As I Rise

At first it seems like just an absence, a void-like space where life should be. A darkness that has too much depth and a quiet with too much noise. An everywhere-place teeming with life- everything and nothing, life and death writhing together and laced through with the shimmering flame of magic. No up, no down, no day or night. Time is naught but a distant illusion, it cannot touch them here.

Nothing can touch them here.

No one can touch them here.

It’s safe, this outside place- safe and comfortable. A step apart from a universe too obstinate, too arrogant. They don’t know how long it’s been since they were there; could be a day, or weeks or months or years. They sort of hope it’s been years.

It is neither warm nor cold, here in the bright darkness, it just is. They just exist. They think they're still wearing those horrible scratchy clothes he was wearing before, but maybe they aren't. They can’t quite feel their body any more.

They can’t quite feel anything anymore.

They feel untethered. Inhuman. Like they're holding on by the faintest of threads that they can’t quite bring themselves to let go.

The world outside of the sticky marshmallow madness is too cold, too harsh and brutal. It doesn’t care for them. Nobody cares for them. They are alone again, just like they deserve.

But they aren't alone. Things move in the dark, whisper words they do not know, caress along where their skin should be soft as feathers. It soothes them.

They can still feel the pain- distant, elsewhere. Like it happened to someone else. Body and mind are no longer friends, and they can’t quite bring themselves to reunite them. Sometimes they run fingertips that aren’t fingertips along the points and troughs of his body, to see if it’s still real. If they are still the man they know themselves to be. Maps out a face too gaunt to be anything other than belonging the corpse they haunt.

They don’t want to leave, don’t want the pain to return. The ripping, burning, searing pain as they are torn apart over and over again. But the pull has been getting stronger, and they have been getting weaker.

They cannot hold on for much longer, if they do then he’ll be lost forever. If they do then it will have won. They will have won. He will have won.

*

The flat becomes home. More of a home than Graves remembers having in a long time. Not that he doesn't love the Wizarding world with every fibre of his being, he knows he did once, hell he gave a good deal of his life and personal health over to MACUSA, it's just that it doesn't feel like home any more. Being a wizard is an ill-fitting robe, something he'll climb into when the need arises, but would just as rather throw into a chest and forget about for a while. He can’t keep the wizarding world out forever, he knows that, no matter how much he might long for it some days. Days when he can scarcely walk for the throbbing, burning ache in his muscles. Days when the thought of what he has lost sits so heavy in his veins it is as if his blood is made of lead. Some days- though he spent months unable to move from that scratchy cot as he healed- he still cannot bring himself to slip out from between his sheets. Some days his body is too heavy, will too weak. It disgusts him. He sickens himself, but he cannot find another cure for when life becomes altogether too much. The world gets so loud sometimes, chafes him raw, and the energy to deal with it all just isn’t there.

Deep in his heart he knew that the fragile bubble of freedom he had built wouldn’t remain untouched for long, no matter how fervently he hopes. There is too much he has left behind crowding up on him, pushing and fighting to be seen like the shadow-men of that other-place. It all comes crashing brutally back on him with a simple innocuous tap on the window. He knows that tap, not the confused tap of a belligerent pigeon, nor the accidental thump of a bird on flight, no this is specific, deliberate. An owl sits on the other side, staring in as if daring him to ignore it. His hands shake so badly he can barely undo the latch, and the burst of movement as it pushes its way inside has him ducking for cover. But there it is, the neat, uniform owl of a Healer. The note hits like a punch in the gut. He barely notices the nip he gets for not having treats to give it, too preoccupied with his own spiralling thoughts.

“Routine” it had said.

“Nothing to worry about” it had said.

He should have guessed that Seraphina Picquery would be there in the flesh. Her figure is unmistakable, standing tall and proud in all her finery; always so put together, so respectable. It makes him almost ashamed that he’s let himself go the way he has. Judging by the charmed wardrobe full of starched collars and sharp seams he’d abandoned alongside the manor, his woollen suit and knitted waistcoat is two portkeys, a train ride, and a short walk away from normal. He can tell she isn’t impressed, a subtle shift in the air as if he has failed a test he hadn’t realised he was taking. She makes him want to stride up on two good legs and resume his job as her right hand. She makes him want to curl up in shame.

“Graves” she greets him with a careful smile, holding a hand out as he approaches. Testing the waters, seeing how he'll take her presence. Seeing if he's still broken no doubt.

“Madam President” he replies, carefully not accepting her handshake. To do so would mean swapping which side he was supporting himself on his crutch, and through countless hours of trial and error he knew that this was the less painful way to stand. It satisfies a little part of him to see her realise her mistake, the slow withdrawal of manicured fingers, maybe even the faintest suggestion of a blush high up on porcelain perfect golden-brown cheeks.

His expression he is sure held more meaning than she was expecting, a wordless way of communicating to her that yes, Madam President he did get injured in theline of duty. It isn’t his fault she didn’t notice the deception, and quite frankly he’s sick and tired of the implication, veiled though it may be.

The appointment itself yields little; he’s still a significantly underweight, his wound is improving but only marginally- he won’t lose the limp, not this time, the most he can hope for is to become less reliant on walking aides. He isn’t to worry about the memory loss, everything will return in time. It is all just more of the same spiel he was spoon-fed during his discharge, a fat lot of nothing but speculation and hope. The only real hiccup he has to endure is some throwaway comment Healer Carlisle makes as she rounds up their appointment.

“So Mr Graves” she says in her disarmingly gentle voice- a knife wrapped in silk “I know you are a powerful wizard and I trust your magic is responding well now it can be let lose again, but I would still recommend wand use only for the time being.”

She says it so easily, so trustingly, like she has every faith in his abilities. He can feel his muscles tensing, all at once until he feels locked tight in his apprehension. His turmoil must be blasting out a beacon because Carlisle asks “Mr Graves, is there something you’d like to discuss?” in that carefully emotionless voice she uses for a certain kind of patient.

For a hot second a flush of shame blooms in his chest and rushes outward, but then it is over and he feels nothing but emptiness. Picquery might as well know too, it isn’t as if she would give him his job back any faster if he kept it from her. In truth, he isn’t sure he’ll get it back at all, and he’s not quite mad about it.

“I haven’t been able to access my magic to any great amount” he grinds out through a wave of disgust centered entirely at himself, “I’ve managed attempts at a few rudimentary spells, but it’s more of a struggle than it should be.”

Carlisle stares hard at him for a few minutes, calculatingly perhaps. She has the overall aura of one who has seen far worse, and knows far more then she is given credit for. He can feel Picquery burning holes into the side of his head with her eyes, but he refuses to look. She barged herself into his consultation, made herself comfortable like she had any right to be there, like he should be grateful for her presence. She can bloody well wait.

“You’ve been through a traumatic experience none of us could even begin to fathom” she says eventually, and he so has to admire the way her eyes don’t stray to their guest even once. The very model of a consummate professional.
“Quite frankly I would be astounded were everything perfectly okay, a little worried even. I should like to keep an eye on your development, but I shouldn’t worry, your body needs to readjust to safety. When it has, your magic should follow soon enough.”

As far as empty assurances go, she is exceptionally good. It’s actually quite a shame that the slight hesitation to her words gives her away, the split second it takes for her to run through what she means to say. The important thing is that he knows she’s bluffing, and most likely she knows he knows, but they play this game anyway because what else is there to do? So he thanks her for her time, schedules another appointment and is spilled back out onto the street in no time at all.

Seraphina Picquery stops him before he can leave like he guessed she would, a hand on his arm and a request that isn’t a request for lunch.

The hospital was one thing, easily ignorable when absorbed in oneself and one’s shame, but a magical restaurant is something else entirely. He finds it embarrassingly jarring. He can’t be faulted, not really, he hasn’t been back into society yet and living in a building devoid of magic has let him forget if only for a little while. Thrust out like this he can’t help but feel the centre of attention, and none of it good. He isn’t stupid, he knows what people say about him; that there is no way he got overpowered, that he let it happen. It hurts in a way he isn’t used to, like an embarrassingly tender bruise deep in his chest.

Picquery waits until their food has been delivered before she breaks the suffocating silence that has settled between them.

“You’re not at the manor any more” it isn’t a question, and he doesn’t belittle her by treating it as one.

“I can’t, not yet. There’s too much darkness there, too much of him. I still own it of course, I just don’t live in it” he replies, forcing himself to loosen the death grip he has on his cutlery. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“There are any number of places you could have gone to in the city Percival. You of all people should know how dangerous it can be”

He swallows around the name that flows so pleasantly from her lips, but sits so badly under his tongue. “I can’t live around people who think I would do something like that. And you know what, I wasn’t safe in my own home, why should I be any less safe in a non-magical apartment?” he says with as much honestly as he can bare. The truth is more personal than he feels like he can reveal to her- that it hurts to think that no one noticed, probably no one cared enough to.

“Rappaport's Law, Percival. You're bordering on a criminal offence, and there's only so much I can cover for you before people- important people- start to talk” she insists, and the irony of her words jars him.

“People are already talking! Merlin, I doubt they ever stopped! You all already think I was in bed with my torturer, what difference is this really going to make?” He hisses, an incredulous laugh biting sharp into his words. He knows instantly he shouldn't have said that, even if he couldn't read the pinching of her face, an expression he's sure means more than he can fathom. He can’t quite bring himself to regret the outburst.

His temper just about puts an end to their conversation, to their luncheon really- yet another thing to feel guilt pool in his gut over. She tries to pick something back up, but the resentment is too new, too raw for him to really bite. Their small talk does nothing to erase the pity in her eyes- she handles him with such kid gloves, afraid that he’ll break at any minute like fine spun glass. He aches for Aideen and her children, and the boisterous luncheon they had spent together three days earlier. Rappaport's Law be damned.

At last- after hours that stretched like days- they make their hasty goodbyes. He can tell she isn’t happy, that he hasn’t heard the end of it all, but he’ll be damned if he cares. She doesn’t understand what he has been through and she never would. No one would. From what he can gather, the only other living soul who would have even an inkling of his pain she had killed.

It’s a long walk back to his block, he hadn’t noticed it before- too hyper focused on what this medical assessment would bring. Now though- with his hip screaming at him, telling him his leg is going to give out at any given moment, and the weight of a truly spectacular fight marking his re-emergence into a world that used to be his pressing down on him- it seems an impossible distance. The punch of loss in his gut is so great it shocks him to a standstill. He has missed his magic- bitterly so- but never more than this moment, when at once the ability to apparate is all he longs for. It’s high-level magic, yes, and maybe he’s getting ahead of himself- especially in his condition, where the likelihood of splinching only gets higher the further he walks- but if they can’t fix him, give him back what he has lost, then what else has he got left?

The answer comes in the form of a taxicab rolling down the street. He has a little non-wizarding money on him, not much but more- insofar as he can gather- than strictly necessary, a ride home would be an extravagance, but the weight of the day and Picquery’s distrustful disappointment negates the frivolity.

The taxicab itself is an unassuming vehicle driven by a man not much younger than himself, who laughs when Graves gives him the address.

“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you” he smiles, running a hand through a thick wave of dark brown hair, “Only I live there too. Raphael Flores, I’m on the first floor.”

“Percival Graves, top floor” he replies, relaxing the tension he had scarcely even realised had crept over him.

“Well then no wonder we haven’t met yet, I don’t tend visit upstairs much. Though I suppose you know the O’Hannigans?” There is a grin playing about his eyes as he asks, like he knows the answer already and it is endlessly amusing to him.

“Yes actually, Aideen and the children at least” Graves replies, hesitation colouring his words. He hadn’t realised how many social cues he was still rusty on; guilt, it seems, made his fellow wizards lenient towards him.

“Ah so you haven’t met Cillian yet? He’s a nice guy, works in that canning factory across town.”

“I haven’t yet, I’m sure it won’t be long though” he says with something close to a laugh.

The journey is short, almost embarrassingly so. Graves feels almost ashamed that he had to be driven at all, though his pride is not so great that he cannot recognise his inability to have made it alone. The morning exhausted him, and he wants nothing more than to return to the emptiness of his flat, to be left alone and never bothered again. He wants nothing more than for someone to notice that’s not what he wants at all.

Raphael seems to understand to some degree. He doesn’t push for conversation through the rest of their ride, just fills the space with chatter. It’s refreshing, filled with things he only half understands, and worries that can’t touch him.

As they pull up outside their building, though, Raphael’s mood darkens.

“You be careful Mr Graves” he warns, a strange gravity to his words, “there’s something happening around here, something strange.” And with that he’s gone.

The aching pain hits Graves as soon as he makes the step from road to curb, a deep pull at his hip so brutal his leg almost buckles beneath him. His crutch is the only thing keeping him vertical. He is so singularly focused on keeping on his feet that it takes him far longer than it should have to recognise that there are footsteps behind him; hurrying, fast, heading in the same direction. Heading for him. His body freezes. Tense, ready for a battle he is in no way equipped to win. His instincts kick into gear and he knows what he has to do. He tries to reach for a wand that isn’t there. An obsolete comfort blanket, a touchstone. He needs to fight but he can’t move. He will not be taken again. It’s all his mind screams at him. He will not be taken again. He needs to do something, anything, and he can’t move.

An arm snakes past his shoulder, and with a soft “You must be Mr Graves” the door to the building is opened for him.

Braced between doorframe and crutch, his body unsticks, and he whirls around to face who can only be the elusive Cillian O’Hannigan. It’s obvious, from the long, swept-back hair- a stark contrast against fawn-white skin- to the dark eyes, to the large, creased smile; there is no one else he can be but Aideen’s husband, the children’s father. It’s obvious, but it doesn’t stop the trembling in his fingers or the pounding of his heart.

“Cillian I presume” Graves says with something that could perhaps be taken for a shaky smile.

“The very same, and a pleasure it is to meet you. The children, I hear, are half in love of their new friend Mr Graves”

His manner is so deceptively nice as he lets them into the building that Graves almost misses the slight hovering, like he knows he should just let enough alone, but he can't help but be braced just in case- a fathers intuition. It doesn't chafe half as much as it should.

“I hope I'm not being an imposition, I can stop-”

“Now you hold it there Mr Graves, you're one of my Aideen's now, which means you're family. You'll always be welcome in our home just as often as you want to visit.” His manner is so affable, so unguardedly gentle that it comes as a welcome surprise to a tired old wizard who bows under the weight of every death that haunts him- who can barely tell the difference between kindness and pity, but feels undeserving of either.

“Thank you, it's been... I appreciate it, really” he chokes out through a throat thick with a strange sort of sadness, a melancholy longing for what their family has so obviously built here.

“I hafta warn you though, the kiddies are gonna want you to do everything. And don't think that doesn't include the trek to the basement to feed the monster” he grins, the wrinkles around his eyes soft, fond.

“I've heard about Bran's monster”

“Would you believe it was actually Kieren's first?” Cillian barks out in a laugh, head tipped back with the weight of his mirth.
“Now that's a story, see he was exploring one day- we let them run around inside the flat you see, just as long as they come back when their mother calls and they promise never to go outside, not now. So one night about a month ago I come home, the house is in uproar, which I admit is hardly new. Well would you believe it turns out Kieren says he saw something in the basement, and our wee Bran, well he's convinced that it was a monster he saw, one who needs feeding or it'll eat us all.”

Graves can't help but join Cillian's mirth, laughter bubbling up inside him the likes of which he hasn't felt in what seems like forever. Has he ever have the chance to laugh like that? He can feel the phantom warmth of their kitchen, hear the children’s shrieks, taste the ever-present smell of her baking. It feels just a little too much like home.

Cillian must know it too, the way he elbows Graves companionably like they've known each other for years, not the length of a staircase.

He's welcome for the companionship in truth, if he were to get too stuck in his head he may never have made this walk, not with the way his body screams for him to just stop, just for a second. Just for forever. He'd feel embarrassed that he cannot help but pant through the pain, but he's just too tired to care. Image means nothing to a dead man after all, and the O'Hannigans remain blissfully unaware of who he is, what he's responsible for.

When Cillain breaks off for his own home with a smile and a “You take care of yourself Mr Graves” it comes as almost a relief. Their conversation made the walk bearable, but his threshold was drawing distressingly near, and not for the first time he wished desperately for his magic to comfort him.

The wand had recently moved to a drawer in his bedside table, close enough by that it comforts him, but out of sight out of mind.

His hands shake almost too much to get the key in the lock, but he does, and the shocking chill spurs him inside. A blessing and a curse. Slowly, slowly he stumbles through the flat, turning on every light he passes until every shadowed corner is bathed in light. The dark hides too many horrors, whispers of a place he cannot think about.

He collapses onto the beat-up sofa, stretching out sore limbs and letting loose a breath from the soles of his feet. He hates that he can't stomach any more- not for a while, not until he's rested. Between the loss of magic and the loss of energy he feels like half a person, like maybe he left something in that void-place; more than just his memories, something vital.

*

It's late that evening that he manages to finally, fully pry himself out of his own head, a place all too easy to get stuck running laps of. There are still so many rooms left eerily empty, echoes of memory brushing soft in the shadows, faded and far too delicate to be seen in the light. Some doors remain firmly shut to him now, hidden rooms he wishes to fling open but which he knows deep down lead nowhere.

He had taken it upon himself to spend the evening cooking a thick vegetable soup, rich and warm and entirely too much for his fragile system. He eats pitifully little these days, and the awkward lunch he spent with Seraphina Picquery had weighed too heavy in his gut to choke down more than a few spoonfuls.

Which is why he finds himself stood at the stove in the dead of night, warming through a smallish helping in one of Aideen’s borrowed pots. It would seem ridiculous to his rational mind, but his late-night mind- which is like his rational mind if it took a cocktail of hallucinogens and woke up the next morning with two left shoes and an unfortunate lack of eyebrows- can't help but feel like he needs to do something for this creature. He knows what it's like to feel untethered in a world that isn't your own. Maybe if he can reach out to it, even if it's just to give it something to eat that isn't cookies and whatever it can scavenge, maybe then he could find something- or someone- to confide in. Maybe then he'd be a little less adrift. A little less alone.

The building is eerily quiet at this time of night, the unnoticed undercurrent of noise absent now that any of the occupants with an inch of sense were long abed. The shadows writhe and taunt him, and he wishes fervently for more light, but of course there is nothing for it but to white-knuckle his way down the vast flights of stairs. It never gets easier.

The basement is a strange place. In truth, it is too kind a description; the basement flat had flooded years ago, and rather than have to pay for repairs upon repairs, the space had been gutted and left to rot, until little remained but gaping, empty rooms.

It’s with a fair sense of trepidation that he steps into the area, wreathed in shadow as it is. He can feel the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Either the room is empty, or whatever Kieren saw is hiding out in the thick mass of shadows that grow denser the further they are from the doors meagre light.

Graves swallows thickly, and takes a hesitant step into the room.

“I don’t know who you are, or if you’re even here, but I thought you might want to eat a proper meal.”

Unsurprisingly he is met with silence.

Slowly, painfully, he puts the crock on the floor, just outside of the circle of light. He has no idea whether whatever is there can understand him, or if it even eats human food, but he had to do something. He couldn’t leave a living being thinking itself alone in a sea of darkness.

The return journey is more painful than he thought possible. He barely makes it back- propped between his crutch and the bannister, arms taking much of his weight. He can’t bring himself to regret it though, no matter how idiotic he may feel in the light of day.

Deep in the back of the room, the shadows move.

*

When he returns the next day the bowl is empty