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"We can get through this," Blanchefleur repeats, "there are worse things than - "
Percival's voice cracks, his throat parched dry. "Fleur."
There are worse things than death. Percival thinks this might count: trapped without his magic, dying by slow inches when the water and scant food he's been allowed has stopped entirely. The first day, he'd thought it a boon; if Grindelwald wasn't there taunting him, wasn't there keeping him alive — surely it meant he'd finally been discovered and caught. Surely it meant Percival would finally, finally be getting out.
No one has come. It doesn't sting as much as it should.
"We can't give up, not now." Blanchefleur presses against him, warm under her ruffled feathers, careful with her sharp beak when she nudges it against his arm. "If he's not coming back, if no one knows we're here..."
He'd thought, at first, that someone would notice. Grindelwald had ambushed him in his home, silently bypassed his wards and caught him when he wasn't expecting it, and then had cursed him until Percival's occlumency started to crack. But the difficulty he had in getting through Percival's shields meant that his impersonation wouldn't be perfect, and Percival was hoping for it; that one of his Aurors or Seraphina would reveal him for the imposter he was.
Then the days had ticked by, and Percival's hope had been slowly ground to dust.
"We can't get out," Percival says. "We've tried."
Blanchefleur looks at him with large, golden eyes. "We've tried," she says, quietly now, and in a rush of understanding Percival knows what she's asking him, knows what exactly she wants them to do.
With Grindelwald coming back at uncertain intervals, it was too risky to try. But if she tries now and they fail —
Percival's mouth twists. "I don't want to die alone."
"You won't," she says, and presses her feathered head against his cheek. "We won't. I promise."
She can't promise it and keep it, but she says it still. He looks at the wards still penning them both in, at the cracks in the magic that a daemon might slip through, if she were very careful and very determined, and, he thinks, by now — she was both. Percival closes his eyes. "This is it, then."
"It isn't goodbye," she says. "I'll see you soon."
He holds her because it might be the last time he can; his hands span the width of her breast until she spreads her wings wide, and she tucks her head under his chin briefly, affection in her touch. "I'll see you soon," he echoes, quietly, and lets her go.
It isn't the magic keeping her in that's the problem. Grindelwald hadn't needed to trap more than one wizard when that wizard and his daemon were bound as they are, their bond strengthened and close. Percival has heard tales of No-Majs forcing Separation on the soldiers and their daemons off to fight the most gruesome parts of the War, but he'd passed by a few on the Front and they'd been just as attached as their counterparts, magic or no.
A few clever, powerful magicals have daemons who can cast magic, too. A few clever, wary magicals have undergone the old ritual, taking themselves to the top of the world where there exists a cold, barren stretch of land that no daemon can cross, and walked that miles-long desolation to permanent Separation.
These two things cannot coexist, and Percival once thought power worth more.
The moment Blanchefleur breaks through the cracks in Grindelwald's space-collapsing ward is the moment Percival starts to regret it all. It doesn't hurt, not at first; it's a tug on their bond, a persistent ache in his chest that starts to grow. And then: she stumbles away, and the tug becomes a pull, becomes a sharp, clawing pain that's less in his blood than it is in his bones. The pain of it spikes to an agony that's fear-betrayal-love and then eclipsed by the determination that floods through them both.
This isn't goodbye, she'd said. He can't let this be their end.
His nails dig into his skin, drawing blood, and he's not conscious of his voice scraping against his throat. Percival's heart feels like it's been torn from his chest, the anguish of loss worse than any pain; she's leaving him, leaving to let him batter himself against the walls of his cage, leaving to —
Leaving, to save them. Percival swallows around the ache in his throat. His eyes are dry.
He wraps his arms around himself, alone.
Newt's been in New York for coming on five days and by now, he's certainly ready to go. "Steamship ticket?" he prompts, holding out his hand, eyebrows raised. Artemis grumbles and releases her grip on it, and Newt pulls his wand from behind his ear so he can reparo the holes from her claws.
"We can still ask the President for a Portkey," she says, though half-heartedly. "Or Theseus. Theseus would get us one."
"You know my case doesn't Portkey well," Newt chides. "It isn't so bad, really. We don't have to leave the cabin - I know you don't like having to hide."
She looks at him unblinkingly, scaled head tilted toward him. "You don't like hiding, either," she says, a little too perceptively. "And you know there's more chance of another... incident."
"And you know," Newt says, pointedly, "the Niffler will hardly have the energy after the last few days, we'll be safe for a week or two. Long enough to get back home, at least."
Artemis huffs and clambers gracelessly to his shoulders, bringing her wings in as she gets her balance around his neck like some sort of scale-covered scarf. "Really, Newt?" she says, but lets out a long, beleaguered sigh and presses her head briefly against his chin in capitulation. "I'm not saying I hate it here, but..."
"It'll be good to leave," Newt agrees. He casts one more look out the Goldstein's spare bedroom window before he picks up his case again, checking the locks. "I think we've had enough of New York."
He fixes his destination in mind and spins on his heel, Apparating away to a small, dark alley conveniently on the way to the docks. He'd taken note of it on the way in and straightens his coat now, settling a quick Muggle-directed notice-me-not over Artemis before he steps out to the main road —
"Wait," Artemis says, suddenly. Her head is lifted, her nostrils flared. "I think... I think I feel something."
Newt barely has the chance to grab for her before she springs off, wings spread wide. She barely fits in the alleyway, but within a few wingbeats she's risen above the narrow buildings and Newt's stuck following the flicker of her red tail in the air.
He feels when she's landed before he sees her. There's a sudden rush of emotion down their bond, a tangible tug of concern that makes him speed up as he follows it unerringly to where she's gone. He finds her crouched on the ground, wings curved defensively and neck bowed, looking more like a dragon than the miniature and mostly harmless subspecies she's settled as, her chest glowing with banked fire; Newt says, "Artemis - "
"Quick, hurry," she says, words tripping over each other, "we have to help her."
That's when Newt sees the other daemon, collapsed on the ground beneath her, some feathers missing, more askew. Her golden eyes are glazed with pain or something worse, and she barely reacts when Artemis nudges her carefully with her snout.
He wouldn't have thought of it if it hadn't been recently on his mind. But when Grindelwald's daemon had taken to the air in the subway with a loud, screeching cry, magic whirling and their bond stretched beyond usual limits, it was Artemis who had pounced, wheeling past, and breathed fire; and it was Artemis Grindelwald's daemon had looked to when he was captured, yellow eyes as sharp as the beak and claws that had torn a rent in Artemis's side. "You're Separated?" he'd said, head tilted and gaze fixed, and Artemis had tucked her head beneath her wing as Newt wordlessly turned away.
It wasn't usual, for witches and wizards, who prized the limited magic that could be shared along a closer bond. But Newt and Artemis's Separation hadn't been usual, either — which was why he realised, all at once, that Artemis had looked like this daemon, after.
A traumatic Separation. At least it isn't intercision, Newt thinks, and swallows, throat tight.
He takes a quick glance around. "It's probably best if we do this in my case," he says. "Artemis, if you can bring her down - "
"Set up some wards first," Artemis says, and Newt sets his case on the ground, pulls out his wand, and does.
Artemis has the other daemon half-rolled onto her back by the time Newt is done, and with her wings spread and an ungainly waddle she drops both of them down into Newt's case. He's already mixing up a poultice when he grabs for his wand, and the diagnostic spell flickers over them both, settling uncomfortably over the daemon's feathers and wings.
She's not-quite unconscious, and Artemis nudges her again. "Hey," she says, gently. "We'll take care of you, it's safe, I promise. I'm Artemis, and this is Newt."
"Newt Scamander," Newt says with practised ease, and lets the charm dissipate as he passes the poultice over to Artemis. She grimaces at the smell, but scoops it up willingly, coating her knuckles and her snout in her attempt to cover the other daemon's pulled-feather sores.
Newt attempts a resuscitation spell, mind whirring as it fails. Daemons are largely unaffected by a human's magic; Unforgiveables will slide off them like curses on a shield spell, and even with a daemon willing or unconscious not many spells will last for long. "She's cold," Artemis says, looking up, and that — that they can fix.
Artemis warms her chest and lungs, enough for smoke but not fire, and Newt lays a small environment charm around them, a slow increase in ambient temperature to summer. He adds makeshift sunlight, a light, warm breeze, and by the time he's finished the daemon has started to stir once more.
"You're safe," Artemis says, before she's completely come to, before she can panic and hurt herself more. "We've got you, you're safe here."
The daemon — not quite a hawk, now that Newt is looking, a little more exotic in the shape of her beak and the length of her talons — lifts her head from Artemis's chest and blinks, still slow. "You're..."
"Newt Scamander," Newt says, "and my daemon, Artemis. We found you on the street in a bad way - are you all right? Do you need help?"
"Help," she repeats, and startles upright, feathers ruffling. "I need help!" She takes Artemis in at a glance. "You're magical, aren't you? Percival is - you have to help me find him again - "
Her voice wobbles on the name, and Newt says, swiftly, unthinkingly, "Of course we will."
"What's your name?" Artemis adds.
"Blanchefleur," she says, quietly. "I'm the daemon of Percival Graves."
Blanchefleur has been awake for longer than he has, Percival is sure. He wakes with his muscles aching and a strange absent gap in his heart, the stretch of his bond with Blanchefleur like he's suddenly feeling an echo instead. But that echo thrums with panic and worry and concern, familiar in substance if not in intensity, and he tries to feel something beside that in himself while he sits in his cage, empty and alone.
"We did it," he says, and it rings hollow but true. He's alive, still. But Grindelwald — but MACUSA —
They haven't thought the specifics through.
Blanchefleur would know better than to seek Grindelwald out, at least, even if he were wearing Percival's face still. And for all that MACUSA haven't yet sought him out, they're intelligent enough to see an illusion when it's waved in front of their faces, and Percival is confident they'll take his word over Grindelwald's if it comes to crossed wands.
He can only hope she's found someone willing to take her at her word, capable of helping them break this prison's curse.
You're being too pessimistic, he knows she would say; he can almost hear her voice. If Grindelwald never came back, they caught him. If they caught him, they'll know about you, Percival —
"Percival!"
That isn't her voice in his head. Percival looks up, just in time to catch her as she teeters and lands on his arm, talons digging in before she adjusts her grip. "You came back," he says, still feeling stunned and startled by the depth of it, by how much he'd lost alongside her. She nudges his hand when he runs it over her feathers, smoothing down some of the misshapen edges, and she's warm to the touch, seeping through him to his soul.
"Of course I did," she says. "I told you I would. I brought help, too."
She tilts her head, and it's only then that Percival notices she didn't come in alone. The crack in the magic she snuck through is barely visible in the air, an empty space in the shimmer in the wards, and there's a miniature lizard — lizard-with-wings now squeezing itself through. Not a dragon, Percival thinks, but something similar, if smaller — and the daemon peers up at them and says, "Oh, good. It's nice to meet you."
She meets Percival's gaze with an unblinking green stare and Percival feels faintly thrown. "You're Separated," he says, surprised, and she huffs a breath, full of smoke.
"Yes," she says, wryly, "I've heard." Her gaze drops as she looks away, back to the encircling ward, and she spreads her wings as her chest warms orange-red, and then exhales a gout of fire. It splashes against Grindelwald's magic, the wards lighting up —
And a thrum runs through them, a taut string on a harmonic, magic pitched to resonance —
It shatters like glass. Percival's dank, dark cell is suddenly filled with light, a wall behind him that he falls against even as his magic comes back to him in a swift, tingling rush. "Oh," he breathes, and brings a wandless lumos to his fingertips, bright and warm and his, and Blanchefleur chirrups with pleasure and spreads her wings wide.
She takes herself once around the room. It's a familiar one, too familiar — it's the entranceway in Percival's house, the place where Grindelwald had ambushed him what feels like months ago, and a shiver crawls up Percival's spine before Blanchefleur comes back to him, perching on his shoulder and setting her beak to his hair. "Thank you," she says, heartfelt, and Percival lifts his gaze to their rescuers: the miniature dragon — a drake, he remembers, now — and the man, red-haired and blue-eyed and smiling, tentatively, like he's not sure he should.
He should, Percival thinks. It looks good on him. "Yes," Percival adds, "thank you. I don't know what we would have done without you."
"Your daemon is clever enough," the man says, smile widening even as he drops his gaze to the floor, "I'm sure she would have found someone else to help you, once she properly woke. We just sped it up a little."
"It mattered," Percival says, firmly. "Thank you. Mr...?"
"Scamander," Blanchefleur says in a rush of realisation, "like Theseus Scamander?"
"Yes, that's right," says Scamander, "and it's Newt. Theseus is my older brother," he adds, directly to Blanchefleur, meeting her eagle-eyed gaze steadily like he doesn't Percival's own. "I suppose it does make sense that you've met before - oh, and this is Artemis."
"We're glad you're all right," Artemis says, and she meets Percival's eyes head-on. "Separation like that - your bond will be... strained, for a while. But it isn't permanent; it'll heal, as long as you're careful."
"You're Separated," Percival says, for the second time. It has a weight to it now that it hadn't before. "Traumatic?"
Newt and his daemon share a glance, words unspoken. "It's a long story," Newt says, finally. "Do you - I'm not certain how much literature on traumatic Separation your healers know. I could - I suppose we could - "
"Would you stay?" Percival says, and Newt briefly looks at him, a warmth in his eyes and the crinkle of his smile. "I'll probably need some curse-breaking done on the house, but you seem well-accomplished at that."
"And we have the room," Blanchefleur says, and she hops off his shoulder to the ground, where Newt's daemon has landed, testing her claws on the carpet. Artemis straightens, head lifting, and Blanchefleur drops hers to press her beak against Artemis's snout, a strange, foreign affection to her like what's filling Percival now.
He looks at Newt, and Newt looks back, cheeks a fetching pink with his blush. "You don't have any plans, do you?"
"We'd be happy to," Artemis says, as Newt says, "Well, we did have - " and they share a look between them that makes Newt huff a faint laugh. "I suppose I have missed my steamship," he says, instead, and gives Percival another sweet, tentative smile. "We can probably make up the time with a Portkey in a week or so."
"That can be arranged," Percival says, and rises somewhat unsteadily to his feet again, casting an inexpert accio for his wand. It turns up nothing, which was only to be expected, but he sighs and shakes his head, holding out his arm for Blanchefleur. "After I find my wand. And get my job back. And Grindelwald - "
"That one's sorted," Artemis says, and takes to the air; Percival's house is designed with Blanchefleur in mind and the walls are wide, the ceilings high. "We'll look around."
"I'm hardly a curse-breaker - " Newt starts, sounding amused, and gives Percival a commiserating look when Percival laughs. It cracks his voice, makes him newly aware of the ache of his dry throat, but he's free. He's been found.
He's not alone.
"She's a turul, isn't she?" Newt's stepped in closer, transfigured a glass to hand and filled it with water. Percival sips at it slowly and nods as Blanchefleur preens under his regard. "A dangerous creature, bent to protection."
"I haven't done much lately," she says, quietly, and Newt shakes his head and smiles.
"You have," he says. "You protected Percival, didn't you? I think... I think it suits you."
Newt's smile suits him, Percival wants to say; his drake, less solitary and territorial than her larger counterparts but no less fierce, suits him too. He hands the glass back, instead, and their fingers brush. A week, he thinks, is enough.
"Maybe you're right," Percival says. "Thank you."