hollow // credence barebone

33. do or die

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she took a sip of her orange juice, staring at rafael's ominously calm expression as he poked his scrambled eggs.

with the arrival of a literal child slammed her way to care for, elise was forced to do two things she rather despised: overthinking and staying sober. she didn't consider herself particularly capable of being a parent, but rafael didn't cause much problems. maybe except for worrying her to insanity that she'd wake up one day and the boy would be dead in his bed. other than that, he was a good kid. he liked to spend his days reading books or drawing, or - which she approved of - bullying her cat into multiple petting sessions an hour.

the day before, she talked to newt. but at this point, newt couldn't really help her. so to elise's great dismay, there was only one more person she could possibly invite to discuss the situation. and that's why albus dumbledore joined them for breakfast today and was now busy spreading butter on his toast.

elise sent him a glare, "both of you have been quiet for ten minutes. are you talking in each other's heads again?"

dumbledore nodded, "we are in the middle of discussing football."

elise felt like ripping hair out of her skull.

the truth was, she had no idea how rafael survived it all and managed to keep his magic. albus dumbledore was sure she had unknowingly implemented her special 'gift,' which was something she was supposed to learn and control but never really managed to find out how. she just continued making potions and curing spells as usual. but now the situation started growing more urgent as aurelius started fading. she had to get her shit together and figure things out, otherwise she'd live an endless life in regrets and bitterness.

as for bitterness, aurelius still didn't contact her. she had a premonition that gellert grindelwald had forbid him from seeing her again. that would make sense considering that the romeo and juliet thing they had happily started was - realistically speaking - a very dumb thing to do. and - realistically speaking again - they didn't care about that when they reunited in venice because their brains were rotten with chemistry. she didn't suppose that any of them really cared about meeting in the middle of ongoing war, but not everybody supported that.

she took another sip of her orange juice and sighed, "albus, i pray you came here with something helpful to say. not only about football."

"i might have been thinking about the things you mentioned in your letter."

"great."

"but i bring nothing except for more theories."

elise sighed, "great."

after breakfast, rafael went into the living room to have a staring competition with blight. elise cleaned the table and sat back down, watching as dumbledore pulled out a piece of paper. she glanced at it.

"what's that?"

"remember i told you that once upon a time there was another person with a vitae curse?"

"yes."

"well, he did end up dying ages ago. but i investigated things and found a single page from the notes he had left behind. his name was gallius anthonius. unfortunately, he spoke a dead language and although i did my best with the translation, i fear it might not be the best."

elise took the note from him, scanning the text.

"it is as it is, as the time keeps passing and i keep returning to her grave. brave she was for staying with me for three centuries, but even the ones of strongest kind are not ready for eternal life. perhaps i shouldn't have asked her to keep receiving my curse. selfishly so i was. but the blood that runs in my veins is a poison itself, enlarged when the moon is full and diabolically infernal when the moon's a half. i wanted to keep her by my side so much i killed her by refusing her death. how is it any less of an unforgivable curse than any other known to mankind?"