Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenges and Assignments.
Task: Psychology, Dark v. Light, Marriage, Angst
Warnings: Substance Abuse
The man winked like he suffered from a facial seizure. As Newt Scamander neared seventy-five and his wife nearly seventy-two, this move wasn't about looks. White-haired and way past caring about his roots, Newt watched as the homeless man retched; he missed the dumpster, but the man managed to use the sleeve of his shirt as a handkerchief. Manners still clung to hope.
"I understand where you're going with this," hedged Tina delicately, determinedly following him back towards the hospital a mile away. Snow mixed with sleet fell from the sky, and last minute Christmas shoppers scurried in New York. "But this isn't… Francis wouldn't abandon some girl. And she's a girl, Newton!"
Newt threw up his hands, running on fumes. Francis, their son, lived for the next fix, and he'd exhausted his supposedly endless second chances. By law, this girl could've rightly claimed sanctuary if she'd left the newborn at the hospital or the firehouse. She walked into the hospital empty handed, though she'd obviously given birth nearby, and she made the call to walk away.
"Why wouldn't she leave it? She was right there!" Newt stuffed his hands in his pockets. Of course, Francis asked him for help when it came to damage control, but why would he bother to show up? Creatures left their young. Newt flew in from Lima and dropped everything to take care of Francis. He stopped, punched the brick rhythmically, and tried to calm down as his voice caught in his throat. "Did you know?"
"She was on the streets?" Tina picked and chose her words with care. Newt, picking up on this, waived her error. He could forgive and forget anything, yet there were always choices. Tina, speeding up as he walked away, rushed to get this out. "No. I barely even know her. Newt! Newt, please."
Newt spun around, catching himself before he fell in the black ice. "Francis isn't a child. Annie and Sarah keep their shit together, but you let Frank drag you down."
"He's our son," said Tina quietly, pulling her red coat tighter around herself. She lost her waistline and the luster of her dark hair years ago, but he still spotted her plain prettiness.
"Thirty-eight. Francis deserves jail," said Newt savagely. He doubled back over to the dumpster. Thinking he heard something, he took out his wand and shook it so the wand tip ignited. He passed the dumpster three times. "Did you hear that?"
"Newt, it's freezing. The police will question the girl. She's a nineteen-year-old junkie. She'll crack." Tina shrugged.
"You, sir, I'll give you this watch if you alert the hospital," said Newt, handing the Muggle his watch. The man took it, not even noticing the wand, and darted off towards Fifth Avenue. Not even thinking about it, Newt shrugged off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and Disapparated.
"Newton, are you crazy?" Tina shouted after him.
Newt Apparated into the dumpster, crouched and ready to search the trash like a lair. An addict, especially a desperate, strung out one, could not think. Newt learned this from Francis. He found a black baby boy tucked away in a cardboard box, covered by a well worn denim jacket. Pocketing a couple syringes, Newt wrapped it in his coat, too, holding him to his chest before he Dispparated again.
Tina Apparated by his side at the hospital entrance. She spotted the blue and black thing in his arms. "Oh, my God. Is he alive?"
"Barely. Help me!" Newt ran up to a young doctor and handed the child over. team of Muggle physicians whisked away with the child. Newt, running off the adrenaline rush, headed back to an elevator and crumpled onto the floor. Tina, pacing back and forth in front of him, questioned him patiently and prepared him to question the girl. "What's her name?"
"Newt." Tina held up a hand.
"A name, Porpentina," demanded Newt, punching a button. They went up to the maternity ward.
"Darla," she said, rummaging in her red handbag.
"Darla. Right."
Newt checked his appearance, though he did nothing to cover up the garbage bag stench. Something dribbled down his sleeve. He nodded curtly at Tina, asking her to go first. Darla shared a room, but it was empty at the moment. She scratched her skin, her eyes darting here and there. He felt pity for her because the girl reminded him of an injured Niffler.
"Merry Christmas, Darla," he said, keeping his distance.
Tina said it, too, though she celebrated Hanukkah.
"Who're you?" Darla asked. She said nothing when Newt showed her his Muggle passport and a forged identification card. Tears welled in her eyes. "You're Frank's father?"
"Yeah. I don't care where he is." Newt held up a hand to silence an agitated Tina. This would come later, yet he couldn't progress the next step. Newt walked into the bathroom and checked his wallet. Thinking fast, he cast a Currency Charm, and he wondered if he had enough to make this problem erase itself. He poked his head out. "Tina?"
Tina locked the door with her hand end cast a Silencing Charm. She snatched the money away from him. "Are we buying a child now? Two hundred and twenty-five dollars? Mr. Scamander!"
"No. No. Maybe. You want to hand the boy back to her?" Newt folded the bills and raised his eyebrows. Tina bit her lip and cast the same spell on her money before she gave him another three hundred dollars.
"We're going to hell," she said, acting like she sold her soul.
"Thank you. At least I'll have company." Newt kissed her on the forehead. He was the furthest thing from a religious man, yet he wished to get this girl out of the picture. He knew Francis would take half of this without the slightest hesitation. Tina shrugged, muttering his next move counted as his Christmas present.
"If you throw this kid into the system, I will leave you." Tina fixed her shoe and fixed him with cold stare. "No pressure."
"Tina." Newt opened the door and glanced at the girl. She walked towards the door. "The boy? My grandson? I found out. You covered him, which means you cared enough to hide him. A Kneazle does that."
Tina, standing in the doorway, buried her face in her hands.
Darla asked the right question. "What's a Kneazle?"
"What? I don't know what you're talking about." Newt covered this up badly and stopped himself from feeding her an automatic answer. Darla's eyes darted towards the cash.
"Frank said you'd make the problem go away," said Darla.
"He said what?" Tina, all sympathy and compassion gone, marched into the room and turned away when Newt laughed mirthlessly. She took the syringes and thumbed through cash. Darla repeated herself.
"Think before you speak," said Newt, warning both of them.
"Do you want the money or the baby?" Tina spoke slowly, disgusted by her own words. She sat on the edge of the the bed and set down a hundred dollar bill. Darla never flinched when Tina doubled the offer, careful to place this on top of the other. She wanted Darla to pull out of the game.
"It's going to die." Darla crossed her arms.
"You deserve each other," said Newt.
Darla took three hundred. Tina nodded, leaving it there for the moment. She left. Newt decided he wasn't quite done. He told the girl to get up. He helped her pull on a dressing gown, and she didn't protest until he led her towards the nursery. Newt actually didn't know the boy would be there. He tapped the window, signaling to a doctor, and he wheeled Darla over to a wailing thing hooked to tubes and machines.
"I hate you. That's never going to change." Newt rested his hands on the handlebars. "You'll look at him eventually, miss."
"Why's he like that?" Darla acted as though she wanted to be anywhere but here.
"He's screaming for whatever you shot through your body, child." He laughed darkly when Darla insisted she was grown; she knew nothing about anything. "Right. Keep telling yourself this. I can help you."
Darla asked for more money to get her through the holidays; she asked the doctor to take her back to her room. Newt, spent, pulled up a chair and watched the physician wheel her away. He reached through the plastic container where he imagined the Muggles performed some type of Heating Charm. A woman in scrubs came by and pushed liquid through a tube. The baby quieted.
"You're a hero, Grandpa," said the woman. She squeezed Newt's shoulder. The woman introduced herself as Jessica and fetched Newt a coffee. She left, smiling serenely. He found out later she kept the matrons from kicking him out.
"Talk to him." Tina startled him hours later and leafed through the pages of a manuscript. Newt listened to her as she said she walked around New York City. Newt gestured awkwardly, hesitant, at a nurse and held the sleeping baby. Tina failed to hide her smile. "Well, I know what we're doing for the next twenty years."
"What?" Newt kissed the baby's hand with the hospital bracelet. He crossed his legs, making himself at home. Instantly in love with this kid when the baby wrapped his small hand around Newt's thumb, Newt tried and failed to distance himself. "As long as we don't name him, we're okay. He's got a grip."
"Newton," said Tina, placing her hands on her hips and rolling her eyes.
"Yeah?" Newt changed the child carefully like he handled a baby Demiguise. He accepted a bottle from Jessica.
"Newton. That's a good name." Jessica offered them peppermint mochas and cookies.
"Newton's a good name," said Newt brightly, beaming at Tina. She returned his smile, placing one foot in front of the other. Newt had other grandchildren. He liked the empty nest, but he wasn't leaving this kid in the hospital. "So, we're saying goodbye to a quiet life …"
"For twenty years? Yeah? The sad part about this is you think you lead a quiet life when you have no idea what that means." Tina signed the birth certificate and other documents. She backed off, letting Jessica take over when the baby fell into what Jessica called a spell; the nurse referred to this fix as a cocktail. "How long does this last?"
"He's staying for a while," said Jessica unconcernedly. She updated Baby Scamander's patient chart and updated a stack of charts in a chair.
"You don't have to do anything," said Tina, conjuring a chair and a few light blankets.
"No? You threatened to leave me after forty years of marriage over this kid?"
Newt raised his eyebrows, shifting the kid. Without putting much thought into it, he labeled this black boy, who looked nothing like him, with his namesake. He filled in this part of the certificate, clicking a pen over and over again because he liked the sound. He wrote this: Newton Artemis Rolf Scamander. He signed his own signature, smiling while Tina approved with a watery chuckle and a thumbs-up.
"This means I'm forgiven? You're not shouting at me the length of New York, which seems to be a favorite pastime of yours. Sarah? The thing with the karpoi? The suitcase?"
"The suitcase thing?" Tina decided not to mention he'd accidentally left their daughter, Sarah, in Rio de Janeiro once. Newt carried his trusted suitcase everywhere, though it proved slightly less interesting with fewer creatures. She sighed when he conjured the tattered suitcase with the Undetectable Extendable Charm. Her warm brown eyes got big; her eyes darted towards the door. "Newt, are you trying to get thrown out of the country? What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing," said Newt.
He had been arrested three times in the course of his career. Twice in America, and unfortunately, one of these incidents was part of public record, so anytime he stepped a toe out of line, especially in New York or Massachusetts, Tina flew into this cute little panic. (The incident in Massachusetts Bay was nothing, really. He blamed the pukwudgie; the pukwudgie declined to comment and awaited judgement.) Newt showed her his teeth, thankful he still had these. The time he got arrested in Greece over the karpoi? In hindsight, angering a grain sprit because he skipped breakfast might not have been the brightest idea.
"You can't lose your head when this boy falls off a broomstick or he doesn't want to de-gnome the garden," said Tina, patting him on the knee. "And he gets to be an English guy in New York, okay?"
Newt saw this as an unnecessary condition. "We're raising him in Dorset, Tina."
"What do you call your daughter? Shopaholic Sarah of Fifth Avenue?"
Tina punched him playfully in the shoulder when Newt's body shook with laughter and he shrugged it off. "What? It's funny. Barnabas Cuffe said it was funny. He also married her. Who came up with that brilliant idea? Was it the English guy? Me? Oh, no, you're welcome. Don't mention it."
Jessica, half-listening, looked up from her work and laughed a little. She clicked the pen and she nibbled on it absentmindedly. "You guys are cute. How long have you been married?"
"Since 1932. We got married in Washington State." Jessica asked the next predictable question. Ready to jump into some story about a magical creature, Newt, sleepy and chatty, only shut up when Tina clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Cherry cobbler," Tina invented wildly. She moved her hand back and forth. Newt smirked, for he understood she told a half truth. Newt met a nasty Bowtruckle hiding inside a cherry tree the day he tied the knot. During the Great Depression, Newt finally convinced his bride to jump across the pond after the No-Maj and Magical economies went to hell.
Jessica left the ward. Newt, interested, turned to his wife. "What's cherry cobbler?"
"It's this thing with butter, batter, and cherries," said Tina, reading over his discarded manuscript. "It's really good. I'll make it for you."
"Okay." Newt wondered if all Americans resorted to baking. Tina, like her sister, worked out her problems in the kitchen, though Queenie was admittedly the better amateur chef. He opened a Muggle newspaper and read something about the space program. "Apollo. That's a fitting name."
"We're not calling the boy Apollo," said Tina flatly, marking her spot.
"Frank should have been called Apollo," grumbled Newt. Wouldn't most people have liked being named after the Thunderbird that saved New York City? Tina said Frank was simply Frank. "What's your sister going to say when we show up at the apartment with a baby boy?"
They found out the next day. Queenie, twice divorced, bustled around the Brownstone apartment Tina paid for on the fifth floor. Queenie, Newt's age, wore seventy-five well and retained hints of her beauty. She invited herself over, which was nothing new, and complained about the No-Maj traffic. When Newt casually threw in Apparition as an easy solution, shr stopped, twirling her curls absentmindedly with a finger. She shrugged off her expensive coat and tossed it over the chair.
"Teenie," she said, her eyes darting from Newt to the baby and back again. Her voice sounded less bubbly with a deeper husk. She'd gained this with time. "He's black."
"Shut up, Newton," snapped Tina, slapping Newt in the back of the head with a wooden spoon.
Newt, calm and collected, sat at the table and spread his fingers apart. He hadn't said a single word. Above them, in the middle of the table, the cherry cobbler layered and baked itself at the perfect temperature. Newt dressed the kid as the jealous Demiguise pelted pitted cherries in Newt's direction. Millie, the Kneazle, the fat, Siamese one, paraded herself on the table, purring as she paced back and forth.
"You people have problems." Queenie scooped up Millie and scratched her behind the ears. "May I steal your cat yet? She's fat and beautiful."
"No. She's mine." Newt tied Rolf's red trainers. "And she's a Kneazle."
Queenie, bemused, watched Newt as a smile spread across her face. She helped herself to a handful of leftover cherries as the dessert landed lightly on the table. "You make my day, Newt. The old man all the girls point at in the streets? That's you."
Color flushed Newt's translucent skin. "Make her stop, please, Porpentina."
"Callie, stop." Tina smirked when the Demiguise shimmered away as if one of them cast a Disillusionment Charm upon her. Newt, grumbling like child, chucked a nappy in the bin and pointed a thumb at Queenie. The girls had a laugh.
"Newt, come on." Tina sighed when Newt helped himself to vegetable stew and escaped with the baby into the nest. She continued talking with her sister.
Newt called his office the nest. The children, when they were children, never came in here. Newt shuffled through correspondence. When he wasn't in Dorset, the owls somehow figured out to forward the post to this residence. He pointed out the people in the photographs and picked an album at random.
"Nigeria and Kenya, 1947."
Newt sat in his desk chair and spun around. He conjured a safari hat from the old days and plopped it on Rolf's head. The baby simply lay there. Newt, smiling, opened the album and one of his journals. He jerked his head when an apparatus clicked. Queenie, beaming like the Twenties resurfaced, lit up her face with a radiant smile. Tina, pecking behind her, attacked some cobbler. Queenie set down the camera, held up a finger, and returned with a laden tray of cherry cobbler, vanilla ice and a cup of cocoa.
"Someone left this." Queenie set a box on the desk. It was a Cartier watch. Queenie, curious, opened the Christmas card and read through it. "Who's Jessica?"
Tina choked on her dessert and set the fork on the plate.
"Just a girl," said Newt, reading the inscription on the scratched back. He found spare spectacles on the desk drawer, put these on, and shifted the sleeping infant in his arms.
Tina said nothing. She stood there, not really sure what to say, and patted her grey hair awkwardly, and Queenie beamed eagerly, ready to dish on the details. Newt went back to his reading, completely at home. He recalled something, a fleeting memory from long ago. Queenie claimed Millie for her pillow, and the Kneazle followed her back down the corridor. Newt smiled, recalling the night he'd slipped into a suitcase with a Jacob Kowalski.
"Some girl, just a girl," he said softly, speaking barely above a whisper, "walked into this bedroom and set a cup of cocoa on a bedside table. And then she left. It meant nothing - nothing sometimes means everything. Thank you."
"It was just cocoa," she said, polishing off the cobbler crumbs with her fingers.
"There's more in there." Newt jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. "You're going back for seconds?"
"Thinking about it." She licked the fork, reminding Newt irresistibly of a smaller Sarah. She did this playful skip kick thing, pulling another Sarah thing, although Tina caught herself and checked her balance. "We're really doing this?"
"Mmmm hmmm," said Newt, his spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose. Tina pointed at Rolf and called him a sidekick. Newt supposed he walked right into that one. "Should be fun."