Modesty pulled her jacket a little tighter around herself. It was cold - it was freezing, probably, she thought, although there wasn't any open water nearby to check and see. Even if there had been, she doubted she would've gone to check. She'd built up a tiny bit of heat in this spot, not a lot but enough to stop the pavement from being so cold, and she wouldn't want to lose it.
She was huddled in the corner of the entryway of her old home, where she'd lived before she'd lived with Ma - or what was left of it, anyways. Credence had destroyed it - he was a witch, a horrible, filthy witch, she reminded herself, and he had killed Ma, and he had - had killed Chastity, and destroyed the church, and it was his fault she was here.
It didn't hurt to think about it now as much as it had before. The weeks right after - after they had died had been terrible. She had lost her home, her family, her mother's wand - but that was Ma's fault, she reminded herself. She hadn't known what to do, where to go - she had been starving. She was still hungry, now, but not as badly.
And eventually she'd learned how to do it, how to survive on her own on the streets of New York. She'd found some of the kids her Ma had fed in exchange for handing out fliers, and they had helped her. They had mocked her, too - her, the high-and-mighty, who had a bed to sleep in and food on the table and a Ma and brother and sister, now reduced to what they were, to less than what they were since she had to beg them for help - but help she had been given, eventually.
She was glad, now, that her dress was made of wool. She had been glad before, when she spent the clear days outside in the cold, but now she spent every day outside, regardless of weather, and the nights, too. Nights were the worst. Nights were when it got really cold, when she had to find a corner somewhere to take shelter in. She usually just came back to the ruins of her parent's home. It was familiar.
She woke up the next morning with a mission, as she always did - find something to eat. There were a few places she could try. There was a baker she knew of who would trade bread to street kids who would catch rats in his storeroom, or sweep off the sidewalk in front of his shop, or wash the windows - whatever needed to be done. He didn't often have jobs to be done, but when he did, he paid well. Modesty knew he took pity on her, and she used that to her advantage. She knew how to look sad and cold and hungry - she was, but that didn't matter, really, unless she could show it. And she did, to great effect.
Because above all things, Modesty Barebone was clever, and she was headstrong, and she was stubborn, and she would use that to survive. She would survive.
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I have some ideas about where I want to take this, and maybe have some actual things happen - actually, I have an idea for a whole au where Credence is officially dead and she gets recognized by Tina and picked up and taken care of, maybe by Queenie and Jacob, maybe by Tina, maybe by someone else entirely. It really just depends on the reception this gets and how much this festers on my mind. Let me know if you'd like to see more, or if you have some cool ideas about where this should go - comments are lifeblood, motivation, and inspiration, all in one!
And if you enjoyed this but think I should leave it as a one-shot, check out my other Fantastic Beasts story, in which we find out what happened to Credence post-film. It has an actual plot, and dramatic scenes and such. Yeah, I know, shameless self-promotion.