Palette

When people are isolated from human contact, their minds can do some truly bizarre things. Percival Graves learns that the bad way, from his own experience. He is the type who insists on learning from the mistakes of others because he doesn’t handle making mistakes well, yet this is the time he’d have preferred to avoid first-hand experience. The cell is clean and neat, and it is easy to keep this way because there isn’t much inside. There is a mattress on the floor, a toilet in the corner, and a hole in the wall — not the type to make obscene jokes about, but a small one, and twice a day a steady stream of water starts going out of it. It is not too hot, and not too cold, Percival finds it just right, and that makes him frown for the reason he understands later — a line from a fairy-tale in which the girl managed to run away from the three bears. He hopes to do the same. It takes Percival Graves several hours to realise that this fitting-just-right stream of water is supposed to be his alternative for a shower. The water goes in the cracks of the floor and disappears. Graves knows he is screwed when he finishes the inspection of his cell because he has seen enough cells to know a masterpiece when he sees it. The thing that worries him is that there doesn’t seem to be a door, or a window, or a hint that either ever existed in these four walls. Percival Graves is perfectly packed in a cement box and has no idea where it is situated. Food comes twice a day out of nowhere. A tray appears on the floor next to the mattress only to disappear several hours later. At first, he doesn’t dignify the food with so much as a glance. It becomes gradually more difficult with time, and Graves tries to decide what can be hidden in those meals he is served — some sort of poison, a Veritaserum to make him talk, both? Then he realises it doesn’t matter because he is alone in his cell, and the word — alone — scares him for the first time. Percival tries counting days to keep track of time and fails. There is no clock, no windows, and the light is always on, the magic light that never dims and never changes. He is deprived of time as much as he is deprived of his freedom. When Graves hears the footsteps for the first time, he springs from the mattress ready to fight. There is nobody in the room aside from him. He goes back to his mattress and tries to listen carefully… nothing happens, no sounds, no shadows, nothing. Some time afterwards the phantom footsteps return and bring along the faraway murmurs of voices. And the more Graves tries to distinguish the words or, at least, the number of people talking, the quieter the voices become. It keeps going like that for some time — hours? days? weeks? — until Percival hears a scream, and he closes his ears trying to survive that loud wail of a ghost, a banshee, drilling into his brain with its mad desperation… and a minute or two later Percival realises that his own mouth is opened and it is him, the Director of Magical Security, screaming. His mind begins to slip. “Oh my God! Please! Somebody! Anybody!” He thinks of Crucio and Imperio spells. At the very beginning he was ready to suffer through them like a hero with all the dignity of the best Auror of the North American continent. Now he is ready to beg for one of the unforgivable curses just to feel that he is still alive. He stops eating and firmly says to the emptiness of his cell that he won’t be touching the food unless someone comes to have a word with him. He is true to his word for several trays appearing and vanishing, and when the tray appears again there is a piece of bread and a note. If you stop eating, you will be deprived of the light privilege. Graves is staring at the note for several minutes trying to identify the handwriting when the light dies, and he dives into complete darkness. He doesn’t last long this time. Percival Graves finds the piece of bread by touch in the complete and terrifying darkness but that turns out to be the easy part. The difficult one is to swallow the bread while his throat tightens, to keep it inside while the pitiful whining sounds of a wounded animal are coming from his own mouth. The light comes back on several minutes later, and Percival Graves begins to cry.

***

When he heard the voice, at first Percival didn’t think it was real. “Hello, Percy,” said Grindelwald stepping into the cell through the door that hadn’t been there just a few moments ago. “I hope you wouldn’t mind a little chat?” Percival Graves shook his head slowly, like an old sleepy dog. When he struggled to reply, his voice was hoarse and quiet: “I would not.”