Harsh Reality

The first time Percival Graves felt guilt for his harshness in the workplace was towards the beginning of his promotion to Director. It had been a competitive run for the position for several years, but when the old man stepped down, it was Seraphina Piquery who called Percival straight to her office and relayed his new position. Back then, it hadn’t ever really been an offer. His hard work hadn’t been for naught for the decade leading up to that moment and she knew it well.

“It’d be my pleasure,” was all he’d said. Piquery had only raised her eyebrow and then dismissed him out of her office. He hadn’t looked back.

It was a stark change from there and his responsibilities doubled. He was in more meetings with other heads of departments than he’d ever thought he’d be in. He was writing up slips and proposals and managing the needs of his people. He was keeping everyone in his department in line with lectures and training and exasperation. And most of all, the paperwork mounted. Instead of simply writing reports and handing them in to his superior, he was the one receiving them; sending them back if they weren’t up to par; writing up his own detailed reports of everyone else under his department. Evidently, he was the one everyone had to start coming to in the event of misbehavior or cases-gone-wrong.

And wrong they went.

Looking back on it, Percival can say he had mishandled the situation, and many others that followed, by a large degree. After a particularly grueling case, his department's aurors were tired. Exhausted, even. They still had to have reports in by the end of the next day and, back then, he had not been particularly kind or as forgiving of the reports that had come through to him.

Most of the reports that had come through for that case were generally good. However, there had been a few in which details weren’t well parsed out, or details were missing entirely. Percival had been there when they shut down their primary suspect. He knew what should have been in some of the aurors’ reports. And yet, when he got to the bottom of the stack, he was appalled to find one that was not only missing details, but the location, the date, even the spells that were used to counterattack when they engaged with the suspect.

What came with Percival’s job was insurmountable responsibility. If in a couple years, maybe five, the department needed past reports related to this particular incident, auror Daniels would be called into question of countless details, many of which he’d probably forget in the years to come. And where would those details be? Nowhere, apparently, given the lack of detail on the report.

When he called Daniels into his office after already having sent three reports back to the other aurors of his department, he was furious.

If he was being forthcoming—which he never was, never back then—he had also been exhausted. Consumed by work, it was one thing to carry responsibility for how the department looked, making sure everything was orderly and everyone was in line. It was another thing entirely for his department not to pull their own weight. At least, that’s how he thought back then.

(He’s not so sure his way of thinking was actually the right one. Not anymore.)

Daniels had left his office pale and with clenched fists, and if Percival had been more insightful, he would have noticed the heavy-set bags under Daniels’s eyes and the exhaustion that seemed to physically weigh him down. Maybe Percival would have asked the man if he’d gotten enough sleep, or told him to get some shuteye and get back to him on that report later that night. No, Percival didn’t notice any such things. He had only seen mistakes and nothing of which might have caused them other than his own angered assumptions.

When Daniels began avoiding meeting his eye after that, he began to feel the tendrils of guilt creeping up his chest. As quickly as it surfaced though, he’d stomp it out.

And that was how it went. Another disappointment, another auror who wouldn’t be able to meet his eye. Another lecture, another head turned away from him. Another day of stepping into the bullpen, yet another deafening silence at his presence.

He didn’t need to be a legillems to be able to tell what they were thinking. He’d heard them in the halls just before he turned a corner:

“Have you heard? Graves is in another mood again today.”

“When is he ever not in a mood? He’s got a stick so far up his ass it’s a wonder he’s able to sit down.”

Percival would walk around the corner and the gossip mill would scurry away like dogs with tails between their legs, only to come crawling back after a day or two to start the same spiels up again. Instead of feeling guilty, he had felt jaded by the subtle insubordination. He was still one of the top aurors in MACUSA. President Picquery looked to him and his department with a great amount of respect and expectation, so he held high expectations for his own department. If they spent more time gossipping in the hallways about their superior rather than doing their actual jobs, then it was their problem when they came pouting to him about their reports and missed procedures they were supposed to follow.

It wasn’t the gossip that truly bothered him. What really struck him was their seemingly purposeful delinquency against him and what he perceived to be adequate behavior for their job.

(Oh Percy , he thinks to himself, what else were they supposed to do? )

Maybe he had been more hurt than he’d ever let on, but this—all of this leading up to his captivity, truly took the cake.

—

When Tina Goldstein joined the array of aurors within the department, Percival wasn’t impressed. At least, not at first.

Goldstein was a talented auror. She excelled in her classes at Ilvermorny and she learned quickly on the job. She never backed down from a person’s gaze, not even Percival’s. When she handed her reports in, he never sent them back for corrections or more input. At some point down the line, auror Goldstein had become his personal favorite of the crop. Not only did she showcase competence and high standards for her role in the workplace, but she was hard to shake and her spirit was in the right place. And her reports were detailed and clean. It really hadn’t been extremely difficult to dislike her.

And yet, Percival found ways.

His first impression of Goldstein had been “a kiss-ass with too much naïveté for her own good.” And it had been true: her moral ground led her to many difficulties, all of which gave him a headache.

“And do pray tell what went through your mind when you confronted that No-Maj woman?”

Goldstein had shuffled uncomfortably in the seat across from him, for once shifting her gaze over his desk, his office, anywhere but on him. She looked to have been choosing which words to answer with, and for once (a day of many firsts), Percival had waited patiently rather irritably.

He knew which No-Maj miss Goldstein had been—rather privately—investigating. Mary Lou Barebone was at most a nuisance spilling misinformation about a world she only hoped to know, and at worst a particularly irritable woman with an eye for the magical. Her distaste for the magical world was clear as day, and in retaliation, the magical world made it imperative to avoid her. Goldstein, however, simply couldn’t keep her presence away from the woman and her rather loud distaste towards their kind.

Percival, admittedly, was more curious of her intentions than upset. Tina Goldstein was always punctual, thorough, and she had a keen eye for the restless mayhem that found its way to New York’s doorstep. However, her interest in the No-Maj’s actions was unclear. He wanted to understand and possibly stop whatever illusions she was planning on acting upon in the future. But most importantly, he was just confused. Mary Lou Barebone did no actual harm to the wizarding world. In fact, she was probably MACUSA’s least concern out of everything they’d seen in the past week alone. It made no sense for Goldstein to put her investigative skills to a No-Maj, unless she found something that hadn’t been seen before.

When Goldstein found her words, she looked straight into his eyes with a hard look. “That Barebone woman beats her children.”

Ah, there’s the rub, Percival thought as he closed his eyes to think. He reclined back in his chair, trying to choose his own words as carefully as possible.

Aurors weren’t No-Maj police officers. Whatever Mary Lou Barebone was doing was usually something the Department of Aurors didn’t get their hands dirty with. Even so, Percival could understand why Goldstein was looking into it. If the No-Maj world had allowed Mary Lou Barebone to adopt children and then keep adopting more, it seemed more unlikely that they would take the children away.

Looking back on it, Percival could say that it was the first time he found an auror’s personal investigation sound. It was the second time he had truly felt regret to stomp out the intricate workings of such a well-versed auror. It had also been the first time Percival truly looked at auror Goldstein and her work ethic with interest rather than disdain.

He fixed her with a neutral expression.

“Miss Goldstein, you must know that as an auror, your job entails investigating and arresting the most dangerous of criminals in the wizarding world. I hardly think Mary Lou Barebone fits that criteria.”

Goldstein frowned at him. “With all due respect, sir, it’s people like Mary Lou Barebone that make the wizarding world seem as bad as it is. I think that’s just as dangerous as anything else.”

A naïve way of thinking, but not entirely incorrect.

“I’m sure Madam Picquery would love such reasoning,” he mused. He catches Goldstein’s lips quirking up ever so slightly.

“I was hoping to avoid bringing it to Madam Picquery’s attention.” Percival raised an eyebrow at the admittance. Bold. 

He regarded Goldstein with a pondering look then. It had been clear that she wouldn’t let the matter slide. Quite frankly, Percival had been hesitant to turn a blind eye as well. He was cold, but not cruel. The Barebone woman irked him, he would admit. She obviously had it out for anything and anyone she didn’t understand. She was pretentious and superstitious and a pain to listen to when he passed by the corners her lot stood around to preach their summons. If he had to hear her ask pedestrians if they were “seekers of truth” one more time, he might just keel over on the spot.

Contemplating, he picked up the papers he’d been reviewing before Goldstein had entered his office.

“Don’t let Madam Picquery find you around that Barebone woman again,” he said, flipping a page. The dismissal was not lost on Goldstein, and it also didn’t go over her head the weight of his words, nor the true meaning behind them.

“Yes, sir,” she said before getting up. Percival could have sworn he heard a smile in her voice, but he only kept his eyes on the papers in front of him.

He had an inkling auror Goldstein would prove to be challenging even with the subtle warning, but at the time, he let himself believe it would be for the betterment of things.

After all, he did like a good challenge.

—

It had been a wonder that no one had quit while working under his department. Picquery had seen his department doing well from her position, but all Percival had seen were mistakes and headaches.

It’s no wonder no one’s come to save him. 

When Grindelwald left him in the darkness of the concrete room with his own face smiling lecherously down at him, he thought, There’s no way they’d fall for it. They’d realize it wasn’t me.

Grindelwald came back everyday, or every other day, and Percival got used to rationing whatever sorry food Grindelwald would leave him with to make it last as long as he needed it to. When the days dragged on into weeks and Grindelwald kept coming back, the Surely they’d realize slowly petered out until he stopped thinking it at all. 

What was there to realize anyways? The only people Percival was close to at MACUSA were his boss and a subordinate, both of which wouldn’t count at all if someone were to ask, “In a friend way?” He could hardly consider Picquery a friend. She was his boss, first and foremost, and she saw him as a good worker. And Goldstein…he would want to consider her a friend. He thinks she’s the closest he’s ever been to having something close to friendship since his days at Ilvermorny. She was young though, and it would be highly inappropriate to make his favorite auror of the bunch his only friend.

Just the thought of it makes him want to laugh.

Picquery and Goldstein were not his friends, even if he would have liked them to be at some point. Gellert Grindelwald was walking around with his face and no one but the real Percival Graves knew, sitting in the cold of a dark room where no one would find him, not even who he considered the closest.

Maybe if he’d been more cautious leading his aurors into the situation back then, Grindelwald wouldn’t have incapacitated them. Maybe if he’d struggled more, the man wouldn’t have so easily taken away his face and memories. Maybe if he’d been more kind to those around him back then, they’d realize immediately that their boss wasn’t there. Maybe back then…

But back then wasn’t exactly all that long ago though. With no way to tell how much time has truly passed, he can only be certain that it’s been days upon weeks, maybe even several months, but it wasn’t so long ago that he was berating his teammates and pushing them farther and further away from success in the field. It wasn’t that long ago that he could hear the whispers and laughs just around the corner, wishing him gone. Replaced.

Now, as he lays in darkness, not even fully aware of which direction is up or down, whether he’s conscious or not, he sees a light under the doorway even as his vision spins out of his control and thinks to himself, Maybe it’s best if they don’t find me.

He doesn’t know who finds him then. It could have been Grindelwald coming back for more; it could have been the aurors under his previously strict care; it could have been a No-Maj wandering in, completely unaware to the horrors that the walls of the room have seen in his captivity. Instead, he closes his eyes, unsure if they had ever really been open before, and briefly hopes he never knows the answer.