A/N : New chapter, lots of revelations ! i am quite happ;y with this chapter, but please remember it's an AU and not a copy of Arcane... character's life and motivation might differ :P
Vander
Vi whimpered like a beaten-up dog at the news, something inside her—not just breaking, but already broken—being ground into smaller pieces, turned to dust.
"Powder... my sister... They made her a vampire?"
Ekko snarked, joyless.
"Don't be daft. It's bollocks. It was no more a vampire than it was a werewolf two months ago or a localized storm last summer. It's all bullshit the Prophet feeds us to keep people from asking what the hell is going on."
"Still, another attack," stated Caitlyn. "So we can definitely correlate those deaths with Powder's presence. And the Death Eaters. Seems highly probable she's part of the group, one way or another."
"Merlin, what happened to her?" wondered Vi to herself. "How did she get roped into this?"
"It seems it started long before you left, Vi," tried to console Caitlyn.
"You think that makes it better? It's worse! It means I could've stopped it before it even began! It means... It means..."
For the first time, Ekko showed the pain he shared with her by reaching out and patting her shoulder accros the table.
"Hey... It's Powder. Not even Merlin himself could have stopped her from doing what she wanted... I should know, I tried. I was there. Didn't matter."
Vi's sigh was heartbreaking. She banged the table with both fists—not hard, just enough to motivate her into action.
"Alright. So what do we do now? How do we find her?"
Ekko seemed just as desperate.
"I'm shit outta ideas. I can't put my people on it anymore. They know we tailed them—they'll be careful."
Vi scoffed, trying to recompose herself into the person Caitlyn knew her to be.
"It's so weird to hear you talking about your people, Little Man. Ain't you all grown up now."
"Shut up, Vi."
But the ghost of a smile was still back on his lips. Caitlyn's mind was racing through all ideas and possibilities—every resource she thought she could call for, every procedure she had ever learned since the Academy that could apply to their situation, every past experience that could birth any idea.
"What about... Ekko, did you or your Firelights ever hear the name Silco?"
The sound of broken glass rang through the inn, cutting every conversation short. Vander was staring at them, paying no attention to the pint shattered at his feet.
"Caitlyn," he said slowly. "What did you just say?"
There was something deep and terrible in his question. Spooked and confused, Caitlyn obeyed.
"I was asking if he had ever heard the name Silco?"
Vander's eyes were locked on her, peeling her layer by layer all the way to the core of her soul.
"Everyone. Out," he finally said, as slowly as humanly possible.
Customers looked at each other, dumbfounded, but there was no room for arguing in his voice. No one would even think to try. Just as slowly, the few witches and wizards in the Leaky Cauldron got up, pulled their winter cloaks on top of their robes, and left the inn.
Vander waited until the door closed for good and the wind chime above the entrance stopped ringing to finally move and step toward the group and the table, stepping over the broken glass on the floor. He grabbed a chair from another table and dragged it behind him, the creak of wood on wood making Caitlyn wince.
Finally, he asked, not before dragging a pipe out of his pocket and lighting it, filling the air with acrid smoke.
"Where did you hear that name?"
Caitlyn explained without any resistance. Vander's voice was as calm and low as usual, but the tiny little thing that had changed underneath made him terrifying. She told him of the attacks, the survivor, her testimony, her death.
Vander kept smoking through his tobacco without a word, only a few grunts here and there.
When she was finally finished, Vi took over, clearly less scared of pushing back than she was.
"How do you know about Silco, Dad? What are you not telling us?!"
The look he gave her was not angry but rather filled with sadness.
"Vi... I know you blame me for not telling you about Powder's body missing... But do you really think that if I knew anything to help you find her, I would have kept it from you?"
Her anger faded away instantly.
"No. I'm not saying that. I just... How do you know the name? 'Cause clearly, you do."
Even Ekko was giving the man the same inquisitive look. Vander blew out a large cloud of smoke.
"Alright, look. I'll tell you. I just... I just hope you'll still think of me as the same man afterward."
Vi tensed and instinctively grabbed Cait's hand in hers as a source of comfort.
"When I was a wee kid... Things were different. People like me... Squibs. We didn't have as much regard in society as now, which we barely do. For many, we were less than Muggles. Barely human. Easy targets to pick on. When I was like ten years old, I met this other kid, same as me. Silco was his name. We became best friends real fast, then brothers. We had such anger, such grit... Maybe we didn't have magic in our veins, but we had power just the same. I was the brawn, Silco was the brains. Man was the cleverest son of a gun I ever met. When wizard kids would try and humiliate us, he would always find a way to be underestimated... and then make them pay. Low and from the side, he used to say. We got into our fair share of fights, and we didn't need no wands. Our fists were enough."
He took another puff of tobacco. Vi was staring at him, eyes wide as silver plates.
"Then, when we were barely past our twenties... It was a few years before you kids were born... We got in a fight with a bunch of wankers in some pub a bit south from here. Things didn't go our way, so Silco did what he did best. Low and from the side, alright. Shived one of them."
"He killed him?" choked Caitlyn.
"We thought so. Got scared they would finally throw us into Azkaban. Except the folks that came after us, they weren't Aurors. They were Grindelwald's people."
Caitlyn choked once more, and Vi almost fell from her chair. They all knew who the terrorist Grindelwald was. Dumbledore's friend at first, arch-nemesis then, famous for both his incredible skills in magic and Wizard Superiority dogmas.
It also triggered so many questions. What did such a wizard want from two Squibs?
"They didn't leave us no chances," continued Vander. "Thought it was the end of us. But they had different orders. They took us to the big boss. Grindelwald himself."
The women shuddered.
"Turns out, the big man was curious to know how two inferior beings like us, Squibs with nothing to our names, managed to kill a wizard. He wasn't mad. He was... curious. Silco, being the kind of man he was, said it was easy when said wizard was some untalented coward with shit for brains."
He laughed bitterly.
"I remember the face Gellert made. Like it was the funniest shit he had ever heard. And then, you know what he did? He offered us a place in his ranks. Told us we might just be the exception to the rule. That it was nature's mistake that young folks with guts and brains were born without magic. And he told us he could fix that mistake."
He looked at his pipe, lost in his memories.
"He said he could give you magic?" gently asked Caitlyn, her compassion oozing from her voice.
"That he did. Silco truly believed that the only real power in this world was the will to do anything and everything necessary to get what you wanted. And trust me, kids, he had that power. The man was more stubborn and dedicated than a starving werewolf. Plus, it was Grindelwald. Greatest wizard of our time, people were saying. If there was one man in the world capable of giving magic to two Squibs, it would be him."
"I can't believe you worked for Gellert Grindelwald," gritted Vi between her teeth. "And I thought I was the bad apple of the family."
A flash of anger crossed Vander's brow.
"Hey! I never thought you were a bad apple, Vi! Never! Never said it, never thought it. But you're right. I did things I ain't proud of. At first, we only had a few errands to run, and nobody was paying attention to folks like us, so it was perfect for the boss. Then things escalated. Racketting, bullying... The more Grindelwald trusted us, the more I wanted out. But Silco... Silco didn't mind the blood. He didn't mind the fear, he didn't mind the evil. He didn't care. The only thing he wanted was respect, and he was finally getting it. And he firmly believed in Grindelwald. He would overthrow the Ministry, he would end the International Statute of Secrecy, he would rule over Muggles, he would get the magic finally flooding our veins, and he would rule beside Grindelwald."
Stumped, Vi could only whisper.
"I can't believe it. What the fuck... I just... What."
But Caitlyn, as always, was more focused on the endgame, the goal, the bottom line.
"And then Grindelwald got defeated by Dumbledore."
"That he did. And when he got locked up, Silco's dream went down the drain... And he was ready to do anything to get it back."
"Get revenge on Dumbledore."
Vander chuckled.
"No, Silco didn't believe in vengeance. That was more my thing. He would only pursue it if it served a purpose. No, he had a much more important goal: getting Gellert out of prison."
"I don't see how that could have gone well, especially without magic powers," estimated Caitlyn.
"And you would be wrong, my dear. You can be certain it would have worked. Silco's plans always worked, and you know why?"
"Because he would stop at nothing," whispered Ekko.
"Indeed. His plan was the bloodiest, nastiest thing I had ever heard. And it would have worked, there's no questioning it."
"Then why didn't it?"
"Because I killed him."
Once again, the girls choked, spat out, gaped. Even Ekko reacted.
"Or at least, I thought I did. I couldn't—I just couldn't let him do that. Innocents. Children. They would have been blood on the walls of half the continent. I just couldn't. I tried to talk him down. I tried to stop him. He just wouldn't stop. We fought. I won."
He grimaced.
"If you can call killing your brother-in-arms winning."
"But how is he walking around the country with a yellow eye now?"
"That, I got no clue, kid. Truth be told, I thought he drowned in the Thames. I saw his body float away, but I couldn't get it back. Never found it, even after spending days dragging the docks. But I can tell you this—he didn't have any yellow eye back then."
Caitlyn was fully back in investigator mode.
"Any chance this could be another person? Same name only?"
Vander shrugged.
"Can't say it's impossible. Never heard anyone else named like this in my life, though."
"If it's him, and he actually survived, why would he be coming back only now? After thirty years?"
"Damned if I know. As I said, until ten minutes ago, I thought the man dead and gone. I wept for him and mourned him. But if it's him, and if he's back, and worse, if he's really tied to these attacks... That cannot be good. There will be blood in the streets, one way or another."
"There already is" spat Ekko.
"And how does Pow-Pow fit into all this?" asked Vi. "To get back at you?"
"Or who is this guy he called Master?" added Ekko. "If the only boss he accepted before was Grindelwald... I don't want to think about who he'd pick next..."
"But!" Vander raised his head, jerking it back up. "If it's him, and if he's got Powder, then I might know how to find him. I know all his old hangouts. The bars he liked to drink at, places we were sent to find young and gullible recruits... Might be he's careful enough not to go back to those places. Could be he's not. Worth looking into."
"I'll do it," offered Ekko. "They don't know my face, and I don't want to put my guys on the line again."
"But Powder knows you..."
"Then I will have found her."
"There's still something that I don't understand," cut in Caitlyn, right hand to her chin, gaze locked onto the table, as if some grand answer was waiting for her there. "What are they doing, and especially why those small villages? Why those targets? Why a family with kids? Why an old woman in Scotland? Why bring a troll to Hogsmeade? I don't see any pattern, nor anything that could be remotely close to gang activities!"
"There is a pattern," grunted Ekko.
Caitlyn raised an eyebrow. Could he see something she had missed? This young man?
"And that would be?"
"That every attack is in a new place with new victims."
Vi rubbed her neck, and Vander pulled back into his chair, arms crossed before him.
"And for the less smart of us?" asked the pink-haired woman. "What does that mean?"
Ekko leaned forward, both elbows on the table, and looked into her eyes.
"Let's say you have a job to do. You do it once. Then you do it again, but completely differently. New place, new method. Then a third time, changing your approach again. Why is that?"
Vi shrugged both her shoulders and hands.
"It means you're trying something," answered Vander. "You expect a result, and you're not sure how to get it, so you're trying different ways."
"Exactly!" confirmed Ekko, throwing his back against his chair once more.
"But what are they testing, then?" asked Vi again.
"Hell if I know."
A dark shadow came over his face.
"And that's what I'm scared of. Who do you know who's completely crazy about experimenting with new things? And ended up with blue hair forever as a result?"
Vi's eyes went wide.
"Powder... Powder's conducting one of her experiments!"