Choices
1925
1 Finding out that Petronius Flint was the mysterious contact that would lead Celestia and Nocturna to Alastair Fawley’s salvation was almost too ludicrous to be realistic. Then again, at least he did have a really good reason for wanting to help Alastair, after what had happened during that fateful winter at Hogwarts. As convenient as this turn of events might seem to Celestia, she knew that coincidences existed. Coincidences happened all the time. It wasn’t the universe’s fault that she’d, over the years, grown mistrustful of coincidences. All that aside, though, it was important to not be stupid about any of this. The Fawleys only had two more weeks left; any potential margin for error had come and gone a long, wretched time ago.
“Don’t be offended, Ronny, but…how are you here? Why you?” she said, scrutinising him with unmasked wariness.
Like all of them, Petronius had aged a little since they’d all graduated, but in essence, he looked the same: tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, tanned, wearing his brown hair cropped short.
Celestia almost expected him to be wearing the Slytherin House Quidditch uniform underneath his long coat.
He didn’t look at all offended, albeit a little resigned to a fate he’d obviously expected. “Yeah, I figured you girls wouldn’t just blindly follow me without at least some explanation.”
“So?” Nocturna said, making an impatient little twirling gesture with her wand. “Time’s money. Spit it out.”
“I did always like you better,” he said, looking at Celestia, before he sighed theatrically and scratched his neck. “Look, it’s no secret – what happened to Alastair and all. You travelling the Earth looking for a cure isn’t, either. I heard you were milling about with that Scamander fellow. So I knew: has to be a magic beast. I went to talk to his parents, who told me what happened to Alastair and-”
“The Scamanders volunteered information to you about something their son would never, because it might endanger an already endangered animal?” Nocturna cut in, deadpan. “Cute. Please try again.”
This time, he did glance at her, but again, it was Celestia he spoke to. “All right, fine. I knew the Fawleys were frozen up and that a magic creature’d done it. So I went to the Scamanders, like I said” – He briefly scowled at Nocturna – “but they wouldn’t talk much. But I remembered him carrying about an old book with an ugly ice monster drawn on the cover.” His expression grew pained. “So I stunned the old folks and rummaged through their things. Turned out the book wasn’t there, but letters Newt’d sent his parents, talking about where he was and who with and all.” He ventured a little smile. “I knew I had to do something to help.”
Before Celestia could even open her mouth to reply, Nocturna said, “And you just happened to find what Tia’s been searching for all these months?” She’d always had this unfortunate habit of turning into Supreme Madam Inquisitor whenever she believed someone was attacking her little sister.
As heart-warming as the sentiment was, Celestia had to do something to keep the situation from derailing. She had no time for any of this. She hurried to say, “Please, Nana, stop interrogating him like this! Ronny’s a good friend, and I believe him.”
“Thank you,” Petronius said, sounding both vindicated and peeved.
Celestia didn’t blame him. She didn’t blame Nocturna, either. After suppressing yet another yawn and wiping some sweat off her grimy forehead, she said, “Don’t forget that he’s only found it now, too. There is no-”
“All of this seems way to convenient to me. I don’t trust it,” Nocturna said, unmoved. That was another unfortunate habit of hers: interrupting people – that and being stubborn. Two talents for the price of one, really.
Well, truth be told, Celestia was pretty good at digging in her heels like the most pig-headed mule on the planet, too. Sometimes, she was just as perceptive as one. One had to know one’s shortcomings and all that. With all strength of will she still possessed, she refrained from rolling her eyes.
Nocturna did not deserve condescension just because she was cautious.
“Nana, I realise that experience has taught you otherwise, but not everyone who isn't in your inner circle is out to get you…or me. Sometimes, people are just good. Sometimes, a leap of faith is required.” She thought of Newt, who’d helped her despite her ugly stunt at Hogwarts, despite her cowardice and selfishness, despite her callous disregard for the beast that he was so invested in saving.
Self-reflection never was much fun, was it?
For a few tense seconds, Nocturna just kept glaring at Petronius, who was doing his best to ignore this. Then, she relaxed visibly and shrugged. “Okay. This is your party.”
Celestia watched her warily. “It is?”
Nocturna’s haggard features softened as she smiled at her sister. “Of course it is. I promised to help you save Alastair and his family and so I will. You chose to trust my friends; I’m choosing to trust yours.” She turned to Petronius again – less hostile, but not exactly friendly, either. “You understand that I shall keep a healthy amount of scepticism alive until you deliver on your end.”
“Fair’s fair,” he said, offering her his own shrug. “I suppose you want me to tell you what’s gonna happen next?”
Despite her weariness, her headache, and her general foul mood, Celestia made herself smile at him. Manners mattered. Even if she herself didn’t always agree, she could hardly deny her background and education. “Thank you, Ronny; that would be lovely.”
2 The situation was getting out of hand. From outside the dilapidated barn, the president’s voice kept booming warnings at the Grindelwald supporters. The Aurors she’d obviously brought with her were bombarding the barn, making splinters and ancient hay rain down on their heads. Leta could see that the Malfoy brothers were concerned and doubtful just like she was. The only one seemingly convinced that this ruckus was being made by the Goldstein woman was Ethel, but Ethel didn’t exactly had a great track record where sanity was concerned.
The last thing that Leta wanted was to be blasted to pieces by a bunch of Aurors. The second-to-last thing was imprisonment. If Aurors caught them, then they’d be tried and thrown in the deepest dungeon available. It probably wouldn’t be as awful as Azkaban, but a prison was a prison was a prison. All her life, Leta had found a way to do what was good for her, not giving into peer pressure (even if Newt didn’t see it this way). This endeavour here was doomed. There was no way that all this noise and bombardment was being caused by one single Auror without backup – and weren't the little people always sticklers for rules and regulations? A good little government employee such as Goldstein wouldn’t disobey orders given to her by her boss. That meant that this had to be the actual Seraphina Picquery out there. So why be stupid about this? Maybe, if Leta could just quietly sneak away, she could find the Prewett sisters and regroup with them. Wouldn’t that make much more sense than staying here, waiting to be either arrested or killed?
There was another boom.
She flinched heavily. As often was the case, she thought of Newt when she was about to do something the group hadn't approved of. The last time they’d spoken, he’d all but called her a coward. Not that she agreed with him, but the words had stung all the same and had a way of creeping back into her mind at the worst moments.
“We need to do something other than standing around like idiots,” Apollo said, calmly snooty in defiance of the situation. He wiped splinters of his robes with well-practiced disgust. No-one knew whether this kind of attitude was inherited or drilled into.
Leta tended towards the former. “At least one of us should go find the Prewetts…you know, for backup.”
Apollo didn’t seem too disinclined to consider this, but both Ethel and Ares gave her such a look of disgust, she recoiled against a decrepit ball of hay and nearly tripped over her feet.
“Crawl back to England if you must,” Ethel said, her voice as cold as her expression, “but I’m not falling for one of Goldstein’s stupid tricks.”
“I’m only half English,” Leta said feebly, feeling like a tongue-tied idiot. The commotion around her was distracting. “Oh, and bite me.”
“Clever comeback,” Ares said, sneering. He was even ashier than usual, though, and beads of sweat were blooming on his forehead and nose.
“She’s got a point,” Apollo said. “If this isn't Goldstein-”
“It is,” Ethel cut in, looking as if she were about to rip all their heads off with her bare hands, “and I’ll prove it to you.”
“This is your last warning! If you don’t surrender yourselves in the next two minutes, you will be executed! Come out with your wands pocketed!”
“I can’t think straight with all this noise!” Ares pressed the heels of his leather-gloved hands to his damp temples.
“Compose yourself, brother. You’re making a scene.” Apollo had never much cared for histrionics. That was when the bombardment stopped. “See? Now, we all have two minutes to think.” He briefly fished his pocket watch out of his waistcoat. “I suggest we assume that we really are being fired at by a group of Aurors led by Picquery herself, and plan accordingly.”
Ethel glowered at him. “She has to be in our line of sight to consistently hit the barn like that, and we can definitely tell where the hits are coming from. If there were several Aurors, they’d be shooting at us from all sides, not just two.”
“There’s a joke about hitting the broad side of a barn hiding in there, somewhere,” Leta said in a quiet tone. Her ears were ringing, her head hurt, and she was chilled to the core. She couldn’t even feel her toes inside her slender boots anymore. There was something to be said about practical footwear, wasn’t there? “Shouldn’t we try to Apparate?”
Ares said, “Think, Lestrange. If they can’t Apparate in, then we can’t Apparate out. Simple logic is the best.”
Leta shot him a black look. Despite feeling cold, her face got hot. “Screw you, Malfoy.”
“Now, now. None of that,” Apollo said, and clapped a hand on Leta’s shoulder. “We need to keep calm.”
“We split up into pairs and burst through the walls where the hexes are coming from, stun Goldstein and her insipid sister, before we kill them and move on,” Ethel said, as if she were suggesting a stroll in the park. “It’s the best bet we’ve got.”
“Kill them or go down in flames?” Ares arched his thin, nearly white eyebrows. “If that’s our only option, then I approve.”
“That’s not our only option.” Leta looked at each one in turn. “We could also stage an attack and let one of us get reinforcements.”
“You, I suppose?” Ares said coldly.
“Or we could surrender, but none of us wants that.” Apollo checked his watch again. “Time’s up. We need to decide now.”
Ethel offered him an off-putting, crooked little smirk of doom. “I got an idea, but you ain’t gonna like it.”
3 Splitting up was a gamble, but Tina had to think strategically – like an Auror. Since Queenie was already there, it made sense to accept her offer to do something useful. Wanting to catch a bunch of criminals with only one person as backup was ludicrous enough; attempting it by herself would be suicide. These Grindelwals acolytes did not mess around.
Both women were partially concealed by the treeline of the small forest, but they needed a line of sight to their target.
Tina wondered whether the people inside that decrepit barn thing (was that what it was called?) had bought the lie and decided that it was safer to assume they hadn't. Celestia Prewett wasn’t on file as being violent, but her sister was. She’d probably want to come out fighting. It also was a disadvantage, not knowing exactly how many people were in there – how many enemies.
That was what happened when a person had to act quickly and without organised support: slapdash plans were pulled out of thin air. But she didn’t have a choice. Graves wouldn’t act, and Prewett was en route to acquiring a devastatingly dangerous weapon of mass destruction. There was no time to deliberate and debate and let water pass under the bridge.
Oh, but it was miserably cold, wasn’t it? Her nose, her lips, her fingers, ears, and feet were numb. The drizzle had become bona fide rain. Farther away, thunder was rumbling. With a flick of her wand, she signalled her sister that the two minutes were up. It was time to-
A deafening roar blotted everything out. Horrible white light blinded her. A crushing heatwave made her stumble backwards. She crashed against a tree, nearly fell. Bright spots danced before her eyes. She gasped for breath. The air was heavy, acrid, oily, unpleasant. Smoke! What?
Blinking tears away, Tina saw that the barn was burning.
4 Stupid, stupid, stupid plan! Insane. Suicidal! What kind of crazy person would light themselves on fire? What-
No time to object. It happened before Leta could do anything: incantation, blinding light, ear-splitting boom. Leta flew through the air, landed hard. Pain everywhere. Horrible smell. Oh. Oh God, her hair was burning. Fire! She was on fire! Oh God oh no! Panicky, with numb fingers, she gripped her wand and croaked out the extinguishing spell. Smoke was rising from her clothes still. Hastily, she slapped it away. No more fire. No burns. Good. Good, good, good. Where…the meadow. Field. Whatever. She propped herself up on her elbows and saw bright lights of blue, red, white, green (killing curse? Jesus), yellow shooting back and forth, back and forth.
They were fighting. The others were fighting, trying to kill each other.
What to do? She couldn’t abandon her comrades, but she wasn’t exactly an expert in hand-to-hand combat, either. Getting backup would make sense. She could…yes, she could go ahead to the meeting place they’d agreed on before the group split up. Nocturna would lead her sister and that contact person back there, before they all went to get the frozen heart (how Newt had always rambled on and on about that Hibernus thing!).
The Malfoy brothers and that insane Ethel woman could handle two Aurors; it was clear that Picquery’s voice had been a fake. They could handle it. If they couldn’t, then they’d need help, anyway. Besides, Ethel had blown them all sky-high without really asking for permission, so this one was on her. What a horrible person.
Leta needed to do what was right for her; she’d told Newt as much a long time ago. He didn’t understand, but that didn’t make it any less true in her eyes. Squinting against the rain that pelted her sore skin and shivering in the miserable cold that only got worse after the big boom (which had luckily only singed her clothes and hair), she tottered to her numb feet. She closed her eyes, focussed on the place she needed to be, gripped her wand tightly, and Apparated to safety.
This wasn’t cowardice; it was survival.
Those who didn’t agree usually ended up rotting in the ground.
5 Petronius explained to the Prewett sisters how the rest of this little expedition was going to go, to which Celestia listened with growing apprehension. If she’d been by herself, as had been the plan before the Aurors caught her and Nocturna freed her, she’d follow Petronius in a heartbeat. The problem was that now, not only she was involved in this whole sordid affair, but also the Gellert Grindelwald movement – worse, her ex-husband, ex-brother-in-law, sister, and former classmate were directly entangled in the mess that was this ill-conceived search. Not only didn’t Celestia want to risk anyone else’s safety – the fact that Alastair and his family were about to die was enough, as was the fact that she’d pulled quite a number on Newt Scamander. No, it was clear that the Grindelwald followers didn’t much care for Celestia’s plight. They wanted the frozen heart for themselves, to use it as a deterrent or even a weapon.
That was when Nocturna said what she was always going to say: “All right. We’ll go with you. But after that, we’re not directly returning to England. We’re meeting up with my friends, first.”
Petronius looked first from Celestia to Nocturna, then back again. It would’ve been comical if the situation weren't so awful. “But I thought Alastair’s time was running out. We should get to him as quickly as possible, right?”
“Yes,” Celestia said, rubbing her forehead. The pain was getting worse. She needed to get out of here and breathe some fresh air. “But since Nocturna and her friends broke me out of a MACUSA interrogation room, I agreed to help them.”
Petronius’s brow furrowed. “You can’t trust these Grindelwald extremists. They’ll take it away from you.”
Nocturna bristled. “How dare-”
“Your sister might not backstab you, but whoever her friends are, they will. Those people are brutal, fanatic, and ruthless. You can’t trust them!” He put so much emphasis on that last statement, it sent a freezing shiver down Celestia’s spine.
She cast Nocturna a doubtful look.
“But we can trust you?” Nocturna shot back. The tendons in her neck were straining against her flesh. There were red spots high up on her cheeks. She’d balled her hands into fists. “Where’ve you even been these last five years, Ronny? Not playing Quidditch, I presume.”
He snorted derisively and waved off. “Go to hell.” Then, he locked eyes with Celestia again. “You know me. You know how bad I still feel about what happened to Alastair back then. He’s my friend, Celestia. I won’t let him die. Will you? You will if you put his life in their hands. Don’t trust the political zealots. Trust your guts.”
Celestia felt more tired than ever. What the hell was she supposed to do, here? This was too much – too damn much! All she wanted was to cast off the stress, the responsibility, the pain, the doubts, everything. All she wanted to do was run and hide. She couldn’t, though. At school, she’d been a huge coward, playing a part in Newt’s expulsion. Not too long ago, she’d ditched him because she couldn’t face the moral dilemma that his mere presence kept bringing to the forefront of her mind. Now, there was no running or hiding. There was no more room for cowardice. Alastair’s life depended on her strength of character, on her ability to ignore her crippling fears and finally take action without feeling sorry for herself.
It was time to make a decision.
Her heart was beating a frenzied rhythm. She was trembling all over. Her stomach lurched. Her head pounded. Her mouth was cottony. She turned to her sister, and said quietly, “I’m sorry, Nana.”
Nocturna’s eyes went huge. “No! Wait!”
Celestia grabbed Petronius’s sleeve, and he didn’t need a second hint. In a split second, he’d Apparated both of them away.
6 If there was one thing Tina had not anticipated, it was that the Grindelwald fanatics would blow up the barn they were hiding in. Everything else happened so, so fast. She only had time to gather her thoughts for a second. Then, a whole bunch of those jerks were firing hexes in her general direction. They were at least four and she was alone over here, but fears of imminent death made way as cold panic gripped her innards.
Queenie!
Oh, God, no!
Queenie was a competent witch, but she wasn’t an Auror. She didn’t know how to fight! The already feeble plan had fallen apart completely.
Tina shot a few hexes in the general direction of the attackers, too, and quickly Apparated to her sister’s side. The anti-Disapparation jinx was no longer functional. Good! “You okay?”
“Uh-huh!” Queenie looked a tad dishevelled and a lot scared, but she was unharmed. Great. “These people are crazy!”
“Sure are. I don’t see Celestia Prewett!” Had…oh, great. Had Tina really fallen for the oldest trick in the book: the old wand switcheroo? How embarrassing. “Take cover behind that tree!” She pointed at a huge, gnarly oak before hiding behind a younger, slimmer one. When she fired off another hex, she heard a loud cry – a man. That was weird. It had been a spell meant to knock out, not to harm.
“Looks like you got one, Teenie!”
Tina allowed herself a little, grim smile. “Yeah, I-”
Over her head, part of the tree exploded. Boughs creaked and started falling; splinters flew like shrapnel. One pierced her left hand. Her brain registered the pain, but her blood was pumping too hard for her to be bothered by it. That would come later. She cast a look over her shoulder at her sister.
Queenie’s right cheek was bleeding; otherwise, she was fine.
“You should go back! I can handle this-”
The air distorted right in front of Tina. What-
Damn it! Someone Apparating!
Before the person (woman) could appear fully before her, Tina jabbed her wand at them, yelling, “Stupefy!”
The woman – did Tina know her? – dodged the spell, pointed her own wand at Tina. “Ava-”
“Expelliarmus!” What the hell? The killing curse? Overkill, ha, ha.
Tina’s opponent’s wand flew wide. Good!
No-one else was firing. Now, a quick look over her shoulder to see how her sister-
“Teenie, look out!”
Before Tina knew what was even happening, the crazy witch with the impractical hairdo launched herself at her, knocking her to the muddy, dead-leaf-carpeted ground – knocking Tina’s wand away.
Tina hit her head, saw stars, gasped for air.
The woman’s face was a contorted mask of pure hatred. As she grabbed Tina’s throat with one hand and one of her wrists with the other, something strange happened: it looked as if ink were flowing across her left hand, onto Tina’s skin.
Oh, no. Was this…oh, damn it. Tina was finally able to start struggling.
“Now you’re really up shit creek without a paddle, you b-”
“Stupefy!”
A burst of light hit the crazy witch in the side. She all but flew off Tina, crashed against a tree, fell on the ground, and lay motionless – knocked out.
Tina was still scrambling to a sitting position when Queenie dropped on her knees next to her. Her left hand was screaming in pain now and bleeding profusely. She was more concerned about her right, though, even though there were no symptoms as of yet. Unfortunately, that would change soon.
The look on Queenie’s face was one of both misery and worry. “I never knocked no-one out before. You okay, honey? You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a flesh wound,” Tina said, grimaced, shut her eyes tightly for a few seconds, and fought against the dizziness threatening to topple her. The bout passed. She opened her eyes, pointed her wand at her left hand, said, “Vulnera sanentur,” and watched the wound vanish, along with the pain. Then, the moment of truth came. She pulled back her right sleeve and saw what she expected to see: a black tattoo in the shape of a thorny vine around her wrist. This was bad. This was really, really bad.
“What is that?”
Feeling strangely detached from herself, Tina said, “It’s a poisonous tattoo,” and pulled the sleeve back down again. “A curse.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not yet. Help me stand. I need to tie that one up and see what happened to the others.”
“One of them is just lying there. The others Apparated away.” Queenie nimbly rose to her feet, brushed some earth and dead leaves from her skirt, and then helped Tina up. “Easy. You hit your head pretty bad.” Her frown deepened. “How bad is this curse?”
“It’s…not very good, but don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”
Queenie’s expression turned reproachful. “I don’t like it when you lie to me. You know that I know, so why bother?”
“Let’s tie this woman up.” Sometimes, it was better to just pretend it was possible to have secrets around Queenie. Resolutely, she marched over to the unconscious witch, pointed her wand at her, said, “Incarcerous,” and watched as thin ropes bound the witch’s body. She seemed familiar, didn’t she?
“That’s because you do know her. You caught someone she cared about – a brother, I think. She really hates you.” After some hesitation, Queenie added, “She wants you dead – got that poison ink for that purpose.”
“She must’ve done it recently. The original carrier has to pass it on inside of a month; otherwise, it kills them.”
“You ain’t sure if it’ll kill you, but it’s possible.”
Tina closed her eyes for a moment, gathered herself, then turned around to face her sister. “I will do what I can to fix this. Meanwhile, we have to get this woman back to MACUSA – her and the one out there in the field. They can-”
“He’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Something I saw in her mind. I couldn’t make sense of it first, but that’s it.”
“It’s their own fault,” Tina said, scratching her forehead. Still, she felt as if she’d swallowed a bowlful of lead. She hadn't cast any spell capable of killing someone, and yet, a man had died. How the hell was she supposed to cope with that? She told herself to knock it off. There was a time and a place, and this was neither. The truth would come out; it usually did. “Come on. Celestia Prewett might’ve gotten away, but at least I won’t go back to Graves empty-handed.”
“We. We won’t go back empty-handed.”
“Sure.” Tina had no intention of dragging Queenie into this mess any further – neither did she plan on giving up the search for Celestia Prewett. “The important thing right now is that we have proof Prewett was working with these fanatics.”
“Not if she was a mole.”
“One of these people had her wand, Queenie. She switched wands to lure us into a trap and make a clean getaway. Does that strike you as someone who’s working with the government?”
“No. But I looked into her mind and saw no sympathy for Grindelwald.” It was amazing how willing Queenie always was to see the best in people, despite the fact that she could look into their heads and feel all the ugliness they secretly carried around.
Tina smiled a little. “You saw a desperate woman who’d do anything to save someone she loves.” She reached out and touched Queenie’s elbow. “Come on, now. The weather’s horrible, and I want to be back in New York before this pleasant lady wakes up and starts spitting more venom.”
Queenie frowned again. “Bad analogy, honey.”
“Bad but accurate.” Should she not find a cure within the next seven days, she’d be as dead as that wizard lying in this godforsaken field.