100 More One Shots ✔️

Seasons >> Credence Barebone X Reader

Title: Seasons

Paring: Credence Barebone X Reader

Warnings: abuse, angst, fluff

Spoilers: yes, some for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

_______________________________________________________________________________

In the summertime, the city smells of sweat and gasoline from the automobiles and the sun sets later and later as the days go by. Perhaps it was the inner romantic inside of you who read too much poetry and found time in the day to do the chores without magic to see beauty in everything. Not that summer wasn't your favourite season, well, maybe, but every season was so wonderful. Most witches and wizards must earn their magical abilities, or at least, wake them up – you've heard of the pureblood families trying to compel their children toward their inherited skills through...less than favourable means. But you didn't. You came screaming into the world as a babe the year after a bad bout of Dragon Pox in the area, and not too soon after the nurses and midwives cleaned you up, you were making things fly around and lights grow from your hands.

The Magical Congress of the United States of America, and even the Ministry of Magic (their interference thanks to your half-blooded nature, your father a British No-Maj) had their say, and because of all the magic that was cast to keep your mother alive, you'd become an anomaly of nature, and were by law to be home-schooled, and often checked-in on by a representative of the congress.

No matter. That was life, and life happens. Now at nineteen, you'd done all your learning, and though you were a more powerful witch than anyone had ever anticipated, you kept to yourself. No need getting noticed by anyone for the wrong reasons, no need being caught up in the politics of the heretic incendiary Grindelwald. Your mother had lived out her years teaching you, and now, retired herself with a sum from MACUSA and moved to Florida and married an ex-Quidditch player. Your father was in London, driving a taxi. And you ran an at-home apothecary.

Mostly, you sold all sorts of healing potions and basic No-Maj medicines (and under the table, medicinal alcohols), but there were times when you followed the spell books you ordered from London, and on request made...other things. It wasn't like there were any rival stores in New York, and even with the wizarding trading system, and the trap-streets that withheld non-magical eyes from seeing the wizarding stores and shopfronts. It was a modest income that kept you in your little apartment above the No-Maj barber's shop, and it was a pleasant life. All seasons of the year it be.

But even as a sort of romantic who saw beauty in most things, there was something you couldn't, for the life of you, love. Not for any money in the world. The history books stated that the witch hunts ended in 1690. But in the neighbourhood that you lived in, there was an evil stirring.

The New Salem Philanthropic Society was led by the headstrong Mrs. Barebone. Her shouting would never cease, her flyers everywhere, her stench clinging to the curtains like cigarette smoke days after it was snuffed out. But what truly made your stomach roll was the way she treated her children. You had never in your life been treated like those children had, no – you had been raised to know you were loved, that you were safe, and warm and that the next morning, you still would be loved. Without even abusing your magical abilities, you could see it in her adopted children's faces, that they were not raised the same. The hatred their mother had for magical folk overtook nurture, her vision crisp, her children wilting. Many a time you'd be forced to walk by the rallies when delivering a potion, unable to do anything but hear her terrifying words. Perhaps it was because she spoke so lowly of witches and wizards. Or, perhaps it was because there was a look in her eye that suggested she would stop at nothing until her dreams would come true.