaper in your throat.

You have to get past the gate to surpass Grindelwald's anti-apparition charm.

Almost there, I'm almost-

With a jolt you turn around. You can feel him looking at you, feel the strength of his gaze with the same recognition of a prey animal realizing they're being watched, hunted.

Grindelwald.

From the high tower window his face has gone serene with fury. Almost blank. The look in his eyes is beyond angry, it is rage in its purest, most distilled form, he hardly moves.

You tear your gaze away and lurch your body through the front gate.

You don't know where you are, you thought about apparating to London, but that's the first place they'd go to find you again.

Then you think of Hogsmeade, but it fell under the same anti-apparition wards that guarded Hogwarts.

"Nearby, then." You direct your magic, channel and funnel it all in the direction of the place before the image of it is even fully formed in your mind. "Feldcroft."

In a cutting, dizzying whoosh you are spelled away.

Feldcroft was an inconsequential village of wizardfolk, small, rural, not too far afield of Hogwarts. You'd spent one summer holiday there rather than go back to the orphanage, after your first year.

You'd helped a farmer work his land during the long summer days in return for meals and lodging. You were twelve and it was the hottest summer of your life, you hadn't known Scotland could be so hot, but anything was better than going back where you came from, terrified you'd never find your way back.

Before you've even landed you realize your folly. You were too weakened by the torture and starvation, and too far away.

You hit the ground bone-breakingly hard, but you hardly notice that dull, throbbing pain over the sharper, louder pain of being cut to slithers. Your skin twists and tears away from itself, from your muscles, in spirals and stripes. You couldn't fully stick the landing, it's an imperfect apparition, and this is the consequence.

You cry out, a crumpled heap on the frozen ground, limbs twisted and bloody.

With a rapidly blotting vision you strain your neck upwards.

"Did I make it? Am I safe?"

You don't even recognize Feldcroft. Winter had stripped all the fields and mountains of life. Summer, your childhood there, it's all long gone.

Some prophetic witch destined for greatness.

You see the blurred legs of a man approaching. When he leans down to look at your face, your limbs twitch in agonizing protest, but you're too injured to move.

"Y/N?" He says.

You inhale sharply, in pained horror.

"Y/N, I didn't recognize you."

You still can't see very well, but the liquid panic in your veins dissipates at the sound of his voice. You know him.

You hadn't recognized him at first, but it was the farmer, Mr. Howell, from what must've been a decade ago. The old man who had taken you in that summer when you were twelve. You remember him being old then, but he looks impossibly older now, ancient, really.

You don't know what to do with the recognition, with this information, but it doesn't matter because you are bleeding out and, within seconds, you feel a sweet and pain-sapping unconsciousness take you.

----

When you wake your consciousness is a flimsy, fragile thing, like trying to float a feather in air. Your vision is black and brown around the edges.

You're in a bed and Mr. Howell is putting a kettle on. You feel worse than you ever did in captivity of Grindelwald, closer to death.

"It still looks the same," you say, rasping. "I didn't recognize the village, but this house..."

A swell of weakness overtakes you again and your vision almost blacks out completely before returning in a soft vignette.

You can see the farmer, Mr. Howell, staring at you from across the room, at your starved body, your bloodless face.

"What happened to you?" It's so direct a question it's almost startling, almost rude. But it's said with such genuine remorse and concern that your heart softens.

"I..." He licks his lips before starting again. "When I told Minerva I'd agree to take you in that summer... Well, I thought your life was so sad. It was sad you had no one to go home to for the holiday. That your life had been so hard, she told me, about the abuse... But you were so young, such a skinny, hopeful thing. So talented. And good. I was sure it had to get better."

You smile at him, it pains you to do so. The old-you would've bristled, pride scorched, at anyone pitying you. But now you can only smile.

"I always thought the same too, sir."

"Are you in some sort of trouble?" he asks earnestly. "If you are, you're always welcome back at the farm. You know that."

Your heart seizes, your eyes well. You haven't spoken to him since that summer when you were twelve, that September when you thanked him hurriedly and spirited off with badly concealed eagerness to rejoin your friends at Hogwarts, without a glance behind.

"Thank you. It's more than I deserve, but thank you... And, yes. I'm afraid I am in trouble. I've just been a prisoner of Gellert Grindelwald. I'm sorry, I should be leaving, he could come after me."

The man looks taken aback, but ignores your words and asks instead: "Oh, Y/N, you look so unwell. Should I call for someone up at Hogwarts? The hospital wing is obviously reserved for students, but I'm sure-"

"I believe I am going to faint now, I apologize." The words come out of your mouth in an embarrassed rush. The dark edges close in and swallow you up, life itself extinguishes like a candle.

------

Theseus towers over the students at Hogwarts, he tries his best to push his way through the crowded halls without trampling them.

"Professor Dumbledore!" He calls out, giving up. Getting the man's attention must be easier than reaching him at this point.

Dumbledore looks up, startled, from across the sea of black-robed students. He's standing in the doorframe to his classroom.

Theseus imagines how he looks in Dumbledore's eyes--helpless, drowned. Maybe insane.

When Dumbledore waves him over he continues to gently push his way forward.

"I love her, I love her," he's thinking with a plummeting urgency, each internal admission of "I love her" bringing him closer to tears.

"She's not dead. If she was I'd know. I'd feel it. I'd feel her leaving me for good."

"Theseus," Dumbledore shoos the remaining students out and shuts the thick wooden door once Theseus enters. "What is this about?"

Theseus swallows hard and holds Dumbledore's gaze, trying to effuse authority.

"I need you to tell me where Gellert Grindelwald is. Right now."

Dumbledore opens his mouth in a stunted exhale, at a loss for words.

"Pardon?"

"Y/N has been taken prisoner."

"So, what, you're going to charge in there, alone, against Gellert Grindelwald and who knows how many of his supporters?"

Theseus tries not to waver, but the panic is beginning to set in. What if Dumbledore denies him?

"If I have to," he says, purposefully.

Dumbledore walks over to his desk and sits on it, stunned.

"Theseus," he says. "I've known you since you were a boy. I-I'm sorry, but I hardly recognize you. Have you no appeal to reason?"

"None at all, sir."

Dumbledore laughs, and the sound confuses Theseus, upsets him.

"You love her? God, you really do..."

Theseus is willing to destroy himself for it, for you.

"Help me. Tell me where to find her, or I'll find her on my own."

The heavy creaking sound of the door being pushed open causes Theseus to turn in agitation.

A woman in a nurse's uniform glides right past him and up to Dumbledore.

"Albus," she says in apparent distress. Theseus can't make out the rest.

After a moment of the woman's whispering, Dumbledore turns to Theseus, looking at him in sharp alarm.

"What is it?" Theseus says, unkindly. He doesn't care. He just wants to know where you are.

"Fate," answers Dumbledore. The line of his mouth is grave but his eyes are twinkling. "We've had a request from a farmer out in Feldcroft. He says a former student has apparated onto his land and is in dire need of medical care, and protection. That there could be followers of Grindelwald's coming after her shortly."

Theseus doesn't dare breathe. Doesn't let himself feel the acute bite of hope nipping at his heels, at his heart.

"He says her name is Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N."

--------

"Wake up, Y/N."

There are hands on your shoulders. Someone is touching you. Someone is-

Your whole body jerks awake. Your limbs are lashing out, fighting, before your eyes are even open.

"Get off me! Don't fucking touch me! Don't-"

"Y/N! Y/N, it's Theseus," Dumbledore is shouting. "It's okay you're safe-"

"What's happened to her?!"

Even his name didn't stall you, but the sound of his voice, pure and surreal, reaches you through the din of panic roaring in your ears. You exhale.

Once you've stopped kicking and struggling, the room comes into vision.

There are four people surrounding your bed. You're in Mr. Howell's house, of course, of course you are...

There in front of you are Professor Dumbledore, an older woman in a Hogwarts nurse uniform, Mr. Howell, and, impossibly, Theseus Scamander.

Theseus is staring at you, wide-eyed, like he doesn't recognize you. A dot of blood marks his temple, you wonder if it was you who did that just now.

"What's happened to her?" He repeats, his voice cracks. "What--Who did this to her?"

"She's been tortured, Theseus. And starved, maybe worse," says Dumbledore in a clipped, hushed way. "Please, understand, and give her some time to-"

"You're real," your voice is so quiet, so full of wonder, but it captures his full attention.

Theseus is holding his breath in apprehension. You're still staring at him in horrific fascination.

"This isn't--This is real?"

Theseus comes forward and kneels beside the bed, reaches for your arm. You can hardly look at his face, it's so startlingly beautiful. Dark blue eyes. The curve of his lips. It's really him.

"Y/N." He retracts his hand when you flinch, involuntarily. "Y/N, I'm not going to hurt you. I swear, I'm not gonna hurt you..."

You remember that you secretly love when he talks to you like this, whispers like he would to an animal he's trying to soothe, or like he's trying not to wake you. He's speaking so delicately, but you can hear in his voice how his heart is crushed.

Everyone is staring down at you in the bed. You figure you've already been treated from the wet rag on your sweaty forehead and the way every second more and more sensation returns to your fingertips and toes. Your body itches and tingles with a crawling warmth that feels like fever where your flesh has begun to stitch itself back together--the nurse's work, no doubt.

With every breath you return more and more to yourself, the dulled sensations of the world come back in startling pinpricks of color and sound and vividness. The parts of your consciousness that make you you flood back into the frail animal of your body.

"Oh," you say, with a groan, pinching your eyes closed.

Theseus looks startled, turning from the nurse to you frantically.

"Y/N! Are you okay, what's-"

"Oh, Theseus!" You sigh at last, and he looks back to you, his brow still furrowed. You smile at him, not caring how wretched and sickly you look, you're just so happy to see him. "Theseus, you came! I love you, I love you, I love-"

He throws his arms around you, leaning over the bed.

Tears spring to your eyes, but you can't stop smiling.

He won't let go of you, so you don't realize he's crying until you feel his shoulders shaking, the gentle rocking of his frame.

"You're supposed to be the one who is good at being in control," you murmur fondly.

When he pulls away he's collected himself, sniffles once and then groans.

"Oh, God. For a second there I thought you didn't recognize me, that you were scared of me."

"Not of you," you shake your head. "Of...."

The reality of your situation settles like ash in your mouth.

"Albus," you say, turning to others. "We need to go now. I escaped as quickly as I could, but they could follow me here any second. Please."

Dumbledore nods, and then whispers something to the nurse.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. But I don't believe you'll be strong enough to stand. Not yet."

"I've got it," Theseus says cooly, before you can even respond.

"Too weak to stand," you want to snicker but can't summon the energy.

"I knew that was some bullshit prophecy," you mutter, lifting your arms to help Theseus, who is leaning by the bed to pick you up.

He stops. So does Dumbledore. They're both frowning.

"What?"

"Oh," you huff. "Grindelwald thinks Tycho Dodonus's twenty-first prophecy is about me. I'm supposed to be this great witch with the power to transform the world, didn't you know?"

There is a beat of shocked silence before Theseus begins to laugh, heartily so.

You scowl. "Why is that funny?!"

"It's not funny," He caresses your face affectionately with the back of his hand. "It's just that I knew it. I always knew you were destined for greatness. Of course there's a prophecy about you. Of course the world saw you coming..."

Your heart sputters dutifully, weakly. You're torn between leaning into the feeling of his hand on your face and turning away, protecting yourself from what you cannot have.

It still feels so ruined to you. You know he must be doing this out of pity. Out of guilt.

It had been more than two months since he asked you to come with him. Who knows what he's been doing, what he thought of you now...

Your eyes prick with tears at this realization.

You see him through the lens of the memory even as he stands before you. You remember shaking his hand on your first day at the Ministry, dancing with him under twirling lights at the Christmas party, his booming laugh, his gentle chuckle. The warm, growing feeling in your chest knowing you were the cause.

You remember laying naked with him in bed, his broad hands, the barely-there freckles at his temple, the light-colored hair trailing down from his navel, the way he held your legs up when he made love to you, when he was inside you, spreading them, always trying to get deeper, closer. It should be vulgar, the memory, but it doesn't feel that way to you. Every moment of it felt clean, bathed in light and goodness.

Your heart pounds heavily, pathetically. As he helps you up from the bed you have the sickening feeling that you are saying goodbye.

Your vision swoons, sways like an overhead light. Your legs tingle, half-numb.

"I-I can't stand," you whisper. In a swift motion Theseus scoops you into his arms, bridal style.

He has to hold you sideways and duck his head to get through the narrow doorframe, he's so tall. You're asleep again, this time safe in his arms, before you're out of the village, before you can even tell Mr. Howell thank you.

Goodbye! You think. Goodbye...

------

You’re on a train again and Theseus is holding you. You hardly feel the rumble of the train car on the tracks, hardly feel anything at all but his arms around you.

“Where are we going?” You don’t even care, it’s almost perfunctory that you ask. But some distant part of your brain tells you that it does matter where you are, where you’re going in the world.

“London. You’re weak, we need to take you home.”

Home. You feel so little affection for your apartment that you’re barely able to make the connection.

“I don’t have a home.”

“We can go to mine. We can go anywhere you want.”

“I want to go…” You feel breathless, feeble. Delusional. “I want to pretend that we’re on a different train.”

“Hm?” Theseus strokes your shoulders, your back comfortingly. Since he met you, all he’s ever wanted to do was hug you, hold you. It’s as if he was meant to, how good it feels to be doing it now.

It's a terrible thing, how badly he wants to kiss you. But he's willing to wait.

“Can we pretend that I made it on time?" you say. "That I made it to the platform, got on the train that day in November and we’re in it now… Pretend that you’re still asking me to love you and that I said yes.”

He turns to you then, you’re still slouched in his arms. You’re looking up at him so brokenly, there’s hardly any of you left. No sign of that headstrong girl who withheld herself from him so vigorously, who built up walls around herself so high no one could hurt her again.

“Y/N…” The words have been stolen from him, his heart swiped from his chest at the sight of you, at the knowledge that any part of you believes that he might not want you anymore, might not feel the same.

“Y/N, will you love me?” His voice is a quiet, determined plea. “Will you say yes? I am asking you now. The offer still stands, it always will.”

It's Theseus, your handsome, wonderful Theseus, asking you this. He was the best man you knew, but, even if he wasn’t, you couldn't help but love him. It wasn't a choice for you anymore.

Your lip trembles, but you somehow manage to get the words out without whimpering, without collapsing into him outright.

“Yes,” you say. “Always.”

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