Silhouettes

The girl was a lot smaller than he imagined she would be.

Amidst the swarm of Aurors and Mediwitches, she looked like a wayward island surrounded by an endless ocean. Damp black hair stuck on her face, and despite the rain drizzling down on her pale form, she didn’t seem to pay any mind to it. People hurried around her, escorting the few other crying and shaking children wrapped in blankets back to MACUSA headquarters. Even with a blanket wrapped around her bare shoulders, he could see her shaking like a leaf. Even from giving orders and assessing what to be done about the two men they had easily captured, he couldn’t stop his gaze from wandering to where she stood on the sidewalk.

Storming into the warehouse had been easier than expected, even with a full team of aurors at his side. The two men guarding it had been taken completely off guard, not even having time to get their wands out before he and Tina easily managed to stun them. After inspecting the grounds for more dark wizards and witches, he came to the eerie conclusion that this had been a setup.

Whoever had taken the girl to begin with wanted her to be found.

She had been tossed aside on the warehouse’s concrete floor, with a deep cut on the corner of her lip and a faraway look in her eyes. He had thought her to be dead for a moment, when he came to the chilling reminder of how they found him. Numb and painstakingly cold to everything around in that pocket watch. The way she looked up at him, full weariness and fear, whimpering when he reached out to pick her up.

The back half of the front of her dress had been crudely torn open, revealing her small shoulder blades all the way to her lower back. What he discovered next made him uncharacteristically nauseous, hands beginning to tremble. Carved into her back with ink, was a triangle with a straight line in the middle engulfed by a circle. The Deathly Hallows. Grindelwald.

“For the greater good”, he found himself thinking bitterly, pulled back to the present by the sound of Tina’s voice. He didn’t even hear her question, too busy observing the barefooted girl tuned out to everything around her.

“What was that?” he asked Tina, who pursed her lips into a thin line. He sighed, a hand running through his black hair. “Please repeat that again, Goldstein.”

Tina followed his gaze, allowing a brief expression of sadness to show before concealing it away. “I asked, what are we doing about the girl? With both her parents…” she didn’t need to finish her sentence, instead clearing her throat and asking a new one. “What are your orders?”

A flash of blue caught his eye, and the auburn curls stood out against the bleak misery of the crowd around. He watched silently as Newt kneeled to the girl’s eye level, even though she did not look up from whatever it was she was looking at on the ground.

“Hello, mind if I join you here?” he asked gently, softly enough that Percival needed to use a charm in order to hear him. The girl still did not look up, still fixated on whatever was on the ground. Even as the world continued to move around her, she stayed numb, frozen on the spot. Newt smiled comfortingly, standing close enough to her so that she could hear, but still giving her enough space. “My name is Newt Scamander. What’s yours?”

Calliope Ashwood, born February 14, 1923, daughter of Senior Auror Seoirse Ashwood and his no-mag wife, Angela. For the first time in a long time, he felt unsure on what to do. He didn’t like the sour feeling it left in his stomach, and he sympathized with the girl across the street. In one swift moment, her whole life had been ruined. Her childhood innocence that she would never again get back. Even with the blanket wrapped around her thin shoulders, she looked like a wayward leaf that would suddenly blow away.

Ashwood had been selfish, and he could admit that freely to himself. Saying that right now would be inappropriate, with how many work friends the deceased had who were cleaning the area up. Ashwood knew what he was getting into; he knew the law and the consequences that would follow if he broke it. Yet, he decided to anyway and now he, his wife and unborn child, were dead. Leaving a sad, shell shocked girl standing on the streets without anyone familiar to come get her.

He wasn’t sure, exactly, on what to do with a case like this. After what happened in the past, most of the American witches and wizards wanted nothing to do with no-mag’s. Perhaps there were cases like this before that had happened, but he couldn’t recall one. What were they to do with her? An owl had been sent to Ashwood’s family, but they hadn’t heard back from them yet. Angela’s parents had been immigrants and they died years ago during the Influenza epidemic of 1918. The girl had no one, and no place, to go to.

He looked around, watching as other Aurors gave the girl mixed reactions. Some gazed at her with sympathy while others gave her looks of disgust. He wasn’t surprised; with the alarming rise of support for Grindelwald, there was no doubt in his mind that there were those within MACUSA who had grievances against the no-mag population.

“It’s disgusting,” his ears picked up the appalled tone of one of the Junior Aurors, Louisa Roberts. She stood next to one of the other Aurors, Marcus Endicott, a strand of her golden blonde hair coiled around her finger in a bored fashion. Her sharp blue gaze stared at the girl with contempt. “She shouldn’t even exist! What was Ashwood thinking? No-mag’s are bad enough, but to marry one? And procreate? It makes me sick!”

The Junior Auror’s voice carried across the street, and the tips of Calliope’s ears turned pink. Tina whipped around, Roberts and Endicott immediately closing their mouths underneath her sharp gaze. “Roberts, Endicott, why don’t you go help Patel’s team with the no-mag kids?” Tina snapped, leaving no room argument. “Don’t just stand there, go!”

Glancing at each other quickly, the two Junior Aurors scurried away like dogs with their tails tucked between their legs before disapparating away. Tina sighed, muttering something in the name of Deliverance Dane before turning to him again. “Director Graves, we can’t just leave her there the whole night,” she indicated towards Calliope, and he didn’t need to look back to the girl’s direction to know she was still looking at the ground. Tina pursed her lips tightly, eyebrows knitted in deep thought as she pondered through her next words. “I suppose we could take back to headquarters; she’d be better off in a hospital where people can look after her.”

He was about to agree when the flash of blue moved again. Newt said something to the girl; something he didn’t quite catch. He and Tina both watched with bewildered eyes as Newt removed his coat, draping it around her small shoulders. He then scooped her up carefully in his arms, resting her head on his shoulders as he carried her across the road to where they were standing.

The minute he was standing across from them, he noted the light in his eyes had grown firm. “I’ll be taking her in for the night,” his voice was steady, fully of authority that seemed almost unnatural coming from him. “The best thing for Calliope right now is to be somewhere safe and secure. She needs somewhere comfortable and well protected, so she can rest. We can figure out what to do tomorrow.”

He looked at the girl, her tired gaze meeting his own. He wanted to protest, argue that the hospital would be the best place for her, but those dark brown eyes stopped him. Heavy eyes, full of emotions that were being kept at bay by the shock that still held her body captive. It had been a long day for all of them; her especially. Waking up in the morning to have her parents and by the end of the night, left abandoned in a warehouse, an orphan.

He woke up, and immediately was greeted by darkness. A deafening silence rang in his ears and as he blinked up towards the darkness, he still couldn’t think of where he was. Only that it was dark, and cold, and for the first time in a long time, he felt fear.

Everything was fuzzy, buzzing around in his head like a swarm of moths. Nothing coherent was coming to mind, only that he had been talking to his sister through a mirror when there was a sudden bang. He’d gone outside to investigate when he…he…

He couldn’t remember. Only Gracia, the noise, and the bright light remained engraved into his mind. Everything else about his life, he remembered, ranging from his childhood to winning the war with Theseus the war hero by his side.

A dark thought came to his mind, threatening to claw out like some sort of beast. What if no one knew he was gone? What if they had gone after Gracia, or his aurors? Pressing a hand to his temple, he roused himself to his feet, hand searching his coat for his…wait, where was his wand?

“Looking for this?”

He whirled around to see a very pale face smirking at him, his hair and mustache a bright shade of pale blonde that resembled snow. Yet his eyes, storm gray on the left and pitch black on the right. The man’s smirk only grew wider, revealing teeth far too bright and sinister to be considered friendly.

“I’m so glad you’re here Mr. Graves. So sorry about this; getting you to comply with my plans would have been moot, so this was the next best option. Oh, where are my manners? My name is Gellert. Gellert Grindelwald.”

If this was hell, he knew he had just entered it and the likelihood of escaping was growing dim.

“Director Graves!”

Tina’s voice snapped him back to reality and he felt a rush of embarrassment crash over him like a wall of bricks. He kept his face cool, clearing his throat and maintain an air of calm that he didn’t necessarily feel at the moment. “Yes, Goldstein,” he nodded his head. “Please, repeat that.”

He had to tear his eyes away from her look of pity. That may not have been the correct word to use, but her eyes projected a strong aura of sympathy and concern. Much like Newt’s eyes, which stared at him like he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out what.

“I said Mr. Scamander has the right idea,” she repeated, glancing over at her close friend and the child held carefully in his arms. He felt her magic, gentle but unyielding as it flowed through her and reached out towards him unknowingly. She smiled wanly. “He’ll stay at my place; I’ll make sure she stays safe till we figure out what to do.”

“Very well,” he nodded. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”

If either of them had anything else to say, they could talk to him in the morning. He stepped away, walking briskly over to the portkey they’d set up after arriving and arresting the two wizards who had willingly surrendered after he and Tina knocked them to the ground.

He sighed, mostly to himself. He doubted he was even going to head home tonight, already picturing in his mind the amount of reports that needed filled out and filed, questioning the suspects to get a statement out. He could hear one of the mediwitches’ voice in his head, lecturing him to take it easy before he lost all his hair. Or worse.

Yet, there were things that needed to be done. What had happened here, at Ashwood’s house, couldn’t be overlooked. Still on his desk in his office, the letter that Ashwood had received remained. The only clue they had going for them. He scowled, desperately yearning for another cup of coffee. The note was the only physical evidence. They had three suspects and of course, the only remaining witness: Calliope.

A few apparations later and a short walk to his office didn’t leave him in a better mood. People seemed to move out his way like he was a storm approaching over the whole city.

His office hadn’t changed too drastically in the hours he’d been away. Minus the clock whose hands had changed as the hours ticked on and the now cold cup of coffee that Newt had made him, left forgotten in the whirl of events.

He sat down, running a hand over his face and took a deep breath. The clock on his wall read eleven fifty, though it felt like much longer had passed. There was a crick in his neck, shoulders tense by the amount of work and stress that had elevated in a mere few hours.

He scowled. Perhaps the Mediwitch was right, maybe it was time to take a vacation. Except if anyone even heard the words “Percival Graves” and “vacation”, in the same sentence, their heads might explode.

That almost brought a smile to his lips, if not for the sound of his door opening suddenly. There was only one person who had access to his office, and if she was visiting now, it couldn’t be anything good.

Seraphina Picquery, despite the tired bags laying heavily under her eyes, looked just as radiant and powerful as ever.

“Director Graves,” she spoke with effortless calm, full of authority that went unchallenged. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw regret in her eyes, but it vanished as soon as it came. She stepped into his office, healed boots tapping loudly against the marble floor. “We need to talk.”