Note: Stuck halfway through an entry for my other collection "The Giver" when this idea came. It doesn't really fit into the idea of that collection so here you go. I hope they're not too OOC. Enjoy!

Usual disclaimers apply. I am not JK.

The black of her sequined gown contrasted beautifully against her pale skin.

Newt tried to swallow silently, quite shameful on the direction his thoughts are beginning to sway to. He averted his eyes from the valley formed by her bosom, but the image burned at the back of his eyelids. He was not averse or indifferent to the features of a female's body; people usually mistook the blankness of his expressions in the face of such matters to nonchalance. He is a man. He has his desires. He wanted – craved for – intimacy for as long as he's known it, but has opted to shelter himself instead of surrendering to rejection. There is so much love the world has to offer, and he's found them in the creatures he'd taken under his wing. However, he longed for something – or someone – who could just answer his prayers to Merlin.

He thought it was Leta Lestrange.

Leta – all shades of brown he could visualize – appealed to him in his youth. She was vibrant and daring in every action she took. She was engaging and unapologetic, unafraid to defy norms. Leta was all sharp edges – confidence, fierceness, and talent rolled in one. Newt felt exhilarated whenever she offered adventures worth his while, and inch by inch he crawled out of his shell. He would momentarily shed the coat of insecurities and expectations when he was with her, and for a while try to be a stranger in his own skin.

Protecting her became instinctive. After all, she somewhat saved him from himself. She didn't feel like Newt Scamander, the overshadowed second son. With Leta Lestrange, the boy was simply Newt – eternally generous and kind with a dash of clumsiness.

Somewhat – because whoever Leta molded wasn't him. She wanted him to reach heights and climb to the top of hierarchies because of his potential and passion; he simply wanted to bring his creatures home. She wished for him to be becoming of his station as a pureblood; he was painfully awkward and unconventional. She would always wish for him to be by her side, only for him to be left alone in the greatest downfall of his short life.

(It was never simply taking the blame, but Newt would never blame Leta for walking away.)

Yet this woman – Tina – with her own faults and worries, went out of her way to find them. She might have felt obligated to assist him because of the nature of her previous work or simply out of the goodness of her heart, but she stayed.

And her staying made her more enticing in his eyes than all the adventures the world would have offered.

Letting his control slip if only for a few moments, Newt lifted his gaze from the ground to the edge of Tina's dress. The cloth hung like waterfalls to her ankles. His eyes traced her form upward, reaching the slight swell of her hips as it connected to her torso. The looseness on the area of her waist suggested her slender frame. Blue eyes became a shade darker as it reached the curve of her breasts, which moves rhythmically and almost imperceptibly with the woman's breaths. Then her skin, her luminescent skin again, against the backdrop of a dingy downtown alley.

Newt wished to paint every color he captured in his journeys on her skin. In the end, something he would eventually prove in the near future, he knew they would not match to her.

At the sound of knocking, Newt broke his gaze.