Chapter 3
Tina’s home is nothing like Credence thought it would be--not that he had been thinking about what Tina’s home might look like. It simply took him by surprise, especially the way she halted him with her arm across his chest as soon as they walked into the building. Her finger is on her lips and she glances around, as if waiting for someone to pop from the shadows like Gra—Grindelwald used to do when paying Credence a visit. Credence looks around too, though he knows it’s probably in vain; Tina would see a mile away what Credence wouldn’t until he was smacked against a wall. The thought is not comforting in the slightest.
“Okay.” Tina whispers, lowering her arm. “Walk lightly on the stairs, as lightly as you can.”
Credence nods and remains silent. He ascends the stairs first, Tina keeping watch from behind. He has no idea why such measures are needed just to walk into an apartment, and a heavy notion weighs on his shoulders: maybe he shouldn’t have accepted Tina’s offer. But would living with Graves be any safer after what happened? Credence thinks no, it wouldn’t. So he takes the oddness in stride and rationalizes that it isn’t the strangest thing to happen to him in the recent weeks, not by a longshot. That thought isn’t exactly comforting, though.
They’re both halfway up, Credence a little farther than halfway, when a shaky voice rings out through the stairwell.
“Tina? I’m hoping that’s you, Tina.”
“Yes, it’s me!” Tina answers, motioning for Credence to continue. He hesitates but then obeys. Four steps later, he manages to land on a squeaky board. His eyes shoot to Tina and she masks the noise with a horrible, over exaggerated cough.
“That better not be a man, Tina.”
“Of course not! You know me, always alone, looking to stay that way. I just, ah, slipped. I’m feeling a little under the weather.” The Auror stammers. She adds another cough at the end, just for good measure.
“Mhm.” Comes the reply. Nothing after that is said. Tina waves her hand at Credence and he creeps the remainder of the way, glancing behind him every so often, just to make sure everything’s still alright. Tina smiles up at him in the way Credence knows she’ll explain later, and together they pause at the door.
The red in Credence’s cheeks is not from embarrassment, not this time. His breathing is more labored than he would have liked it to be, and Tina casts him a suspicious look, though he shakes his head to try and ward her concern away. It doesn’t work; he didn’t think it would.
“Are you alright, Credence?”
“Fine, just not used to walking this much. I-in the hospital, I mean. I used to walk a lot when I had to… hand out fliers.”
Tina pauses and looks at him like Credence had just admitted he’s dying. Her brows arch and her face falls. Credence can almost hear the thoughts running through her head, worrying like a real mother would. And then Credence blanches at his own thought—Tina is certainly not his mother.
He watches Tina’s lips as they move, wanting to speak, but no sound comes out. She thinks with expressions (that’s one thing Credence finds interesting about her), features shifting between concern and mortification. Finally, as if all her energy has been spent by the conflicting reactions, she sighs.
“I’ll have a talk with the Director about other modes of transportation.”
“Can’t you...” Credence looks around, making sure there’s no one to overhear. “I think it’s called apparition.”
“You’ve done that before?” Tina squeals, and then looks around in sudden horror. She unlocks the door and pushes Credence inside in one swift movement. He stumbles in and then whirls to face her, worried he made her angry. Tina stands, shocked, her back pressed against the door and arms spread across it. “There’s no possible way you could have--”
The words Tina would have said are drowned out by another voice, high and singsongy which Credence can’t help but turn to find.
“Teenie? Are you home, sweets?”
The first time Credence sees Queenie Goldstein, he knows without a doubt he’s destined to like her. She flows into the room like she’s walking on happiness, and her smile is so bright Credence overlooks the fact that she’s wearing a slip and nothing else. Her hair bounces and her eyes glitter and Credence realizes he’s a bit stunned--no, not a bit, he is stunned by the woman before him. She emanates magic like it’s flowing through her blood, and when she offers him her hand and greets him with his own name, Credence is unsurprised (and that is surprising).
“Queenie.” Tina scolds. “Clothes! You know, we talked about this!” The tone of her sister’s voice is half-pleading, half-amused. Queenie arches her shoulders as if letting Tina’s words literally roll off her back. Her grin never dims and Credence becomes aware that she still has his hand. And he doesn’t quite want to pull away.
“It’s fine.” Queenie giggles. “If you’re uncomfortable with me touching you, I won’t. Cross my heart!” She pauses and watches Credence intently, the sharp rise of his chest and violent bloom of red on his cheeks. “You’ve got nothing to be worried about. You won’t embarrass us in the slightest. Yes, it will be odd having a man around the house but Teenie and I discussed it and we’re sure we’ll be fine!”
Credence starts to speak, but Queenie addresses the comment before it’s even out of his mouth.
“Oh, well that’s a change of plan.” She turns to Tina. “You didn’t tell me we’re fighting Percival for him.”
Tina glowers at the comment. She tosses her coat over the back of a chair and there’s a controlled anger in the movement. Not at Credence, not even at her sister, but at the situation. Queenie doesn’t need to listen in to know what she’s thinking: Tina should have been able to find better accommodations for Credence after all he’s been through, but the system works as the system works and with Grindelwald in custody, all of MACUSA has been working overtime. Over their overtime. And the Director isn’t back yet, which leaves three senior Aurors sharing the position and President Picquery glancing over her shoulder in case of an “oversight.” Tina simply shakes her head.
“We’re not fighting him. No one is fighting over Credence. He gets to choose.”
“Oh that’s wonderful!” Queenie exclaims, squeezing Credence’s hand and echoing his thoughts. She leans down and whispers in his ear: “That’s a great type of freedom, not to mention it’s the Director of Magical Law Enforcement contending for your company.”
Credence finds a certain floorboard suddenly interesting as he tries and fails to lose the image of Mr. Graves leaned over his bed, searching his face. He wonders if the man would be that… invasive if Credence decided to stay with him.
Queenie breaks off into giggles, sliding her hand from Credence’s and hovering it, ladylike, over her mouth. She catches Tina’s glare and the lost look that weighs heavy in Credence’s eyes before she stifles the laughter.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to see that.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, Teenie! You know how it is and… oh. Oh! It actually happened!” Queenie succumbs to another round of tinkling laughs and Credence looks to Tina, who’s still focused on her sister.
“What actually happened?”
“Percival was on Credence’s bed.”
Credence goes wide-eyed and Tina stands rigid until she realizes Queenie meant yesterday evening.
“Queenie, I’m not sure Credence would have shared that with you. You shouldn’t read him like that. It’s… rude. Beyond rude.”
“W-what do you mean? She’s reading me?”
“My sister is, among other things,” Tina rolls her eyes. “A Legilimens. She can hear your thoughts.”
“It’s not that dramatic!” Queenie flutters her hand. “I mean, yes. I hear thoughts, but it’s easiest on those with strong emotions. It’s as much feeling as it is knowledge. And you, Credence, are feeling a large amount of everything. I can’t help it. I’m sorry if it distresses you.”
Credence looks between the sisters and then down at his shoes. He already likes Queenie. He doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. But the image she’d seen wasn’t something he wanted to share--Tina was right. And Tina, even though she was there, didn’t have the vantage point Credence had. She didn’t get the feeling of Graves’s eyes and the stubborn power lurking behind them. Queenie, as far as Credence knows, did. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. A flurry of thoughts rush through his mind, thoughts of confusion and hatred. Ma had whipped him when she caught his eyes lingering places she--and the Lord--deigned they shouldn’t have been. She didn’t get to read his thoughts, though, and Credence is glad for that… but Queenie can. And Credence knows she heard all of that.
He can’t bring himself to look at her, or at Tina. There’s a sharp heat behind his eyes and he tries to stifle it. Credence doesn’t want to cry. Not here. He just got here.
“I made breakfast.” Queenie suddenly announces, pulling Credence and Tina by their arms into the kitchen. Credence stumbles, his steps heavy, but Queenie is strong and her grip is iron on him. He wants to say something, because he knows she heard him. She had to have. She doesn’t show it, though, and so Credence decides it would be best for all of them if he were not to mention it either.
He stops dead in his tracks at the table spread with food. In the hospital, his meals were what he used to dream of. They were hot, filling, and tastier than anything Ma ever came up with. Her policy was utilitarian, and even then only at the best times. There were days when a simple bowl of runny oatmeal was a feast. But what is spread before him now is a feast, an actual one. Cooking it must have taken hours. Did Queenie stay up all night to do this for him?
“No, I didn’t, honey. There’s magic, remember? It makes mundane things like cooking so much easier. Go ahead and sit down.”
Tina shoots Credence a knowing glance as they settle in across from each other. Queenie claims the head of the table.
“Take your pick, Credence.”
“I-I don’t really…”
“Alright, I’ll do it for you!” Queenie coos. Credence’s plate begins to levitate as Queenie shuttles it over to multiple dishes. The food rises to meet it and she names off each item as it jumps onto the plate. “Here we have grapefruit with honey, fried potatoes, shredded wheat with warm milk, and muffins. Do you want marmalade on the muffins? I don’t usually like it, but Tina prefers it. I didn’t make eggs because I didn’t know if you like eggs. There’s so many ways to make them and I wasn’t sure which you would eat and which you wouldn’t, so I just decided we could skip them this time.”
“Umm.” Is all Credence manages. Tina lays her head down on the table and he can’t tell if she’s laughing or about to lose her temper.
“Queenie.” She begins, voice muffled by the tablecloth. “You didn’t make those muffins, did you?”
“Now’s not the time, Teenie.”
Tina groans and it sounds something painful, but Queenie keeps heaping food onto Credence’s plate--or the food keeps heaping itself onto his plate.
“So do you like eggs?” Queenie asks, folding her hands under her chin. Her wand sticks out in an awkward angle and Credence wonders if it’s safe to point wands like that. Then the plate touches down before Credence and he stares at it like it might eat him. Wouldn’t that be a turn of events?
“I haven’t had them… much.”
“Oh, honey.”
The pottery crock from which honey had heaped itself over the grapefruit responds to the call, rising from the table and drifting toward Queenie. She sighs and with a pointed flick of her wand denies it the right to fly.
“Not you.”
The honey pot smacks the table, narrowly missing the other plates. It doesn’t break, miraculously enough, but Tina shoots up from the table to glower at her sister. Then she turns to Credence, and against his best efforts, he laughs. Coming from him, the sound is foreign, the action strange in his throat. He tries to choke it down, knowing full well how uncouth laughing at the table is. Tina gapes for a minute until Queenie begins to laugh, all bubbly and spritely with an air of refinement. When Tina gives in, her laugh is more honest, coming in gulps of air that occasionally snort out her nose. That makes Credence laugh harder, and he doesn’t try to hide it, which makes Queenie laugh louder, and Tina barely manages to breathe.
It’s quite a feat that the three of them even manage to eat breakfast. In between snippets of conversation and bouts of laughter (mostly on the sisters’ side, though Credence smiles and chuckles too), Credence fights the urge to eat everything before him. It all tastes so good and there’s so much of it. He paces himself, chanting reassurances that he doesn’t need to gorge on good food because it isn’t going anywhere.
When Queenie reaches over to pat his hand, it could be because she’s read his thoughts, because she knows his insecurities--that whole long list that Credence used to recite at night, and still does, out of habit. There’s a sincerity in Queenie’s eyes that fill Credence with a warm notion of belonging, which is welcome and horrifying in equal measure. Still, he can’t help but ask himself: is this what family is like?
“Yes.”
The answer to the unspoken question hangs heavy in the air, but it’s not a bad sort of heavy. Instead, it’s like two warm blankets piled on Credence’s chest. Tina doesn’t ask what the question was her sister had answered, but by the way she smiles shyly into her food, Credence thinks she probably has a good idea.
By the time the three decide breakfast is over, it’s mid-morning. Credence offers to help with the dishes before he catches his mistake. Queenie waves him off with a kind smile and leans back in her chair. When Tina stands, there’s an air of finality about it.
“Credence, would you like to see your, ah, room?”
Flicking between the sisters, still barely able to believe this isn’t all a dream, Credence nods.
“Okay, well, this way.”
“I, you know, really mean to thank you.” He stammers as they leave the kitchen behind. Already the clinking of dishes washing themselves sounds throughout the house. It’s a nice sound, domestic, and it reminds Credence of good and bad times in equal measure. He liked helping his sisters do the dishes. Modesty usually tried to make a game out of it, using clean plates as points. The faster they worked, the more points they got. It was efficient and even Ma had condoned it, until one day Modesty was going too fast with the rag and a plate had slipped out of her hands and shattered on the floor. That put an end to their dishwashing game; luckily enough, Ma hadn’t been watching closely and Credence managed to accept blame on Modesty’s part. She, in turn, snuck him crackers for the three days he wasn’t allowed dinner.
“There’s nothing to thank, Credence. Really, I should be apologizing to you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you… I had tried but I just…” Tina trails off and they pause before a pale mint colored door. She brushes her hair behind her ear and sighs, chewing her lip. “You know, let’s just put that all behind us, okay? I mean, all that anger and pain, it’s in the past now. We shouldn’t try to carry it with us. It belongs there, where we can forget about it.”
Credence tries not to convey his anxiety over her words. It’s too similar to what Grindelwald had promised him. If only he’d be good, if only he’d do what he was told… Instead of speaking, Credence nods, because he doesn’t trust his voice at the moment.
“Good, okay. Good.”
Tina sighs again before opening the door, but this time it’s a sigh of relief. Credence sees it in her movements as she stands aside and gestures inward. He follows her command, and the doorframe shimmers as he steps past it.
He’d never imagined in depth what kind of a place he’d like to live in because the effort seemed so futile. Even if he were to get out of the Church, he’d be left to the streets of New York, and the blandness of the tall, cinder block apartment buildings was just one of many things he hated about the city. But he couldn’t change it. Living in a beautiful place meant having money, and Credence knew well enough that no matter what he did, he’d never have that kind of money. So his imaginings were limited to little things: it would be nice to have a ledge below the window where he could sit and look out. It would be nice to have high ceilings so he could pretend the shadows at night were really the night sky. I would be nice to have enough room for a desk and a bed, and maybe, if he was lucky, they wouldn’t touch. It would be nice to have enough room to gather blankets and pillows and stretch out on the floor, just for the fact that he could. He had never expected to get anything close to this, however, and that was only one, small, bitter truth he had swallowed. Yet, as he had learned in the past weeks, it’s possible for dreams to come true.
The room before him is perfect. The windows take up almost the whole wall in front of him, a nook crafted just for sitting. A bed is against the wall to his right, complete with fitting blankets and sheets and two fluffed pillows. Against the opposite wall is a desk and a bookshelf, empty, but for some reason, Credence guesses it won’t be empty for long.
When he turns back to Tina, he flounders for words.
“Do you like it?” She asks.
“Yes!”
“It was crafted from what, umm, we assumed you might like, or need. It’s magical, see. I thought it would be nice for you to have a place that is really your own, and this is it. I mean, it’s here, but not really here. President Picquery even helped me get the right permits and spells to craft it. I can show you, if you step outside.”
Tina ducks from the room and Credence follows her. She closes the door with a soft click and draws her wand from a pocket. She points it at the door, speaks words Credence thinks sound like Latin, and then the door shrinks until it vanishes. In its spot, a lone key clinks against the floor. Tina bends down to pick it up. She turns it over in her hands and then offers it to Credence. He takes it like it might burn him.
“That key is the room. You can carry it with you always. I thought it’d be nice, having a kind of a permanent home wherever you are.”
The key is shiny brass as Credence rolls it between his fingers, worried it might disappear. There are so many things he wants to say. He wants to thank Tina, to thank everyone, but under all the thankfulness is a rabid and deep fear that grips his insides and he finds he can’t speak the words he wants to. So instead, he asks a question.
“Why are you doing this?”
He doesn’t have any expectations of what kind of an answer he would get, but there’s something funny in the way Tina shifts and scratches the toe of her shoe across the floor.
“Don’t be angry, Credence, but I can’t tell you that right now.”
“Are you… going to use me?”
“Oh, no! No, no, no! We’re not going to use you, Credence, it’s just that things are complicated and I promise I’ll explain, but later, okay? I think it would be best if we talk about this with Director Graves, too. He’d… be better to explain the situation.”
“O-okay.” Credence gulps. Then another question pops into his head. “How will I be able to get into the room if I don’t know magic?”
“Oh, well, that kind of goes with the first answer.”
“I see.” Credence says, and he doesn’t try to hide the crestfallen tone from his voice. He looks down; Tina shoots her head up.
“We’re going to teach you, Credence.”
“What?”
“Yes. We’re all going to teach you. I can’t explain why right now, but we are. We will. And don’t feel like it’s charity, because that’s not it. I just can’t tell you all the details.”
There have been quite a few times in the span of a few hours that Credence has found himself unable to speak. Words just disappear. Unlike all the times before, his wordlessness is met with patience instead of rage. Instead of being berated for his uselessness and stupidity, he’s allowed to formulate a response.
“Thank you.”
And even if it isn’t a noteworthy response, no one chastises him for it.
“You’re welcome, Credence. Now, I can get your room back up and you can rest, if you want. Tomorrow we’re meeting with the Director and, well, you’ll learn more about… everything.”
“He’ll teach me magic?”
“Oh, yes.” Tina answers, taking the key from Credence. She sets it on the floor and commands it to grow. “We can start with small things tomorrow. He’ll be glad you’re eager to learn. I am. But, you… want to, right? If you don’t we’re not going to force you.”
“No! No, I mean I want to learn magic! I-I really do! I very much want to learn!” Credence bursts. He slaps a hand over his mouth once he’s done to keep him from spewing more nonsense. Mute one moment and rattling off anything the next--Ma hated that.
Tina smiles.
“Wonderful! I’ll leave you to yourself for a while, then. If you need anything, come get me. Or Queenie. She’d know before you even stepped into the hall, anyway.”
Tina coughs into her hand, shifting like she might attempt a hug, but neither her nor Credence moves, so she turns away. Her steps are quiet down the hall. Before she’s halfway to the kitchen, she turns.
“Welcome home, Credence.”