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Graves pulls his arm from his face as the lights flicker on. "Fuck you," he says, absently, as he picks himself carelessly off the floor to spend another day glaring at Grindelwald - but it isn't the bastard who's stolen his face this time, but Tina Goldstein, her hand on the wrist of a slender, red-headed man he doesn't even know.
"You think he brought it here?" the man asks, peering around the darkened room, and suddenly Graves is eminently aware of what they're after. He eyes the bubble in the corner behind a mass of tricky wards, a writhing ball of dark magic, at times smoky and others solid. It's been here a grand total of a day, and he hasn't exactly enjoyed sharing the space. "I know Queenie said he had my case here - "
"He didn't register the Obscurus for storage," Goldstein says, "so it's either here, or..."
They exchange a troubled glance. The man steps forward and brings up his wand, casting an array of detection spells.
Graves thinks the time the door was busted down by someone kicking it in was far more exciting. He sighs and wanders over to the suitcase the man had been holding, the one which Grindelwald had placed on Graves's desk only yesterday with all the reverence of his special fucking wand, and frowns and tries to focus his magic on the locks. Whatever enchantment he's under, it's complete enough that Graves can't even manage a simple levitation spell now, and he stares at the lock on the case until his vision blurs.
One side clicks open. Graves is fairly sure it isn't him. "Should you be checking on this?" he says pointlessly, glancing over to the two scanning the room.
"There's something here," the man says, one of his spells catching on the ward scheme in the corner, but as Goldstein joins him there it becomes obvious they'll need to spend quite a while breaking the wards down. "Oh, Merlin, that's - "
Ah, he must have found the ward requiring a virgin's lifeblood. Graves decided to stop stalking Grindelwald everywhere after that incident.
"It's Grindelwald, Newt," Goldstein says, not unsympathetic, and holds his shoulder for a moment. Well, at least they've apparently discovered Graves has been replaced, though he can't say much for their efficiency. "Can you do this?"
"I - think so," the man - Newt, supposedly - says. "I just need to see how many things he's tangled..."
There are now fingers creeping out of the case. Graves eyes them narrowly.
A few spells, a flash of light, and Graves can see the outline of the wards shimmering in the air; this Newt might not be terrible at ward-breaking after all. He watches them untangle the knots of them, unravelling the wards into magic dissipating in the air, which means he entirely misses the fingers sliding down the case to lift the second latch and -
Graves shouts in alarm as something barrels into him, knocking him onto the carpeted floor. It's literally nothing, except that when he brings his arms up it feels - soft, and warm, and - alive? It's the first thing he's touched in months, and he runs his fingers through its - fur? and carefully rises to his feet again, its arms latching on around his neck. "What are you?" Graves wonders, which is when Goldstein sees the open case on the floor and says, "Newt!"
"I - what?" Newt says, and then glances back and his eyes dart rapidly around the room. "Is it the niffler again? Dougal, is that you?"
The - whatever it is - suddenly turns non-invisible and phases right through Graves, falling to the floor. Startled, he takes a step back, and Newt stares at the creature. It stares back.
"Dougal," Newt says, "you know we have to be careful, come on," and he tries to herd the - is it a demiguise? - into his open suitcase even as Goldstein makes a face. "Dougal, stop being difficult, what is it?"
Dougal points at Graves. Graves raises his eyebrows back.
But Newt follows the finger and ends up fixing his gaze rather unerringly at Graves's shoulders as he steps forward tentatively, step by step. Graves feels the innate urge to step back as he approaches, but with the demiguise's eerie stare fixed on him thinks better of it as Newt's fingers pass right through his sleeve. Graves squeezes his eyes shut as Newt's face comes close, close enough to count his eyelashes or his multitude of freckles, and then Newt steps right through him.
It doesn't feel like anything, but it's still disconcerting.
"Newt," Goldstein says, "what are you doing?"
"If Dougal says there's something here, there must be," Newt says, sounding stubborn. "And if it's been kept by Grindelwald, I'm sure it needs help, I just need to work out how. Invisible and intangible - is it still there?" he asks the demiguise, who tilts its head and abruptly vanishes.
"And your Obscurus?" Goldstein says, sounding harried. "The reason we came here?"
"You can manage the last few wards, can't you, Tina?" Newt asks hopefully. "Please, I just need a few moments, I promise."
Graves does swear this time when the demiguise tackles him, sending them crashing into the desk as Graves loses his grip on the willpower that keeps him from sinking through the floor. There are hands latched onto his arm, though, and Graves reaches for it and pulls himself up, staring at blank space like it might say something. Inkpots have spilled everywhere, and he thinks he can see half the demiguise's arm now painted black. "What are you doing?" Graves asks it incredulously. Obviously, it doesn't answer, but it does hop up on Graves's shoulders, putting a hand on his head. "Stop that - "
"Oh," breathes Newt from rather too close to Graves's ear, and he takes a startled step back.
Newt's tracking the demiguise's arm. Of course. Graves offers the demiguise an apologetic pat and it makes a pleased susurrus of a sound as Newt says, again, "Oh. You're a person, aren't you?"
"Glad you noticed," Graves says dryly, as Goldstein gasps.
"A person?" she says, "Newt, if he's captured someone - perhaps Credence - "
"No," Newt says, slowly, "I think this one is - Mr Graves?"
Graves offers him a slow clap, then sighs as the demiguise pulls at his hair. "Yes," he says, "what do you want me to do, nod?"
"Mr Graves?" Goldstein says. "I thought he was... dead. Sorry, sir," she adds quickly, glancing toward the demiguise's inked arm.
"I can only assume Grindelwald thought so too, if he hadn't realised - " Newt cuts himself off, frowning. "If the curse was rare enough, perhaps he didn't know demiguises could see though it, but... I suppose it's a rather effective way of removing someone."
Goldstein winces. "If we hadn't come by..."
Graves rolls his shoulders, starting to ache under the demiguise's weight, and carefully picks it up to shift it to his arms, closing his eyes as he leans his forehead against its fur. "I would have gone crazy and killed myself, you mean," he tells the demiguise, and it pats his arm, spreading ink all over his sleeve.
Newt coughs, awkwardly. "Well, now that we know - I suppose we'll have to do some research, I've never heard of a curse like this before." He glances at Goldstein, who shakes her head.
"No - MACUSA has a library, though, and I can write to Ilvermorny about it."
"I'll owl Theseus," Newt says, "and... one of my old teachers, too." He looks away to the Obscurus encased in a bubble, now visible to their eyes. "You left the last ward?"
"I thought you'd like to destroy it together," Goldstein says, and they share a grim smile as they destroy it in a near-blinding flash of magic and light. Graves blinks spots out of his eyes as Newt steps up to the Obscurus, raising a hand to it like he wants to touch it.
"I'm sorry," Newt says, very quietly, and if Graves isn't mistaken, the Obscurus seems to swell and calm under his gentle voice, his almost-touch. "Do you want to come home again?"
When he steps back, the Obscurus trails him with a spell, and Graves keeps a careful distance just as Goldstein does, her expression worried and her hand on her wand. "There we go," Newt says, levitating the Obscurus bubble down into his suitcase, and then he looks at Graves. "Um. I am sorry, but Dougal can't really stay out like this, considering he's at least a bit visible, and last time," he slides a glance to Goldstein, who shakes her head, smiling.
"You were breaking the law," she says, and Newt's mouth quirks.
"We were just going to leave and Apparate back to - the Goldsteins?" He glances at Goldstein, who nods. "I - oh, can you leave here? Can you Apparate?"
Graves nods a yes, shakes a no, and the demiguise helps by waving his arm. Graves rubs his fingers in its fur.
"Well, you could come in my case with Dougal, or I suppose we could - Side-Along?"
"If you can't touch him, and he can't touch you..."
"If I held onto Dougal and Dougal grabbed him..." Newt peers at the demiguise thoughtfully. "Maybe next time. If you don't mind."
"Are you collecting me?" Graves asks. "I'm not sure I'm ready to agree to this." Still, he lets the demiguise drop to the floor when it jumps, and then takes its outstretched hand by following the line of ink through space. Dougal leads him to the suitcase, and Graves stares down into the depths of it and lets out an undignified sigh. "Really?"
"Oh, Newt, here in the desk..."
"Is this Grindelwald's wand?"
"If we can cast a priori - "
There's noise from the corridor, the sound of footsteps, and Graves sees Newt hastily shove the wand into his pocket and then gesture wildly at the case. "Please," he says, "we're - not actually supposed to be here," and Graves looks down at the ladder again and makes a face.
Space expansion charms, when you're currently immune to magic and also intangible, are not at all fun. Graves tries to sink through the space like he would drop through the floor and things go dimensional and strange, the real world and the one inside overlapping like he might get stuck between them, and it's only Dougal's grasp on his hand that lets him follow the demiguise to a place where he can breathe. And he does, hands on his knees, eyes squeezed shut for a long moment.
When he opens them again, he sees a visible demiguise exiting out the door of the small shack he's landed in.
Graves follows him.
These extension charms, Graves can feel, are very firmly rooted; when he tries to become intangible to it space simply ends at the floor and doesn't let him through. It's a relief of a sort, and Graves almost enjoys walking without the worry of maintaining himself - apart from the fact that this Newt apparently keeps a menagerie of highly dangerous and illegal creatures in his suitcase, and Graves isn't even counting the Obscurus.
But Graves is invisible, so he wanders, vaguely wondering if there are any other creatures that might see through this curse.
The nundu doesn't even twitch when he steps on - through - its tail, and the erumpent, looking despondent that it's stuck there at all, doesn't move a muscle. There's a tree of bowtruckles that almost shivers when he passes through it, and he feels it like an odd tingle across his skin; when the bowtruckles poke their heads out, though, they make chittering sounds and then go back to whatever they were doing before.
Graves sighs and settles down on the space lying just below the grass, wondering just how far the walls stretch but not caring enough to reach them. The demiguise ambles over after a while, the inkstain a splotch on its silvery fur, and Graves says, "Well, I suppose it's better than nothing," and reaches for it. Obligingly, it turns invisible, and Graves holds it for a while, relishing in the feel of it, warm and alive and real.
He's still lying there, close to dozing off when a voice filters through the creatures' noise; it's Newt's, light and accented, saying, " - and I hoped you might be able to communicate."
"I don't know, honey," says the woman next to him as they round into view. She's very familiar, and Graves takes only a moment to place her as Tina Goldstein's sister. "I never could read Mr Graves."
She glances around as Newt says, "Dougal?" and his gaze lands on the demiguise's ink-stained arm hovering just above the ground. "Ah, Mr Graves - Queenie, can you - ?"
Queenie squints into the space between them, mouth twisting, and Graves remembers she's a natural Legilimens. But he can't touch his Occlumency shields, and with the way magic passes through him he's not even able to tell if they're there. After a long moment she shakes her head, looking regretful, and says, "There's nothing, I'm sorry."
"No," Newt says, "it's quite all right. It was a long shot, anyway."
"I'm sorry, Mr Graves," Queenie says, eyes scanning across the ground. "I do wish I could help."
She leaves after extracting a promise from Newt to join them for dinner, and Graves sighs and runs his fingers through the demiguise's invisible fur. Newt, looking thoughtfully in his direction, narrows his eyes as Dougal shifts in Graves's arms, falling to the grass as he shimmers into view. Dougal's eyes are glowing blue.
"Do you think - " Newt says, apparently to the demiguise, and then: "Oh, of course, I should just - it can't hurt to try," and he casts a swift accio toward the small cabin near the suitcase's entrance. Graves doesn't see what he picks up, but he does see Newt's approach; his feet stop only a few inches from Graves's arm, and Graves pulls himself up to a seated position just as Newt crouches down, his concerned wide eyes startlingly blue. "Here," Newt says, holding out a bundle of shimmering fabric, "I'm not certain if this will work, but..."
It's an invisibility cloak, Graves realises. Most of the ones woven out of demiguise hair are a mix of that and actual fabric for material cohesion, and they always fade gradually after harvesting, but he still reaches out. His fingers brush fabric - and through it, Newt's own hand.
Newt stills. Graves can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he reaches out again, winding his hands in the transparent fabric before taking Newt's outstretched hand in his; he can feel the warmth of it through the fabric, the way his hand twitches and his fingers curl around Graves's own -
Graves pulls. Newt makes a startled noise and topples forward in a muddle of wizard and invisible fabric and the weight of him would knock the breath out of Graves if it hadn't already been stolen away. He can't see his hands covered in the stretch of fabric but he can feel Newt under them, over him - the rise and fall of his chest with every breath, the beat of his heart so close and so far away. Graves maps out his shoulders, the smooth fabric-covered line of his back, and Newt pushes himself up with his hands on Graves's shoulders for only a moment before the surprised flush on his cheeks fades and his mouth twitches into a self-conscious smile.
"Ah, sorry," he says, and falls back to Graves's chest. Graves tucks his chin over Newt's mess of hair and relishes in the physical presence of him; the tangle of their legs, the uncomfortable number of buttons on his waistcoat, the way he can feel Newt's every breath. Newt is real and alive, a presence Graves's mind would never even think to conjure - and they can touch.
That this might mean Graves is alive, too - that he's not some ghastly apparation tied to his own failures but a real, living person who can be fixed -
Graves presses his face into the swathe of fabric covering Newt's hair and, for a moment, breathes.
When the gaping ache of emptiness in his chest has started to fade and the warm body pressed against his starts to awaken another ache entirely, Graves slowly pulls himself away. The look on Newt's face is far too understanding and he arranges himself next to Graves, their thighs pressed together, their elbows brushing. "Actually," Newt says, breaking the silence, "I thought that perhaps with the demiguise hair - there might also be a way you can communicate."
With a lazy wave of his wand, he summons a quill and parchment, holding them out. Graves takes the parchment, struggles to hold the quill in his fabric-encased fingers, and the first thing he writes down is: pen?
Newt watches the word appear on the page with fascination and then immediately flushes. "Oh, I'm very sorry," he says, "um, I think Tina might have left one? Let me just - " and he squints in thought as he casts another accio. Graves raises his eyebrows when Newt catches it, holding it like one might something strange.
Their fingers brush when Graves takes it, and Newt gets a flicker of inspiration in his eyes and catches Graves's hand there in the air. "Just a moment," he says, biting his lip as he sets Graves's hand on his thigh and takes up the demiguise-woven fabric, feeling along the length of it. His leg is warm under Graves's hand, and Graves watches him curiously as he takes his wand to the length of fabric, cutting out a slightly misshapen rectangle.
Graves realises he's rubbing tiny circles into Newt's thigh with his thumb probably precisely when Newt does, by the way Newt glances at him, cheeks pinking, when he forces himself to stop. Newt lifts Graves's hand, setting it down on the cut piece of fabric, and Graves only realises what Newt's doing when he folds it over, pointing his wand at it and frowning in concentration.
"I haven't done this in a while," Newt admits, "I hope it doesn't work out too terribly." Under his direction, the fabric folds itself around Graves's fingers, seams along each edge; when he's done, it's an invisible, fairly well-fitting glove.
Graves lifts his hand, flexes his fingers, and picks up the pen. "Is it all right?" Newt asks, and tentatively smiles at Graves's scrawled thank you. "I can make one for your other hand, too."
Grindelwald? Graves writes, as Newt takes his other hand and winds the fabric around it.
"Oh, of course - he's been captured," Newt says, "he's being held at MACUSA at the moment. President Picquery is being careful - he was doing a lot of boasting about being unable to be held. But to be quite honest, I'm not entirely certain about their competence. I mean, that we could get our hands on his wand and after no-one even blinked when you - well, Grindelwald disguised as you - sentenced Tina and I to death..."
Graves stares at him, and slowly underlines his last question mark with a heavy weight of dark ink. Newt winces slightly. "It's - a long story?"
Graves taps the pen on the page, and Newt sighs. "Well, I suppose - at least for me - it began when my Niffler managed to get loose..."
Newt's voice rises and falls in an easy if hesitant cadence, his occasional glances toward where Graves is sitting a stark and delightful reminder that he still, actually, exists. Graves winds his gloved hands around Newt's and wonders if he could hold his wand; magic, still, slips from his grasp like sand through his fingers but what had formerly seemed impossible might no longer be.
He has hope, for once. It feels startlingly new.