Pickles was misbehaving again, and Newt worried his lip, casting sharp glances around them to make sure they weren't seen.
"Come here, Pickles," he tried to sound commanding and opened the suitcase wider. "Back to your enclosure now before someone comes by and sees us."
Much to Newt's frustration, Pickles pretended to not hear. Despite of her greying fur, she was still playful like any a nundu kitten and – rather than doing what Newt was telling her to do – placed a large paw onto the swing with such determination and elegance truly only an elderly nundu could have managed it. The wooden plank creaked under her weight and she huffed down at it, sounding about as frustrated as Newt felt.
"Pickles," Newt made her name sound like a warning. "You must be careful. I'm telling you it's not-"
With a loud snap, the wooden swing gave in and broke, and a growling Pickles jumped back, startled, her neck fur standing up as she positioned herself between Newt and the swing as if to protect Newt from any and all treacherous playground equipment.
From Newt's shoulder, Pickett let out an inquiring chirp, and Newt sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He loved Pickles dearly, but sometimes her stubbornness did try his patience, especially now as they stood there on a playground in the Center of Central Park, the area hidden magically from all muggles, and when at any moment a wizarding family could well wander into sight, having come to the decision to spend some family time there this Friday afternoon. Newt was well aware most adult witches and wizards would not take kindly to a nundu on a playground, no matter how kind and playful she was, and if someone saw Pickles, the chances were the playground would be filled with battle-ready aurors in but moments and then who knew what would happen to Pickles. Humans could be cruel to nundus trying to swing.
"Please, Pickles." Now pleading rather than commanding, Newt opened the suitcase wider, hoping the familiar scents in it would be enough to lure Pickles back into her enclosure. He didn't have many options left since both the chicken and the coconut perfume had failed, and it would have been useless to try to use any tempting charms on her, resistant to human magic as she was. "Get back inside – you're safe there. If someone now sees us, you'll get in trouble."
Pickles stopped growling in order to huff in her haughty manner. Newt rather felt like huffing, too, but settled for running a soothing hand through the damp, greying fur of her once pitch-black back, balancing the suitcase against his hip.
"If you're good, Pickles," he kept his voice gentle, as he picked a few wet autumn leaves gently off her fur and let them fall down onto the gravel, "I'll make you a good, durable swing in your enclosure. One just for you. One that won't break."
She turned her head. Her black eyes shone with intelligence as she regarded him steadily.
"I'll do it," Newt promised, holding the eye contact, "but only if you get inside now."
This time Pickles didn't pretend to not hear him. Instead, tilting her head as if in consideration, she soon abandoned the broken swing and made her way down the stairs into the suitcase, proud and elegant as always. Relieved, Newt was quick to snap the suitcase closed and to check the locks to make sure no other creature accidentally managed to escape. Then, with an effective Repario cast carefully onto the swing, he went back the same way he had come, while Pickett climbed down into the inside pocket of his blue coat to nap now that all the excitement was over.
A group of teenagers was playing quidditch on a small opening further away, their whooping and boisterous voices heavy enough in the crisp air to have Newt bend his head and hurry his steps. Since Hogwarts, he hadn't much liked the sound of boisterous teens; he always had an uncomfortable feeling they were laughing at him, silly though that was of him – he was, after all, an adult and what should it have even mattered to an adult had a child found him laughable?
Nonetheless, Newt hurried by the teens, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He made way to an elderly witch and her seven leashed frogs, politely, and then spotted his destination, the statue of Gondulphus Graves in the distance.
Half an hour earlier, much to his surprise, he had encountered a flatlery on a bench in front of the Graves statue. Like all flatleries in October, she had been trying to find a spot to hibernate on, and since the public bench in the Center of Central Park was not a good hibernating spot for any a creature, Newt had attempted to move her down into his suitcase in order to then find her a better place for hibernation. Only, when he had opened the suitcase to get the flatlery in, Pickles had burst out with considerable speed, and Newt had been forced to leave the sluggish flatlery onto the bench since he couldn't have taken the risk of Pickles running into anyone.
Someone might have tried to harm her, or to agitate her.
Now, as Newt approached the statue, an uncomfortable feeling began to grow in the pit of his stomach, one that urged him to run, and even though there was no clear reason for his sudden sense of urgency, Newt had learnt to trust his instincts when they told him to hurry, and so he now abandoned running and instead drew his wand and apparated to the statue, prepared for anything from an injured duckling to a nesting phoenix.
Gondulphus Graves, 1660—1718, One of The Original Twelve, the sign attached onto the plinth of the granite statue read right in front of his face when he rematerialized. "Brave Soul, Raise Thy Wand to Guard, to Protect, to Fight – Lest the Darkness Rejoices!"
With his wand pointing forward like he was brazed for a battle, Gondulphus Graves looked like a warrior, and with his baggy breaches, short cloak and a wig's curls well past the shoulders he must have made a fashionable character during the Thirty Years' War. Despite of the grandeur of Goldulhups Graves, Newt barely gave the statue a glance before twirling around to take in his surroundings, hoping to spot the source of his uncomfortable, urgent feeling.
He didn't have to look far: On the bench in front of the statue, sitting on the poor flatlery, there was a wizard reading Financially Sensible Wizardry. The wizard was blocking the flatlery's airways on her back, she was being suffocated, and Newt had his wand pointing at the wizard before his shout, "GET UP!" even had the chance to echo in the cool October afternoon.
The wizard gave him an irritated glance over the magazine as if annoyed by the interruption, then did a double take and slowly lowered the magazine, the look in his eyes more intent. The exasperated expression on his face smoothed away, as he slowly assessed Newt from head to toe, although Newt barely noticed this, his focus mainly on the dying flatlery.
Merlin. She was dying.
Because the wizard was ignorant enough to sit on her.
"Get up," Newt said again, clenching his wand, magic already flowing in the tips of his fingers. "You are suffocating the flatlery."
The wizard leant back on the bench, studying Newt and the wand pointed at him with a politely bemused expression. A hint of a smirk appeared on his handsome face and he offered,
"As it happens, I prefer to be the one to give orders, Mr…?"
The time was out. Her smooth skin was already starting to turn grey, and if Newt had been gone for a minute longer, she would have been past saving.
Newt swore to himself and cast the first hex that came to his mind, anything to get the wizard off her immediately. The wizard shielded himself with the magazine, the hex evaporated from it, harmless, but it had done its job, for the wizard, now frowning, was quick jump up to his feet – and thus to get off the flatlery's airways which was really all that mattered.
"Why did you just assault me with a Tickler's Tackle? Have we met?"
Newt ignored the questions and the demanding tone in which they asked much as Pickles had ignored his pleading.
"I do not have the time for your ignorance, Sir."
"For my ignorance?"
Newt pushed past the sputtering wizard to kneel beside the flatlery. He touched the smooth skin gently. A heartbeat, barely detectable, but still there. He let out the breath he had been holding.
"My ignorance? Ignorance?"
The wizard sounded equally offended and perplexed, and Newt, frowning, glanced up at where the wizard was towering over him with the magazine tucked carefully under his arm. The man looked stiff.
"It was merely an observation," Newt reassured timidly after casting an anti-presurio and a few other first aid spells suitable for flatleries. "I didn't mean it as an insult."
The wizard gave him a look so dark Newt felt his face flushing and looked quickly back at the flatlery.
"Ignorant, me!"
With the way he was repeating things over and over, it was starting to look like the wizard was rather slow-minded. That certainly explained how he could have accidentally sat on someone's air hole and the poor little flatlery had had to bear the brunt of that.
"You attacked me and called me ignorant – what, exactly, is the meaning of this?"
"Ignorance means a lack of knowledge or information," Newt felt compelled to explain, as he rubbed life back into the flatrery's motionless body. Thankfully, now that there was no longer such weight on her, the flatlery was starting to return to her normal light blue color and Newt could sigh in relief – she would make a full recovery.
"To be ignorant means that you're lacking knowledge or information."
"I know what 'ignorance' means," the wizard sounded annoyed for someone who had just learnt a new word.
"It looks like you're tending to the… cushion," he observed a moment later. "Is that why you assaulted me, because I was sitting on your property? I assumed the cushion was public property since it was left on a public bench."
"The flatlery," said Newt tersely, "is no-one's property and she certainly is no cushion for anyone to sit on. She is a magical creature and deserves more respect than that."
Soon enough, the flatlery – Susan, Newt decided – was fast asleep like she hadn't just been about to die, and Newt opened his suitcase and spelled her gently down into his study to sleep on his bed. The bed would do until he found her a better place somewhere suitable and safe. He didn't mind the loss of his sleeping place in the least. He had slept on the floor before.
With Susan safe and comfortable, Newt turned to the wizard who was now looking down at him with his arms crossed on his chest, The Financially Sensible Wizardry no longer anywhere to be seen.
Newt climbed up to his feet, brushing dust off his knees.
"I'm sorry I hexed you," he said, apologetically. "I only did it to protect Susan. You were blocking her airways by sitting on her, you know."
"I didn't know," said the wizard, stiffly. "I also didn't know the… creature had a name."
Newt had always had a fondness for simpletons. He was a nurturer by nature, and slow-minded people woke something protective in him. He was truly sorry he had had to attack the wizard, although it was fortunate the man, slow-minded though he might be, had reflexive magic fast and effective enough to block unexpected hexes like the Tickler's Tackle.
Uncomfortable and awkward now that there was no longer a creature in immediate need of his help, Newt regarded the wizard's gleaming black shoes.
Why was the man all alone in the park? Would he even find his way back home after all the excitement Newt had caused him, or would he wander around, lost and cold? Would someone come to look for him?
"I'm Newt, Newt Scamander." Newt tried to keep his voice soothing like he would when talking to a spooked creature and regarded the man from behind his fringe. "What's your name?"
There was a pause during which the man kept studying him in silence and Newt, so awkward he could tell he was turning red, had to look away again.
"Graves," the answer finally came, and Newt sighed internally. A pigeon was sitting on Gondulphus Graves' pointed wand, and Newt wondered if this man could truly be slow enough to have read the name of the statue and think of it as his own.
"And you are under arrest for attempted assault."