The Golden Snitch
Transfiguration Class: Write a story about a character who uses a matchstick or a lighter rather than a wand.
(prompts) matchstick, redundant, Dean Thomas
White Day
School and house: Hogwarts, Hufflepuff
Prompts: mysterious
Giftee: JustPaulinHere
To anyone who has suffered depression. There are dark days, yes, but there are light days, too.
"Lighter"
The glass stayed half full. A controlled, handsome face covered the covers of European and American covers; from a glance, Rolf woke on Wednesday morning without this crippling doubt. Redundant and certainly recycled, he played the part of his grandfather, and while there had been great strides in the magical community with magical creatures and beasts, he found it hard to get out of bed some mornings and start the day, and yet the world saw none of the fear, worry or sadness.
On Wednesday morning, back on home soil, lying in the New York brownstone, Rolf stared at the ceiling and contemplating whether his great aunt ever crossed the lines in this bedroom. He doubted it, seeing as Mrs. Espinoza or whatever the old landlady called herself had famously never allowed gentlemen up here.
A lot changed in eighty years. Rolf always stayed in at least two places at once, a globetrotter, for he juggled a handful of responsibilities as the Mr. Scamander. Newt stayed home in Dorset, still struggling with the definition of a peaceful retirement. Whatever this meant. The grief, and the worry, and the words turned to ash in Rolf's mouth.
Luna Lovegood tried her best to distract him. When they'd married seven years ago, he'd insisted she keep her name and they forget this nonsense about a prenuptial agreement. He asked if she was all right, and she nodded, distracting him with a kiss as they came together. Rolf placed his hands on her hips, loving this first thing in the morning. Someone knocked on the door, and Luna cupped a hand over Rolf's mouth as he groaned.
"Yes. Just a moment." Luna closed her eyes, savoring these last few moments of silence.
The secretary, Dean, asked for Mr. Scamander and said blah, blah, blah about the Scamander Foundation and something about the natural disaster. Rolf, blocking out the incessant voice of Dean Thomas, concentrated on his wife's silvery blue eyes and her long hair. Intertwining their fingers, pale and dark, he made Luna forget her surroundings for the moment, too.
"Very nice." Rolf wondered idly if Dean always listened at doors like a faithful guard dog. Waiting until Dean left, Luna pulled on jeans and a top with butterfly sleeves. She took the compliment. Rolf got dressed, too, hating the slow adjustment to Daylight Savings time. "Tell him we fuck every morning before breakfast to get a little exercise in."
"No." Luna tossed him a Scamander Foundation t-shirt to wear over a plain long-sleeved one. She slipped on simple shoes as Rolf cleaned up in the bathroom. She helped him with the Cartier watch, not meeting his eyes when she unearthed a tired subject. "You need help."
"No. I need to get to Madison Square Garden." Rolf sighed, frustrated when Luna shook her head sadly. "What is this?"
"You told me shadows swarm you in the light." Luna crossed her arms, tapping her foot, Rolf furrowed his brow, scared to go down this path. Last night, apparently for no reason at all, he'd wept as they shared stories and made love. She switched to Spanish, her way of edging Dean out.
"Secrets. They exist for a reason. Eastern Standard Time."
Rolf spoke to his watch; the watch face flipped over, a Levitation Charm, and locked it back into place, changing from AEST.
"Eastern Standard Time. New York," answered a cool English female voice.
They rushed from New Zealand late yesterday afternoon, and Rolf swore he permanently suffered whiplash from International Apparition. The powers that be, essentially Charlie Weasley's younger brother, Percy, hated whenever gave the standardized rules the finger. In all fairness, Rolf needed to jump around because his grandfather expected the corporate side and the magizoologist side to exist together.
Newt had never bothered with such duality. Newt Scamander danced to his own heartbeat, and people either accepted him or got left behind. What did he care? Truthfully, whenever Rolf read through the renowned magizoologist's journals, he'd seriously doubted whether Newt even noticed his outer appearance.
Rolf poured himself a stiff cup of Colombian coffee, the good stuff. Dean usually beat him to it and tripped over his expensive polished dress shoes to serve Rolf. The gay secretary intrigued Rolf for a while. When Dean wouldn't cross into China between a flu epidemic, Rolf had laughed, reminding him it was a Muggle disease and he'd be quite all right.
Dean served an old man eggs and avocado toast. Rolf frowned, his fixed expression composed as he sipped his brew and studied his aged grandfather. Newt might outlive them all. Instead of the auburn hair, his hair turned white and he carried his weight around the middle. Newt wore those old-fashioned spectacles, the ones without the frames that rested on his nose.
"Morning." Luna pecked the old man on his paper thin cheek. She never bothered with asking how he followed them. Newt got bored, as Dean explained it, and he considered Rolf personal entertainment.
"You shouldn't Apparate across the pond." Rolf winced at the havoc he expected to come the the Apparition Overload. Rolf had slapped Percy with this nickname when Percy had slapped him with silvery bracelets upon returning back to England in 2005.
Newt shrugged, unconcerned as he puffed from a pipe. He sat on a barstool at the island. When Rolf had remodeled this place, he redesigned it with the clotheshorse and the old dining room in mind. Aunt Queenie left him everything, including Uncle Jacob's bakery.
"Are you going to throw an old man in jail?" A smile played on Newt's dry lips as he surveyed Rolf over his specs. "How many times have you been arrested?"
"Four." Rolf counted off on his fingers.
"Five," corrected Luna. She left to answer the door. She reeled off the answer: Jordan, Argentina, Romania with Charlie Weasley, jolly old England, and New York. She came back, flicking a silver cigarette lighter, playing with its flame.
"Keeping up the tradition. Angering the Americans." Newt clinked mugs with his grandson and sipped his black coffee. "What?"
Rolf chuckled, laughing for the the first time in forever. "Forgot about that last one."
Dean lit the scented candles with the lighter, momentarily forgetting he was a Muggleborn wizard. Rolf noticed. Newt confused, missed a step somewhere. He put scrambled eggs on toast as Luna spread whatever on toast. Rolf found her appetite rather interesting.
"Hazelnut spread and mayo?" Rolf held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Store bought."
"Shut up." Luna usually said no to red meat, too, but her body turned her down. She'd given up last month when a helper at a clinic reeled off her weight on a scale. "Who asked you?"
"No judgment. Your shoes don't match. Is this a fashion statement?" Rolf pitted an avocado with a knife and sliced it in his hand. Luna tossed away her weird breakfast and walked back in the bedroom. Rolf checked his watch before shrugged and checking on his weepy wife. She asked to go away, so he returned to the kitchen, his shoulders slumped. "Good job. Newton. Made her cry before seven."
"I didn't do anything," said Newt, grumbling when the silver trinket wouldn't light his smoke.
"Not you. Me." Rolf found fresh fruit in the stores and whisked this into yogurt. He tasted this with his with his finger and made new toast, shooing Dean away with a butter knife. Newt smiled with his whole face.
"What happened in New York?" Newt searched the cupboards and drawers. "Grandma's tracking the spells on my wand because she believes I'm not smoking anymore."
"Yeah, there's a fix to this." Rolf smiled, packing Luna's second breakfast in a brown bag.
"I will disinherit you," threatened Newt, slapping the dead lighter on the island. A nearby Tiffany lamp went out in the sitting room.
Rolf pointed his wand tip in line with his grandfather's and muttered, "Deletus." Smoke appeared, broke the connection, and erased any traces of Newt Scamander being a bad boy. He tossed his grandfather's wand in the air and found a box of matchsticks in his great aunt's junk drawer. Newt caught these deftly, stowing the matches in his charcoal grey coat. He pocketed the lighter, too.
"Your breath." Rolf handed over breath mints.
"I recant my previous statement," muttered Newt, who wouldn't bother with clearing his wand. Dean snorted. "What'd you do, sneak?"
Rolf shot the question back at him, purely for the fun of it. "What'd you do?"
"I snuck a suitcase in New York." Newt grinned when Dean, who had heard this before, smiled. No charges had been brought against him, but the President had told him to skip town.
Rolf said this last bit in a rush, brushing out the mysterious atmosphere surrounding it. "I may or may not have snuck a wounded Demiguise past customs."
"Really?" Newt cleaned his lenses and replaced them on his face.
"Sam was a baby. What? Whatever. So did you!" Rolf shrugged this off like it was nothing. In fact, in a way, it was thanks to Newt Scamander he'd gotten caught. "I may or may not have …"
Newt offered his hand in congratulations.
Rolf read this as an Americanism, sure he read too much into this. "Did you just 'Atta boy' me?"
Dean sprayed coffee everywhere when he burst out laughing. Newt, not sure whether he did or not, studied his own hand. Rolf hugged him from behind.
Luna slipped a heel on her swollen foot and hooked a pin on Rolf's shirt. "Remember you're American, Rolf."
"English-American," mumbled Newt, tucking his smokes away with the useless lighter. Luna beamed at Newt when he didn't bother hiding an insult, entitled to the last word. "Yankee."
"Haha. I don't like you." Rolf pointed at his grandfather. "Hilarious. I was born here and you dragged me to Dorset a week later."
Newt changed to a poor New York accent, no doubt intimidating his wife. Rolf code switched from American English and British English all the time, which meant he messed up a lot. Rolf handed Luna her food, and Luna, perfectly content again, looped her arms through those of the Scamander men.
Dean followed them outside. "Mr. Scamander?"
"Yes?" Both Newt and Rolf responded.
"Yeah. The younger one." Dean found an abandoned football and dribbled like a man in reserves.
Rolf walking with Dean, ignoring the light rain, joined in the game, showing off his fancy footwork. Whenever he travelled, especially to South America, the Muggles and Muggleborn revered football like Quidditch. Frankly, Rolf preferred to stay on the ground if he wasn't on a dragon or a Hippogriff and picked up the game along the way.
"Who taught you?" Dean danced on his feet.
"Esteban? Esteban Garcia-Vasquez." Rolf nodded, his voice changing slightly when he unconsciously spoke Spanish rattling on about Esteban. Dean, lost, appealed to the other two. Luna, amused, conjured an umbrella to share with Newt and replied in Spanish, too. "Thank you."
Luna shrugged, doubling her grip on Newt's arm. Rolf spoke five languages fluently, including Arabic and Romanian, which is why the Weasley brothers loved him. Luna had picked up Spanish in the rainforest because it helped her survive.
"Newt." Luna waited for the crosswalk hit the old man hard in the chest. Rolf, already late or pressing his luck with time, purchased cigarettes at a shop and shook them at his grandfather. "Are we rationing to help him kick the habit?"
"Good girl." Rolf, pleased she caught on offered Newt one.
"I'm 113." Newt took one. "The flu can take me tomorrow."
"Yeah, coating your lungs with nicotine doesn't help that," said Rolf. He gestured at Luna. "Do you not want to see your great-children? I mean, you raised Sarah, Christopher and Francis …"
"Frank was a mistake," said Newt, not liking to talk about his younger son. "The other two were all right."
"Yeah, you messed up royally with Francis. Grandma said you punched him with he sold Hebridean Black eggs on the black market." Rolf handed him another cigarette and as a reward and tossed the football to a cute little girl. "Francis fucked up five ways from Sunday. But then there was me."
"I don't to talk about Francis," said Luna. She'd heard more than enough last night.
"No. My father lived for hardcore substances. He's probably lurking still on the streets." Rolf vowed never to let Luna or his children near the accomplished drug addict. Rolf entered Madison Square Garden, skirting past those who gathered for a Muggle television show. He saluted a cameraman. "He thinks I'm weird."
"You are," said Newt assuredly. Suddenly and defly, he reached behind a newsstand and struggled with a shimmering creature. He sounded both strict and fond, though Newt had never mastered telling anyone in the family off. An invisible apelike creature materialized out of nowhere. "I always win hide and seek, Samuel."
Samuel, a Demiguise, freaked out when a fat boy pointed at him. He disappeared and scrambled up Rolf's back. The Demiguise clung on for dear left. Luna handed her yogurt over. The kid, a tourist in a New York City t-shirt, gawked at the yogurt emptying itself apparently of its own accord.
"Hey, Sam." Rolf opened his mouth and let the Demiguise feed him. Rolf shrugged at Dean, who gawked. "Go with it."
"You want to play babysitter?" Newt shook a disappointing finger at Samuel. Luna jumped on this opportunity and shot her hand straight in the air. "Apes and babies. Close enough."
Dean snickered.
"Thanks, Grandpa." Rolf got groomed by the Demiguise. As they greeted the magical audience about the release of a secret Scamander visit, Rolf pulled Luna aside. She'd braided her hair, a detailed he'd missed when she'd changed her shoes. "Where'd you get the lighter?"
"Ron. Ron Weasley said something about your grandfather … and Dumbledore … I told Ginny you were having a cloudy day. She knows what that means. I don't know." Luna glanced at the microphone and bit her lip. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You're really beautiful." He tugged at her dirty blonde braid.
"Yeah." She didn't believe him. Luna asked Newt for the lighter. She slapped it in Rolf's hand. Rolf, mildly interested, clicked it. The light from the cameraman's equipment got trapped here. "Play later."
"Yeah." Rolf frowned at he
"Rolf." She kissed him. "You're not Francis. You're dark and trapped right now, and I understand that. But I cannot let you into the dark place, okay? Come back to me."
"Okay." His promise sounded empty.
"You're Newton. We all have a got dark side." Luna magicked a vintage Klein blue jacket out of nowhere and helped him shrug into it. It smelled of nature and the lingering scent of tobacco. "You have two people - four people- who love you."
Rolf, scared out of his mind, nodded at Dean as the man introduced him at the podium. Rolf kissed her hand, took a deep breath and readied himself to break news about the Scamander Foundation. Samuel found the goodies and delivered a perfectly disguised line as the Demiguse enjoyed morning munchies.