#will graves march into hell and tear newt a new one for being a self sacrificing idiot about all of this?

[aethelar]

Newt is a really, really weird demon whom Percival Graves summoned to help with MACUSA's Grindelwald problem. Go wild.

When people look at Percival Graves, they see his grandfather’s grandson. Not his father - Leodegrance Graves is a quiet man, the sort whose cardigans are soft and have elbow patches, the sort who putters around his bookshop and hums snatches of songs to himself as he sorts the books by size and personality. People tend to skip over Leo, not that it makes much of a difference to him.

But still, people look at Graves and they see a Graves, like his Grandfather, like his Great Grandfather, like the whole line of them before him. They see his purposeful strides, the way magic bends wandlessly to his will, the hardness in his eyes when he makes an arrest. The Graves are an old family with old roots, a family of duellers and fighters, a family whose magic is straightforward, blunt and strong.

When Grindelwald designs his prison for Graves, he designs it to contain a Graves in any and every way possible. The wards cannot be flooded. The iron cuffs dampen and strangle magic, pressing in against Graves like a crushing weight he can barely breathe through. The door cannot be kicked down. It is, in many ways, the perfect prison and if Graves were only a Graves and nothing more then he’d be trapped to wither and die in the barren cell.

It is good for Graves that he has a mother then, and better still that Grindelwald is fool enough to overlook her. Carlotta de Lucci learnt the old magics at her mother’s knee; her son learnt them just the same at hers, and though Grindelwald has taken care to stop anyone getting out of his carefully constructed prison cell, he’s taken no such care to stop someone getting in.

Or something.

Graves presses a wad of torn cloth against his bleeding hand and double checks the sigils again. There’s a bitter tang to the air, a heaviness as ancient forces swell and stir in anticipation. The summoning circle is crude and the usual candles and herbs are missing, but it thrums with power all the same.

He breathes.

My soul for strength, my freedom for power. Look kindly on me in this life for I have forsaken the next. 

Even in his mind the words reverberate, a dissonant choir of whispered screams building in his ears. His mother’s warnings hover on the edge of his memory, but this isn’t the time to be cautious. This has gone long beyond the time to be cautious. The sigils gleam at his thoughts, the wet smear of blood deepening to the orange-red glow of fire. Graves holds his hand over the circle and opens his fist to allow three drops to fall.

“Ad attrahendum eos,” he says in a voice that burns his throat. “Ad constringendum, ad ligandum eos pariter et solvendum, et ad congregantum eos coram me.”

There is a blinding shriek as the flames explode outwards. Graves digs his heels into the floor and braces himself against them, gritting his teeth in pain as their icy fingers claw at his chest. He can’t feel them take his soul, but the desolate, gaping lack of it once it’s gone drives him to his knees. He huddles there, hunched over and gasping as the flames flare brilliant white and dissolve into wisps of brimstone smoke that curli and reshape themselves, formless red glinting gold and blue until it finally coalesces into a man.

No, not a man. A demon. One bound to him and his bidding for as long as he lives - this is what Graves’ soul has bought. Perhaps, when he’s free and Grindelwald is little more than a smear in time, Graves will barter for his soul back. Horror stories are built and dark lords are made on the deals people make to win back their souls, but let’s be honest here: Graves didn’t go into this expecting life to be easy. He hauls himself to his feet, pushing aside the shards of agony shooting from the wailing cavity in his chest.

“My name is Percival Graves, son of the de Lucci line,” he says formally. “Do you obey?”

The demon blinks at him, wide eyes set in a freckled face. Graves is thrown for a second at how disarmingly… innocent the demon looks; it’s taken a male form, younger than Graves himself, with loose curls and a crooked tilt to its lips. He shakes himself out it; demons aren’t innocent, nor young - they’re ageless beings of spite and malice, fallen angels warped and made foul in hell. There’s nothing innocent about them.

“Um. Um? Oh! Hi.” The demon -

what the fuck.

The demon waves at him, shy smile and bashful dip to its head, the whole package. “I’m - no, not that, you can’t pronounce that. Call me… Newt. And I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Graves,” Graves says numbly, mind still scrambling to catch up. He shook himself, reaching for the clarity of mind needed to bargain with a demon - and the demon steps out the circle to shake his hand.

What the fuck.

“Nice to meet you,” Newt says politely, hand held out awkwardly. Graves stares at it. Somewhere in the back of his mind a small part of him is gibbering about the fact that demons aren’t supposed to be able to cross the circle, and that Graves isn’t supposed to be alive once the demon crosses the circle. Newt’s smile wavers and he retrieves his hand to stick it in a pocket instead.

“Did you get summoned here too?” he asks, doggedly pursuing conversation. “I hope it doesn’t take long. I’m supposed to feed the graphorns in a minute, they get grumpy if I’m late.”

“Graphorns,” Graves echoes. The ability to say more than one word at a time seems to have escaped him.

“Graphorns,” Newt repeats happily. “You probably won’t have seen any - the last pair died just a few months ago, poor things, they’re completely extinct now. But! I rescued them and they’re doing fine, they’ve really taken being undead. I think it’s going well.”

At the risk of becoming repetitive, what the fuck.

“No,” Graves, says, pinching the bridge of his nose. He uses the wrong hand and smears blood on his forehead which is just peachy and as his magic is still tied up in the damn iron manacles, he resorts to scrubbing it off with his sleeve. “Start again.”

“Um?” Newt tries, and Graves can’t tell if he’s being a shit or being honest and now he’s considering the idea that a demon looks that tiny bit cute when it scrunches its nose up in confusion and he really needs to stop this.

“You,” he says with a rude jab of his finger, “are a demon. I traded my soul for your servitude and you’re going to get me out of here and rain damnation on my enemies. Capisci?”

Newt’s face falls. “Oh,” he mumbles. “That sort of summoning.”

Graves is tempted to ask what other sort of summoning Newt was hoping for. In his experience, if you’re trading your soul for something then you’re looking for at least a little hellfire and revenge. People in need of a cup of sugar tended not to summon demons. He’s tempted to ask, but he doesn’t because god only knows what explanation Newt will come up with.

“Does it have to be damnation?” Newt asks plaintively. “Can’t we just… travel for a bit? I’m not allowed up top much. We could see a phoenix! We never get phoenix in hell, how awesome would it be to find a phoenix? Do they really set themselves on fire? Have you ever seen one - what if it’s raining, can they still set themselves on fire in the rain?”

“I traded my soul for damnation,” Graves tries desperately. Newt doesn’t miss a beat.

“I’ll trade it back if we go travelling and find a phoenix.”

What the frick kind of demon trades a soul for anything short of seventy seven other souls to replace it? Graves squints at Newt, but as far as he can tell the other man - demon, demon, damnit - genuinely wants to chase flaming pigeons around the world.

“What about your graphorns?” he says suspiciously. Newt shrugs him off.

“I can set up a portal to the enclosures and just nip home to feed them, it’s not a problem. Put it in something to take with us - do you have a puzzlebox? Friend of mine set his up in a puzzlebox. Or anything, a suitcase, even. Hide it in the suitcase.” He looks up hopefully, tilting his head with just the tiniest hint of a smile, and Graves has the awful suspicion that he’s being seduced into agreeing to something here. On the other hand… Newt is offering him his soul back, and he doesn’t have to kill anyone to get it. Just find a phoenix. How hard can it be?

“Deal?” Newt presses when Graves hesitates, and damn it (probably literally) - Graves agrees.

“Deal,” he says, holding his hand out to shake on it.

Newt shakes his head, looking so regretfully innocent about it that it has to be feigned. “Oh, no - demon deals are sealed with a kiss.” He steps forwards, hands already reaching for Graves and his smile morphing into a satisfied smirk as he closes the distance between them.

Graves knew Newt had ulterior motives.

Not that he particularly minds.

(Oh, and that bit about not having to kill anyone as part of this deal? Unfortunately not true. Newt, it turns out, is all in favour of wanton destruction when he learns about poachers. Illegal potions trade, that too. Hell, Graves had to talk fast to keep Newt from taking down the legal potions trade, nevermind the illegal stuff, and has to spend several years campaigning for better regulation and higher standards of care just to stop Newt setting the entire wizarding world on fire.

They don’t find a phoenix. Newt drags him all over the world and somehow they never find a phoenix. The ache where Graves’ soul used to be never quite goes away, but when he’s curled up against Newt, limbs tangled and sleep-heavy and his nose pressed into the crook of Newt’s neck - it doesn’t hurt so much, then.

They don’t find a phoenix, until a day when Graves is an old man. Newt isn’t - he’s aged his appearance to match and given himself shockingly white hair just because, but he dances around as sprightly and youthfully as he ever did. Graves on the other hand… He uses a cane, these days. He walks slowly, bent over, stopping to take a breath. His back is a constant pain, his knees - well. He’s an old man.

Newt has been quiet all day, and he won’t say where they’re going. It’s somewhere in Scotland, somewhere miserably cold and wet and the chill seeps into Graves’ bones like a physical wound. He’s more leaning on Newt than walking at this stage, but Newt still doesn’t say anything.

A castle looms out of the mist, tall and stately and all but shimmering with magic. The gates are guarded by a pair of winged boar and wards that fair hum with the power curled in their dormant runes. There’s a man by the gates, waiting for them, an old man - no. Old in the way that Newt is old, white haired but ageless underneath.

The man nods at them. With a pained grimace, Newt nods back. Graves opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, but - in a minute. His chest hurts, he needs to get his breath back first.

He doesn’t get the chance to ask though, because the pain in his chest isn’t going away. It spreads to his arm and fine, heart attack, he’s had one of these before but Newt’s there and he’ll just - he’ll just -

Newt isn’t crying, but there’s a terrifying emptiness to his face as he holds Graves. “I was selfish,” he says, flat and monotone and deliberately, awfully blank. “I won’t say I’m sorry because I’m not, but I was selfish.” 

Why, Graves wants to ask, but he doesn’t have the breath. There’s a ringing in his ears, black and white spots fading in and out of his vision -

The last thing he sees is the phoenix. It sits on Newt’s shoulder and presses itself against him like it knows him, and with that, with that Newt has found a phoenix and the deal is finally complete. Graves’ soul floods back into him like a rush of ice over a burn and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts because the pain on Newt’s face as Graves’ soul is torn from him is a thousand times worse than the lack of pain Graves feels as he dies.

When it’s done, the old man rests a hand on Newt’s shoulder. Newt is like a statue beneath his touch, cold and hard in a way he’d never been for Graves. But… he has no reason to feign humanity anymore. He stands, Graves’ empty body cradled bridle style in his arms, and walks away without a word. He fades with each step, his outline going thin and insubstantial until the last wisps of smoke drift away on the breeze.)

(In heaven, the newest arrival marches up to the Big Guy with his fluffy white wings flaring out behind him, and demands to know what he has to do to get himself put down as officially fallen and cast out to hell because did Newt ask before he gave Graves his soul back and got him a ticket up to harps and cloud land? Did he fuck.)