Normal Days

Oliver, as soon as his own senses come back to him, is bent over laughing his ass off. 

“YOU JINXED IT, PERCE!” 

“I THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING A MOMENT WOOD,” 

“A MOMENT IN FRONT OF SIRIUS GODDAMNED BLACK.” 

“HEY,” Sirius joins in, “MY FULL NAME’S SIRIUS BLACK III,” 

Oliver shrugs, “You heard the man, he’s Sirius goddamned Black III.” 

“Put some pants on Wood, you’re going to scare the escaped convict.” 

“Well, you didn’t seem so—” Percy WWE tackles Oliver to the bottom of the fucking lake before he can even hope to finish the sentence, fully clothed in his pajamas. 

When the newly engaged couple emerge from the lake, with drying spells galore, they undo the spells on Sirius. 

“Why’d you let me go?” He asks, rubbing at the places the rope held him against the tree. 

“You’re innocent, Pettigrew was the one who betrayed the Potters.” Percy says, rolling his shoulders and playing with his ring. Fuck, he loved this ring. 

As Percy’s thoughts wander to the best spells to preserve both his and Oliver’s rings, Sirius’ world is falling apart. 

“You know?” 

Oliver takes over, “We found out that night you and Harry were surrounded by the dementors. Pettigrew had been masquerading as the Weasley pet for the last thirteen years, he was the pet to Perce’s younger brother.” And. Oliver was a little confused, how did Percy know that Scabbers was rotten? He thought the rest of the Weasley clan didn’t find out until that year with Umbridge? Or, maybe because of their interference they just found out sooner? The Quidditch player really hopes that Percy doesn’t ask how Oliver knows that information. Luckily for Oliver, Percy is still caught up in the possible ring preservation spells. 

“Where is he now?” Sirius asks, voice calm but hands in a tight fist. The Quidditch player shakes his head. 

“We don’t know. We were caught in the dementor attack, too. We heard from Harry them that he escaped.” 

“FUCK.” Sirius cusses, kicking the dirt, then hexing the tree to vent his anger. “That little rat always ESCAPES!” He punches the tree, his knuckles turning red fast. 

This definitely draws Percy’s attention. 

“Hey! Only one of us here is good with any type of healing magic, don’t do that.” He scolds, transfiguring a leaf into a handkerchief to hand to Sirius. He accepts it, albeit a little embarrassedly. 

“So, what are you two doing out here anyways? Oh, congratulations by the way. Is this the honeymoon or something?” Sirius questions, applying pressure to his new hand. 

Percy laughs maniacally. “My loving brothers have decided that Oliver and I needed a romantic getaway. So they abandoned us in a rainforest, with the closest thing to civilization being a yank cowboy town.” Sirius looks surprised. 

“There’s a town here?” Then the rest of the sentence catches up to his, admittedly overworked, brain, “Wait, your brothers abandoned you two here? Which ones??” 

“Take a guess!” Percy is a bit mental right now. But he’s allowed to be, a lot of things have happened. Oliver takes his hand. 

“Yeah, someplace called Faith.” Oliver says, pointing in the rough direction they came from, “Pretty small, but it’s got the basics.” 

“Man, I didn’t even realize. Buckbeak and I have been camping out in some caves over there.” Oliver starts pointing at the cave system, mouthing to Percy something about luck and it’s relationship with Weasleys. Percy also starts mouthing back but it’s mean. They continue to argue back and forth, when Sirius gets a look in his eyes as he realizes something. 

“Wait, which one knows healing magic?” They both freeze. Right, they’re right out of Hogwarts. And healing magic is something only taught deep into a higher academics, usually under St. Mungo’s. So, Oliver bullshits. 

“Me. A lot of head trauma will get anyone interested in medicine.” Sirius nods, looking faraway into the distance as he plots. 

“Are you good at healing animals?” 

“What?” Oliver asks. 

“Who’s hurt?” Percy says, already kind of knowing the answer but dreading it nonetheless. 

Sirius groans, then takes a seat at the base of one of the trees that bracket their little pond. “When Buckbeak landed here, one of his legs got messed up. I don’t know if it’s broken, but he’s been unable to walk. So I’ve been getting food and water, but I’m not getting enough for the both of us.” 

“Oh, that’s not what I was expecting.” Percy replies, doing another once-over of Sirius just to make sure. Well, he still looked like shit, but Buckbeak must be in a worse state. 

“Yeah, we get that. The town has a couple of stores but the twins dumped us here without money.” 

“You’re kidding?” Sirius says, a small smile tugging at his lips at the stupidity of the situation. The twins would have made fine Marauders. 

“Nope,” Oliver says, popping the ‘p’, “Percy and I were considering robbing a bank before deciding on camping outside instead.” 

“Why rob a bank?” 

He shrugs, “Use the money to buy food.” Sirius becomes even more confused. 

“Wouldn’t they know the money was stolen. And that you two were the ones who stole it?” 

The couple looks at each other. They really should have caught that detail. 

“Well then, how would you get food from them?” Sirius shrugs, making himself more comfortable on the rock.  

“Magic. But I don’t have a wand.” Oliver barks out a laugh. 

“Why would you rob them with magic, you’re an escaped serial killer in the muggle world.” 

“Huh. I am, aren’t I.” Then, like a light clocked him over the head, Sirius beams at the other two, “I have a great idea!” 

The good town of Faith, located in an undisclosed place in Wales. It was a tourist trap, plain and simple. The local politician in charge chose western because he had a really bad obsession with those old black and white movies and a misplaced feeling of nostalgia. Misplaced nostalgia, as that politician would soon learn, is dangerous. Don’t worry, the local politician shouldn’t be mentioned other than this brief bit. 

So Faith. A wonderful little town, kept the University and high school kids employed and with a nice monetary fund during the summer months. It was pretentious, making all of the employers speak in a stereotypical Southern accent. Which led to a lot of weird scenarios with employers drawling those old Georgia slang words like “kip”, “hob” and “biscuit”. 

However, the Faith Bank, located in the near center of the town, was the apple of this politician’s eyes. It wasn’t any ordinary bank, but an old church! Get it, Faith?! Oh, those Americans and their obsession with religion. Thank goodness the British didn’t share any of that with their own grand churches. Anyway, the Faith Bank was a renovated church that was actually shipped from the Americas. It had those long glass stained windows with portrayals of the saints and Jesus Christ himself. But white washed and vaguely European looking. The pews were also shipped over, taken apart and reassembled as part of the teller, making it one of the most beautiful teller stations to exist in all of Wales. Which wasn’t particularly hard for Wales since all of their banks are fucking ugly (except for the one in Faith, of course). 

Working in Faith Bank right now were three people. The security guard, an old, old man who took up some part time work for a little bit of spare cash to spend on his hobbies. He’d just gotten into knitting and wanted to make a nice pair of socks. Next was one of those snot-nosed high schoolers who needed a part time job to ‘gain experience’ for her resume. She counts the money and mostly stays within the vault. Lastly, the teller is a middle-aged, depressed man who wanted to pursue music but couldn’t because Wales just doesn’t appreciate good old fashioned barbershop quartet with him and his three good friends. So this was plan B. 

It’s a pretty normal day, the security guard idly chatting with the depressed teller about his current knitting project. Every now and again the overeager teenager would come up from the vault for the snack table in the break room and talk story with the other two. They never got much business, other than the other employees across the shops popping in. With the residential areas of Wales located very far away, only tourists and other employees wanted to make the trek out to Faith, let alone to its isolated bank.  

“I’m tellin’ you, Gill, I don’t think it’ll work between the two of you.” The banker, Paul, says to the old security guard, Gill. Paul is trying his best to keep up the Southern accent, but it slips every now and again because realistically no one will check on them. 

“But we had a very wonderful relationship in our teens.” 

“In your teens, it sounds like you both lived through the 1800s.” 

“The late 1800s.” Gill sounds affronted, but is still smiling as he leans against the doorframe. His strength has left him in his old age. Gill had a “summer dalliance” with another man in his teens and recently ran into a chance of reuniting with him. So the whole week has been filled with “Al used to do this.” and “Al did this”. 

“But we met in the early 1900s” Gill says, sighing like a lovesick teenager while looking like a particularly expressive skeleton. 

“Well.” Paul doesn’t really know what to say to that, shuffling around sheet music he was pouring over. Paul barbershop quartet, the Four Sickos, had a gig later that week! 

“I think it sounds like a wonderful idea.” A voice pipes up. The snot-nosed teenager, Lila chimes in. “How’d you two meet anyway.” 

“Oh, it was a wonderful summer’s day. I was staying with my great-aunt in this little village. Albus and his siblings lived together, their parents recently passing. When we first met, oh.” Gill takes a moment to remember the crinkle of Albus’ eyes when he smiles, “it was like magic.” 

Before Gill could continue on any longer, the door to the bank swings open, hardened criminal and muggle killer extraordinaire Sirius Black waltzing on, holding a rope that leads to his already prepared hostages. 

“Alright everyone, put the money in the bag and no one gets hurt.” Black says, a crazed look in his eye as he waves around a gun. Lila screams, Paul pushing her towards the backroom exit. Sirius screams at them not to move. The two unnamed hostages look pointedly at the floor, scared out of their mind at the scary escaped criminal capturing them. 

“You and you!” Sirius waves his gun at Paul and Lila. Paul flinches badly, putting his hands up, “Go to the vault and fill up this bag.” Sirius tosses a sack at him. They planned beforehand and made sure to give Sirius the bag without the bottomless charm, they didn’t want the entire vault—just enough to skip town and afford a nice hotel. 

Paul shakily nods, taking Lila and running off to the back where the vault was. 

“Huh. Never thought I’d see the day a Black child would know how to use a muggle weapon.” Sirius, confused, looks over to the old security guard, then pales. Dropping the rope and gun, stepping back unconsciously to gain some distance. The ropes, which weren’t tied very well in the first place, fall at Percy and Oliver’s feet.

“H-How. How are you here?” Sirius asks, faltering at the stutter in the beginning. He needs his wand. Merlin, he just needs a wand. 

The old man laughs, and what once would have been a gentle laugh, was very pointedly cruel. “Not even death, young man, could hold me. Now let’s see how you adorn its colors. Avada Kedavra!” Gellert motherfucking Grindelwald shouts, eyes and mouth sharp as a green blast of light aims straight for Sirius goddamned Black III. 

Remember, Percy and Oliver were both sorted into Gryffindor, but Percy has never been particularly brave while in school. He was smart, yes. And followed each rule down to the line. But bravery, the action of doing something with courage and with strength behind it, never really came in until the consequences of fear and fear-mongering stared back at him with glassy unseeing eyes, and a twin face hunched over the dead. 

So now, Percy was more than willing to be brave. To forsake death because death was so intimately entwined within his own life. Stepping into the spell’s path, Percy aims his wand at the ground immediately in front of him and causes the cement blocks below to break, raising them up to absorb the spell’s effect.

For those counting at home, that’s two separate spells—one to break apart and one to lift. And those spells were coming right at Percy. Of course he didn’t fucking lift the rock before the spell made contact. 

That’s what Oliver was for, shouting “Wingardium Leviosa!” as soon as the first cement block was ready to be lifted, completely absorbing the killing curse and becoming nothing more than ash. Because Percy became more brave but Oliver became significantly less patient. 

Then, the fight took off, Percy and Oliver both hurling their spells at Grindelwald. Sirius, on the other hand, went after the two other bank employees to evacuate them. Muggles. Grindelwald was probably going to kill them. What was he even doing here? 

Sirius jumps over the, frankly beautiful, teller station—where Paul and Lila are coming back from the vault. He grabs both of them by the shoulder, forcing them out the side employee exit. “C’mon, we have to leave!” 

“What’s going on!?” Lila asks, tears falling down her face. 

“Let her go!” Paul screams at him, struggling against Sirius’ death grip on his shoulder. 

“I was framed, alright!? They’re not even hostages, I just needed to look menacing.” Sirius says, kicking the door open and forcing the both of them through it. “But that man inside is responsible for all of his crimes!” 

“Wait, where’s Gill?! Gill!” Paul shouts. 

“Why are you calling a genocidal murderer Gill.” Sirius hisses through clenched teeth, letting Lila go and covering Paul’s mouth, scared that they’d attract Grindelwald’s attention. 

“What?” Paul deadpans. 

Meanwhile, back to the trio currently duking it out, Oliver and Percy wiped the fucking floor with Grindelwald. Yes, he is fast and was one of the worst dark wizards of his time. But he’s old. And muscles that were once powerful and boosted with dark magic have long since atrophied. Meanwhile, Oliver and Percy, while physically beaten up from the war, have the bodies of teens and the magical reserves of middle-aged wizards. 

Grindelwald focused on dark magic, activated with blood and chants. But Percy was far more agile, spouting out every single goddamned type of magic he had ever learned. From making plants grow underneath Grindelwald’s feet from the buttons on his shirt to the Jelly-legs jinx, he immediately made it so Grindelwald would always be on the offensive. And Oliver? 

Well. Oliver didn’t need his wand. So accustomed to Percy’s own magic and able to dodge all of those spells, he simply hurled every single heavy thing in that bank at Gellert. It was mostly those metal poles that were used to organize the lines and chairs. But, oh boy, there were a lot of chairs and Oliver could throw fucking hard. 

A few minutes into this absolutely ridiculous barrage of attacks, an opening appeared and Oliver oh so graciously slid into that opening and clocked Grindelwald across the jaw, landing the old man square on his ass. A little dazed with what happened, Grindelwald sat up, then spat out a tooth. 

Percy ties him up. Then casts wards on him to restrain power. Then does another set of wards because he’s not taking any fucking chances. Oliver does the same, pulling some dark magic that Pomferey had taught him in the context of healing (but Oliver used it less like “will replenish blood” and more like “will overfill you with blood taken from your liquified bones”). 

Grindelwald found great joy in seeing Oliver write in that particular line of ward, laughing, “My, my, a couple of dark lords here in this town of Faith? I’m honored.” 

“Don’t be. We’re not dark lords.” 

“Yeah, we’re just helping a friend rob a bank.” 

“Oliver, don’t tell the genocidal maniac that.”

“Percy, don’t tell the genocidal maniac our name.” 

“Well, Oliver, Percy, so nice to meet you. Call me Gellert. Or Gill, as my fellow employees have found fit to nickname me.” Grindelwald, Gellert, says. Still cheery. And oddly enough, not flinching or saying “fellow employees” with any hint of disgust. 

“Will the Aurors be taking me back to Nurmengard then?” Percy and Oliver look at each other, realizing that, well. The amount of magic—of dark magic—they just used would be really bad if the Ministry found them here. Especially with Sirius. But. 

“We’ve been using magic since we’ve gotten here. I don’t think this part of the UK is on their sensor.” 

“Hm. Pity.” They relapse into awkward silence as Grindelwald takes turns staring them both down. To be fair, they stare right back, only breaking eye contact to blink. Then, the final nail in the coffin. 

“Now, what’s a couple of time travelers like you two doing in a town like Faith?” 

At their silence, Gridelwald cackles at them, “It’s so obvious, the spells? The speed? The brute strength. The…wards.” A glint in his eyes that serves as a direct contrast and intense similarity to the twinkle in Dumbledore’s. “By your surprise to see me, I must be dead in your time. Perhaps that young upstart, Riddle? Ah, nevermind he goes by—Voldemore, was it? He was my killer, yes?” 

“What do you mean by ‘two’?” Is the only thing Percy can really say. Because yeah, Grindelwald was dead in the year 2024. But so was Dumbledore and most of the old people in this current year. That doesn’t explain the ‘two’ thing, though. Because this Oliver, while he was his Oliver, was not the Oliver from his own timeline. 

Right? 

“You both traveled back in time, isn’t that right? Or was it just you, Percy? I knew a Percy once. A Yank, horrid one at that, too.” Grindelwald tangents, unaware of the revelation that has been building up for ten chapters. 

“Percy…” This Oliver said. And Percy’s eyes went to his knuckles. That wasn’t from fucking Quidditch. Or at least, it wasn’t from playing Quidditch at Hogwarts alone. 

“Oliver.” Their talk in the kitchen, even at the food court. It was easy to slip into this different time because of how comfortable he was with Oliver. Of course he was comfortable with Oliver! It was his Oliver!

“What. What was the last thing you remembered—” Their wands are stowed, now just taking the chance to really look at each other. 

“I died and you weren’t there—” The scars across Oliver’s hands, the bones were disfigured, healed over, broken again, and put back together once more. 

I died, too, I was shot, I think I was shot—” Percy got that gash on his side at the height of the war, the darkest point in the ministry.

“Oliver!” They both had their second chance.

“Percy!” They pull each other together, closing the distance, the distance that was once thought to be across timelines, and kiss. Sloppy style, the whole nine yards. And Grindelwald is a little freak, he watches the whole thing. 

After a bit, like a couple minutes, Grindelwald sighs, “Ah, young love.” Just like that, they separated from each other, Percy wiping the spit he was swapping with Oliver onto his sleeve. 

“Yeah, fuck it.” Oliver says, sitting on the floor across from Grindelwald, “C’mon Perce, now that I know you’re so definitely my Perce,” Oliver cracks a little on his wording, “I know that you charmed it so the moment he tries to fire a spell at us he evaporates.” Percy nods, sitting right next to Oliver and cuddling up to the other dude because that’s his Oliver! 

“Why didn’t you kill the muggle workers anyway?” Percy asks, “It’s been bothering me, but these would be the type of people you wouldn’t have bothered even acknowledging, let alone working with.”

Grindelwald hmms and haws, then says, “I’ll show you. And that Black child. Hopefully you haven’t scared away Paul and Lila, they might like to join as well.” 

“It sounds weird when you call him Black child.” Oliver says in response, Percy elbows him in the ribs. 

Grindelwald wrenches his shoulder as high as it can go, an awful cracking sound emanating from it, then the wards flicker, and suddenly he moves! Pushing his shoulder back into its socket, he holds his hands up to ease the worries of the two time travelers who have their wands pointed at him, “Don’t worry, they’re still there. But simply modified so I can move around.” 

“You can modify wards just by dislocating your shoulder?” Oliver asks. 

“I could have canceled out these wards just by spitting on them. But I like you two.” 

“Yeah, that’s fucking fair.” Percy once more feels that weight of impending doom on his shoulders. But this is more like when the volcanoes were happening in the Forbidden Forest and not when they were fighting the war. Insanity, maybe? Mania, probably? He shrugs, interlocking his and Oliver’s hands as they go outside of the bank. 

Sirius and the two employees, Paul and Lila, were sitting outside on the sidewalk eating churros. They were talking about Paul’s newest gig—Paul’s the bass of the group so he had one of the easier parts but the lead’s tenor part was a little difficult to follow. The both of them accepted Sirius being framed pretty fast. But were very insistent that “Gill” wouldn’t kill them anytime soon. Sirius also accepted that pretty fast when Lila showed him the employee group photos of the three wearing matching shirts for Halloween and Christmas. This easy acceptance doesn’t stop Sirius from shoving himself in front of the two employees when he sees Percy and Weasley trailing behind Grindelwald—some old types of wards hovering over his skin. 

“Guys, what is he doing still walking around?”

“Where’d you get the churros? Oh, he, uh. He’s going to show us why he’s not a genocidal maniac anymore.” Percy says. Paul snorts and Lila tries to hide her giggles. 

“Are we going to go to Rainforest Cafe?” Gellert brightens up. 

“Yes! We are going to Rainforest Cafe!” Gellert says in response, leading the group of six down the street to Rainforest Cafe.