100 More One Shots ✔️

The Brightest Star >> Credence Barebone X Reader

Title: The Brightest Star

Paring: Credence Barebone X Reader

Warnings: magic, mentions of child abuse. 

Spoilers: yes! Should be okay if you have seen Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

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The first time you see Credence, his mother had called you a witch, and the crowd of No-Maj's had descended upon you like healthy cells attacking the infected one. You wished it was a mistake, that they had seen a mole on your face, a stutter, a small limp, and cried wolf, but alas. You were a witch, a half-blood from the family of _______, with ancestors originally coming from Wales. You had been a lucky child, having gone off to Ilvermorny with the rest of your magic-blooded peers, learning the best you could about the world around you, the world you lived in. But perhaps, when after the mob had left you laying in the gutter, your dress in tatters, shoulder cloak soaked in sewer mud, when Credence Barebone, adopted son to Mrs. Barebone, that you were not magic in the slightest.

But life is what life is, and you were a witch in love with a no-maj, and that was what it was.

The second time you see Credence, your dress was not in tatters, and your travelling cloak was left in the big closet where all the other cloaks were, and for one in your life, you weren't thinking about the pennies you were scraping by to keep going, or the fact that your father was doing poorly. For a dancing hall is still a dancing hall, and perhaps in the era you lived in, dancing was purely a fun, frivolous activity you allowed yourself to live.

Credence was sitting by the door, knees knocking, watching his sisters sway together to a modest tune their mother would approve on. His small hat was left at home, feet crossed at the ankles, eyes keen on Modesty, and Chastity, almost hoping they wouldn't stray too far from his gaze. You could not help it; your family had raised you to be a gracious witch, to pay debts even if there was seemingly nothing to pay.

So, you walked toward him, threading yourself between the couples on the dancefloor who were ebbing forward and back to the thrumming of the cello, toward the darkhaired young man who had encapsulated your thoughts.

"Thank you for helping me up," you look to his eyes, seeing the colour as deep as a bottomless pool. "I know it's a little forward for women to do this, but...can I repay you with a dance?" His eyes widened, glancing toward his sisters, and you nod. "I know you're watching them, it's nice of your mother to let you bring them out."

His smile is small as he asks you, "Are you here with someone?"

You shake your head, and whisper into this silence between the songs, whisper into his ear, "I'm not. My family think I'm in my room, asleep above their heads." You bite your lip. "You don't have to dance if you don't –,"

Credence doesn't look to his sisters as he speaks; instead, he looks to you, and his face is not as solemn as it has been, and for a moment you swear you can feel the gift of your family flowing in you, because in the young man before you, you can see a perfect little future.

The third time you see Credence, it is so late that it is hard to see your own hand before your face, and the gas lamps have been turned off for the night in the streets to preserve the gas the city spends on its citizens. But nonetheless, the form beside you on the steps to his home is Credence, and his palms are sticky with blood, and roped with thick welts from being smacked with his own belt.

If you were not a witch, you would mind your own business, perhaps take him home if you felt plucky, and bandage his wounds like anyone would. But you were a witch, and that was what you were primarily in your life. You knew what the congress said about magic around no-maj's; that they couldn't stand the complexity of it, the unknown. Credence's own mother was a radical who condemned magic to its death. But your heart bled alongside his hands, and silently, you whispered the incantations which would heal him.