A/N: Sorry about the delay, guys. This cold is kicking my ass. ___________________
Grindelwald didn’t notice the broken bottle. He just vanished the remains of supper when he came down the stairs to fetch Credence the next morning, table and all. There was a brief hitch in his stride when he noticed that both of them were awake and dressed.
“Percival,” he said warningly.
“What?” Graves snapped back. “I did what you wanted. Or did you want to check the sheets?”
Grindelwald tsked. “Don’t be vulgar.”
Graves shrugged. “It’s a European tradition, not an American one.”
Inspecting the bedsheets for proof of consummation – and, more importantly, proof of the bride’s virtue – was an old tradition, generally forgotten by all but the most archaic of sticklers and people who wanted to humiliate one or both newlyweds. It was a carryover from the time when the best way to produce a trueborn, pureblood heir was to marry a virgin bride. Wizarding Europe had embraced worse atrocities, in the name of bloodline purity. Wizarding America had never bothered. What did bloodlines matter, so long as your heir was strong? Bloodlines didn’t guarantee strong magic, and strong magic was what history remembered.
“Dilaceratio,” said Grindelwald.
Graves shoved Credence down, twisting to take the bulk of the lacerating curse on his left shoulder and forearm, which he’d thrown over his head like a shield. He swore when a stray bit hit his face, cutting a thin line against his cheek all the way down to the bone.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he bellowed, the temper that entire branches of MACUSA only spoke of in hushed tones finally bursting free. “I thought you wanted the boy to birth your general! Why the fuck would you toss curses capable of slicing people open anywhere near him?”
Grindelwald stilled, mismatched eyes alight. “Why Percival,” he purred. “You sound almost like you believe.”
Fuck. He was a fucking idiot. He was a fucking idiot and he was making rookie mistakes. He never made rookie mistakes. He couldn’t afford to, not even when he was a rookie, because he was a Graves and Seraphina’s rival and his reputation preceded him everywhere he went and had ever since he was ten years old.
“I don’t,” he hissed. “But it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? It only matters what you think, and since you think breeding the two of us will produce your prophesied general, maybe you ought to be a little more careful not to break your toys!”
“You do,” Grindelwald crowed, sounding delighted. “You forget, I know your tells, Percival. I couldn’t be you if I didn’t, and you believe. You’re worried about the boy, about your child, and you’ll do anything to keep them safe.”
“If you touch him, I’ll fucking kill you,” Graves snarled. “I’ll break your neck myself, and I won’t use magic to do it, either. You’ll die like a No-Maj and no one will remember your name.”
“You think you sired a child on Credence last night,” Grindelwald said. “And now you’re worried about what I could do to both of them.” His grin widened. “Good. You should be scared. Everything I’ve done to you, I can do to them.”
“Except you won’t,” Graves shot back. “Because the androgenesis spells are delicate, especially in the first trimester. You won’t risk either of them. Which means right now, the only one you can touch is me.” He bared his teeth in a defiant grin. “Do your worst.”
Grindelwald laughed. “Do you want to know what the worst thing I could do to you is?”
“Nothing I can’t endure,” said Graves.
“Fool,” said Grindelwald. He sounded fond. It was obscene, worse than the overly familiar way he kept using Graves’ given name and the way he liked to wear Graves’ own face when he tortured him. He reached out and yanked Credence out of Graves’ protective hold with a summoning spell better used for objects than people. “The worst thing I can do to you is take Credence and let you wonder what I’m doing to him. I could hurt him,” he said, “and you would never know, much less be able to do anything about it.”
“Don’t,” Graves snarled, a wounded animal sound. It didn’t do any good. Grindelwald took hold of Credence’s shoulder and Apparated them both away.
Graves waited. One heartbeat, then two. He counted three hundred when he finally dared to unclench his fists.
That had gone much, much better than he expected it to. Not entirely according to plan, but close enough.
His injured shoulder and forearm throbbed, reminding him that fainting from blood loss wasn’t off the table just yet. Graves yanked his tattered shirt off – he hadn’t bothered with his jacket, since he’d expected something like this – and tore it into strips. Wandless magic required concentration as well as will, and he wanted Grindelwald to think that his nerves were so badly damaged by the very possibility of fatherhood that he was incapable of using the skills he was famous for. That meant healing the No-Maj way: slow and painful and marked with scars.
If it kept Credence and his potential child safe, then Graves would wear the scars like badges of honor.
The child had always been just that: a potential, of no more consequence than the possibility of being tortured. It had been easier to accept when the odds had worked in his favor. The androgenesis spells were delicate; it took two parents with magical ability to sustain life where none should have been able to grow. One to bring and one to bear, or so the saying went. The wizard who sired the child would sustain it, touch that bright spark in his lover’s womb and offer up his magic to keep it there, sheltered and safe. The wizard who bore the child would nurture it, using his magic to create a safe haven, for all that his body hadn’t been built with such things in mind. Unless the wizard who carried the child was unnaturally, phenomenally strong, it took both wizards working in tandem to produce a child. A child born of two wizards was, in a sense, the purest form of an offering to magic it was possible to produce. Graves had made no such offering to magic, and Credence didn’t know how, assuming he had enough magic to do so at all. The possibility that Graves might actually get Credence with child was remote – one in a thousand, perhaps.
Graves had made no such offering. It hadn’t occurred to him until now to wonder if Grindelwald had. It wasn’t unheard of, for a witch or a wizard to donate their strength to aid in the attempt of a much wanted child. It helped, if the person offering up their magic was a relative of the child-to-be, but there were older, darker spells that didn’t require that sort of connection.
Those spells required blood, rather than a blood relation.
Graves had been reasonably certain that Credence was a No-Maj. If he’d had magic, he would’ve been taken from the awful Barebone woman and trained at Ilvermorny, as was his birthright. He hadn’t, so he was probably a No-Maj. No-Maj men couldn’t bear children; they didn’t have enough magic to sustain a pregnancy. Squibs didn’t either. If the sire was especially strong, it was possible for a squib to get pregnant, although only one recorded case in about fifty had survived the attempt and born a living child. Odds that terrible kept anyone with sense from risking it.
But if Credence was a wizard – which he clearly was – then it was entirely possible for Graves to get him with child. Which meant that the improbable possibility of a child had become a horrifically probable risk.
Graves would die before he let any child of his be used by the likes of Gellert Grindelwald.
Escape had just become a necessity, and it was attached to a countdown clock. Five months. Six at the absolute maximum. The androgenesis spells required monitoring by a qualified healer in the last trimester, for the health of the carrier and the child both.
It would be better, perhaps, if the child never came to be. If it died from lack of care.
Graves pushed that thought aside. He might not have wanted the child, but he’d be damned if he didn’t give it every chance to thrive. The child, out of everyone involved in this stupid fucking mess, was entirely blameless.
Well. The child and Credence. Graves had a responsibility to them both, now.
He sat down on his cot and closed his eyes. Grindelwald’s anti-magic wards suppressed his abilities. He could only manage the simplest of spells; the charms every wizarding child grew up knowing. The other spells he could manage were the ones he’d mastered with wandless magic, the ones he’d practiced over and over and over again, until he knew the shape of the magic in them in his mind and could cast them practically without conscious thought. The shield charm and the one to handcuff a suspect and keep him from Apparating. Accio and stupefy and expelliarmus.
He was going to have to do better, to protect Credence and the child.
Graves reached for the familiar core of his own power, muted behind Grindelwald’s wards. He let rage and fear make it bright and thought about one of Grindelwald’s go-to favorites. He waited until he had the shape of it in his mind and then he said, “Dilaceratio.”
Nothing happened.
Graves put the shape together again, feeling the sharpness of it, the sting. “Dilaceratio.”
Nothing happened that time, either. But it was a different sort of nothing. Graves felt his lips pull back in a predatory smirk.
Mastering wandless, wordless magic took practice and power. You couldn’t get discouraged when nothing happened the first time you tried, or even the five hundredth. You had to be willing to work for it, to believe that you could bend the universe to your will.
Graves let the power built up, the way he would have if he were casting a powerful, difficult spell, and then he cast it again. And again. And again.
He could do this for however long it took to get it right.
*
Ma struck him across the face when she saw him. “You stupid, sinful boy!” she cried. “I was worried sick about you.”
“I’m sorry, Ma,” Credence said, swallowing down the familiar anger at being hit.
“I’ll deal with you later,” she said. “Go do your chores. We’ve enough to do without you shirking.”
“Yes, Ma,” Credence said, and went to do his chores. Ordinarily, the words I’ll deal with you later would’ve put a sick, cramped feeling in his belly. They would’ve hovered over him all day like a cloud of dark tidings.
It was hard to care about that today. Mr. Graves was right; he was sore, his body protesting the unexpected use. But Credence was right too, because he liked it. It was a reminder of everything he’d done last night. Of how careful and kind Mr. Graves was with him, like Credence was something precious.
Like Credence was his lover.
That would never happen, Credence knew. Mr. Graves could probably have his pick of anyone, men and women both. He probably wouldn’t even look twice at scrawny, ugly Credence Barebone without Mr. Grindelwald and the liquid starlight burning through his veins to make him. But what did that matter? He had, even if it wasn’t real. Mr. Graves had been attentive to Credence’s pleasure, taking care to make it good, to make Credence feel safe and loved and sheltered in his arms. Even if Credence wasn’t with child, and if he never had anything quite that good ever again, he could still hold onto that. He’d still have the memory of Mr. Graves’ kindness, and maybe that could be enough.
He held onto that while Ma beat him, thinking about the ten commandments and sin. The Bible said, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, or his wife or his possessions. And Credence didn’t, but he did covet Mr. Graves.
Coveting one’s neighbor was probably a sin more terrible than coveting his things, so Credence carefully recited a dozen Our Father’s before he went to sleep. He didn’t think it would do much good, seeing as he hadn’t actually repented. But he wanted God to know he was sorry for his sinful nature. Maybe God, in His mercy, would spare Credence’s child. Mr. Graves’ child.
Credence curled up in bed, careful to keep as much pressure as he could off his back, and let himself imagine what Mr. Graves’ child would be like. He imagined a little boy, with dark hair and eyes he could have gotten from either of his parents, who carried himself with a confidence that was all Mr. Graves. Mr. Graves’ son would be magical, just like Mr. Graves. (Just like him, if what Mr. Graves said was true, but Credence couldn’t – would not – believe that. He’d believed it once, and look where that had got him. He knew better, this time.)
His son would be strong, and magical, and no one – not even Ma – would ever be allowed to hurt him. Credence would make sure of that. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he would.
Re: FILL: "Nothing Shall Be Impossible" Part 8/? - Grindelwald + Graves/Credence Breeding Program
___________________
Grindelwald didn’t notice the broken bottle. He just vanished the remains of supper when he came down the stairs to fetch Credence the next morning, table and all. There was a brief hitch in his stride when he noticed that both of them were awake and dressed.
“Percival,” he said warningly.
“What?” Graves snapped back. “I did what you wanted. Or did you want to check the sheets?”
Grindelwald tsked. “Don’t be vulgar.”
Graves shrugged. “It’s a European tradition, not an American one.”
Inspecting the bedsheets for proof of consummation – and, more importantly, proof of the bride’s virtue – was an old tradition, generally forgotten by all but the most archaic of sticklers and people who wanted to humiliate one or both newlyweds. It was a carryover from the time when the best way to produce a trueborn, pureblood heir was to marry a virgin bride. Wizarding Europe had embraced worse atrocities, in the name of bloodline purity. Wizarding America had never bothered. What did bloodlines matter, so long as your heir was strong? Bloodlines didn’t guarantee strong magic, and strong magic was what history remembered.
“Dilaceratio,” said Grindelwald.
Graves shoved Credence down, twisting to take the bulk of the lacerating curse on his left shoulder and forearm, which he’d thrown over his head like a shield. He swore when a stray bit hit his face, cutting a thin line against his cheek all the way down to the bone.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he bellowed, the temper that entire branches of MACUSA only spoke of in hushed tones finally bursting free. “I thought you wanted the boy to birth your general! Why the fuck would you toss curses capable of slicing people open anywhere near him?”
Grindelwald stilled, mismatched eyes alight. “Why Percival,” he purred. “You sound almost like you believe.”
Fuck. He was a fucking idiot. He was a fucking idiot and he was making rookie mistakes. He never made rookie mistakes. He couldn’t afford to, not even when he was a rookie, because he was a Graves and Seraphina’s rival and his reputation preceded him everywhere he went and had ever since he was ten years old.
“I don’t,” he hissed. “But it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? It only matters what you think, and since you think breeding the two of us will produce your prophesied general, maybe you ought to be a little more careful not to break your toys!”
“You do,” Grindelwald crowed, sounding delighted. “You forget, I know your tells, Percival. I couldn’t be you if I didn’t, and you believe. You’re worried about the boy, about your child, and you’ll do anything to keep them safe.”
“If you touch him, I’ll fucking kill you,” Graves snarled. “I’ll break your neck myself, and I won’t use magic to do it, either. You’ll die like a No-Maj and no one will remember your name.”
“You think you sired a child on Credence last night,” Grindelwald said. “And now you’re worried about what I could do to both of them.” His grin widened. “Good. You should be scared. Everything I’ve done to you, I can do to them.”
“Except you won’t,” Graves shot back. “Because the androgenesis spells are delicate, especially in the first trimester. You won’t risk either of them. Which means right now, the only one you can touch is me.” He bared his teeth in a defiant grin. “Do your worst.”
Grindelwald laughed. “Do you want to know what the worst thing I could do to you is?”
“Nothing I can’t endure,” said Graves.
“Fool,” said Grindelwald. He sounded fond. It was obscene, worse than the overly familiar way he kept using Graves’ given name and the way he liked to wear Graves’ own face when he tortured him. He reached out and yanked Credence out of Graves’ protective hold with a summoning spell better used for objects than people. “The worst thing I can do to you is take Credence and let you wonder what I’m doing to him. I could hurt him,” he said, “and you would never know, much less be able to do anything about it.”
“Don’t,” Graves snarled, a wounded animal sound. It didn’t do any good. Grindelwald took hold of Credence’s shoulder and Apparated them both away.
Graves waited. One heartbeat, then two. He counted three hundred when he finally dared to unclench his fists.
That had gone much, much better than he expected it to. Not entirely according to plan, but close enough.
His injured shoulder and forearm throbbed, reminding him that fainting from blood loss wasn’t off the table just yet. Graves yanked his tattered shirt off – he hadn’t bothered with his jacket, since he’d expected something like this – and tore it into strips. Wandless magic required concentration as well as will, and he wanted Grindelwald to think that his nerves were so badly damaged by the very possibility of fatherhood that he was incapable of using the skills he was famous for. That meant healing the No-Maj way: slow and painful and marked with scars.
If it kept Credence and his potential child safe, then Graves would wear the scars like badges of honor.
The child had always been just that: a potential, of no more consequence than the possibility of being tortured. It had been easier to accept when the odds had worked in his favor. The androgenesis spells were delicate; it took two parents with magical ability to sustain life where none should have been able to grow. One to bring and one to bear, or so the saying went. The wizard who sired the child would sustain it, touch that bright spark in his lover’s womb and offer up his magic to keep it there, sheltered and safe. The wizard who bore the child would nurture it, using his magic to create a safe haven, for all that his body hadn’t been built with such things in mind. Unless the wizard who carried the child was unnaturally, phenomenally strong, it took both wizards working in tandem to produce a child. A child born of two wizards was, in a sense, the purest form of an offering to magic it was possible to produce. Graves had made no such offering to magic, and Credence didn’t know how, assuming he had enough magic to do so at all. The possibility that Graves might actually get Credence with child was remote – one in a thousand, perhaps.
Graves had made no such offering. It hadn’t occurred to him until now to wonder if Grindelwald had. It wasn’t unheard of, for a witch or a wizard to donate their strength to aid in the attempt of a much wanted child. It helped, if the person offering up their magic was a relative of the child-to-be, but there were older, darker spells that didn’t require that sort of connection.
Those spells required blood, rather than a blood relation.
Graves had been reasonably certain that Credence was a No-Maj. If he’d had magic, he would’ve been taken from the awful Barebone woman and trained at Ilvermorny, as was his birthright. He hadn’t, so he was probably a No-Maj. No-Maj men couldn’t bear children; they didn’t have enough magic to sustain a pregnancy. Squibs didn’t either. If the sire was especially strong, it was possible for a squib to get pregnant, although only one recorded case in about fifty had survived the attempt and born a living child. Odds that terrible kept anyone with sense from risking it.
But if Credence was a wizard – which he clearly was – then it was entirely possible for Graves to get him with child. Which meant that the improbable possibility of a child had become a horrifically probable risk.
Graves would die before he let any child of his be used by the likes of Gellert Grindelwald.
Escape had just become a necessity, and it was attached to a countdown clock. Five months. Six at the absolute maximum. The androgenesis spells required monitoring by a qualified healer in the last trimester, for the health of the carrier and the child both.
It would be better, perhaps, if the child never came to be. If it died from lack of care.
Graves pushed that thought aside. He might not have wanted the child, but he’d be damned if he didn’t give it every chance to thrive. The child, out of everyone involved in this stupid fucking mess, was entirely blameless.
Well. The child and Credence. Graves had a responsibility to them both, now.
He sat down on his cot and closed his eyes. Grindelwald’s anti-magic wards suppressed his abilities. He could only manage the simplest of spells; the charms every wizarding child grew up knowing. The other spells he could manage were the ones he’d mastered with wandless magic, the ones he’d practiced over and over and over again, until he knew the shape of the magic in them in his mind and could cast them practically without conscious thought. The shield charm and the one to handcuff a suspect and keep him from Apparating. Accio and stupefy and expelliarmus.
He was going to have to do better, to protect Credence and the child.
Graves reached for the familiar core of his own power, muted behind Grindelwald’s wards. He let rage and fear make it bright and thought about one of Grindelwald’s go-to favorites. He waited until he had the shape of it in his mind and then he said, “Dilaceratio.”
Nothing happened.
Graves put the shape together again, feeling the sharpness of it, the sting. “Dilaceratio.”
Nothing happened that time, either. But it was a different sort of nothing. Graves felt his lips pull back in a predatory smirk.
Mastering wandless, wordless magic took practice and power. You couldn’t get discouraged when nothing happened the first time you tried, or even the five hundredth. You had to be willing to work for it, to believe that you could bend the universe to your will.
Graves let the power built up, the way he would have if he were casting a powerful, difficult spell, and then he cast it again. And again. And again.
He could do this for however long it took to get it right.
*
Ma struck him across the face when she saw him. “You stupid, sinful boy!” she cried. “I was worried sick about you.”
“I’m sorry, Ma,” Credence said, swallowing down the familiar anger at being hit.
“I’ll deal with you later,” she said. “Go do your chores. We’ve enough to do without you shirking.”
“Yes, Ma,” Credence said, and went to do his chores. Ordinarily, the words I’ll deal with you later would’ve put a sick, cramped feeling in his belly. They would’ve hovered over him all day like a cloud of dark tidings.
It was hard to care about that today. Mr. Graves was right; he was sore, his body protesting the unexpected use. But Credence was right too, because he liked it. It was a reminder of everything he’d done last night. Of how careful and kind Mr. Graves was with him, like Credence was something precious.
Like Credence was his lover.
That would never happen, Credence knew. Mr. Graves could probably have his pick of anyone, men and women both. He probably wouldn’t even look twice at scrawny, ugly Credence Barebone without Mr. Grindelwald and the liquid starlight burning through his veins to make him. But what did that matter? He had, even if it wasn’t real. Mr. Graves had been attentive to Credence’s pleasure, taking care to make it good, to make Credence feel safe and loved and sheltered in his arms. Even if Credence wasn’t with child, and if he never had anything quite that good ever again, he could still hold onto that. He’d still have the memory of Mr. Graves’ kindness, and maybe that could be enough.
He held onto that while Ma beat him, thinking about the ten commandments and sin. The Bible said, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, or his wife or his possessions. And Credence didn’t, but he did covet Mr. Graves.
Coveting one’s neighbor was probably a sin more terrible than coveting his things, so Credence carefully recited a dozen Our Father’s before he went to sleep. He didn’t think it would do much good, seeing as he hadn’t actually repented. But he wanted God to know he was sorry for his sinful nature. Maybe God, in His mercy, would spare Credence’s child.
Mr. Graves’ child.
Credence curled up in bed, careful to keep as much pressure as he could off his back, and let himself imagine what Mr. Graves’ child would be like. He imagined a little boy, with dark hair and eyes he could have gotten from either of his parents, who carried himself with a confidence that was all Mr. Graves. Mr. Graves’ son would be magical, just like Mr. Graves. (Just like him, if what Mr. Graves said was true, but Credence couldn’t – would not – believe that. He’d believed it once, and look where that had got him. He knew better, this time.)
His son would be strong, and magical, and no one – not even Ma – would ever be allowed to hurt him. Credence would make sure of that. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he would.