a/n: This story will not have a romantic plot. All pairings are canon. I don't own anything except my original character.


Hufflepuff common room

12:42 am, 1912

A lone figure stirred by the fireplace.

With a yawn and a shiver, Elsie blinked awake, trying to adjust her eyes to the dark of the Hufflepuff common room. She looked down at her lap where her Herbology notes still sat, unread, and she still had not edited her potions essay. The realization struck her:

No one had woken her up.

Fuming, she shuffled the parchment in her lap. She sat up straight. Her neck was stiff from falling asleep sitting up, and her back ached from her corset. There was nothing for it; she would have to go to bed.

She tucked her notes into her textbook, preparing to go to her dormitory, when the door to the common room opened. A boy stumbled inside, panting, completely oblivious to the fact that he was not alone in the common room. He paused for a moment, breathing heavily and leaning on the entrance door. He turned and headed across the room in the direction of the boys' dorms.

"Excuse me!" Elsie called after him. She couldn't let his late night escapade go unpunished. She was a prefect, after all.

The boy froze mid-step, like a startled animal. Elsie stood and made her way over to him, ready to dole out a punishment…or at least a warning.

"You're—" she began, but her words caught in her throat once she drew nearer to him.

The younger boy had nasty burns on his hands and a black scorch mark on the sleeve of his shirt. He turned his face towards the light of the fireplace and Elsie could see that his cheek had been badly burned as well.

"You're hurt!" she gasped. The boy didn't reply, and instead looked down at his muddy boots.

"What happened?" she asked, though she suspected she knew the answer. The fresh mud on his boots was enough to tell her that he had been outside. As to the burns, however…

"Fire crabs," the boy answered. Elsie waited for the rest of his response, but when none came, nodded once and led him to her newly vacated seat by the fire.

"Stay there," she commanded, and she ran towards the girls' dormitories.

She returned not a minute later with a small basket. She pulled several candles from it and lit them with a flick of her wand, allowing them to float gently around her and cast more light on his injuries.

"What's your name?" she asked him. She took one of his burnt hands in hers, holding it up to the light and examining it closely.

"N-Newt Scamander," he replied, watching her warily. She did her best to smile encouragingly at him.

"I'm—"

"Elsie DuBois," he finished for her, cutting her off. "You're a prefect," he added quickly, as if to explain. Of course he knew who she was.

Elsie eyed him carefully for a moment.

"You were breaking curfew," she pointed out. She reached down into her basket and pulled out a rag and a glass vial of yellow liquid.

"I always break curfew," he mumbled, not daring to meet her eyes. She pretended not to hear him. If he had gone this long without ever being caught (and was only caught due to her own over-sleeping), far be it from her to stop him. Yes she was a prefect, but she knew that rules were meant to be bent.

"You ought to be more careful with fire crabs," Elsie told him instead. "You know Professor Kettleburn is quite protective of his collection. He wouldn't be too pleased to find you messing about with the ones he intends to breed."

This was not the discipline Newt had been expecting. He hadn't anticipated such a gentle reprimand, and he certainly hadn't expected to have his wounds tended to by an older student.

"Kettleburn won't notice," he said, watching Elsie as she swept a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. Her uniform was wrinkled and disheveled, her hair falling out of the twist at the base of her neck and the sleeves of her blouse rolled up to her elbows. He had never seen an older student in such a state of relative undress, much less a prefect. He had no doubt that she would be in trouble had they not been alone in the common room.

Elsie dabbed some of the yellow liquid onto his hand and he couldn't hold back a sigh of relief as the searing pain from his burn dissipated.

"Murtlap essence," Elsie told him before he had a chance to ask. A small smile played about her lips as she watched the relief wash across his face. She dabbed more onto his hand and switched to the other.

"Made from murtlap tentacles?" Newt asked curiously.

"Pickled and strained," she confirmed. "I'm always looking for more," she added. "It's dead useful for cuts and scrapes, but unfortunately rather expensive." She finished dabbing the essence onto his other hand and reached back into her basket. She pulled out a jar of bright orange salve.

"You're Theseus's brother, aren't you?" she asked Newt. He recoiled his hand quickly at that, pulling away from her grasp.

"Sorry," she said quickly, holding her hands out in front of her helplessly. Newt made no move to return his hand to her and instead glared at her suspiciously. Elsie sighed. The two sat in silence for a moment, each unsure of how to proceed.

"I have four older sisters," Elsie said suddenly, breaking the silence. She stared at her hands in her lap, which were covered in murlap essence and Newt Scamander's blood. "And all four of them are much prettier and much more talented than me. And all of them were in Gryffindor. Like my parents." She paused and twisted her hands.

"What I'm saying is…I know what it's like to feel overshadowed," she told him. "And I wish I had some way of making you feel differently, but I honestly don't right now. I'm still trying to figure it out for myself." She glanced up and caught his eye.

"But if you want to have the use of your hands sometime in the next week, there's still work I need to do on them," she added fiercely.

Slowly, Newt reached his hand out to her again. She took it and began to dab the thick, orange paste onto his burns.

"Are you friends with him?" Newt asked her after a long silence between them. Elsie had begun to bandage one of his hands while the other lay, sticky and orange, in his lap.

"Hmn?" she asked, not taking her eyes off her handiwork.

"My brother, I mean," he clarified. Did she detect a trace of bitterness in his voice?

"Oh, no," she assured him quickly. "Not really. Well you know sixth years have classes with Gryffindors, too, and we're both prefects, so I see him sometimes, but…no. I wouldn't call him a friend."

Newt relaxed at this.

"We don't really get on," he admitted softly, averting his eyes again.

"I'd noticed," she replied carefully. "You're two very different people, and Theseus—well…he's not really my type."

They fell into a comfortable silence once more, and Newt basked in the compliment he had just received.

"You're very good at this," he told her honestly as she finished bandaging his other hand. She tried to hide it, but Newt could tell she was glowing with pride.

"I'm going to be a healer," she said excitedly. "Well—once I pass my N.E. next year."

Newt hummed in response, letting her carefully look over the bandages on his hands before turning her attention to his face. She took his chin in her hand, gently pulling it towards the light. Newt wasn't used to someone being this close to his face, and he looked determinedly at the ceiling as Elsie examined the burn on his cheek.

"What about you?" she asked him, her face still very close to his.

"Hmn?" he asked, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

"What do you want to do after Hogwarts?" she asked, pulling out the murtlap essence again and dabbing it on his cheek. "You go for O. next year, don't you? You must've thought about it."

"I just want to work with creatures," he said after a minute's contemplation. "I've never thought about anything else."

"Haven't had enough fire crabs, then, have you?" she asked with a chuckle, still cleaning his wound.

"Misunderstood creatures," he muttered sheepishly. "I wouldn't have gotten hurt if I approached them more carefully…"

"I hear the trick is to approach from the front," Elsie added. "Though I can't speak as much of an expert. I only got an Acceptable in Care of Magical Creatures." She began to dab the thick orange salve onto Newt's face and he winced slightly at the pressure on his burn.

"I'm afraid you'll have to keep a bandage on your cheek for the night," she told him, pulling cotton gauze and tape from her basket. "Though the burn should be healed by tomorrow morning, so not much harm done."

"You could've sent me to the hospital wing," he pointed out as she applied the bandage to his face.

"Yes, I suppose I could have," she agreed, "but then Madame Adebayo would have given you a detention for being out of bed. And who knows what Kettleburn would have done once he found out you'd been messing with his fire crabs."

Newt supposed she had a fair point. If he'd lost points, all of Hufflepuff would know, and they'd blame him for losing their lead for the house cup. Of course, he also had the suspicion that Elsie just wanted to practice her healing, but he found that he didn't really mind.

"You know you can come to me if this happens again," Elsie told him once she finished patching him up. "I may be a prefect, but I can still keep some secrets."

He nodded jerkily, suddenly uncomfortable with their interaction. He hadn't realized how much he had actually told her.

"Thank you, Elsie," he said, giving her an uncertain smile. "I appreciate it."

"My door is always open, Newt Scamander," she replied, mirroring his smile. She watched the boy leave the common room before packing away her things, finally ready for bed.


Review, please! Next chapter will be up soon. Suggestions for future scenes to portray in upcoming chapters welcome and encouraged.
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