Dougal and Jane
1947. Dougal brings home a surprising new friend. Tina serves tea while waiting for Newt to come home, so that they can be introduced.
Dougal had never taken to someone so intensely; at least, no-one Tina had ever met or heard of. She watched the demiguise and child play some sort of variation of hide and seek around the wiggentree in the field behind the house. The bowtruckles were all riled up over it. She would have to take them a bucket of woodlice sometime later to placate them. Tina worried about how all of the play would affect the arthritis that typically plagued Dougal. He was joyfully energetic in the company of the girl, though Tina was sure he would be feeling sore by the end of the day. The witch chuckled in wonder when he vanished and reappeared behind the child to knock her hat teasingly off her head.
Dougal howled when the girl spun around and caught him before he could disappear again, and she showered him in tickles. Her khaki shorts were smeared with grass stains, butter yellow blouse rumpled severely enough to make even the gentlest mother flinch. The sight made Tina smile, rubbing her hand over her stomach, fondly remembering the rambunctious adolescent years of her son.
"Jane!" Tina called through the window. "Bring Dougal inside, please; tea is ready!"
The child bubbled with laughter, Dougal having threaded his fingers into her hair and swung himself up onto her shoulders, piggy-back style. "Yes, Mrs. Scamander! We're coming!" She managed to scoop her hat out of the grass and plopped the fabric over Dougal's head, blinding him. His head bobbed around in confusion, looking very much like an old man dressed in a baby's bonnet.
Tina couldn't help but smile as the two teetered into the kitchen, a tower of stringy adolescent and ape limbs, and silver and flaxen hair. Since it wasn't appropriate for Dougal to join them at the table, Tina agreed to a compromise and they took their tea and biscuits kneeling on the carpet in the den. Dougal groomed Jane's short blond hair, looking for insects, a bonding act which Tina observed with quiet astonishment. She glanced at the fireplace between bites of her gingersnaps, expecting her husband to return at any time.
Jane's cookie was interrupted when Dougal abandoned her hair to crawl into her lap and steal the treat playfully.
"Dougal! That's my biscuit! Don't be naughty!" Jane chided, smiling. Dougal hooted in response. The girl echoed him and for a moment the beast's eyes glinted blue.
Tina smiled into her tea. Where did you find this girl, Dougal? She wondered to herself.
The demiguise had been missing for nearly a week. Newt had been beside himself with worry to the point where he called in sick to work and stayed out all night only to return disheartened the next morning; Dougal was not a young demiguise anymore. Not that she or Newt were all that young themselves, having just celebrated Newt's 50th birthday earlier that year. However, few animals were as long-lived as wizards, not even the wise, foresighted demiguises. Newt wasn't sure of the average lifespan of the invisible apes, but he knew that Dougal's time was growing short. The demiguise hadn't left home in several years, the reward for a few hours freedom was no longer worth than the effort it took, and most of his meals were softened and mashed as a result of worn teeth, sore gums, and a sensitive digestive system (a constipated demiguise was even more unpleasant to deal with than a constipated toddler).
Perhaps she had been lucky that it was her day off, or perhaps it has been Dougal's foresight, but regardless, she was glad she had been home when there was a sharp knock at the door. The little girl had surprised her, her question even more so.
"Good afternoon, ma'am! Are you the owner of a rather funny-looking chimpanzee?"
"Chimp—?" The demiguise revealed himself then, perched like an infant to the little girl's back. "Dougal!"
The girl brightened. "You are! Fantastic!"
Tina ushered them inside, stunned and curious, and cast a patronus to send a message to Newt while the child's back was turned. She put the kettle on the no-maj way and wrung her hands while waiting for the water to boil.
The girl introduced herself as Jane, twelve years old thankyouverymuch, and no, her parents didn't know where she was, but they didn't wonder because she was always home in time for dinner and they didn't have anything to worry about.
"Albert—I mean, Dougal—is a very sneaky beast, as I'm sure you know!"
He had appeared to her in the family's garden, surreptitiously thieving strawberries and snails. When she had fetched her parents, he had vanished, but kept reappearing, hidden to everyone but Jane. He watched her and followed her around like a smitten puppy until she snuck out of the house in the wee hours of the dawn to interact with him properly. It had taken Jane a few days to figure out that she wasn't seeing things and that the silvery creature following her around was not an imaginary friend, even if he never revealed himself to anyone else. She was immediately charmed, as he seemed so very much like her favorite animal, chimpanzees, but he was subtly different. Jane wondered if he was an oddly albino orangutan, but even that didn't explain the presence of a tail. Primates weren't native to Britain and he wasn't present in any of the zoology books she had. She wondered if he was a newly discovered species, or perhaps was a member of a rare, protected species. A secret phone call to the London Zoo (that would soon fail to remain a secret, as the cost of the call would undoubtedly appear in her parents next pile of monthly bills) let her know that they were not missing any of their primates, which left Jane with the thought that he must have been somebody's exotic pet; highly unusual, but not unheard of.
Eventually, Dougal began beckoning her to go somewhere with him. Though reluctant at first, concerned that he might lead her astray, Jane gave into her instincts and lent him her trust. Besides, her parents had begun to wonder at her strangely enormous appetite.
So, with a bright red rucksack carrying lunch, a sketchbook, two pounds and some change in case of emergency, and an affectionate creature attached to her shoulder, Jane was off down the road, following Dougal's gestures like a compass. It had taken her the better part of the afternoon to make it to Tina and Newt's home. Her lunch was long gone and thirst was beginning to get the best of her by the time she knocked on Tina's door. Dougal had been so excitable that she hardly doubted that it was the right house, but it was nice to see Tina and have it confirmed—the house looked abandoned from the outside, thanks to muggle-repellant charms. Yet, the girl was so determined and so trusting of the demiguise that she simply bull-headed her way through them. Jane was, nevertheless, relieved to see that the inside of the house was pleasant and livable.
Tina was impressed.
Jane jumped in surprise when the fireplace suddenly filled with emerald green flames, but recovered quickly. Her eyes were wide in fascination, eager to meet the magizoologist who took care of her demiguise friend. Tina was glad that she had broken the Statute of Secrecy to warn the child about Newt's arrivial via Floo Network.
"Your husband is coming home through the fireplace?"
"Yes."
"...like Father Christmas?"
"Yes!"
It gave Tina's heart a pang; Jane's expression almost perfectly mirrored that of Jacob Kowalski when he had first stepped into the Goldstein sister's brownstone apartment in New York so many years ago. There was something special about the little no-maj girl; something about her was important to Dougal.
Newt stumbled out of the floo in his usual duck-footed manner, catching himself and straightening quickly. Veins of white salted his ginger hair prominently at his temples. He brushed a bit of floo power from the hem of his plaid sweater vest, wide eyes alighting on his wife.
"Tina! I got your patronus! Where's Douga—Oh!" His hazel eyes widened in surprise when he suddenly found himself with an armful of silver-haired ape. For a moment he was rigid, then his reddened, sleepless eyes closed and tears flooded over his freckled cheeks as he buried his nose into the demiguise's pelt. The magizoologist's voice quaked. "You wicked, mischievous, awful creature! Dougal, have you any idea how much you worried us? You are too old for these kinds of adventures anymore! Where on earth have you been?"
Though loathe to disturb her husband's emotional reunion, Tina stood to welcome him home and introduce him to the girl who was positively vibrating with excitement beside her. "Newt, there's someone you need to meet."
Newt sniffed, a thick, snotty sound, but looked up from Dougal's shoulder.
A bit late, he noticed the flaxen-haired guest in the living room: a bright-eyed, roman-nosed girl.
"Newt, this is Jane. She is Dougal's new friend and is the one who brought him home."
The wizard's sharp eyes took in skinned knees, rosy cheeks, and in an instant found his arms scandalously empty as Dougal abandoned him in favor of someone else. The demiguise tugged on the girl's hand, beckoning her towards Newt, chattering away.
"But you're a muggle!" Newt exclaimed.
The little girl grinned, thrusting her hand out for a shake. "Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Scamander! My name is Jane Morris-Goodall!"
Guess who isn't dead?
Excuses? Oh, I have plenty of excuses for why I haven't written in five years, but I won't waste your time with them here.
Finally dipping my toes into the world of writing again after years of silence. I am horribly, horribly rusty.
I really hope you all know who Jane Goodall is.
You can find me on Ao3 under the same old pen name. Find me on Tumblr, too.
~MegiiJ