the inventor ➝ fantastic beasts

FOUR - THE ENGLISHMAN

There's something different about today - the day that I'm going to move.

Gone is the comforting lull of the staff's quiet chatter, replaced with urgent shouting, the sound of rapid footsteps as people charge up and down the room - and one word, echoing around, refusing to go away.

Grindelwald. 

I've heard of him. Of course I have. There isn't a witch or wizard over the agewho haven't heard of him. He's a Dark Arts wizard, precociously talented in his youth at Durmstrang - even though his "experiments" got him expelled at sixteen. The man's obsessed with the Deathly Hallows, ultimate power, and other typical villainous things. From listening into the Aurors conversations, I deduce he is attacking New York in search of something, killing whoever gets in his way.

Brilliant. 

*

Once, just once, I spot Graves heading towards the lift. He's wearing his long coat, a waistcoat, and a blue scarf hanging around his neck. My jaw clenches as I remember what he tried to pull on me. But then, as he waits beside the lift, he locks eyes with me. 

The longest ten seconds of my life begin, as he gazes at me with an apologetic, conflicted look in his eyes that is almost jarring. I stare back at him, one eyebrow raised. I know he's thinking about Credence. He's thinking about my threat. He knows he has to keep far away from me. But just by his face, and the events of the end of yesterday's session, I know that's going to be difficult for him.

Too bad.

Then, he swallows hard, and turns away, pulling open the lift doors. In moments, he's gone.

I don't know if I'll see him again.

*

When I leave for my last session, flanked by two different boys from yesterday, all the cells are empty. 

Half an hour later, after I am returned to the cell and my memories are flushed of the journey to and from, they aren't empty anymore.

Two young men and a woman are in one of the cells across from mine. She has short brown hair, a long lavender coat, dark trousers and a pale shirt jacket. Her face is ridden with anxiety, and she stands with her arms folded. The first man is rotund, has a moustache, and wears a dark grey suit with a red tie. He sits on a tall, wide bench, with his hands folded in his lap. They both seem relatively interesting, but it's him that really catches my eye.

His hair is brown and scruffy, deliberately styled to look so. He wears a long, bright blue coat with the collar turned up, a thin, black bow tie, a white shirt and a brown waistcoat with a dipping collar. His head is bowed, shielding most of his face as he sits on the floor with his legs tucked up, leaning on the corner of the bars. As bizarre as it sounds, there's just something about him, something I can't ignore...

"What you in for, handsome?" I call across to him from where I slouch on my bed, one leg tucked up, my arms crossed. The shouts in the background are far away enough to allow him to hear me. It takes him a moment to realise someone had spoken to him, and a moment longer for him to raise his head and look at me. 

He's young, both in spirit and age. His eyes are green and blue and brown all at once; they glint with mischief and wonder, and his nose and cheeks are covered in freckles. And when he speaks - he's not American.