Credence has had a troubled childhood, and as a result of the abuse he suffers at the hand of his adoptive mother, he comes to crave affection from others. Any kind of affection. Aurelia knew him long ago. She was the only one to show any care for t...
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The air was thick with the scent of coffee and although Aurelia drank in the aroma like everyone else she could never cease her wariness of it. In her own clay mug was a frothy mixture of hot chocolate, the complete opposite of Eartha's that held only bitterness and caffeine. Without milk or sugar it must have been beyond unpleasant, yet she persisted in drinking it.
Porpentina had the very same thing clenched tightly in her hands. She was sculling it down regardless of how it burnt her lips when she did so. Credence had indecisively asked for a glass of water and was sipping on it so slowly that it barely looked like he had touched it at all.
Newt was fairly secluded from the rest of them. Aurelia had assumed that Credence would be as well but instead he was stuck by her side. Whenever she left he'd shuffle out of sight until she returned. Aurelia brushed it off as him just being grateful that she brought back his hat, or maybe that he was still uncomfortable in the foreign apartment.
Queenie still hadn't returned but that didn't surprise her. Modesty would take a lot of convincing before she trusted another witch, but if anyone could do it, Queenie could. Legilimens had to be good for something other than knowing all the terrible parts of a persons psyche...
"How did it happen?" Porpentina finally asked after a long half hour of sitting there in shock.
Eartha took a large gulp from her cup, letting the addicting taste slide down her throat before speaking. "We still don't know. It's presumed that Grindelwald had followers inside the ministry that aided in his escape."
Beside her, Aurelia could feel how tense Credence had become but his face, for once, was unreadable. She couldn't tell whether he was angry, relieved or indifferent towards Grindelwald being at large once again.
"The congress must be in a panic." Newt said from the next room, door only barely open to show him sifting through his suitcase.
"You're putting it lightly." Eartha sighed, placing the now empty mug onto the tabletop and flicking her brown eyes over to Credence. "That's not all though. They know that the obscurial survived."
Aurelia had just placed her mug on the ground before Eartha's words hit her, and this was fortunate because she would have dropped it otherwise. Her back straightened and she leaned in front of Credence, hand clutching onto his instinctively. He was trembling, but this time it wasn't his usual fear. It was something far greater. Terror, horror, trepidation... no word seemed to fit how severely he was shaking. They had almost killed him once, she could understand why he was so frightened.
"How do they know that?" Aurelia asked in a low voice, tone biting back at the woman as if she had already accused Eartha of telling them.
"They keep records of every witch or wizard living in America. Typically, the tracker enchantments they use are meant to disappear at age seventeen. But with Grindelwald's attacks and the number of missing people they decided to keep documentation of every death to occur." Eartha's eyes downcast from the girl, hurt that she had been suspected so quickly. "As soon as Credence left American waters he entered another ministry's jurisdiction, so he was essentially invisible to MACUSA and filed as dead... but as soon as he re-entered he was back in their records."
