Angsty Percival Graves Headcannons
Okie so I know that FBAWTFT isn’t part of what we usually write (and I’m sorry for not writing in a while) but I just rewatched the movie and I couldn’t help it! Quickly I’m going to through in a warning for torture, physical violence, aftermath of torture and anything else relating to the capture (and aftermath of said capture) of Percival Graves.
Graves would often be tortured, be it for MACUSA information or to entertain Grindelwald, it would occur.
Yet Grindelwald would occasionally still be underneath the effects of Polyjuice potion during these ‘sessions’. Leading to Percival Graves being tortured by someone wearing his face (and generally clothes).
To prevent the use of Grave’s wandless magic, Grindelwald pinned them above Grave’s head with long nails, effectively rendering them useless.
Grindelwald may despise Muggles but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use their more barbaric ways of torture. It was just as satisfying to punch Grave’s over and over. Leaving the man collapsed in a ball, clutching at his stomach when the punching turned to kicking.
The Deathly Hallows is now permanently burnt into his flesh. A mark on the side of his neck.
When Graves’ was finally rescued it took over a month to heal physically and learn most of what happened in his absence.
He hated the hospital and how people kept looking at him with pity.
More importantly he hated how no one had noticed that a mass murderer was impersonating him for a month. He knew he was distant but from the stories he had heard he didn’t think he was that… cold.
Graves now trembled slightly due to the use of the cruciatus curse.
On his first return to his home after being healed, he smashed almost every mirror in the house, unable to look at his own face without flinching.
He also burnt every suit he remembered Grindelwald wearing.
And some that he didn’t just to be safe.
Graves would no longer enter the library, even when he knew it would help him. He remembered that room as a place of pain and captivity but as his unwillingness to enter it, his fear of the possible emotions and memories it could and would revoke prevented that.
Before he locked the door to the library he caught site of the large desk with wide drawers. Slamming the door shut he repressed the memories associated with that desk (he was placed in it similarly to MadEye Moody).
When he eventually returned to work the fact that no one noticed he was impersonated by a mass murderer weighed on him constantly. As such, he tried to be nicer and slightly more open, even though every fact about him he would share was from before he was captured.
Graves once walked up to Tina and simply cleared his throat, wanting to ask her about the recent changes into the rules regarding the regulation of magical beasts. The encounter ended up with the Goldstein girl jumping backwards in surprise as she turned, fear evident on her face as she watched him with wary eyes.
He stuttered out an apology, not evening allowing her to speak, to say that she was sorry and that she knew that the person in front of her was not the same as the one who sentenced her to death. Graves left before that could happen and started walking louder as to not startle people and stopped going to Tina to ask questions even when she was the best person to talk to.
Graves made more apologies about what Grindelwald did whilst acting as him than apologies he received for no one noticing that fact.
He didn’t mind.
He believed it was his fault that such awful things occurred throughout his absence, his fault he wasn’t strong enough to evade the dark wizard and his fault he was dumb enough to live.
Deep down he knew that it wasn’t his fault yet he can’t help thinking it.
He was conditioned to never look Grindelwald (or any of his fanatics) in the eye and to never speak louder than a rasp. This leads to him being unable to give instructions or report to his supervisors without incredible fear and anxiety running through him.
Percival Graves can no longer say the name ‘Gellert Grindelwald’.
-Kae
