Chapter Text
Every member of the magical community in New York City had a subscription to the New York Ghost, and Vera Prewett was no exception.
Some wizards and witches probably would have scoffed at this, if they knew. “A squib doesn’t need to know the goings-on of our world!” They might exclaim. “They’ll probably sell us out to their fellow no-majs anyway. We ought to be obliviating them all, not keeping them informed.”
Vera knew better, though. No matter what those with magic might think, a squib was no less threatened by the more dangerous no-maj families than a witch or a wizard. A fanatical anti-magic group could track suspected witches and wizards back to their families. If they just so happened to catch a squib instead, would they really care? Hundreds of innocent no-majs had died in the witch-burnings of the past. A squib was just another “freak,” one that couldn’t even fight back with magic. So Vera kept up-to-date with the newspaper.
Most of the stories she read had little impact on her day-to-day life, but then that could be said of most witches and wizards, too. Grindelwald’s rise to power in Europe was alarming, but still distant. Europe’s problems were of little importance to American wizards, who had their own problems to contend with.
Of course, this attitude rapidly changed when it became known that Grindelwald himself had infiltrated MACUSA, attempting to expose the magical world by manipulating a young wizard who had entirely lost control of his magic. “That poor Second Salem boy,” Vera had heard an older wizard say, shaking out his newspaper, “killed for his magic, abused by that awful no-maj woman, when we should have been protecting him!” He had shot Vera a nasty look then, as though it were her fault that the Obscurial had died.
Vera felt sympathy for him, of course, but didn’t see how any of this could reasonably be blamed on her. In fact, in a particularly bitter moment, she thought to herself that she probably understood what he had been through better than that nasty old wizard with the newspaper. Blamed for anything that went wrong, scapegoated due to factors beyond his control? That sounded awfully familiar to her.
A few weeks after the Obscurus incident, Vera had been doing a bit of Christmas shopping for her family and was nearly home when she saw some unexpected movement in an alley out of the corner of her eye. She started and looked around, hoping it wasn’t a no-maj mugger or even a wizard who thought maybe she didn’t deserve what little she had. But there was no one there. She was just about to turn away to continue her walk home when she realized what had caught her attention. A strange swirling shadow, more like a wisp of dark smoke, hovering low to the ground on one side of the alley, near the wall. It was much smaller than the Obscurus she had seen in the paper, about the size of a dog, but she had a funny feeling…
“Are you that Barebone boy?” She called to the wisp softly.
It seemed to flinch and swirled faster, red sparks appearing among the black smoke, but it didn’t seem to have the strength to grow to the size it had been before, instead attempting to make its escape along the wall away from Vera.
“Wait,” she said, setting her shopping on the ground and crouching down, hoping not to frighten him further, “I’m not going to hurt you. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”
The smoke hesitated, the swirling calming slightly. Something suddenly occurred to Vera.
“You must be starving. How long has it been since you ate anything? Wait here, I’ll get you something to eat.”
Vera hurried home, dropping the presents on her threadbare couch without bothering to put them away, and soon came back to the alley with a cheese sandwich on a plate and a glass of water.
“Here,” she said, setting the food down as close to the smoke as she dared, “I know it isn’t much, but I don’t have a lot of money.”
The smoke inched towards the food, but didn’t seem to be able to eat in its current state, and was too frightened to take human form.
“I’ll leave you alone now, okay?” Vera said softly, backing away. “I’ll come back later for the plate.”
When she got home, Vera dug through the stack of old newspapers she hadn't thrown out yet, looking for the stories about the Obscurial or his family. Unfortunately, she had already thrown away most of the papers with articles about the activities of the church, which was being closely monitored by MACUSA officials, but she found several stories about the incident she had read somewhat quickly before. She perused them more closely now. Credence... His name was Credence.
Vera gazed at one of the few photos of Credence that the Ghost had printed. He stared back, eyes darting here and there but never meeting hers, his head occasionally jerking to the side as though he expected to be struck at any moment. Touching the photo gently, Vera whispered, "I want to help you, Credence, if you'll let me..."
When she returned to the alley a few hours later, she found an empty plate and glass. The smoke had vanished.