Chapter 2
Rude Awakening
A man was trying to get some sleep when a loud disturbance jarred him awake. Everything started shaking around him and all he could think was 'Paris must be burning.' This thought should've alarmed him given his proximity to the city center but perhaps more alarming was the fact that it only aroused a kind of bland indifference. Suddenly there was a loud crack followed by a blinding light and for the first time in Merlin knows how long, fresh air hit the man's face.
He closed his eyes and automatically reached up to block the imposing light, an action which his shoulder both welcomed and protested.
"Ah, there you are, Mr. Graves."
A powerful gloved hand reached out and grabbed the outstretched hand of the presumed Mr. Graves, yanking him upright.
"That's better." The owner of the jolly voice dusted off Graves' shoulders as if this was an everyday occurrence for him. "A bit skinnier than you were and your hair is- forgive me- an absolute mess but we'll get you cleaned up in no time."
Barely processing what was happening, he squinted one eye open and when it was deemed safe the other followed suit. All he could make out was the blurry figure of a man standing before him. He opened his mouth as if to speak but no sound came out. He couldn't remember the last time he used his voice, or any of his senses for that matter. He had screamed himself hoarse what seemed like decades ago.
His eyes finally began to adjust and he was met with a pair of bright blue eyes, twinkling back at him.
"How rude of me. Please allow me to introduce myself. Albus Dumbledore."
Vague recognition dawned on Graves' face and just as quickly as he had re-entered the world, darkness pooled around him yet again. He promptly passed out and Dumbledore caught him before he could hit the ground.
oOo
When he came to, he was in an enormous room with stone walls, a high-arching ceiling and windows to match. A castle he guessed. There were beds lining the walls with little curtain partitions separating them and a small nightstand at the head of each bed. He looked over at his own nightstand and saw a mug filled with a thick brown liquid. The contents looked warm and inviting and he longed to have a drink of something. Despite the stiffness in his joints, he reached for it but before his hand could touch the handle a voice rang out from the other end of the room, in what he recognized as an Irish accent.
"Uh-uh-uh, Mr. Graves. Best not touch that." A blond woman built like a brick shithouse strode up to his bedside and with a flick of her wand, vanished the mug. "That'll be Professor Dumbledore's hot cocoa. Packed with sugar it is, the way he likes it. Be a shock to any man's system, let alone one as malnourished as yours." She handed him a draught of blue liquid. "Here have a spot of this instead. It'll get your energy up so we can get you eating again." Eating sounded like an entirely foreign concept. It had been so long since he had done it he could hardly remember what it was like.
He drank the blue liquid slowly at first, testing it, then when he felt the refreshing coolness run down his throat and the instant rush of energy, he gulped it down greedily, spilling some down the front of his hospital gown.
"Easy now, Mr. Graves. There's plenty more where that came from. We don't want you overdoing it." Another flick and the bottle was gone. "Now I better tell Professor Dumbledore you're awake. He gave strict instructions to alert him the moment it happened." She shot a transparent hedgehog out of her wand in the direction of the door- her Patronus. Graves had never seen one used for such a purpose before.
His thoughts were interrupted as she continued her chatter. "He's been worried sick about you, staying by your bedside whenever he can get a minute to himself. Nights mostly. I can't blame him though. You were a frightening state when he brought you in. Can't imagine what got you in that condition. Wasting away and yet strangely preserved. It's a medical marvel. Of course, it's none of my business and Dumbledore has been very tight-lipped about it. He does like his secrets." She rolled her eyes with good-natured vexation and turned to walk away. "But if you did want a pair of willing ears, I do love a good story." She gave him a sideways glance to gauge his level of interest and when he didn't immediately respond she quickly cut in, sparing them both. "No? Well, that's ok. I love a good mystery too and I have a very active imagination."
"Roisin, will you please give the man some space. He's been through quite enough without you giving him the third degree." Dumbledore appeared behind her out of nowhere, looking very well put together.
"Oh, and I suppose that's what you're here for? 'Alert you as soon as he's awake' so you can give him some space?"
"Alright, away with you!" Dumbledore shooed her away with a similar vexation to the one she demonstrated moments ago. With a 'hmph' Roisin went back to her station near the entrance.
Dumbledore turned to the patient, anxious to finally be speaking to him but trying to hide it behind a cool and collected demeanor.
"Good morning, Mr. Graves." Even though it was the middle of the night. "I hope you like your haircut. I'm no expert but I think I did a superb job if I may say so myself." Graves reached up and touched his face for the first time, feeling the smooth skin where there had once been a bushy beard. He pulled a strand of hair in front of his face. It was shoulder-length, longer than he used to keep it but it was clean and neatly trimmed. When he didn't say anything Dumbledore asked, "Would you rather I call you Percival? That was my father's name."
Disregarding the question, Graves put the strand of hair down and simply looked up at him. "How long has it been?" His voice felt like gravel and he yearned for some more of that blue concoction.
Sorry to leave the pleasantries behind so soon but not at all surprised, Dumbledore took a seat in the chair next to the bed, pausing for a moment to switch gears. He knew this would be a difficult conversation and his answers could be traumatic to hear, but they were necessary nonetheless.
Steeling himself, he looked Graves square in the eye and said, "By our estimation, it's been about six years."
A heavy silence followed as Graves let that information sink in. Finally, he shook his head and let out a pained laugh, like he had just gotten the answer to a long-nagging riddle. "Time does funny things when you're staring into nothing. I couldn't tell if it had been days or decades."
"Well, surely then, that's one of the lesser sentences." Dumbledore said softly in an attempt to lighten the mood. He immediately regretted it, not wanting to seem as if he were diminishing Graves' suffering.
"Yes, I guess I could've been rotting in there for all eternity. Or at least until Paris got leveled." Graves looked too tired to be offended, for which Dumbledore was grateful. "How did you find me?"
This was the simplest and most inevitable question, Dumbledore knew, but it was the one he had been dreading the most. "I had a hunch."
Graves looked mildly incredulous at that, the most emotion he had expressed thus far. "A hunch? I could've been anywhere."
"Well, Europe was really the only plausible possibility."
"Oh, only an entire continent filled with millions of people."
"Great as it is, it is one of the littler ones." Dumbledore didn't want to seem like he wasn't taking this seriously but he wasn't ready to discuss how he knew where to find Graves just yet.
Graves scoffed and shook his head. He wanted to pursue this line of questioning further but he relented for now. "Remind me to play Three-card Monte with you. I need some more of that potion. My throat is killing me. What's the nurse's name again? Rochelle?"
Dumbledore lit up at that. "Ro-sheen." He enunciated. "I know all about Three-card Monte!" He said, delighted to relinquish the hot seat for a second. "You're better off having tea for that." He turned around and shouted, "Roisin, can you get Mr. Graves a nice warm cup of tea? And perhaps one for me as well?"
"What do I look like, a bar wench?"
"Well you are Irish and I did steal you from my brother's bar." Dumbledore had a merry glint in his eye as he leaned over to Graves and said, "One of the many things he won't forgive me for."
"You hear that, Mr. Graves?" Roisin placed a tray with a teapot and one singular teacup on Graves' nightstand. "He acts like he's above it all but he's down in the muck with the rest of us."
"Now you're putting Mr. Graves in the awkward position of having to drink alone." With a whisk, he made another teacup appear and began pouring the tea.
"See that? He makes a fuss over something he can do with the snap of his fingers!"
"I could say the same to you."
"Likes ordering people around, he does." She could be heard muttering as she returned to her post.
"She said you were staying by my bed while I slept."
Dumbledore looked slightly embarrassed and whipped his head around towards the offender. "Why'd you have to tell him that?"
"I can't hear you from all the way over here." Clearly indicating that she could.
Dumbledore turned back to Graves, taking a sip of tea before returning his gaze. "Yes, it was touch and go for a while. There were a few times I thought you were dead. You barely breathe when you sleep. And when you weren't dead still, you were thrashing about like a mad man."
"When you're stuck in a box without any fresh air and you feel like you're suffocating every waking moment then you learn to breathe as little as possible."
Dumbledore's eyes shown with feeling at the horror of what that must've been like. "Do you know the magic that sustained you?"
Graves sighed. "Grindelwald gave me a fancy speech before he locked me away so I have some idea. And then I got the full immersion experience after that."
"It's an ancient magic that the Egyptians used to preserve their dead, to keep the bodies from decaying. Only, if the body that gets placed in the enchanted tomb is alive, it keeps your cells from degenerating. You basically become a battery that never stops running. Biologically speaking, you're six years younger than you actually are."
"How lucky I am." Graves said sardonically.
"It's elegant in its simplicity really." Dumbledore mused quietly, never one to let ingenuity go unappreciated.
"Well, please excuse me if I don't share in your admiration. You're not being kept alive so much as you're being kept on the verge of death. I think I'll hold off telling the salons that I have the cure for everlasting youth."
"You'd probably still get some takers."
"But no return customers."
Graves tried grasping the handle of the teacup but his hand started shaking badly, spilling some tea in the process.
"Please may I help you?" Dumbledore asked, unable to sit idly by and watch.
"Just help me sit up, would you?" He reached out his hand.
Dumbledore grasped it in a way reminiscent of their first encounter and put his other arm around Graves' back and sat him up.
"Thank you." Graves replied, wincing slightly. He reached for the teacup once more, this time opting not to use the handle, and was able to take a sip. It soothed his throat in a way that the Invigorating Draught didn't and he closed his eyes as he took a long drink.
Dumbledore drank his tea as well but never took his eyes off the other man.
"Can I get you something to eat? You must be famished."
"I think I lost my appetite pretty early in my confinement."
"Well we can start you with something light, like a bone broth. That'll get you some good nutrients and it'll be just like sipping tea."
Graves looked apprehensive and Dumbledore said gently but urgently, "We really need to get you eating. The potions only do so much. I promise it'll make you feel better."
Before Graves could answer, Dumbledore turned back to Roisin and yelled, "Roisin, can you get Mr. Graves a bone broth, please? No, you're not a barmaid, this is for his health."
"Oh, are you sure I can't get you anything, Professor? Cornish pasty, perhaps? I know you like to treat this hospital wing like a cafeteria." She came over and placed a tray table with the bowl of soup over Graves' lap.
"I'm all set but thank you for asking." He smiled sweetly at her like she had been sincere in her offer. She rolled her eyes again and walked away.
Graves stared down at the soup like it was some insurmountable obstacle. He looked up to find Dumbledore nodding at him encouragingly, which was not helping. "Go on, it won't bite. Unless it does. The kitchen does make a mean snapping turtle soup. And I mean mean."
"The thought of eating right now is nauseating."
"That's just your body playing tricks on you. How about this, for every spoonful you eat, you get to ask me a question?"
"And you have to answer it?"
"Well, I can always choose not to answer but if I don't answer then you don't have to eat."
"Deal." Graves didn't have to think hard about his first question. "How did you figure out I was in Paris?"
"I had reason to believe from an acquaintance of yours that that's where you were when you encountered Grindelwald."
"Who was the acquaintance?"
"Ah-ah-ah, you have to eat first." Dumbledore looked at him expectantly. Graves looked down at the soup and had a moment's regret for having been so quick to strike that deal. He slowly picked up the spoon and it trembled in his hand.
"Would you like some assistance with that?" Dumbledore offered helpfully.
"You're not feeding me." Graves answered flatly.
"What if I got my glove to do it?"
Graves gave him a look. "Do you think that sounds better?"
Dumbledore looked somewhat disappointed. "Students always get a kick out of the glove."
"I'm not one of your students." Graves put the spoon down and lifted the bowl up to his lips like he had done with the teacup. He took a sip and almost gagged but he was able to keep it down. He knew this was no different than drinking tea but there was some psychological barrier that was eliciting this response. Wiping his mouth he asked, "So who was the acquaintance?"
"Theseus Scamander."
"Theseus." Graves said the name to himself like he hadn't heard it in years which, of course, he hadn't. "Yes, we met in Paris while we were both hunting Grindelwald. He was a good man."
Dumbledore shook him out of his reverie by pointing at his bowl and saying, "Sip."
Graves looked back down at the soup and took a deep breath, bracing himself for the unpleasant task. He lifted the bowl again and took as small a sip as he could before setting it back down.
"And how'd you figure I would be in the Père Lachaise Cemetery of all places?"
"We now know that Grindelwald was scoping out the Père Lachaise for his big rally, which he held about a year later, after he escaped from custody."
This jogged something in Graves' memory. "Were there any explosions at this rally?"
"First, sip." Dumbledore said firmly. "And you can do better than that last one."
Graves growled and took a gulp big enough to satisfy Dumbledore, causing him to choke. He started coughing violently.
Roisin's voice rang out from across the hall. "What are you doing to my patient, Professor? You better not be pushing him passed his limits!"
"He's fine, he's just getting used to eating again." Dumbledore called back before turning to Graves and saying in a low, mildly threatening voice. "If you can't eat that properly, I'm getting the glove."
"You better not." Graves managed between coughs. When he had finally composed himself he said in a threatening tone of his own, enhanced by the ravaged state of his throat, "If you get that glove out you may as well slap me across the face with it because you're asking for a duel."
Dumbledore looked amused by that. This was the kind of terrain he thrived in. Namely, shit talking. "I'd like to see you try. You can barely hold a spoon let alone a wand."
"I'd rather die with whatever shred of dignity I have left than be spoon fed like a child by some fashion garment."
"And here I thought you were a fashionable man."
"As long as I can so much as wiggle a finger I'm not going to have someone or something feed me."
"All right, Mr. Graves, as much as I admire your conviction, it won't come to that." Dumbledore returned to the conversation. "What was the question again?"
"Were there any explosions or fireworks at this rally? Most of the time everything was muffled and quiet down there but there were two occasions when there were some loud outbursts. One of them was earlier on- it sounded like a large explosion and the ground shook around me. I thought we were under siege."
"Ah yes, that was probably the response to Grindelwald's Protego Diabolica. A group of wizards had to cast a rather large counter spell in order to keep Paris from getting incinerated by its flames."
This time Graves took a sip without any prompting. He still didn't enjoy it but he enjoyed being bossed around by Dumbledore even less.
"See? Was that so hard?" Dumbledore asked. This approval was met with a disapproving glare from Graves, which Dumbledore ignored. "Do you recall when the second outburst was if you don't mind my asking?"
"When you rescued me." Graves said. Dumbledore hummed in acknowledgement. "How did you know which grave I would be in?"
"Due to the sudden resurgence of interest in Egyptology over the last decade, the Père Lachaise was one of the few recipients of an Egyptian tomb around the time of your disappearance."
Graves snarled at that. "Calling it a tomb makes it sound spacious." He took another quick but sizable gulp. "I'd be lucky if I haven't lost a few inches after being crammed in there."
"The Ancient Egyptians were a smaller people." Dumbledore stated matter-of-factly, a comment that was helpful to exactly no one.
"Thanks for the history lesson, Professor."
"You can have that one for free." Dumbledore winked at him and Graves was beginning to understand where Roisin was coming from.
"You know, you really make it difficult for people to be grateful to you."
Dumbledore made a sound of disgust. "Thank Merlin for that. Gratitude can be so suffocating."
Whether it was the sentiment or Dumbledore's choice of words or something else entirely, all joking ceased and Graves became very serious. "Did he end up impersonating me?"
Dumbledore also became serious. He didn't need to ask who the 'he' was in that sentence. "Yes, he used transfiguration to adopt your appearance and escape to America amidst the international wizard hunt."
Graves looked like he had been expecting this but it still grieved him to hear it confirmed. He sat there staring at his soup for a moment. Dumbledore didn't press him to sip it this time, he just sat there silently. When Graves was ready, he broke the silence. "He said he would do as much. He observed me for a while and kept trying to get me to say things for him. 'Say it the way you would say it'. I mostly acquiesced by not saying anything at all but he had ways of prying it out of me." Shame and anger washed over his face as he recalled the memories. There was something unsettling about the way he said 'prying'.
"He also stole a few memories, which obviously I couldn't remember if I tried. I think that's the most frustrating part. I don't know what I'm missing. Was it purely functional so he could operate inside MACUSA or was it something infinitely more… precious to me?" These questions were rhetorical so he wasn't expecting any type of response. He finally took his sip and to his surprise Dumbledore answered him.
"He would've been more interested in infiltrating your job rather than your private life so I imagine he would've just been after information regarding that, especially if he was short on time." Graves studied Dumbledore's face and decided he wasn't just saying that to make him feel better which, paradoxically, made him feel slightly better. After all, Dumbledore's hunches had been spot on so far. "A few strands from your day to day, your dealings with your associates, Picquery in particular; whatever would help him get around and avoid suspicion." The mention of Picquery brought the troubled expression back to Graves' face. Dumbledore noted that with interest.
"How long did he assume my identity?"
"Not long, maybe a month or two. He was caught pretty soon after his arrival in America."
"Long enough to do plenty of damage, I'm sure." Graves said before taking another gulp, his biggest yet, perhaps spurred on by the anger. "You said he escaped custody. Where is he now?"
"You know, I think that's quite enough for one day. There's a lot to digest and you could use some rest."
"All I've been doing is resting." Graves said bitterly.
"I've seen you sleep and that's not rest. You have to take it slow, you've been through a lot. Progress will come soon enough but you can't rush it." Dumbledore made his teacup vanish and stood up, pointing towards the tray table. "Would you like me to take that for you?"
Graves was still upset but he couldn't deny that exhaustion was setting in, in more ways than one. He shook his head. "No, I've made it this far so I may as well finish it."
Dumbledore was pleased with this. "Good. Well, it has been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Graves, and we will see each other again soon." He said and turned to go. He made it a few steps before Graves called after him.
"Dumbledore?" The man in question turned back around to face him. Graves looked like there was so much he wanted to say but in the end he just went with, "I'm sorry I kept you up."
Dumbledore just smiled. "It was no trouble at all." And then he was gone.
Author's Note:
There were some discrepancies between the internet and movies on the timeline of Secrets of Dumbledore. We know that Fantastic Beasts takes place in 1926 and according to the online sources the Supreme Mugwump Election takes place in 1932. However, in SoD when Lally meets Jacob she says that it has been about a year since he met Newt which would put them either at the end of 1927 or early 1928. The movies are definitely not without their inconsistencies and inaccuracies but you definitely don't get the impression that 5 whole years pass from the time Lally meets Jacob to the time of the election. The reason I decided to go with the online sources, however, is because I got the feeling that was the one most in keeping with the books' timeline and an event like the Mugwump Election is probably one of those fixed pieces in time. Plus it added more drama to my story. If anyone has any definitive proof about the timeline either from the books or JK Rowling herself please let me know. I probably won't change my story at this point but I'm very curious.
