Disclaimer- I own nothing

A/N- This fanfiction contains, or will contain, mentions of torture, injuries, emotional trauma, PTSD, blood, and death, though none of it will be incredibly detailed. It is being posted as T for now, but the rating may go up to M. If anyone thinks it should, please let me know in the reviews and it will be changed accordingly. This is a multi-chapter fic, but updates will be slow.

The title of this fanfiction comes from the lyrics of a song, and a few lines in the story pull from it, too. Can you guess it? I'll reveal it in chapter 2.

This story has been beta read by Sarcastic Sci-Fi Writer. Thanks!

Percival Graves was a man on the edge of insanity. Or perhaps he had already reached it and gone over. He didn't know anymore. He had been here for a long, long time, and had lost track of the days a lifetime ago. Had lost all sense of time a thousand interrogations and tortures ago, when he had been tossed back in the cell and lost to the oblivion of unconsciousness. But those ways he had used to mark the passage of time did not come so often now. At least not from Gellert Grindelwald himself.

Some of his followers, his 'Acolytes', came every now and then, used spells and fists and knives to tear at his already abused body, sometimes healing him, sometimes not. He had no sense of time, of the passage of months, weeks, or even day and night, as the dungeon was deep underground, with no window he had ever found. No light other than Lumos cast from a wand or torches lit with a flick of one, and that wasn't often done anymore.

He had become used to the dark, truth be told. He was part of it now; it was like a friend, the only thing he could rely upon here. But he didn't need light anyway. He had memorized his cell eons ago and knew how many steps were from the back wall to the door, from one side door to the other, from the bed to the meager bathroom facilities. He paced the cold stone now, back and forth, back and forth, for the simple reason of needing to do something. When there was light he would scratch things with a broken bit of stone on the walls, but the light was rare here now, so no more of that.

As he paced, he muttered under his breath. "Gellert Grindelwald. Vinda Rosier. Carrow. John Abernathy. Krall. Krafft. MacDuff. Nagel." he muttered, listing more names.

His captors. His enemies. He was the Head of Magical Law Enforcement at MACUSA, the head of Major Investigations, the head Auror; he was a detective, a police officer, and they seemed to have forgotten. But he collected evidence, he observed, he listened. He memorized every little seemingly- insignificant scrap of information the Acolytes let slip in front of him and had slowly compiled it into a working knowledge of his captors. He knew their names, which name belonged to which person, which countries they hailed from, sometimes even if they had families.

He knew which spells they preferred, what their wands looked like, which hand was their wand-hand, and more. Little personal details, habits and tics and compulsions. He was, after all, a man with compulsions himself. A need for everything to be sorted just right, neat and clean, and that was one reason he had been so good at his job. He made sure everything was in its place and if something wasn't, if it didn't fit, he sure as hell didn't rest until he found out why.

He had had no prior connection or knowledge of these people before now, save for Grindelwald and Abernathy. Abernathy, admittedly, had been quite the blow, and he remembered the hope that had burned inside his chest when he had seen the young Auror for the first time here, thinking Grindelwald had gone down for good, that someone had finally found him. That hope had been extinguished with a solid punch to the face that had fractured his eye socket. The betrayal had burned in him for days, and still did, a little.

Percival shook his head and his voice quieted, his hand brushing his dry lips, his finger slipping between his teeth absently.

His face was more or less intact (he thought) and sometimes they healed him, but that did not mean he was whole. For example, while he 'paced' the length of his cell, it should have more of been called limped. His right leg had been broken in multiple places, and it had never healed correctly, so old now magic would never fix it. But he could live with that. It didn't hurt so much now, and he had learned to function. There were other reminders besides that one, though.

Scars, some thick and ropy, others thin and puckered, and others still pale and barely visible, marred his flesh and there was a particularly nasty one stretching along his rib cage, from when he had first fought back. The Rosier woman seemed to take particular pleasure in the knife. Other bones had been broken and the spells used to heal them had not always been performed correctly, causing aches and pains in the old breaks, and the wrist of his wand-hand had healed a little crookedly, a hard spur of bone having sloppily healed over the break. He could still use it, but it often hurt, and definately did not look normal.

But it did not matter. It did not matter because he was still alive, and mostly whole. Partially whole. Maybe. He wasn't sure anymore. He was whole in body, albeit now rough on the edges, but his mind... Was he sane, questioning his sanity? Sometimes he had prolonged conversations he imagined with people from his past- Aurors, friends, family members- and sometimes he woke up screaming for reasons he couldn't remember, and other times he would sit huddled in the corner of the cell, fearing the light, fearing the dark, fearing any noise, fearing the silence.

Those were not the actions of a sane man.

Or perhaps they were. Perhaps he had simply forgotten what sanity was. A copper tang coated his tongue and Percival stopped pacing, letting the salty, metallic taste fill his mouth, wondering what it was, almost savoring the unexpected flavor, when he realized his finger was still in his mouth and he had sank his teeth into his own flesh. Appalled, he lowered his hand and spat out the blood, using his tongue to probe the injury. It didn't feel too bad, at least, and the taste of blood suddenly sent him spinning away, to different days, different times. Spells flashed, voices called out different incantations, the knife gleamed like a sliver of moonlight in the dimness before turning red, red, red with his blood. Pain burned and sang through every nerve of his being and Percival could do nothing to stop it, nothing to fight it, watching as his own body was beaten, bloodied, ripped, and broken. His head connected with stone and stars flashed across his eyes, and the next thing he knew he was crouched in the corner, his head throbbing, his heart pounding, fear soaking into him.

"Damn it. Damn it." he mumbled, pressing his palm to his forehead. Something far-off made a noise and he shrank back, his heart skipping a beat, but it was likely some beast, scurrying around. There were boggarts here, and other beasts he didn't know, had never seen before. He had come to learn he was somewhere in Austria, but he had no idea what sorts of beasts might inhabit the country.

The knowledge of beasts was limited, and only covered in a few classes a few times a year at Ilvermorny. And those were American beasts, common ones, or ones even No-Majs knew about. He prayed a boggart did not visit him again. He didn't need to see any of that again, and it remain until some Acolyte remembered his existance and brought food. Percival pressed his back to the wall, focusing on the coldness of it, and he stayed in the corner for a long time. He didn't know how long, but the corner felt safe.

Eventually, when his mind had settled and the scent of his own blood was tolerable and his heart was not threatening to escape his chest, he rose. He felt his way through the dark to the sink and turned on the tap. The water was cold as ice, but it was clean, and the sharpness of the cold was what he needed. He scrubbed his hands and then stripped off his clothes, awkwardly scrubbing every inch of his body until his skin stung from the rough treatment and the cold. He took the extra blanket he had set aside for this purpose and dried himself, not washing his clothes this time.

He was in the same clothes they had captured him in, black trousers, white shirt, black waistcoat with a little hint of red, black jacket, socks, shoes, underwear. Most of it was ripped and stained, but it was all he had, and he did not like to look at his shirt, to see the horror of old blood stains that showed when he held it up to the light. But, again, it was all he had, so he wore it, and he took care of it. He had had a tie in the beginning, but that had sense been taken, when he had taken it from his own neck and tried to choke an Acolyte with it. Grindelwald had not punished him for that; in fact, the man had seemed impressed by his brazenness. Grindelwald. The thought of the man-made Percival clench his teeth. He knew what the wizard had done.

In the beginning, after he had first been captured, the man had visited him every day. And watched him. Sometimes torture would follow, but the wizard would also study him, like a cat watching a mouse. And slowly, he had realized why. He had noticed it out the corner of his eye, Grindelwald moving, mimicking him, the way he held his body, the way he walked, even the expressions on his face. It had been jarring. And chilling, because the man was good at it. It had taken him only a handful of visits to start doing it, and only a few more after that to almost perfect it.

Then the torture had begun in earnest.

The man could have used the Imperius Curse to draw out all the answers he could possibly want from Percival, order him to answer every question, but no. He had reaped his reward through pain and, for the few difficult things Percival would not give up, a dose or two of Veritaserum. That got to Percival more than anything. That he had given up information about his country, his post, his Aurors, information Grindelwald had taken and absorbed to become him. And he knew he had done it, because Grindelwald had shown him.

Percival had not been held here, in Nurmegard, at first. After being sent to Europe to try to help fight the Dark wizard, the man had captured him, forced him to smuggle him into New York undetected, as only a man of Percival's position and power could. First he had been held in his own home while Grindelwald stripped him of his identity and became him, even sent to work and Imperiused to act normal. Work by day, torture by night. Then, when Grindelwald had taken that final step and taken his place, he had been transferred here, to Nurmergard, to Austria, though he had not learned where he was until much later.

He had heard something from the Acolytes about Grindelwald being arrested in America, but somehow the wizard had escaped, likely with Abernathy's help. Percival didn't know the details, and likely never would, but he knew enough. He also knew, for instance, Grindelwald's target. A boy named Credence Barebone, and he had been stunned at first. Credence Barebone, as in Tina Goldstein's Credence Barebone? Percival was aware of the boy's existence, the abused teen son of the leader of the Second Salemers, the very woman who Goldstein had attacked. Percival had spoken up for Goldstein after she had hexed the woman, after he had gotten the story out of her, and had managed to convince Serafina to demote her to the Wand Permits Office. He had visited the boy a few times, before being sent after Grindelwald, since Goldstein couldn't, as he couldn't stand the thought of abused children, No-Maj or not.

But the boy surely couldn't be magical, could he...? That was what he had thought, at first, but no. The boy was an Obscurial, and Grindelwald wanted to use him. And Percival was certain- no, he knew the man would go to any lengths to obtain what he thought was useful. But so far, they had failed. He had heard the whispers, the snatches of conversations, and knew that much. He filed all the information away, like all of it, but he didn't know if that was a bit of madness or not. What use was it? It kept him sane, but why did he do it? It was unlikely he would ever make it out of here. He had entered this place with a mind of stone (and a heart of glass, Serafina had teased, after he had suffered yet another heartbreak), but it felt like glass now, cracked like a spiderweb and threatening to shatter at any moment.

He began his ragged pacing again, and he had no idea how long he did it. But, finally, he could not take it anymore. The darkness, the silence, the cold, all of it and any of it.

"Incendio!" he growled, snapping his fingers.

As the Head Auror, he, of course, could perform wandless magic, never mind that Grindelwald had long ago taken that length of ebony and steel and dragon heartstring from him. His magic seemed to have suffered with him through his imprisonment, however, and of course there were spells in place to prevent him from using magic, but he could manage the occasional weak spell. But nothing happened now.

"Incendio! Incendio!" He was screaming the spell, over and over, snapping his fingers and trying to mimic the proper wand movement. His ragged voice echoed through the dark dungeon and he kept screaming the spell over and over until his voice broke, until it only came out as a ragged sob. And then a little flame bloomed from his fingers, hot and scorching, and he sobbed harder at the sight of it, but he wasn't sure why. It was weak, little more than a candle flame, and he scorched his fingertips, which he did not care about. He collapsed on the bed and curled around his little flame, knowing it would not last, but for now, it chased away the darkness and the others things, pulling him away from the edge of insanity and into darkness.

He awoke suddenly, in the darkness. Percival never slept well anymore, and the darkness, the timelessness with which the Acolytes came to harm him or give him food or to simply see if he was still alive, gave him no idea of how long he actually slept. But it was never long before nightmares and monsters came to visit.

He sat up slowly, wondering what had woken him, fearing it was a boggart, his heart beginning to quicken in his chest. But he saw nothing, nothing but darkness, and then he heard it. The creak of hinges, and footsteps, multiple pairs. And with them came voices, voices he recognized.

Rosier. Nagal.

It was never more than one unless it was a torture. Something inside him quivered and though Percival hated himself for it, he found himself in the corner again, fear leaving an awful taste in his mouth. He hated himself for cowering, but he did it unconsciously, his own instincts driving him there, and he obeyed them.

There was no fight left in him now, he knew that. He didn't know how much more he could take, before he was broken completely, before he finally gave up for good. He had already spent so long fighting back and trying every possible way he could think of to escape, and it had never worked. Percival Graves was a proud man, a man who did not give up easily, but after all this time, he did not think that man existed anymore. That man had bled out on the cold stone of the cell long ago.

Strangely, laughter bubbled in his throat as the footsteps grew closer, their echoes making the exact words the voices were saying hard to hear, and it burst out of him in a hysterical high pitch, echoing off the stone as well. The footsteps stopped and the voices faltered, Percival realizing they could hear him, but he didn't care.

Light suddenly flooded the cell and the laughter turned into a sharp yelp, the sourceless illumination searing his retinas and making tears pour down his face. He buried his face in his knees, shrinking back against the wall, and he heard the footsteps resume, drawing closer, closer, closer.

Once, when he had first come here, he would have stood and met them, waited with his chin held high, but that was another thing that had happened to another man. Finally, the voices and footsteps stopped outside his cell and he swallowed, body frozen. He could make out their words now, and someone opened the window in the door, peering in.

"It's just him." Rosier said dismissively, her red-painted lips curving in a smile as she spotted him the corner.

Then she slammed the panel of wood back in place, where it magically sealed seamlessly, and the footsteps continued past his cell. What? Percival paused as he heard the sound of another door opening, hinges squeaking, and he realized they were opening the cell beside his, which was empty... Until now.

They had a new prisoner.

His mind leapt and began to cycle through options, names he had heard on the lips of the Acolytes. Tina Goldstein, Queen Goldstein, Credence Barebone, Newt Scamander, Albus Dumbledore... Was it one of them? Or was it someone else? He didn't know, but he hoped it was not Credence. If Grindelwald and his Acolytes had captured an Obscurial... Percival shuddered inside.

He heard nothing, just Rosier and Nagal talking, saying something about the prisoner waking up soon, and then they left. That was it. They did not disturb his cell any further and when they left, most of the light going with them. It was just enough to see by and see colors, gentle on Percival's eyes, and he went to the far rear corner of the cell, where there was a gap in the wall.

It was far down, about level with his head if he was sitting on the floor, and the hole was big enough for him to stick his arm through and reach to the other side of the cell. He had made the hole, in one of his many escape attempts in the beginning, and the Acolytes knew of it, had been amused by it, but they knew there was nothing more he could do to the wall, and there was no escape that way all the same. The stones were stained with his blood, though it was old and dried and flaking, and eased himself down, hissing as he jarred his leg. It stuck out awkwardly in front of him and he peered through the hole, trying to see the bed in the other cell. The cell was positioned just like his, however, and the hole was positioned along the same wall as the bed, but not close to it.

"Hello?" he whispered in a hoarse voice, though he did not think it was likely the prisoner was awake yet. There was no response.

He sat there and decided to wait, because whoever the prisoner was, they were at someone. It had been a long time since Percival had seen or even spoken to anyone who was not Grindelwald or an Acolyte. And he could prepare this new prisoner for what was to come, like he had the Auror trainees, try to make them ready for it.

Those were the thoughts of a different Percival Graves from a lifetime ago, but they still invaded his mind.

Percival leaned back against the wall and waited, listening for any sound that came from the next cell.

It took an eternity, a dozen lifetimes in the almost-dark, but finally, he heard it. The faint sound of the bed creaking, of someone freezing, and the bed creaking again as the prisoner got up, likely looking around their new home.

Percival opened his mouth, but he paused, craning his neck, trying to see, but whoever they were, they had not moved close to the hole. Some part of him paused, told him not to scare this person, a potential ally, even... Even potentially a friend.

He heard the prisoner's feet hit the floor and they got up, making him pause as their footsteps sounded off the stone.

It sounded like... High heels? It sounded like when Rosier walked, in her tall-heeled boots, and that was strange. Not a man, then, and certainly not an Auror. Then who was left on his list?

"Tina?" he said, before he could stop himself, before he even realized he had spoken.

His voice came out hoarse and rough, a voice that had not been used for much other than screaming in a very long time, brittle and broken and dry. But it got a response, a sharp inhalation of breath, the footsteps stilling.

"Who's there?" The voice was female, British-accented, and it was fierce, but he detected the trace of fear. And he did not recognize it.

And, for one wild moment, he had no idea what to say. His mind froze and he shrank back from the hole a little, his heart beating a little faster, almost as if this scared him, too. And it did.

"Hello?" the woman said, sounding a little calmer, but still wary.

"In the corner. There's a hole." Percival said, his voice rasping and scraping in his throat. He wasn't sure if she could hear him very well, or even understand what he was saying, but some separate part of his mind was speaking, resurrecting that bled-out man.

The footsteps sounded closer, but the woman did not come too close to the hole, and Percival did not blame her. He would not have trusted someone talking to him through a hole, who he did not know, when he had just been captured and locked in a dungeon.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded, shifting a little into his line of sight.

He could not see her face, or really much of her, aside from a dress of raspberry silk. Definitely not an Auror.

But her question made him stop, just made his mind stop, because it was so out of place here, in this place of pain and nightmares and darkness and timelessness. It was so normal, and part of him wanted to sob at that, or burst into laughter again. Because it was normal, and it was a question he was not sure a man on the edge of insanity could answer. But there was only one answer he could give.

"Percival." he answered, angling his head, trying to see this woman.

It did not occur to him once that this might be some kind of trick, that the Acolytes were trying to torture him in a new way, and he was beyond caring anymore.

He thought of sticking his hand through the hole, but no, that likely wouldn't do anything good.

"Percival." the woman repeated, as if tasting the name. "How long have you been here? What is this place?"

That was very practical, he thought, and smart. Like he had been, once.

"This is Nurmengard. The castle of Gellert Grindelwald." he answered, coughing, not used to talking anymore, save for occasional talks with figments of his imagination. "And... And I have no idea how long I've been here."

"What's the last date you remember, Percival?" the woman asked, her voice gentling a little.

He had to think of this for a minute or two, long and silent. "I... October? It was fall in New York when he took my face... October 1926. Or September. What day..."

"September 8, 1927." the woman replied and a jolt of shock went through him.

A year. He had been here for a year, more or less. It couldn't be that long... And yet it couldn't be that short. He had been here for decades, a century. Not just... A single year.

He heard a weird gasping noise, like something small was being strangled, and he could not figure it out what it was, his ears ringing, the light suddenly seeming too bright.

"Percival? Are you all right?" the woman asked, and he realized the noise was him.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to settle himself, and he swallowed, getting himself under control.

"No." he said. He meant to say yes, but his mind had other ideas.

"I don't suppose you would be." the woman said softly, a faint, bitter laugh coming. "That was a stupid question."

It had been, in the general sense, but it had been some time since anyone had asked him that question, too. It calmed him, settled his breathing.

The silence thickened between them and Percival could sense that it was heavy with questions, both his own and the Brit's, but neither of them asked them.

Because where did you start? How did you start? Actually, that was an easy answer, at least on his side of the conversation. Some part of the dead Percival Graves came back to him, the part that knew how to talk to another human being, and told him what the most important question he could ask right now was. So, he found the words, and forced them past his lips (another, natural question that was foreign now).

"What is your name?" he asked, peering through the hole, and finally the woman knelt so he could see her face.

Her skin was a warm brown, her eyes even warmer and richer, her hair tumbling in coffee-chocolate waves around her face. She wore some make-up, but not much, and he noted a beauty mark on the left side of her face, just below her mouth. She was beautiful, and something in her eyes spoke of sadness and hardship that had been suffered and fought through and carried for a very long time, things that he had felt a lifetime ago.

Those eyes scanned him, taking in the face he had not seen in more than a year, and the look in them, through the shock and horror, reminded him of the fact that he was human, that he was someone other than a beaten, broken man teetering on the edge of insanity. They stared at each other, and then she spoke, answering his question.

"My name is Leta. Leta Lestrange."

A/N- So, this is my first Fantastic Beasts fanfiction (that I've written down). I always wondered what had happened to Graves, though I have to admit, at first I didn't realize he was a real person in the story! I was talking to my mom about no one wondering where Graves had come from when Grindelwald was pretending to be him, and then my sister walked up and said, "He's a real person. Grindelwald just took his place." Yeah, well, after having my mind blown, I wondered. And Leta... I don't think she's dead. I based this fanfiction off my wondering what had happened to Graves, the fact I think Leta is alive, and one of Grindelwald's lines from The Secrets of Dumbledore.

"You and your sister share a powerful bloodline." (Grindelwald) "Shared." (Kama)

And the look Grindelwald gave Kama, something was up with that. Plus taking his memories. As I put above, some of the lines and the title of this fanfiction came from a song. First person to guess it in the reviews gets bragging rights! I'll be confirming the song in chapter 2!