Prompt Post #1

[fantasticbeasts_kinkmeme]

 ROUND 1

FUCK IT WE'LL FIGURE OUT SPECIFICS LATER

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addendum to fill: "nomenclature" (original!Graves/fem!Credence) 2/?

[(Anonymous)]

Tina Goldstein was waiting to hear the final decision, because of course she was.

"Sir, I'd like to talk to her," Goldstein said.

"I don't think anyone's stopping you," he said. She looked for a moment like she meant to say something else, but thought better of it. There might have been someone stopping her, in fact -- he didn't know what protocol would change now. Goldstein would find some way around it. He both respected that about her and found it extremely trying.

He got about a half hour into the necessary paperwork before she came storming into his office. She had her customary air of righteous anger, but also a more bitter kind of unhappiness. Concern, maybe.

"She wants to marry you," Goldstein said.

Percival thought he must have misheard. "What?"

"She doesn't want to do things by half measures," Goldstein said. "I tried to tell her it wasn't necessary, but she wouldn't listen."

"Maybe you've been a bad influence," Percival said.

"Don't joke about this," she said. "This is her life we're talking about!" Goldstein was still a junior auror. In that capacity, she was flirting with insubordination. But he could let it slide. He could compartmentalize: she wasn't here as an auror, but as a concerned friend of Credence Barebone. In that role her tone was perfectly justified.

"It's also my life," he said. He considered his options. Miss Barebone could be forcibly compelled to agree to the spell, which might go very badly for everyone involved. Or he could grant her a comparatively small concession and have her come quietly and willingly. He had agreed to five years already; he knew people whose marriages hadn't lasted that long, for one reason or another. It didn't seem like too much more commitment. If it would make her feel more secure, which would in turn make her more likely to cooperate in the immediate future, he could do it. "I'll get the president up to speed. I don't think we'll have to change much." Apart from the paperwork he had already started filling out. "Did you need anything else?"

"Witnesses," Goldstein said. "You need at least two witnesses." She looked a little like she wanted to slap him.

"Try to find people Miss Barebone is comfortable with," he said. "I doubt my sister could make it here in time." He had no idea if that was true. He didn't have Antigone's schedule memorized. In any case, things between them had been somewhat strained since the revelation that he had been impersonated by a stranger and she failed to notice anything amiss in their correspondence. Better not to tempt fate. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Picquery took a less sanguine view. "I can't imagine what she hopes to get out of this. It's not as though she could use this kind of connection as leverage against you." Percival could think of several ways she might, but he didn't bring any of them up. Miss Barebone didn't seem mercenary enough to try.

"I don't see any harm in it," Percival said.

"Don't you?" Picquery said.

"No," he said.

"God help you both," she said. "I'll allow it, but if this becomes more of a security risk than it is already..." she trailed off ominously and shook her head. "We can cross that bridge when we come to it. But I don't expect her to get off so lightly twice." Then, unexpectedly, she added, "See if someone can find her something else to wear. No woman should have to get married in one of those sad gray dresses she wore to the hearings."

This took more effort than seemed at all reasonable. An heirloom dress seemed like his best chance providing something that the president couldn't fault for being less than up-to-date. He couldn't get his mother's wedding dress, though, because that would require talking to his sister. There was an aunt on his mother's side who hadn't had children of her own and might be willing to lend her old gown, but he needed a strategy.

Occam's razor: the simplest solution is the best. All he had to do was Floo to her house and say ‘don't tell Antigone until at least tomorrow.’ She wasn't about to pass up the chance at a supporting role in a family scandal.

The ceremony was brief and comparatively painless. There was a definite and staggering sense of force, of pressure, but that didn't hurt so much as it exhausted him. Goldstein's sister's comment to him was likewise exhausting. Miss Barebone had lived a difficult life and would naturally expect the worst. That wasn't what he found tiring -- rather that a Legilimens would think him capable of fulfilling whatever those expectations were.

Somehow, the most shocking part was something he had taken completely for granted.

“Mrs. Graves,” Goldstein said. “You’ll be doing paperwork with Mrs. Graves.”

“So I will,” he replied. He felt suddenly that he had tied himself to Credence Barebone like an anchor, and the weight of his name and its associations would drag her down. He look his hand from her shoulder. Better to preserve what distance they had. Better to be cordial. The less she knew him, the more his name could be a shelter for her instead of a burden to be carried.

In his office, Credence asked if he wanted the dress back right away. (Or that’s what he thought then. Later, he would remember that she had asked if she should take off the dress. He would better understand what lurking fears Goldstein’s sister might have seen, and better understand that she was warning him more than threatening him.)

He was irritated at the question -- at the idea that she thought his generosity would be so short-lived. At the implication that what he valued was the appearance of generosity. Aunt Hestia might want the dress back eventually, but that could be settled later.

Credence looked at him shyly and with some trepidation when she folded the veil back over her head. He regretted his terseness. He hadn’t meant to frighten her. He turned away, not wanting to make her still more uncomfortable. Paperwork had always proved a good distraction. Percival learned small things about her as they worked on it together: like him, Credence preferred cartridge pens to quills; unlike him, she was careful with her signature. She took her time writing it. Credence Graves was perfectly legible on every form.

She asked, still shy and even more serious, if she could call him by his given name. He felt absurd again, having called her by her own given name already and without a thought. It seemed natural that they should be more familiar with each other -- friendly, at least -- having committed to five years. (It was easier to think of her as Credence than as Mrs. Graves, though both were true now.) She told him it was fine, but she looked away when he asked. Uncomfortable with the presumption, maybe, but too polite to say so. They didn’t really know each other.

Another perfectly obvious realization came to him then: Credence Barebone had his name and his magic and nothing else.

“You’re going to have to live with me,” he said. “There’s no way around it.” That had always been the plan, but somehow he had not thought it would happen immediately. He had assumed there would be time to prepare a room for her. She’d have to go in the nicer guest room for now. Antigone had left a few things for when she was obliged to visit on short notice; Credence would have to wear some of his sister’s clothes, which would not fit her well, until someone could be prevailed upon to take her to a tailor. He was sure most women would regard that as an embarrassment. Maybe Credence wouldn’t, though. Her succession of plain and slightly overlarge dresses during the trial suggested that she was not prone to vanity, if only because she had never had the opportunity.

Credence accepted immediate cohabitation as though it was the only logical conclusion. “Of course,” she said. “I’m your wife.”

“You are indeed,” Percival said with a thin smile. “Not exactly what I thought I’d be signing up for, but here we are.” He said it half as a joke. It did not have the desired effect.

Re: addendum to fill: "nomenclature" (original!Graves/fem!Credence) 2/?

[(Anonymous)]

I missed this update! It's so nice to read the story from his side. Excellent work Author-anon!