#post capture

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’. 

He was in pretty rough shape, worse than the last time they got him. At least he was still alive... or he was pretty sure he was. It was hard to really tell anymore, he just seemed to go numb to everything after the first round or so of testing. Cuts, bruises, burns and marks were everywhere, of course the worst of it was hidden. Thank god Danny got him out of there when he did, otherwise he could have been a lot worse.

He was only vaguely aware of who was talking to him, but at the mention of who had him he started to shake, covering his ears and shutting his eyes.

I’m home. 

Or at least, I’m in a very good dream about being home. As much as I hoped and wanted, I don’t think I ever thought this would actually happen. It made more sense to die there. For me to fight a battle I’d just lose faster and faster, until my body caved in with the effort and crumbled. No, instead, I’m home. I’m glad to be back. The others seem glad to have me back, which is sweet. 

They come in and keep me company. I like that. I don’t want to be alone. Even if this is a dream, I’d rather sit around and talk nonsense things that don’t matter as opposed to what I’m doing right now—staring ahead, counting the steps to the exits, thinking about everything. 

I can’t eat. I’m so hungry it hurts, but I can’t eat. Everything that touches my tongue is flesh and blood, the body and soul of something else that once lived and breathed. I can feel it, I can taste it, and it wakes the monster inside me. The monster says to eat, but I can’t. I won’t. I am not that. I refuse to be. Except that morality won’t fill my stomach. 

I need to find another way.

Isendil doesn’t understand, though to be honest as much as I may have told myself I was explaining to him—I wasn’t. What benefit is there in my explaining myself to him? He would turn away. If any of them understood, they would shun me. They see my attempts at being good and use those as some sort of proof of my worth, and I let them. I let them be fond of me and keep me company here, I can’t help it.

I need it.

I take it.

As I said to Isendil, a few coins does not pay for the blackened soul. And yet, I keep doing this. I leech these fond feelings from them, bask in attention and these beautiful ideas they have of me, and in return I am at the beck and call of the Inflorescence—as though turning my nature to their cause might be fair payment for what I steal, and it’s not. It never will be.

I do it anyway.

I saw the bodies on the way out of the cave. Hanging there like the ones in that asura’s horror house. How close did I come to being up there with them? If I did, it was deserved. For what I did to those poor broken bodies, I deserve no better than to live out my last breaths as a battery too. Sometimes I close my eyes to see them still hanging there, the sequence of those I have wronged seems to get longer with every action I take.

I still have Dhaedre’s chain as well. I’m too afraid to give it back. The moment it unloops from me, the torrents of elemental power will fill me again with intoxicating strength and it’s too much. It’s dangerous. I’m afraid of it. 

I’m still so afraid.

Virtuosity knows the commands. Only my hunt is stronger than those, and it gives him the power to command me against those dear to me—even if I told him it doesn’t. I know it does. I also can’t get that girl out of my head, the Elonian girl. I failed her. She’s there in the back of my mind, nestled with the hunt, a thorn constantly pricking at my mind—I need to do something about it, I don’t know what. I’m stuck here.

Stuck in the infirmary.

Have I simply traded one prison for another?

Does it even matter?

I’m so hungry. I need to eat. I’ve lost so much weight I feel near dizzy. Too light. But I can’t eat the flesh of another. I can’t—

—Eat the flesh of another.