"Ní mhaireann solas na maidine don lá." // "No morning sun lasts all day."

It wasn’t until Leta was eating breakfast alone the following morning that she noticed Tara had failed to return. And it wasn’t until she was already at the Ministry that she got the overwhelming sense that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

She didn’t even bother checking in with her own department first. Leta instead b-lined straight for the offices of Magical Law Enforcement. Swinging open the door of the Head Auror, she practically threw herself inside.

The wizard’s head picked up the moment he had heard the sound of his door opening.

“Oh. Lestrange.” he greeted politely. “I was actually just about to come ask you where-” his words died in his throat when he finally noticed her crestfallen expression. It was as if all of the blood had been drained out of her entire body.

Leta gulped with extreme difficulty before speaking.

“She never actually went out for drinks, did she?” she whispered, her voice trembling.

Theseus was up and out of his chair in an instant.

“What do you mean?”

Leta swallowed again.

“S-she told me last night that- that she was going out to drink with people- people from the Ministry but…Theseus, she never came back.”

The small witch watched as the Auror’s expression darkened with a seriousness that she had never seen before. Not from anyone in the Ministry. And that made her stomach churn even more. She brought her hands up to her face, fighting back the sob that was threatening to fall out of her throat.

Theseus opened the top drawer of his desk, his hands frantically grabbing for the piece of paper he had stored there a couple weeks prior. Upon finding it, he momentarily glanced down at the words written there before shoving it into his pants pocket. He grabbed his wand and his coat in a hurry, pretending his heart wasn’t pounding as much as it was.

“Theseus-” Leta’s shaking voice once more called out to him. “You don’t think…no one would want to hurt her, right?”

But even as the words left her mouth, she knew that she was only trying to give herself false hope. Tara had a temper and volatile nature that was well known in both worlds. There was not a single fight she would back down from, no matter how self-detrimental it could turn out to be.

“I’ll find her.” Theseus said confidently. “I want you to go home though, Leta. Just in case she comes back. Alright?”

Leta nodded her head in understanding, continuing to wipe tears from her face.

“I’ll find her.” Theseus repeated, more to himself that time, as he finally turned to storm out of his office.

Leta watched him go the entire way, her sob still lodged in her throat.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Tara spat out the blood that had begun to collect in her mouth from the most recent torture session that she had endured.

She couldn’t quite remember how long it had been since she had first gotten captured, but it had to have been at least a day. After she had taken out two of his three bodyguards, Grindelwald himself Crucioed her into submission, ordering the remaining, maimed-but-alive, follower to chain her up in the basement of the house. He seemed to think that the next logical step in the plan to get her to change her mind, had been torturing it out of her. And then when that had stopped showing promise, he had simply left her in the care of said remaining follower.

His parting words to her had been:

“I do hope you’ll reconsider. I am in need of your talents, and I am not particularly worried about how I go about obtaining them.”

Tara had simply spat in his face in response.

His follower was more or less instructed to keep a watch over her until they could figure out the next place they could move to. And he had been given permission to use whatever force he deemed necessary to hold her there until that time came.

Her wand was somewhere upstairs, so she only had her non-verbal spells to go by. She was also well out of energy by that point, and was mainly using her magic to keep herself from bleeding out from the wound on her shoulder.

Hissing, she pressed her palm onto her side, trying to quell the shooting pain that randomly spiked through her ribcage.

She must have broken a couple.

At that exact moment, she heard a loud thump against the ceiling above her. And soon thereafter the house fell eerily quiet. 

Furrowing her eyebrows tightly, Tara peered out into the darkness. That was when she heard it; footsteps, and heavy breathing as someone all but tore down the staircase and into the basement.

A blinding light hit her face, and she had momentarily held up her hand to shield herself from it.

“Shit.” she heard the person curse in a heavy whisper, following it up with her name.

When the light fell, Tara slowly lifted her head up, finding a large form now standing over her.

Instinctively, she let out a groan. Surely the universe was playing some sort of ghastly prank on her.

Theseus stared back down at her, his eyes wide with a complex array of emotions.

Tara was quick to sever eye contact.

“You should see the other guy.” she muttered.

“Merlin, Kelly.” Theseus muttered, immediately moving to unlock the chains on her ankles and wrists. Once he did so, Tara had absentmindedly rubbed her hands along the aching joints. 

She did not want to, but she glanced up at the Auror again. He hadn’t exactly moved since he freed her from her binds, so she begrudgingly pushed herself up and onto her feet, trying to hide just how painful it was for her to do so.

“We’ve got to get you out of here.” the Auror said quickly.

Tara eyed him for a moment longer.

“How did you even know where I was?”

“Forget that. I don’t know what kind of security wards they have in this place. Their backup could be here any minute.” he said, immediately offering her his hand.

Tara scowled.

“I don’t need- ah!” the witch exclaimed, suddenly keeling over.

The surprise of Theseus’ arrival had made her forget to reapply her magic to the wound on her arm. It began to pulsate painfully, a line of blood once more beginning to crawl down her arm.

“Tara!”

She continued to hiss in pain, trying to quickly formulate a protest that she was fine, but in what seemed to be damn near comedic timing, her broken ribs flared as well, causing her to gasp for breath.

Theseus didn’t say another word, just forcefully slung her non-injured arm over his shoulder. He practically lifted her up off of the ground before finally apperating them out of the apartment.

The two wizards hobbled down the dark and empty London streets. The only sounds around them being that of their combined shuffling footsteps.

“Did you get my wand?” she had managed to ask him after a while.

“Yes.”

Tara stumbled slightly, and Theseus was quick to help keep her up on her feet as best he could.

“I need a breather.” 

“We need to get you off the street first.”

“Just a moment…” she whispered, trying to blink out the spots in her eyes.

She heard Theseus sigh, and then gently he slid her arm off of his shoulder, only to move in front of her instead. The Auror then crouched low to the ground, so that Tara suddenly found herself staring at the scope of his back. 

“Get on,” he ordered. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

Despite her pain, Tara still managed to quirk an eyebrow upwards.

“In what world do you think-?”

“I’m not going to argue with you. You either climb on freely, or I’ll do it myself.”

Tara let out a disgruntled huff, and a beat of tense silence passed between them. Ultimately, the witch shifted forward, grumbling under her breath as she went.

“If you tell anyone about this, Scamander, I’ll kill you.” 

“Oh I know.”

Sighing in resignation, Tara draped her arms over his shoulders as best she could. He then quickly stood back up, hooking his arms under her knees in order to keep her secure against him. 

Theseus then started up back down the street again, at a significantly faster pace than they had been traveling before.

“Where are we going?” she asked after a moment.

“Safe house.” was all she got for an answer.

Tara didn’t press, the pain quickly clouding her mind. She weakly attempted to apply magic to her shoulder, but the last bit of her strength had left her by that point. Slumping forward, she rested her entire dead weight against Theseus’ back.

About fifteen minutes later, Theseus was pushing open the front door of a small townhouse with his foot, bringing the two wizards through the dark threshold. As he continued to walk forward, he quickly called out a spell that illuminated the lights of the hallway.

Tara peered out through squinted eyelids, taking in the brief flash of the walls that passed them by, as well as the living room that appeared on their right just before Theseus turned around another sharp corner.

She found herself in a kitchen next. The walls were a mute, bland color, as were the cabinets. And from her initial glance, she was fairly certain that the entire room was empty.

Theseus crouched down slightly, letting Tara slip off of his back. 

“Get on the counter.” he ordered next. “We need to take a look at your arm.”

Tara rolled her eyes in response.

“No we don’t. Once I rest, I’ll be able to heal it myself.”

“You’ll bleed out before then.”

Tara attempted to remain defiant, purposefully swallowing the next wave of pain that traveled through her body. But somehow, Theseus saw it. His eyes quickly darkened with purpose, and had snatched her up by the waist and placed her onto the surface of the kitchen counter before she could even think of any words of protest.

Now at eye-level, the two glared harshly at each other, only inches of space in between their angry expressions. 

“Now is not the time for your stubbornness.” Theseus all but growled. He then grabbed a hold of her arm, turning it over so that his eyes could get a better look at the gash itself. It was fairly deep, the skin around it jagged and uneven. “This isn’t from a curse.”

Tara scoffed bitterly.

“Well aren’t you a proper Sherlock Holmes.” she muttered. “That would be a stab wound.”

Theseus’ eyes angrily flickered back up to meet hers.

“Your indifference is infuriating.” he said, reaching for the wand in his back pocket.

“Really?” Tara replied. “‘Cause I thought it was one of my winning personality traits.”

“Hold still.” Theseus instructed, ignoring her outright.

For the first time that night, Tara obeyed without an argument.

Theseus held her arm in place strongly as he raised the tip of his wand up to the split skin. He then began to mumble an incantation under his breath. 

Tara immediately sucked in a gasp of air as she felt her skin begin to pull itself back together. The trail of blood that had made its way almost entirely down her arm, followed the path that Theseus had made back up and into the semi-cavernous wound. The muscles, skin, and nerves began to stretch out towards each other under the magical assistance, causing her to bite down on the inside of her cheek hard. The pain only continued to heighten as her cells were quite literally being forced back together.

“Sorry.” Theseus said after a few more moments of silence. 

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Tara tilted her head away from him as much as she could.

Once the cut was entirely brought back together, Theseus then cast a bandaging charm on the entire upper half of her arm. The fabric appeared around her healing skin, pulling taut, and only then did Theseus finally place his wand down, resting it on the counter space to her left. 

Tara rubbed her hands up and down the bandages a few times, absentmindedly tugging at the edges.

“Stop fussing with it.” Theseus scolded.

Tara looked back up at him with another fiery glare, finding his own gaze just as unrelenting. 

She dropped her hand from her arm with a purpose.

“You stole the address from my desk, didn’t you?” she accused him. “That day I found you in my office.”

Theseus clenched his jaw, but did not humor her with a response.

Scoffing, Tara poked at the inside of her cheek with her tongue.

“Why?” she demanded next. And when he didn’t respond this time, she quickly grew angrier. “Why Theseus?!”

“I’m Head Auror. It’s my job to investigate any and every link to Grindelwald.” he finally answered through gritted teeth.

“And when did you find out it was Grindelwald contacting me?”

Theseus swallowed.

“Same time you did.” he admitted. “That day in the archives.”

Tara let out another angry huff of air, a harsh silence once more blanketing the kitchen.

“What did he want?” Theseus attempted to ask, after giving her a few more minutes of silence to stew in.

Without meaning to, Tara had let out a short, unamused laugh. She then tilted her head back up to look at the wizard in front of her.

“He wants me to be the General of his army.” she replied, still able to hear Grindelwald’s voice echoing around inside of her head.

Theseus’ expression quickly fell.

“And what did you say?” he asked, his jaw now locked.

Tara’s eyes flared, her visage morphing back into a more defensive one.

“The fuck does it look like I said?” she spat, gesturing to her arms and the other littered cuts and bruises that decorated the rest of her body.

The Auror let out a long breath through his nose.

“Sorry. I had to ask.” he replied. “Occupational hazard.”

Tara just rolled her eyes.

“You know, I always knew you hated me, Scamander.” she started, moving to push herself off of the counter. “But insinuating that I’d join those pure-blood fecks is a particularly low blow-”

“Woah, wait, you shouldn’t be moving so-”

Tara screeched out a curse. 

In his effort to keep her from jumping off of the counter, Theseus had stuck out a hand to block her movements, hitting her ribcage with his palm.

“What? What is it?” Theseus asked worriedly as she grunted in pain, clutching her side.

“Broken ribs, asshole.” she spat, beginning to breathe past another spike of pain.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, moving for his wand.

But Tara was quick to intercept him, grabbing his arm.

“Don’t.” she barked, heaving another breath in. “This isn’t my first time breaking my ribs. And the last time I used magic to heal them, the bones fused slightly wrong. Let my body get this one naturally.”

Theseus looked like something in him wanted to argue, but couldn’t seem to actually formulate a response that would effectively go against her logic. So in the end, he relented.

“Fine.” he said. “You should get some rest then.”

Tara was not opposed to that suggestion.

Theseus had let her know where the main bedroom was, offering to help her up the stairs, but she had refused his assistance. 

Once she disappeared upstairs, he himself slunk into the living room, eventually falling into a dreamless sleep against the cushions of the couch.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───