When you’re small, your parents tell you a lot of things – sit down, stand up, don’t talk back or take candy from strangers. Newt knows all these things and a fair bit more. He knows he isn’t supposed to talk to muggles – people without magic – and that he’s not supposed to do magic without Mama or Papa or Theseus present. And he knows – he knows, he knows, he knows he isn’t supposed to go out beyond the garden at night.
Mama said. Papa said. Theseus said. It’s dangerous, they said, you could get lost. Or hurt. Or Worse.
And most of the time Newt is a good boy and he listens. Besides, there’s so much to explore in the gardens and the grounds of the estate. There are hippogriffs to visit and foals to play with and doxies to watch flit in and amongst Mama’s flowers. And at night, the little lantern bugs come out too, buzzing merrily along like tiny light houses, just specks. Newt loves the lantern bugs. He likes to sit and watch them bop about, their bums glowing softly in the falling night.
That’s what he’s doing tonight, curled up beneath the great oak near the house, his knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. Despite the occasional whine of a mosquito close by, he sits undisturbed, clear blue eyes unheeded by the mop of auburn-brown curls falling into them. The little lights flit and float and dance in the purple-blue-black. Beyond, Newt can just barely make out the silhouette of the great trunks that stand sentry at the edge of the forest.
He is especially not supposed to go out there at night. There’s some places in the woods where the ground looks solid but it isn’t. Theseus called it peat, said that if something fell into it, it was gone forever. Even whole people, magical ones too, had been swallowed up after falling into the goop. Worse than quicksand, Papa had muttered into his coffee. Newt is alwaysto stay on the paths in the forest, but it’s hard to see them in the dark, and so he is not to go out there at night.
Suddenly something catches the boy’s attention. It isn’t a lantern bug, it’s too big and not the right colour. Newt’s gaze flashes to it, but it’s gone almost as soon as his eyes move. He blinks in confusion, wondering if the dark is playing tricks on him, and shakes his little head. A mosquito buzzes by his ear and he reaches up to swat at it, shaking his head again to be rid of the pest. Just then, the light reappears, hovering at the fringe of the forest. It’s like before, there and then gone fractions of a second later, but Newt knowsthat he’s seen it this time, that it’s not just a trick of his imagination.
It’s almost like an orb, ice-blue in colour but tattered at the edges – more of a mist than a true light but illuminated nonetheless. And it lurked amongst the thick trunks of the trees, just hovering before disappearing. Newt strains his eyes, trying to catch sight of it again, and for a moment there is nothing before – there!
Further from the edge this time, the light reappears, flickering and then vanishes. Newt pushes himself upright, eager to investigate. Slowly, little booted feet cross the lush, dewy grass and with every step the faint strains of the party going on inside the Manor House fade away into a hush. Newt pays this no mind though, too focused on the little, faint light. Every time he gets closer, it leaves, only to come again farther away from him.
“Wait, don’t go!”
Without thinking, he crosses the boundary into the forest. The wards that guard the property melt around him, shuddering as if uneasy. Newt pays this no mind either, too little and inexperienced to understand the way the magic caresses around him as if pleading don’t go, don’t go. He doesn’t understand the poison seeping through them either, the way they’ve been weakened by something old and dark and very powerful. He’s only eight, he doesn’t know about any of this – he hasn’t been told about it at all.
So Newt follows, deeper and deeper towards the heart of the forest, past ancient trunks thicker than he is tall and weeping shrubs which shiver like a breeze is passing through them. But there is no wind, or noise. A wary silence hangs over the forest, like a crowd before the executioner’s axe comes down.
“Wait! Come back!”
Frustration wells in Newt’s belly, climbing its way up into his throat. Why won’t the light stay? Doesn’t it want to be his friend? It keeps running and running, allowing him close enough to reach out and touch but never hanging around long enough to let him. Newt’s heart beats fast and his legs pump, working hard to keep him going forward. He runs with his hand outstretched, chubby fingers grasping. If only he could just– if only it would just stay still.
So focused on the wisp of light, Newt doesn’t notice the thick root protruding out of the ground. It’s too dark to see it properly anyways, he’s been using the wisp as his source of light for what feels like ages now. Darkness has fully fallen, and with the canopy so thick and old no moon nor starts can penetrate to the ground. So Newt trips, foot catching and he goes sprawling off the path.
“Oof!”
Newt lands in a heap some feet away from the path, amongst the underbrush and the hedges with their scratchy branches, but hopefully no poison Ivy. Newt lays there for a moment, his chest aching and refusing to rise when he tells it to. It takes a couple tries to get his breath back, but when he does, Newt can sit up and takes stock.
He realizes that he doesn’t know where he is. Not at all. Everything looks so different at night, once friendly trees in the distance now ghostly spectres looming out of the dark. Newt shudders and rubs at his arms. It’s cold, damp seeping into his shorts and through his socks from the wet earth. It’s quiet, too, so quiet Newt can hear his own heart beating. No birds call, no insects hum, no animals rustle or whistle or move about. It’s as if all life has ceased.
A chill very much like fear runs up Newt’s spine. He tries to push it down, twisting his body and straining to find anything in the dark, anything that looks familiar. But it’s so dark, so very dark. Newt whimpers and twists his body round the other way, still searching. His gaze passes over something before he pauses and goes back to it, more chills wracking his body.
Someone stands a few hundred yards away, just an outline in black against the slightly lighter shade of a tree trunk. Newt’s eyes pick up on its movement more than its colour, that’s how he’s able to distinguish it. Then a wisp appears, brighter and more corporeal than all the others had been. It hovers in what must be the figure’s hand, just above the skin.
“Theseus!” Newt calls out uncertainly. He pushes himself to his feet, taking the first few steps on legs like a fawn’s before finding his stride and balance. He makes for the figure, heart in his throat and going a million miles a second. Tears sting his eyes, driven there by the fear slowly moving through him like ice going down a river.
“Theseus! This isn’t funny! It’s not! If you don’t come out right now I’m going to tell Mummy!”
Except he gets no reply. Newt swallows around the lump in his throat, trying to ignore how the silence that follows his proclamation feels weighted and uneasy. In a thin, unsteady voice on the verge of tears, Newt calls out again, “I swear! I shall tell Mummy and Daddy and you will be very sorry!”
Oh how he wishes he were eleven and at Hogwarts so he could hex Theseus to heck and back for this. Newt keeps advancing on the silhouette, anger and fear mixing a heady cocktail in his blood. He keeps going and going, paying no mind to the ground underneath his feet. Keeps going and threatening and trying not to cry and going and then… His shriek cuts off with a loud plop.
Something grabs him from behind, two large hands wrapping around the boy’s slender chest and hauling him physically upright. In the movement, Newt kicks out in surprise and his boot, knocked loose by his fall, goes flying into the space between the boy and the figure. It lands and immediately sinks down into the ground, never to be seen again.
Newt cries out in shock.
“What are you doing out here?” A voice hisses, something like fear in its tone. The hands on Newt’s back twist him around, the world blurring in deep purples and blacks for a moment before Newt is face to face with someone he’s never seen before.
He squeaks again in fright. It’s a man holding him, with dark eyes and very dark hair, as dark as a raven’s wing. His skin is so pale it’s almost white like bone, which makes his eyes stand out even more. They are so very dark – so very, very dark – and then Newt realizes he has no iris, only pupil. When Newt tries to scream this time, one of those big hands claps around Newt’s mouth, skin salty where it accidentally presses between Newt’s open lips and touches his tongue.
“It’s me,” the man whispers, “Newton, it’s me. Percival. You remember me, don’t you?”
It does look a little bit like Percival, Theseus’s American friend. But Percival’s eyes are brown, not black, and his ears aren’t pointed and his eye teeth aren’t fangs like those of a big cat. Theseus’s Percival looks like a person, not a monster come to gobble Newt up. So Newt shakes his head and tries to stop his body from trembling along with it.
The-thing-that-looks-like-Percival rolls its big, black eyes in bemusement.
“Well, it’s me,” the thing says unhelpfully, bushy black brows canting low over his eyes. He regards Newt for a second longer before seeming to realize the child can’t talk, and removes his hand.
“I-if you’re Percival… w-why do you look so funny?”
Mummy would scold Newt for asking that question, but the-thing-that-looks-like-Percival just laughs, short and sharp like a bark, without a mean edge to it. He sets Newt back down on the path and crouches so he can look the boy in the eye. Those pupil-less expanses frighten Newt a bit, but he tries not to flinch away.
“Surely a smart boy like you knows who the Fae are.”
Newt does know who the Fae are. Mummy sometimes tells him stories just as he’s falling asleep, about a beautiful young Fae who fell in love with a human man, a Muggle. But Newt has never seen a Fae.
“You don’t look like this all the time,” Newt says, a little petulant. Percival laughs again, showing those sharp teeth that are scarier than he probably intends.
“And you still haven’t answered my question. What the hell are you doing out here? I thought Theseus said you weren’t supposed to go into the forest at night, especially not alone.”
An admonishment and the mention of Theseus, combined with Newt’s lingering fear and the knowledge that he is going to be in somuch trouble when he gets home sparks the powder keg of emotions welling up inside him. Despite his best efforts, hot and fat tears begin to fall from his lashes. The-thing-that-looks-like-Percival makes a groaning sound, it’s eyebrows sinking impossibly lower when Newt’s lip trembles. He lifts Newt up off the ground and cuddles him into his chest. It certainly smells like Percival – that warm, clean scent with just a hint of tobacco or something around the edges – and it’s comforting. Without thinking, Newt nuzzles his face into the collar of the-thing-that-looks-like-Percival’s heavy, black coat.
“C’mon now, no tears,” he whispers, stroking Newt’s hair, “C’mon. It’s alright. You’re safe now.”
Newt sniffs miserably, “I-I didn’t… I was just following the light. I-I just wanted to be its friend.”
When he closes his eyes, he can still see that flickering blue mist hovering, just out of reach. It teases him, urging him to come forward, to follow it, to chase it. But he knows better now, and the realization of what almost happened makes the tears come faster. Newt’s body shudders with barely repressed sobs, loud in the still eerie silence of the forest. Not-Percival’s hand cups the back of the boy’s head, caressing those auburn curls and freeing them of some of the dirt that cakes them from Newt’s fall.
“Shh… I know. I know. But those things aren’t friendly, Newt. They’re bad, very bad.”
Not-Percival takes them back down the trail at a speed that Newt almost can’t believe. It isn’t apparition, there is no squeezing and pulling pressure on his body. Rather, it’s like the forest warps and twists and stretches around them, tree branches and the trail ahead pulling at odd angles. Seconds pass, before the terrified strains of Mummy and Daddy and Theseus’s voices reach their ears.
“Newt!”
“Newton Scamander!”
“Newt, where are you?!”
Mummy all but shrieks with relief when she sees not-Percival emerge from the forest edge with Newt in his arms. Her hands fly to her face. But Newt pays this little mind, instead watching Percival’s face shift as soon as he crosses the edge of the forest onto the grass. His ears shrink and round, jaw softening slightly and the pitch black of his pupils recedes into a small circle surrounded by brown again. It’s as fascinating as it is horrifying.
Then Mummy and Daddy and Theseus are upon them, followed soon by other guests. It’s a babble of voices intermixed and blurs of fabric and faces, and Newt somehow finds himself transferred into Theseus’s strong arms, all but crushed to his older brother’s chest.
“Merlin and Morgana,” Daddy whispers brokenly, brushing the hair back from Newt’s forehead so Mummy can plant a relieved kiss, “Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me Newton? Don’t you ever.”
He sounds too happy to see Newt to be really angry. Newt nods as best he can, smooshed against Theseus. Newt never realized how much he could be happy to see his annoying older brother before. As Theseus holds him, petting his hair, somehow the conversation turns back to the thing-that-looks-like-Percival, which might actually be Percival.
“Thank you,” Mummy says, clasping Percival’s shoulder, “Oh, thank you so much.”
Percival shifts and looks at Mummy with eyes that are still slightly unsettled, his pupil growing and diffusing outward every few seconds before shrinking again, like his body is uncomfortable with its’ own skin.
“There’s something out there,” Percival says lowly, like he’s trying not to attract attention, “Something very dark. Your wards are corrupted.”
“I know,” Daddy replies, shuffling closer to Mummy and Theseus, “I can feel it. It’s like it’s trying to seep in. What on Earth do you think it is?”
They don’t seem to notice, or be bothered, by Percival’s unsettled appearance. Newt tries not to let it bother him, either. He twists in Theseus’s arms, getting a good look at Percival’s face in full as the young man’s features pull into a tight expression.
“It isn’t Unseelie,” he says, perhaps a tad defensive, “But it can cast Wisps. That’s what you were following, weren’t you, Newt?”
All eyes turn back to him once more, and Newt flushes. He drops his gaze to the grass, so dark and lush beneath their feet, the very tips illuminated in a soft yellow glow from the house.
“Yes,” Newt whispers, “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.”
He didn’t realize they were bad.
Mummy shudders, not from the cold. Her curls bounce when she turns to look out at the forest beyond the garden, and when she does the light catches the diamonds in her earrings. The movement hides her terrified expression from her sons. Theseus squeezes Newt a little tighter, too.
A breeze rustles the leaves on the trees – the first natural sound other than chatter Newt’s heard in close to an hour. The sound is almost foreign in his ears, as if he has become used to the dreadful, deafening silence that accompanied him in the woods. And then, like that, Percival’s features settle back into something completely human. A great weight seems to lift itself off of the garden, popping the way your ears do when you change altitude suddenly.
“We should reseal the wards and we can discuss what it might be tomorrow when it’s light,” Daddy says firmly, sensing the change, “Percival, Theseus, will you help?”
He turns and asks some of the other guests, older wizards and witches Newt doesn’t know very well. Mummy takes Newt from Theseus, despite Newt’s protests that he is a big boy who can walk perfectly well on his own, thank you. Secretly, he doesn’t mind being carried, not after tonight. He wants to stay with Mummy and Daddy and Theseus and never leave again.
As Mummy takes him back towards the house, glittering like a jewel in candle light, that small voice in Newt’s head tells him to turn around. He does. The shadows stretch long across the manicured grass and the gardens, and the lantern bugs flit to and fro. The shapes of Percival, Daddy, Theseus and the others are clearly visible, their backs lit by the lights from the house and flashes of light coming from their wands while they cast. But if Newt peers beyond, into the gloom at the edge of the forest, past the light and the people incanting, he thinks he can hear the silence pressing against his ear drums again. Newt shivers and turns back round quickly, hiding his face in Mummy’s slender throat, nose squashed against her pearls. He misses it, hovering just beyond the ancient oak, that black figure half melted into the bark. It raises one hand and a wisp of blue-grey light pops into being just above it, before it seems to sink back into the shadows and disappear.
Fin
Thanks for reading. Note, Theseus is probably about eighteen in this piece and Percival is somewhere between nineteen and twenty, and already an Auror working for MACUSA.
I NEED 900000000 more fics about Fae Graves on my desk asap please and thank you.
Mercurial Tenacity 