Title: Mistakes we make
Fandom: Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them
Rating: M
Pairing: Newt Scamander/Percival Graves
Length: ~1,100
Content notes: No warning applies.
Author notes: I so do love observant!Newt. While the prompt this is based on, has already been filled brilliantly, I just couldn’t resist also trying my hand at this.
Summary: Based on the following prompt on Fantastic Beasts Kink Meme: Theseus is a hugely overprotective big bro. Clearly most people cannot be trusted with his precious baby brother who must be kept safe. But his bestie Percy is an auror, with upstanding ethics, and a loyal personality. Obviously, they're perfect for each other.

Newt and Percival have spent so many years putting up with Theseus' increasingly insane attempts to get them together that when Tina brings Newt to meet "Graves" about his animals and the man doesn't immediately complain that he doesn't have time to deal with more of Theseus' mathcmaking that something is very very wrong.


When Tina dragged him into the meeting, Newt flinched inwardly. There, in all his brooding glory, stood Percival Graves, Newt’s secret crush. However, since his brother was always getting up to more and more outrageous ways to get them together, any chance that Newt might have had with the auror was now non-existent. If he did anything that would show his interest, the other man would always think it was just another of Theseus’ harebrained attempts to get them together.

Sometimes he hated his brother for this, but Theseus was all that he had left. He just couldn’t stay mad at him long and thus was always defending the older man, even against Percival.

So as soon as his eyes fell on Graves, he was ready with a defence for his brother against the accusations and the complaints that Percival does not have time for any more of Theseus’ insane plots at the tip of his tongue. However, the accusations and complaints never came and when Newt looked up again, Percival was not even looking at him, and giving no indication that the man knew him.

Newt narrowed his eyes. Something was very wrong here. He catalogued the man and noticed all the small details that were out of place. This Graves was wearing neither the necklace that Newt had given him to keep him safe from various magical creatures nor the cufflinks that Newt had gifted Graves when he had become the director of magical security.

A moment later, the people who had been in the meeting that Tina had dragged him into, came out from behind the shelves that had provided a barrier so far. Newt took this opening immediately and only a moment later, he had his wand out.

He cast a spellchain of the disarming charm, disarming all the other people in the room, followed by the incarcerous spell and a full body bind aimed at Not!Graves. A moment later, he was on the man, eyes narrowed.

“Where is he?” Newt demanded as the other occupants of the room came out of their stupor.

“What the hell?” Tina exclaimed.

“What in Merlin’s name is going on?” Picquery demanded while summoning her wand and pointing it at Newt. The other aurors also got theirs back, but by the time they turned back around there was a shimmering dome between them and their quarry.

“Where is he?” Newt asked again, voice much quieter now and with much more malice in it. He had Not!Graves by the lapels of his suit.

“What are you talking about?” Picquery demanded to know, only to be ignored again.

“I’m only going to ask nicely one more time,” Newt hissed. “Where. Is. He?”

---^-^---

Grindelwald had been having a good day, hell, he had been having a good week, month, year. His plans were moving along nicely, he was gaining followers left, right and center and he was close to finding the obscurus. He was sure that only a few more days would be needed to reach that particular goal.

And then this man had come in. Gellert had no idea who he was, sure, he looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t place the face or the magic. So he dismissed him and turned to the female auror that had nearly cost him his plans. He had to be careful with her or she could destroy everything.

Later Grindelwald would think that dismissing the man was the worst mistake he had ever made.

Later he would know that the man was not to be trifled with and even more dangerous than the beast he kept company with or the director of magical security he was looking for.

Grindelwald couldn’t even blink before he was disarmed and bound in magic binding ropes on the floor which was paired with a full body bind starting at his neck.

He was given a thorough shaking as the man asked where “he” was. The dark mage was sure that there could be only one “he” the other was talking about. The real Percival Graves.

As he was forced to look at the other man, he felt laid bare, naked under the intent gaze. It was as if the man could look right into his soul and see all his sins and everything that he had done. The man’s gaze was searching and a moment later, he seemed to have found what he was looking for.

“Revelio,” the man hissed and all the other people in the room gasped as his true face was revealed. “I trust that you can hold onto him for a moment while I go and get Percy.”

Then he was gone and Grindelwald was faced with five wands to the face, left to contemplate what the hell he had done wrong.

---^-^---

“Percy?” Picquery asked the other aurors. She had never heard anyone besides Graves’ mother call him that; at least not without the person saying it getting hexed within an inch of their lives.

The other aurors only shrugged and made sure to keep Grindelwald in their sight. They had no idea who in their right mind would call Graves that.

---^-^---

Newt had seen the location where Grindelwald held Graves prisoner when tearing into the other man’s mind. He knew that it was illegal, but he didn’t really care. Percy was missing and he would stop at nothing to get him back. He had been close to testing a few of the nastier curses that he had learned on his travels.

Luckily, it hadn’t come to that however. So now, here he was; apparating blind into an abandoned warehouse. He followed what he had seen in Grindelwald’s mind up to a door, quickly casting various counter charms on the wards and well as a revealing charm on the floor.

He made his way to the trapdoor that had appeared and down into the cramped prison of his best friend.

“Percy?” he asked, praying that the other was alright, or at least as alright as he could be after months of being imprisoned by the worst dark lord of their age. “Percy? It’s me, Newt!”

“I swear to god, if this is another of your brother’s schemes to get us together, I’m going to murder him,” came the rough voice of Percival Graves a few moments later and Newt laughed in delight, because now everything would be okay. He had found his best friend.