Chapter 27: We Should Go

Credence and Percy

"That was freaky. I think people in suits give me cooties." Percy shivered as soon as he found his friend in the chilly air outside.

Credence didn't even smile. "We should go."

He began to speed-walk away from the Woolworth Building.

Percy tried to keep up, asking where in the world he thought he was going. Credence just went on faster. Did it matter? Somewhere that wasn't a hub for Aurors who now knew that he had done terrible things since he'd last seen them.

"It worked, didn't it? It was a distraction. I didn't have a lot of time to be creative, alright? And it didn't even surprise him. I bet Professor Blygull did tell them Aurors and just didn't let you know."

Credence didn't look around and didn't speak. Nothing Percy said could change the fact that if he had done or said anything else, Mr. Graves and MACUSA wouldn't have one more reason to care about his existence.

This year, he had sometimes been able to forget that he was an Obscurial who had run away from home, and that nothing but charity gave him the ability to even be alive. Now he was running – again.

Actually, he was stumbling to a stop, grabbing Percy's arm, and pulling him into the nearest alley.

"Would you relax? No one's chasin' us," Percy complained.

Credence peeked around the corner, just to make sure his jumpiness hadn't invented a vision out of thin air. His eyes told him the very last thing he wanted to see, and his ears confirmed it. The voice projected even over the hubbub of the streets and the beginnings of rain pattering on the stones.

"…hiding in our midst are dangerous people, people who we thought had been made extinct for our own protection. But we were wrong. Magic is practiced right here among us…" Percy heard it too.

The voice of Mary Lou Barebone.

"Oh, I definitely remember her," he growled. He looked like he was on the verge of running out of the alley and throwing a good, well-aimed punch.

Credence held his arm again, "You can't. She can't know I'm here. She tried to kill me."

"I know! I was there. Well, you know what I mean."

"I shouldn't have come here. I should never have come back to New York."

Credence waited a few seconds, triple checking to make sure nobody was looking their way. The drizzle that had started to fall was hopefully providing a good enough reason for his uncontrollable trembling. First Mr. Graves, and now this? He couldn't take another unwelcome reunion.

They made a break for it at last, slipping and sliding back the way they had come. Percy was muttering increasingly violent threats as he jogged. "I'd grow my wand to the size of a battering ram and – no, I'd burn down the house down first…"

Credence barely heard him. He had to focus on staying out of sight, on running, on not being too conspicuous, because if he let go of that focus he would have to face all the memories that were clawing their way out of their graves at the sound of his adoptive mother's voice.

It was a different voice that stopped him in his tracks.

A girl whose face was contorted in horror stood a few yards in front of him. She had been walking toward the gathering crowd, but was stopped dead. The pile of papers in her hands fluttered to the ground, water blurring the words instantly. "Credence?" she gasped.

The horror and dread he had felt before wasn't a drop compared to this feeling of heart-stopping dismay, because no amount of promises he had made to himself or others could change who was staring back at him right now.

"Chastity?"

A/N: It's not exactly clear how far the NSPS is from MACUSA in Fantastic Beasts, but it can't be very far because Newt and Tina walk there in what appears to be a short amount of time. As far as Credence running into Chastity, I figured that she would be doing what all the children were doing when we see Mary Lou for the first time in FB – handing out leaflets to the crowd. Maybe she was a little ways away to try and get more people to come and listen. I say this at risk of this interaction seeming rather convenient, when I view it as very plausible. But what do you think? Please review!