I think it is time for Percival Graves to get a new wand and possibly re-join the fight.

A New Wand

The summons came for Tina Goldstein, two weeks after the attack on the villa. She was to use an international portkey from the Italian Ministry's Naples office to return to New York on Boxing Day. Meanwhile, Tina worked with the Italian Aurors to come up with a joint report on their investigations into the kidnapping. Seraphina had recovered enough to be interviewed in her ward at San Gennaro's. Miss Prince was described as plain in looks but a talented potioneer by her peers and teachers. She was shy and reserved, not the type one would expect to be consorting with terrorists. The school tour ended abruptly with Madame LeBlanc besieged by owls from parents of the remaining girls demanding their immediate return to the States. Shafiq's workshop was fixed, just barely. The artist decided he would like to plan a makeover of the entire annex.

There had been no ransom demands or blackmail threats to Eva's supposed father, at least none the Italians or MACUSA were aware of. Some wrote off the whole affair as little more than an elopement, perhaps with someone in Grindelwald's organization. Love letters found in the witch's belongings suggested that. Surely such a non-entity would not attract any notice from the Dark Wizard. Credence had been considered a non-entity before he was recruited by Grindelwald for his power as an obscurial. No one thought anything of Queenie's natural legilimency, until Grindelwald recruited her. No one could fathom the twisted workings of the Dark Wizard's mind. There was nothing Graves or Tina could do to convince the Ministry otherwise.


A shopping trip, right before Christmas. They rode the funicular into the hills where Naples' magical emporium was located. There were six of them, including Eddie the elf. The witches were delighted with the wares on offer and Eddie was soon juggling various purchases by Madame Seraphina and Mrs Graves. Tina purchased some souvenirs for her colleagues and landlady, both magical and no-Maj. Shafiq recommended that the ladies wait for them at a café while he took Percival to meet Signor Guido Vulcan, wandmaking maestro. It would take some time unlike the wand selection in Ilvermorny. Wandmakers in Europe preferred to meet the future owner of their wands where possible, so to ensure a better fit.

The wand shop was half-sunken into the hillside. There was no sign to indicate it was there between a shop selling dried potion ingredients and a cauldron store. Signor Vulcan was likely part goblin or house-elf. He was gnarled, bald and twisted as an old tree root. He limped along with the aid of a staff as tall as he was. He was clad in a toga-like garment that was none too clean.

Once the pleasantries were out of the way between Guido Vulcan and Aslan Shafiq, the wandmaker peered at Percival through his bottle-green glasses. He tottered over and hoisted his staff to prod at the stump of Percival's right arm and lifted the hair away from his face to study his eyepatch.

"Oho, I suppose you will be wanting my brother Aldo as well. Let's start with the wand first. I hope you are not shy, signor."

"No, signor."

"Good to hear… Now go into the back and strip. We will need some measurements," Signor Vulcan chuckled as he summoned a measuring tape from his worktable. The back opened into an olive grove with a bubbling fountain in a small sunken courtyard. An extension charm. Percival stripped down to his underwear using the magic he had just mastered over the past week. Signor Guido tutted.

"We need everything off," Guido chided. Percival froze.

Pain. Grindelwald cutting into his bare skin as he lay naked and bound to his bed. Taunting him. Being doused in freezing water. Rough hands grabbing him, touching in the wrong places… Helpless…

"Percival, you are safe." Shafiq's voice cut through the fog. Percival blinked. He was on his knees in the wandshop's courtyard.

"Tch, been through the wars and some, hasn't he?" Guido shrugged. "I cannot match a wand to him without a full set of measurements, but I will not insist."

Percival made it down to his shorts before he gave up. The wandmaker made some random measurements, poked at some of his scars, and asked some questions that appeared to have no bearing on wands or magic.

"Mama mia! You did not tell me have guests, Guido!" a centaur trotted into the grove. Like his kind, he was naked. The back left leg was made from bronze almost up to the quarters. He trotted by Shafiq to share a hug and exchange pecks on both cheeks. "Is this the American who survived Grindelwald? The plaza's buzzing with it. Signora Graves' boy too."

"Aldo, make yourself useful and help me measure Signor Graves' eyebrows."

"No need for that. Cypress and sphinx-hair for him," the centaur protested, his arm still hooked around Shafiq's waist and hauling the wizard about like a ragdoll.

"Sphinx-hair? Try olive and mermaid-hair instead!" the two Vulcans bantered over the pros and cons of various wand woods and cores, each combination becoming more outlandish in turn.

"There is only one way to settle this. Go over to the fountain and stick your hand in the water," Guido muttered. He drew the tip of his tape measure across Percival's palm such that it scored a thin line of blood across it.

"This will be interesting," Shafiq murmured as he gave up trying to free himself from Aldo's arm and buried his face in the centaur's flowing beard instead.

"No peeking now," the wandmaker warned. The water in the bowl of the fountain was dark, almost ink black. Percival closed his eye and plunged his bleeding hand into the water. He felt a flash of warmth and light, then something warm was pressed almost into his hand. He gingerly lifted it out of the water.

A wand. The fountain ran clear now. In it were numerous wands. The wand in his hand was a far cry from the sleek wand he had used since he entered Ilvermorny. It was rough, almost as if it had been chopped off its tree and barely polished. Only the grip seemed to have been extensively worked and Graves was amazed to find it fitted perfectly in his left hand.

"Nine-and-quarter inches, flexible, cypress and unicorn hair. Try it out."

Expecto Patronum!"

Best to go for broke. Percival held up his wand. He dared to wave it too much. His first kiss with Sera under the mistletoe at Ilvermorny's Yule Ball in his final year. Feeding ducks in Central Park with little Tina and Queenie. A white mist, slowly forming into a large feline - a lynx. The patronus held just long enough to pad slowly about the fountain before dissipating.

"Brava!" Aldo clapped his hands, finally releasing Aslan Shafiq. "Give it a week or so, then we shall see if we have any prosthetics to suit you, if you wish. It might take some work though… perhaps an arm or an eye…"

"How do witches buy wands here?" a ridiculous thought just occurred to Graves as he magically dressed. He could not picture any of his European girl cousins stripping down to be measured for a wand. He slipped the wand into the inner pocket of his coat.

"La strega? Our sister Vesta will take care of them and kick us out of the store while she's at it. She's one of the best wandmakers this side of the Med," Aldo chuckled. "Vulcans' is more like a guild than a family business since the original Signor Antonio Vulcan got badly gored by a unicorn in 1660. Afterwards, each master just adopts their apprentices if they prove worthy. I guess they tried and failed to regrow your arm and eye since too long has passed. We could do a detachable or an implant… Come back I the new year and let us see what we can do for you. The process might not be pleasant though."

"The wand is nine galleons. Bespoke. We will discuss the prices for the prosthetics after New Year," Guido added. He fished out a folder and flipped it open to a page showing prosthetic arms, hands and fingers. He waved his staff and created a copy of the page before doing the same for one of eyes and toes.

"Regrettably, we do not have anything to replace bits lost there," Guido gave a pointed look at Percival's groin. "If your missus faults you on that account, you are better off without her. You aren't the first wizard to be wounded thus."

"I-I'm not married," Percival blurted.

"Oh, it depends when you ask her," Aslan Shafiq nudged Percival. "Now let's go back to the café before the ladies get worried."


Tina left reluctantly but there was nothing to be done. She was still beholden to MACUSA as an Auror. Graves remained in Capri with his mother with a visit to Vulcans' to assess the possibility of prosthetics. He could do without the eye, but having a right arm back…

Percival had his eye on a handsome model with a working elbow, wrist and fingers. Aldo Vulcan deemed an implant more feasible than a strap on prosthetic. As he demonstrated, a detachable prosthetic arm would require constant and conscious inputs of magic to manoeuvre the elbow and hand. However, Mrs Graves balked on learning they would need to slice into her son's back and attach it to his spine in order to allow his magic to flow into it directly from his core. It would be an immensely painful process and there was a small risk of him bleeding out since they would be unable to use any other magic during the operation. Graves walked away without a new arm.

Seraphina was discharged from the hospital and sailed back to the States in February 1929, but not before spending some time at the villa with Graves before her ship sailed. Percival noticed Shafiq and his mother allowing them to go about alone, unchaperoned. Like Tina, Seraphina had misgivings about the attack on the villa and the kidnap of young Miss Prince. No one understood if this was done at Grindelwald's bidding and what the purpose behind such an act was.

The rest of his time was spent with his mother, renewing the wards on the villa, practising his magic and learning the ropes of what it meant to be a family head of one of the Twelve. There were social commitments he needed to fulfil, many of which had been allowed to lapse since his father's decline into drink. He winced at the idea of having to hobnob with the wizarding elite. They went through the family's finances at the local wizarding bank. His father had left a surprising amount of wealth accumulated through various investments, including a few grey ones in No-Maj industries in the States. The money would come in handy if they were to fix up the estate and start hosting parties again for wizarding society.

His mother's wanderlust kicked in by March. Percival and Eddie found themselves hauled across Europe from city to city. Mrs Graves persuaded a house-elf named Gabby to follow them on this jaunt. In each city, Mrs Graves reconnected with friends and family. Percival soon became aware that his mother was paving the way for his re-entry into the society he had long turned his back on when he decided to stay on as an Auror after the first few years. Eddie and Gabby got along well, too well in fact. By the time they reached Milan, the pair shyly requested permission from their masters to breed. Both Graves agreed. Gabby could return with them to the States and join Eddie at the Graves family estate. Perhaps a cousin or two from Capri would join them later. The villa had a surplus of house-elves.


"It is worrisome, these notions of magical and pureblood supremacy," Percival admitted to his mother as they trundled on through the alps by train. "And no one seems to be looking for Miss Prince at all."

Back in the States, Tina had hit a brick wall in her investigations into the abduction. Her report had vanished into the depths of MACUSA's archives. She was tersely warned by the President himself to drop it. MacDuff was shuffled off into the depths of their prison system. No one had heard of him since. Graves grimly thought it would be no surprise if the MacDuff family head had quietly arranged for their black sheep to disappear. Tina engineered interviews with Miss Prince's tutors in Ilvermorny under the guise of visiting her alma mater. Although still a student, Eva had collaborated on several high-level papers on potions, including a controversial one involving the Cauldron of Bran the Blessed. According to legend the cauldron was able to revive the dead. Professor Sweeney Millard, who authored the paper with his student, apparently vanished during a recent trip to Cornwall.

"Prince – an English pureblood family, but with blood ties to Saxony and Bavaria. There can't be that many of them left," Emilia Graves sipped at her tea. "Experimental potion-making has its risks after all. Oh, never take tea with them."

His mother had a prodigious memory for the complicated familial and marriage ties that bound the elite wizarding families on both sides of the North Atlantic as well as any gossip or scandals attached to them. Mrs Graves had recounted over tea with a distant aunt in Florence how the current MACUSA President had fallen hard for the wife of the English envoy in Rome despite being married with two children back in the States during his stint as ambassador. The torrid affair quickly soured, but not before a lovechild was conceived. There was a divorce and the unfaithful wife was sent back to her family in shame. The Princes sent the child back Stateside when the mother was killed in a potions explosion.

Author's Notes:

I know this is a lot of fillers on Graves' road to recovery and the canonic third movie set in 1932. The current timeline in the fic is early spring 1929 and Graves is still on his European tour with his mother. Perhaps we can have him drop by Britain to potentially run into a Scamander or Dumbledore, or have another close encounter with Grindelwald's Alliance in Europe?

I chose the lynx for Graves' patronus because of the Canadian lynx and the red lynx or bobcat, native to North America.