Chapter 2: Stop Being So You

Credence and Finn

With long candles and torches crackling softly with warm, magical fire, snow falling behind thick walls, and wool robes on top of many layers, Finn thought he should be feeling some sort of cozy. He wasn't. He was cold, mostly on whatever side was closest to Credence. Could he avoid trembling by sheer power of will? Because he was not about to shiver in front of this boy, even though he was the person who Finn had seen as a lethal, black tornado intent on having him for supper. But Finn had run from him once, and he was not planning on showing that kind of weakness again. Fortunately, Credence didn't seem to noticing anything at the moment, except for the toe caps of his shoes.

A pair of eyes followed the two boys from behind. Daniel Dawson, a school guard at Ilvermorny, and someone who constantly wondered how he got roped into this sort of thing, had been asked to chaperone the Wampuses to make sure nothing terribly outré happened in the course of the next hour. It did make sense. They were supposed to be helping him and Rafael do their job, going down the list of the traps and jinxes throughout the school designed to catch troublemakers' actions, and seeing if any of them had been set off. He wondered if them being assigned here had anything to do with the fact that the larger one of them was a troublemaker, and the other sure did a good job of making trouble.

Credence was quickly discovering throughout the course of the hour that Finn and Percy had one thing in common: they both just couldn't help but talk if there was someone nearby to listen. Finn was obviously trying to give him the cold shoulder at first, as he had been doing since the attack last night, but it couldn't last more than fifteen minutes.

"So that'show they found me. I should have guessed those guards set up things like this," Finn commented upon revealing an invisible alarm wire. It seemed he did know the Revelio Charm. Credence wasn't surprised. He hadn't really decided what to think about that whole situation anymore. Finn hadn't been the one to make him reveal his Obscurus in front of the whole school and risk killing Percy Boyd, but he had been the one to have the idea. He might not have actually done it, but he probably could have if he'd wanted to. Then again, Kir did take some of the blame. He could have backed out, or refused. He might even have been able to stop it if he'd wanted to. But he hadn't. He'd gone right in there and done the dirty work.

There was one part of the whole thing though that kept nagging at Credence whenever he started down this spiral of thoughts, about once every few minutes. Finn had taken all the blame. He hadn't even mentioned Kir's name until he'd been pushed into it by the Obscurus. He didn't need to be in detention right now, or at least not for the rest of the year, yet here he was. Somewhere in that cocky, selfish, conniving gang-leader, there could actually be someone really loyal. No matter which way Credence looked at it, there it was, as unavoidable as this daily detention. He hated that. It was like a rope that kept him tethered, snapped him back like a spring. He had felt so good making the boy who had been torturing him all year beg for his life, but what about this self-sacrificing friend? No. The words 'Finn' and 'friend' should never dwell a sentence together, under any circumstances.

Credence trailed behind. His detention-partner was still babbling as he did most of the work, checking the list of places they needed to look and then fiddling with the traps themselves. "… that gross stuff that Boyd made in Potions that was supposed to make flammable water but ended up just being a clothes-eater? We put the leftovers up there. That was supposed to fall on you two and burn away whatever clothes it touched. But that guard with the accent came and took it down before you two got here. I don't know how he found out."

The painting of the old, distinguished-looking gentleman that Finn had been running a hand along spoke up, "I am afraid I must take credit."

Finn's jaw dropped. It was easy to forget about the paintings when most of them were content to watch silently from their frames. "A spy!" Finn exclaimed. He scanned the list again, "Talk to Dr. Rigel Black – why didn't I remember that you should never trust paintings?"

"Be grateful you made my mundane life a little more interesting for a day," Dr. Black said, unapologetically.

"The rat," Finn snarled as they moved on, like hearing that a painting had squealed on him extenuated the fact that he had been planning to shrivel Credence and Percy's garments to threads.

The Obscurial felt a low burn, like a tingle that pinches. Finn certainly didn't sound sorry for those little torments he'd been planting in his path for months now. But what had Credence expected to come of scaring the boy beyond all reason? Gratitude? No, in his mind yesterday there had been nothingbeyond make him pay.

And back around the circle it came. His thoughts, his questions, everything all day had coalesced into one point that had even been brought up in Professor Hodges' office. It was a question that he preferred to avoid – but why should he need to avoid it? There was nothing to hide… right?

"Get a load of this," Finn said next to a decorative suit of armor. He waved his arms like he was swinging the sword. "Ooh, it's a chess pawn! Slice."

Well, of course, Credence Barebone, hadn't tried to kill the one who looked for excuses to laugh at him like a niffler hunts for gold. It was a big jump between wanting to make someone pay for the pain they had caused and wanting them dead. He had been happy to frighten Finn and try and make him sorry. During those weeks alone during Christmas break, perhaps he'd even wanted more than that. He'd wanted to wound Finn. Permanently. Yes, that was it; to scar him like he'd scarred Percy. He'd ached for restitution.

"I swear, it shouldn't be legal for them to make us do detention together," Finn jawed. "In fact, it shouldn't be legal for you to even be here. Shouldn't MACUSA have burned you at the stake or something by now?"

Then again, the Obscurus had often wanted more extreme things than Credence ever had. It had wanted to kill more people than he could count, even Ravina, once. That was why he hated going into that phase, that distortion of himself where, suddenly, the Obscurus was the visible thing, the stronger entity, and Credence was hidden away behind its cloud. Suddenly, his mind got perverted by those animalistic goals: kill, destroy, escape, take the world down with you. It was really hard to maintain control of anything while that was screaming in your head. But he had maintained control yesterday with Finn. At first. Unnerving how fuzzy his memory became the further he tried to go down the path. It was almost as if –

"Ok! What's going on? What happened to you?"

Finn's angry voice really brought Credence out of his stupor this time. It wasn't the same droll tone he had been using. This sudden, infuriated voice demanded answers. Finn started ranting.

"You've been so weak, for months! It's pathetic. At first, you know, at the beginning of the year, I was just trying to come up with ways to show Boyd who was boss. But I thought, the magical statue couldn't have just hiccupped with you, could it? You have to be in Wampus for a reason. So I tried and tried forever, but you've always just been this quiet, miserable, scared-of-everything, pathetic loser. And then, guess what? I find out you're an Obscurial, and I finally start to think there might be something to this whole Wampus thing, because Obscurials are dangerous. Professor Hodges said so. But you weren't, you were still weak, and so I thought it must be just some mistake. Then you tried to kill me yesterday. And I hate you forever, but at least it was fighting. You attacked me! But right now, what? You've just gone back to the way you were before? I can't forget what happened, Barebone, and I never will. But at least for a second, I thought… never mind. I just wish you would stop being so…" Finn concluded his speech with a frustrated sigh, "You."

Daniel Dawson was watching from far away. It wasn't far enough that he couldn't hear. Some things were starting to come together, and he cringed to think that this was probably what his teachers had thought of him when he was eleven. What idiots that age made of people. The biggest troublemaker in all of the First Years had gotten himself into half a year's worth of detention to satisfy a House stereotype? Then again, Danny could still remember the risky and sometimes brutal initiations for Thunderbird House back when he had been a First Year.

Credence's brain felt as if it had been yanked from a dream into a high-stress exam. Try as he might, there just wasn't enough room left in it for responses. Was Finn somehow saying that he cared, albeit in a twisted, backwards, quite literally painful sort of way? That couldn't be what he was saying. The very thought tasted like moldy cheese dipped in pickle juice. Then what was Finn saying? He had been afraid of the Obscurus, yet somehow, that was a good thing? In all of his years of being an Obscurial, no one had ever said that before.

Finn watched his speechless expression for a couple of seconds, waiting. When Credence remained mute, he shook his head in disgust. "Hopeless," he mumbled.

A/N: Finn's psychology has gone through many phases. He has a love-hate relationship with just about everything and everyone, and that was what I wanted to represent here. I also wanted to show him as a more complex individual than just someone who is there to make the protagonist's life difficult. Being able to cast the Revelio charm is a testament to his skill as a wizard because that spell is normally taught to Third years, and when Kir did it, he could only manage to do it very badly. Finn's tease about the chess pawn goes back to when Credence couldn't get through a game of wizard's chess. All that said, please review!