unspoken war-t.scamander ✔️

𝟎𝟎𝟒

ᑕᕼᗩᑭTᗴᖇ ᖴOᑌᖇ

____________

The Matagots give chase as the Zouwu gallops out of the room, leaving them injured and thwarted in its wake. The Zouwu carves a path of destruction through the Ministry. It takes one last leap over the typing pool and it's immense power propels it up and out through the glass roof.
Newt and the Zouwu land in the Père Lachaise cemetery. The few Matagots that have followed them growl and shrink. Reduced to the size of domestic cats in the muggle environment, they 'meow' pitifully.
Newt opens his case as the Zouwu nudges him with affection. Madeleine, Leta and the other women, who Madeleine found out was called Tina, climb out of the case to observe Newt coaxing the Zouwu. As Tina shakes the cat toy she had found in the case, Leta clasped Madeleine hand and pulled her away into the darkness, unnoticed by Newt and Tina.
A minute later, Leta and Madeleine enter the Lestrange Mausolem. The ornate space is lined with sleeping statues of dead Lestranges. A short, stout man is backed against the wall next to a snake. The snake is repeatedly lashing out at another man, who is trying to get a clean shot of Credence.
"Move back! Move!" the man shouts at the snake, "Out of the way! If I must kill you as well as Corvus, I shall!"
Leta raises her wand at the man and, hesitantly, Madeleine does the same. The man spins round and looks at the two,
"Stop!" Leta says. She walks forward, stricken and determined. The man looks at her mesmerised and he moves towards her, studying her face in the darkness. Madeleine raises her wand higher, over Leta's shoulder and at the strange man.
"Yusuf?" Leta questions.
"Is that really you? My little sister.....?" The man, Yusuf, asks back. Behind Madeleine, Newt and Tina enter, exchanging looks. Madeline looks behind her, still pointing her wand at Yusuf, and silently acknowledging the two's appearance.
"So he's your brother? Who am I?" Credence asks Leta.
"I don't know," she replies. Credence pushes past her and faces Yusuf, unprotected. Leta holds her hand out to Madeleine, indicating her to lower her wand and cease her protective stance. Madeleine does as she'd signalled, just as Credence says to Yusuf,
"Im tired of living with no name and no history. Just tell me my story - then you can end it."
"Your story is our story." Yusuf says, gesturing to Leta.
"No, Yusuf-" Leta protests but Yusuf interrupts her, determined,
"My father was Mustufa Kama, a pure blood of Sénégalese descendant and most accomplished," his eyes stare off into the distance as memories go through his head, "My mother, Laurena, was equally high bred. A noted beauty. They were deeply in love. They knew a man of great influence, from a famous French pure blood family. He desired her." Madeleine looked over at Leta to see how she was handling this and there were subtle tears in her eyes.
"Lestrange used the Imperius Curse to seduce and abduct her," Yusuf continued, "That was the last time I ever saw her. She died, giving birth to a little girl," he turns to Leta, "you." The tears in Leta's eyes became more obvious as she relived the guilt of her childhood.
"The news of her death drove my father insane. With his dying breath, charged me to seek revenge," Yusuf's eyes flickered to Madeleine then back to Leta as Madeleine steps towards her best friend, gripping her wand as Yusuf continues, still determined, "Kill the person Lestrange loves best in the world... I thought at first it would be easy... he had only one close relative... you. But-"
"Say it.." Leta says, quietly.
"... he never loved you."  Madeleine places a comforting hand on Leta's arm and then looked at the man,
"He remarried not three months after her death. He loved her no more than he loved you... but then.." the man says, "... his son, Corvus, was born at last. And the man who had never known love was filled with..." Yusuf trails off and Madeleine's gaze flicker to Credence, who looks on, rapt.
"All he cared about was little Corvus." Yusuf says.
"So.. this is the truth? I am Corvus Lestrange?"
Madeline removes her hand from Leta as her Yusuf reply at the same time,
"Yes"
"No"
Credence stares from one to the other. Yusuf turns to Leta,
"Realising that Mustafa Lama's son had sworn revenge, your father sought to hide you where I couldn't find you. So he confided you yo his servant, who boarded a ship for America."
"He did send Corvus to America, but-" Leta interrupts but Yusuf continues the tale once again.
"His servant, Irma Dugard, was a half elf. Her magic was weak and therefore left no trace I could follow. I had only just discovered how you had escaped when I received news I never expected... the ship had gone down at sea... but you survived, didn't you?" Yusuf asks Credence, rhetorically, "Somehow, someone had pulled you from the water! 'A son cruelly banished. Despair of the daughter return, great avenger with wings from the water.' There stands the despairing daughter," he points at Leta, "You are the winged raven returned from the sea, but I- I am the avenger of my family's ruin." Yusuf raises his wand too Credence and Madeleine raises her own slightly, "I pity you, Corvus, but you must die."
"Corvus Lestrange is already dead. I killed him!" Leta says, and raises her wand, "Accio!"
A box, hidden in the corner of the mausoleum, comes towards her through the dust. A series of clicks as clogs whirr and it falls apart, puzzle-like.
"My father owned a very strange family tree. It only recorded the men..." Leta says.
A tree appears out of the box with an orchid-like flower twisting around it.
"... the women in my family were recorded as flowers. Beautiful. Seperate. My father sent me to America, along with Corvus."
Madeleine had heard this story once before, not long after Leta had started at Hogwarts. She pitied Leta from the tragedy she'd been through but had no idea how to comfort her properly, knowing that the girl would always be tormented by it. And she was.
"Irma was to pose as a grandmother with two grandchildren... Corvus never stopped crying. I never wanted to hurt him. I only wanted to be free of him. Just for a moment... just a single moment."
The drowning baby falling through sea-green light, hanging in the air in the mausoleum. Leta has conjured it.
The orchid representing Leta on the Lestrange family tree, twists around the branch labelled CORVUS LESTRANGE until the leaves wither and die.
"You didn't mean to do it, Leta. So it wasn't your fault." Newt's timid voice breaks the silence, looking down at a now kneeling Leta. She looks up at him, tears in her eyes,
"Oh, Newt. You never met a monster you couldn't love."
They exchange a long look.
"Leta, do you know who Credence really is? Did you know, when you swapped them?" Tina asks.
"No"
Credence shoulders fall slightly, sadness filling him and Madeleine looks at him with a pitiful expression on her face.
An opening suddenly appears in the wall of the mausoleum and everyone stares at the steps leading down into the earth. The sounds of a gigantic crowd rumbles between them.
"Queenie?" Madeleine starts slightly at the voice of the short man from earlier. She'd forgotten he was there. Before anyone could stop him, the man runs down the steps and Newt and Tina dash after him. Madeleine hestitates before raising her wand into the air,
"Expecto Patronum." She mutters and a wispy, blue drago appears out of the end of it, circling the room before disappearing through the wall. Stan climbs up onto her shoulder and Madeleine looks at him,
"Don't look like that." She murmurs to him before jogging slightly down the steps with Leta and then Yusuf behind her.

So sorry this is a couple days late. I've been quite busy and only got around to writing this up today. There's like two or three chapters left of this and the next one we see Grindelwald.