Traces

Percival Graves

Newt had gone to take a shower, leaving Percival to pace around as he tried to sort out his thoughts.

Piqquery was not going to like the news about his almost wraith turning episode, but he had no choice but to tell her. She trusted him and Percival owed letting Newt tell her for the sake of everyone, Newt included.

He sighed, and almost startled a little at the sound of the doorknob turning.

The door to the small guest room went up and Newt came walking in with a pair of light blue cotton pajamas and, his hair a bit curly and wet from the shower. 

It felt intimate in a way and Percival had to turn around in order to not let Newt see his red face.

“Blue looked good on him,” he thought.

“Are you alright? Do you have a fever, or something?” he heard the other man ask him as he felt a hand on his forehead touch him, making him flush even more before he realized what he had missed earlier during his wraith episode.

“Wait, you can touch me?” Percival’s voice made Newt recoil a little, his hand falling down to his side as he realized too that he could in fact touch a ghost.

“Oh. Seems like I can,” he said, looking awed as he slowly raised his hand towards Percival’s cheek again before stopping himself, a bit unsurely. 

“It’s okay,” Percival murmured, more softly this time, trying to coax the man to try to touch him again. 

He had no idea why Newt could touch him as well, and perhaps it should have made him confused because it made things even more puzzling, but instead it just made him happy.

Once again, the fluttering feeling in his stomach started to grow again and Percival had to take a deep breath out in relaxation as Newt’s hand finally made itsef’s way to rest gently on Percival’s cheek again.

“Does that mean you can touch me too?” 

Newt looked at him a bit curiously and Percival slowly raised his hand to find out the answer.

He almost let out a gasp as his rough hand touched Newt’s soft skin, his hand cupping the other man’s cheek gently as he stared into the eyes in front of him.

The pull that had felt so content before thanks to Newt’s close presence was almost singing in happiness by now, and by the look of it Newt could feel it too.

“I-,” Newt started, squirming a little as he blushed, making Percival smile in fondness. 

“Yes, Newt?” He asked teasingly as he leaned more forwards into the magizoologist’s space.

“Do you-” Newt had barely started his sentence when the door once again went up with a sudden bark, making the two of them scramble away from each other, the little moment they had been having being immediately broken.

Queenie sheepishly smiled as she lowered her foot, coming inside the room with one cup of cocoa trailing along with a tray of biscuits after her.

“Sorry, I put in too much power because I was so focused on the magic…” Her voice trailed off as she looked up to see Newt, looking anywhere else but her with a flustered expression.

“Why do you look so guilty, Newt? ” she asked, spelling the cup and tray to gently flow down onto the nightstand between their beds. 

“Uh…” Newt eloquently said as he threw the blanket over himself in an attempt to hide.

“Hmmm..” Queenie hummed for a moment before her face broke off into a grin.

“That’s great news, honey! I’m sure Teen too would like to report this back to the president,” she said and Percival wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear a hint of something mischievous in her tone.

“No, Queenie! I’m sure that’s necessary,” Newt said as he scrambled to untangle himself from the blanket mess.

“Why? I’m sure Piqquery would like this to report back to both Abernathy and Flamel?”

Newt looked a bit puzzled, and Percival could only groan in embarrassment as he understood that she was teasing the two of them. 

Well, Newt mostly, but still..

“Isn’t that right, director?” She called out, managing to make her gaze land spot on Percival’s face, making the director shudder a little.

How on earth had she done that?

“Abernathy and Flamel..?” Newt’s voice asked a bit confusedly, and before Queenie could say anything else Percival shot in.

“She’s teasing you. She’s not talking about… our moment earlier on,” Percival hastened to say before slowing down.

“She’s talking about informing the investigative teams about the fact I can touch you as well. It may help with their investigation so…”

Newt made an ah sound shortly before promptly burying himself back into his blanket again.

Queenie just laughed in fondness. "Oh, honey. You're just so easy to tease sometimes," she said, patting Newt’s head in amusement before making her way out of the room.

“I assume the director told you I was just messing around,” She said smilingly, a hand on the doorknob before her voice turned a bit serious all of a sudden.

“Be careful with him, yeah?”

And this time Queenie didn’t have to look at him in order for Graves to understand that she was talking to him while referring to his most recent episode.

Becoming a wraith that could physically hurt Newt would be horrifying after all.

----------

Sophie Lamar

The missing people’s department was a peculiar place.

It did look like a regular office that you would think you could find within the ministry with its interior and decor which was a bit dark and rustic themed, as well as the many pamphlets hung on the walls to inform people of their many different standard procedures, etc.

No, it was more like the people working there that made the department so strange.

A lady with dark hair and a serious expression had seen her in.

She had sent her a brief smile before getting right down to business and that was okay, because Sophie knew that time was of the most importance here and that they therefore had to get straight to the point.

“So, he failed to come home one evening two days ago, is that right?” The lady asked as she scribbled down something with her quill in her notebook.

“That’s correct. He sometimes stays over at work so I didn’t think that anything was amiss at first, but then he failed to answer all of my messages and that’s not like him.”

Sophie took a deep breath as she clasped her shaking fingers in her lap. She willed the tears that were threatening to come out back down again.

“Then I went to check on him in his shop, only to find it empty and unlocked. He always locks up his shop if he goes somewhere.” 

It really wasn’t like her grandfather to behave like this so when he hadn’t turned up and failed to answer her messages, she knew she had to act.

“Had he been behaving any differently recently? Any worries or out of the ordinary?” the auror lady’s colleague asked her, the man who was the reason for this whole touch of strangeness in the situation.

He kept looking to the side after every single answer she gave and stared at the wall a bit too intensely for her to know what to make of it. 

And then, most strangely of all. He was talking to the wall as well and his auror colleague treated it like it was the most normal thing ever.

“Uhm, yeah. He mentioned he had cleared his debt and had been looking happier recently. Although that happiness seemed a bit short lived. He soon started to come home looking exhausted and, uh..” 

Sophie hesitated a little as she tried to think of how to describe the way her grandfather had been acting right before his disappearance,

“I guess, paranoid?”

The way her grandfather had been discreetly trying to check his back every other 15 minutes hadn’t been lost on her, but at that time she hadn’t thought too much of it. 

“I should have asked,” she thought bitterly to herself, thinking how her grandfather may have been home and safe now if she had.

“Well, I’m sure you know that we have to act fast since almost two days have passed since his disappearance.” Sophie nodded at that and the auror lady seemed to take that as a confirmation that she had understood what she was saying and continued on.

“We’re going to be looking into his store first, seeing as that’s where he most likely was seen last according to a witness statement that places him there at 6 o’clock,” the auror lady said, moving to close her notebook.

“We’re also going to go through bank statements, personal information, etc to look to see where he got the money from seeing as there is no one else you can think of that could be after him with bad intentions in mind.”

Sophie smiled bitterly at that.

Her grandfather was a kind man, someone that had raised her after her parents had passed, always making sure she had whatever she needed and more, but she knew that it was suspicious of him to disappear so soon after clearing a debt. 

She just hoped he hadn’t gotten the money to clear the debt from any shady type of business, but something told her that he most likely had been.

“Oh, grandpa,” she thought to herself as she offered a meek bye to both the serious auror lady and her strange, loony like colleague who was now staring at the wall while nodding to himself.

“Percival- I mean the director says…” was all that she could hear before she left the room, the door shutting itself loudly in the bustling department.

She wondered for a brief moment if she should hang out in the noiseful place for a little while.

Everything just so that she didn’t have to go home to her grandpa’s lonely and quiet place.

----------

Porpentina “Tina” Esther Goldstein

“These bank statements definitely don’t add up according to the accountant we spoke with from Pretty parchments,” Tina showed the papers to where Newt and hopefully the director was standing.

“Mr Otton never placed an order like this for color changing quills on this date. It’s most likely a placeholder for something else, and the value is probably not right, either.”

Newt nodded to her words, tilting his head a bit to the side in contemplation.

Tina was getting used to the sight of Newt talking to the director like this. 

She could only imagine what it must have looked like for other people though, people that had not been briefed about Percival being a ghost.

Sure, rumor had gone its way down in the whole auror apartment in the ministry, but the president had issued a strict order to not spread it more around after that as they still were investigating and therefore needed to keep their cards close to their chests until they knew more about the game they were playing.

They still had so little information about the situation after all.

“Percival was right about it being connected to smuggling then?” 

And that was another interesting thing Tina had noticed about the duo in front (presumably) of her. 

Newt had started calling the director by his first name, something that she only had her the president use once in front of her. And she was willing to bet that the director was also calling Newt by his first name by now.

Interesting.

They sure had grown close together quite fast, but then again maybe she shouldn’t have expected anything else in the situation they were in.

The combination was a bit unexpected though.

The cold, serious and strict director becoming friends with the sweet, awkward and chaotic Newt? 

Or was it something more than friends?

Tina wasn’t so sure, but she knew that catching feelings for a ghost, or catching feelings for someone while being one wasn’t really the greatest idea. 

She just hoped this whole ordeal would end well.

“But, can’t they smuggle in objects without having to list them like this?,” Newt asked a bit puzzled, smoothing down the collar of his gray vest while doing so. 

“The border regulation patrol makes that nearly impossible these days due to the anti heroin act that some wizards have been taking advantage of, as well as with the rise of Grindelwald’s activities.” 

Newt blinked a little at her with his wide eyes as he tried to follow her explanation so Tina tried clarifying what she was saying by adding to her explanation.

“The risk of getting caught is high and therefore having whatever you smuggle in confiscated. The dark magic detectors make sure of that.”

Newt offered her a sheepish smile in thanks, “Ah, so that’s why they didn’t notice some of my beasts. They were more busy looking for other things,’” he mumbled.

“I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Although, I don’t know about the director…”

“Oh, no. It’s okay. Percival called in a favor for me. Or I had to call it in for myself on his behalf in the beast control department.”

Tina hummed. 

Once again that she found interesting, but at the moment she had other things to worry about.

“Well, now that we know things are shady and that Mr. Otton’s life is most likely in danger, we should probably put in a request for a tracking spell. I’ll firecall the granddaughter to bring in Mr.Otton’s hair brush…” Tina’s voice trailed off as she remembered that Mr.Otton had in fact been a bald man. 

“Never mind,” she sighed, pinching her eyebrows a little as she was steeling herself for an upcoming headache.

Newt patted her shoulder sympathetically before moving to continue to inspect the store. So far, nothing interesting had come up, but Newt didn’t seem to be too bothered about that. 

Instead he seemed strangely calm and determined.

“Hey, girl. Would you like to come in?” Newt’s voice called out suddenly, and Tina turned around to see him opening up a window to let a brown clored barn owl in. 

The owl had a piece of parchment rolled up and attached to its leg, and Tina perked up at the sight of that.

“Let me see that,” she asked as Newt untied it, letting the owl nip a little at his fingers after handing it to her. 

She broke the seal and placed the parchment onto the counter so that they all could read it.

Dear, Mr. Otton.

What a remarkably unusual situation you found yourself in now.

I have no idea why you’re so interested in soul magic all of a sudden, and frankly I’m not sure if I want to know, but I do want you to know this; This is dark magic and whoever is experimenting with what you described as Hecate’s scissors cannot be up to no good. 

So heed my warning and stay away from this risky business.

yours, 

Getrude Pollax 

“Dark magic, huh..? Although, what a coincidence to hear about soul magic again, and these scissors… I’m sure Flamel would like this information..”

Coincidence or not. Tina was certain that the disappearance case had something to do with Percival’s soul case now.

The flutter of another pair of wings interrupted the silence that had laid itself over them for a while as they all were contemplating what that meant for them.

“Oh, is this your friend?” Newt asked softly as the snow white owl that had flown in the window to join his owl friend while they were busy.

The barn owl didn’t seem too interested in the other owl though, but perked up a little as the snow white owl started to hoot a little inside the store.

“What’s wrong?” Newt, the everloving beast expert asked the owl, making Tina smile a little in exasperation.

“I’m no beast expert, Newt. But I think he may be hungry?”

Newt shook his head slowly, looking a bit thoughtfully at the scene in front of him.

“I think he’s stressed, and-” Newt frowned a little as he saw the way the snow white owl was slightly shaking, “-scared?”

The owl hooted again and fluttered its wings when Newt started walking closer to Tina.

“It’s almost like he’s afraid of someone..” Newt started saying, before stopping up right by the door as the owl took off his shoulder and flew to stand on the counter instead, its expression looking discontent.

“Or maybe something?” Newt looked around himself, eyeing the owl closely as he started to touch things around him. 

The owl just looked at him with a bit of an unimpressed look, but Newt’s hunch must have been right because as soon as he touched the bell hanging above the door, the owl went nuts, making the other brown barn owl get away from him quickly as well.

“Alright, alright. I won’t touch the bell again.”

Tina hadn’t cast a diagnostic spell over the bell earlier on, having missed it as it was a bit hidden and because it had been out of order to make any sound. even as Newt touched it; it stayed silent.

Weird.

Her auror instincts kicked in and she cast off a spell to let her magic wrap around the bell before taking a quick glance at her wand, her expression turning somber when seeing the results.

“Call in the curse breakers,” she said simply, moving over to see if Newt was okay as well. 

He luckily was, but she was still going to call the mediwizards just in case because what Newt had been touching was no ordinary bell.

It was in fact radiating with dark magic, and something told Tina that they had found another important clue in both Mr otton’s and the director’s case.