MACUSA, New York in America:
Tina Goldstein was a bit nervous. Or rather, almost everyone here in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was a bit quiet in both words and actions. The reason why? Percival Graves, the real one she reminded herself, had returned to his office and work as Head of the department. She recalled him as a strict but fair boss, yet now it was hard to not miss the difference from how he had been in the past, before being beaten in a duel and held as a prisoner in his own home by Grindelwald.
Tina smiled a little in memory of the letter Newt Scamander had written back in a letter to her, when she had sent him words about how the escape of his magical beasts from his suitcase actually had been useful for the American aurors due to that Percival's home had been one of the houses destroyed by Credence in his Obscurial form, and thus the real Percival had been found:
Perhaps America needs a couple of similar events once in a while in order to find mysteries that they can not solve at first look? Just joking, miss Goldstein, the President was very firm in her orders that I should stay away from the US for the sake of America having some peace and quiet.
The biggest difference from before, was that Percival had lost his right arm and leg in the duel with Grindelwald, so he now had a prosthetic arm and leg. Another change was the beard he had grown out, perhaps to mark himself from being disguised by Grindelwald a second time.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
"Mr Graves, is that….a cat?"
Percival looked up from his paperwork at the question, a shocked wizard staring at something. A fluffy tail brushed his cheek a little.
"Two half-Kneazles, to be precise. A unexpected gift from Newton Scamander when he heard that I still had some trouble with nightmares, must have been his brother Theseus to pass that information on due to us being in contact as fellow Head aurors. Called them a set of emotional support animals, well trained since they were kittens and he even sent papers ahead to the president for permission to send the pair across the Atlantic. Newton even ensured that they would not have any unexpected litters of kittens in the future, I have enough with those two."
The black male cat yawned, where he just had woken up from a nap by using his owner's shoulders as a place to sleep despite that more than one person had gotten surprised at seeing the cat on Percival like that. The female white cat, however, was satisfied with purring loudly in his lap.
"Persephone, be kind and move, I need to reach that book over there and you are limiting how far I can reach over the desk. Hades, can you move too?"
The female cat jumped up on the desk, where she was joined by her mate, which then used a paw to pat on a small vial with a clear liquid inside.
"Right, my medicine to prevent any nervous breakdowns, thank you."
The medicine was easier to mask its taste, by adding it in some nice strong coffee with milk. In that very same moment as he emptied the cup, Tina entered the office.
"You called on me, Director?"
She showed no surprise at all when seeing the two cats, but then again she had been the one requested to to deliver them to Percival once they had arrived to New York, since she and her sister Queenie was the Americans Newt knew best. It was not like Jacob could have helped them because he was a No-Maj, she reminded herself. And Mr Graves actually looked better in this short-trimmed beard he had started to wear as a sign of his real identity than the ragged appearance he had worn at being found, it was a sign of how the trauma had changed him.
"Yes. The French Ministry of Magic is requesting help in expose a suspected smuggling league for the black market in Paris. There are suspicions that non-magic people may be involved, either voluntarily or without knowing what they actually do. Given that your sister is a natural Legilimens, she may be useful to...distract those non-magical people without harming them."
Oh, Queenie would love to be useful since she knew that men tended to be charmed by her, not by magic but because she was that good-looking. Besides, Tina knew that her sister had started to meet up with Jacob again despite it being illegal here in the United States, but she did not have the heart to report it. Perhaps they could bring Jacob along, to give the happy couple a chance of being able to show themselves in public together without worrying to be exposed? He could perhaps stay in a hotel, or at least in the non-magical part of Paris, while they did their mission.
"When can we leave?"
He sent over a set of boat tickets across the desk to her.
"Two days. I have already booked a cabin on a ship going directly to France, that will leave New York Harbor in the morning, so you have to get up early. It was only five cabins with three beds left when I booked, so you will have to excuse that."
Not that Tina minded, that would help getting Jacob along to France. A loud, rather deep meow came from the desk again, Hades keeping himself busy with trying to push off some papers down on the floor.
"Ah, right. About that Obscurus case this past winter...I looked up the origins of young Credence while recovering from the time with Grindelwald, and found out that he was born in 1901. Before he was adopted by that unpleasant Barebone woman, he was in the care of a non-magical orphanage. The staff there revealed that his birth mother actually was a freshly arrived immigrant to the US, but that she sadly died from complications in a premature labour after arriving here to New York with a ship from Spain. Mary Lou Barebone was one of the two unrelated women who rushed her to a midwife who worked at the orphanage, since that was among the closest places from the harbour when the birth started too early. To my great luck, there was still some of her personal belongings left at the orphanage that Mary Lou refused to take along when she adopted the boy a few months after his birth. Thanks to that, I got a confirmation on her identity with a little help from the Spanish Ministry of Magic; Idonia Drina, a Spanish witch who was born from non-magical parents in a poor family around 1880, and was placed in a smaller witch school masked as a convent when two of its nuns noticed that she showed signs of magic, an act of charity that helped the family because there were several siblings outside Idonia and they had worried about not being able to afford dowries to all the four daughters. It seems that she had a romance with a No-Maj in 1900, but that he was killed by a rival suitor over her hand in marriage, someone who was a wizard and thought himself better suited to wed her. Based on what Í could tell from her diary, the move here to America was a act of desperation when she realized that she was pregnant without being married or at least engaged, hoping to be able to claim herself as a very young widow when arriving here."
There even was a photo of a young, dark-haired woman in a white blouse, her hair caught in a long braid that even had been set up in a braided bun on the back of her head. Tina could see some resemblance to Credence as he had been looking in his adult years.
"And….her son? Why did we never find out that he possibly was magical?" she asked.
"I asked our healers, and they said that he likely had been affected by her grief while in the womb, there was witnesses on the ship that also told the midwife after her death that she did not seem to be in the best of health during her blessed state. A less than ideal adopted mother also weakened his magic at first, because he must have been punished for small magic that he ended up scared of, linking it to something he feared."
A failure that was going to haunt the MACUSA, a life that could have become so different if they only had tried to be pay more attention in families like that. A harsh lesson, especially in how Grindelwald had almost managed to convince Credence that he could give the troubled young man a better life.
"It feels even worse in that he was able to escape while being transported to Europe for trial last week…" he admitted, that situation was going to make them look weak in the eyes of others.
"A very dangerous wizard, indeed. I dread what might happen if his followers get bigger in numbers, not just in Europe, but in the rest of the world as well. Japan sent a message just before his escape that they would add more defenses around their islands, just to try and keep unwanted people from entering. But at least Mr Scamander proved that Grindelwald can be captured, even if it was by the use of a magical beast, we just need to think out of the box when dealing with him," Percival agreed.
There was nothing else to talk about, so Tina was allowed to go.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Just after that miss Goldstein had left, Percival intended to have some lunch down in the dining area since he needed a break from the paper work anyway.
Only that when he opened the door, something was dangerously close to almost stabbing him in the eye. Only the old instinct to act quickly saved him, and instead the item drilled itself deep into the wood on the door as he was quick enough to close it. Two upset hisses behind him, revealed that Hades and Persephone had been startled as well.
"Mr Graves?!"
This time, as he carefully opened the door again, it was the other miss Goldstein who came running to see if something had happened to him.
"A Japanese kanzashi?" Percival wondered in surprise at seeing the hair ornament in the shape of a golden hairpin. A check with his ward, confirmed that the item had been sent by magic, all the way from Japan actually, in a group meant for all the Ministries of Magic across the world. That kind of long-distance magic was rare, and only used in emergency situations, based on the piece of parchment that had been fasted to the top end. Yet the hairpin removed itself out of the wood on the door and was once again sent flying in the air on its own, aiming to try and find the person who would have the message.
"A message for the President?" Queenie asked nervously.
"No, the letter was addressed to Newton Scamander. For whatever reason, it seems like Japan needs his help, most likely related to a magical beast or something."
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Credit to the changes of the real Percival Graves goes to fellow DA artist and writer Yinyangswings.
Idonia is a Spanish first name of Latin origin and its meaning is 'of good disposition', while Drina is a Spanish surname that means Helper and defender of mankind. I thought that given how Credence looks like in the movies, I could try with a south-European origin for him.
As for the idea of a smaller magical school being masked as a convent for witches or a monastery for wizards, I thought that could be a way to hide magical children in strongly Catholic countries where the Church have a strong part in everyday life, and not all magical students may want to travel abroad to study at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic that takes many of its students from France, as well as large numbers from Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. The long history of witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition likely also played a role in hiding away magical children under the disguise of charity.