A New Home
Author's note: This story was begun before the trailer for The Crimes of Grindelwald revealed that Leta Lestrange and Credence are half-siblings through their father, so for the sake of less messed up family situations in this AU, Credence will be a second-generation Muggle-born to explain why Mary Lou seem to have known his biological mother to be a witch.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Newt landed on soft grass when he reached his destination. Oh, the joy of being out in the quiet countryside of Cornwall near the northern coast rather than the noisy streets of London. The best of all, was that there was fewer humans around if one did not count the local village a bit further down on the road. But the village was not where Newt would be this time, no he was set on a small house set a bit afar from the muggle village.
The cottage was in a classical style with white walls and thatched roof, sending out a sense of welcome even for those who simply passed by. The well-kept garden told of tender hands, apple trees were growing beside bushes with berries and the sweets scents of early summer could be hinted in the salty air from the sea. The meowing from a hungry cat came from the front of the garden, followed by a young child saying:
"Ma, look! I found the barn cat!"
Newt smiled at the sight of the child, a young dark-haired boy no older than perhaps six at the most, dressed in a dark blue sailor suit with white stripes, as he ran across the garden to find a woman in her late 40s, not quice dressed in the current fashion for the 1920s but of a slightly older style, which she matched with a large straw hat against the sun.
"Credence dear, take it easy or you will trip on the ground. Now go and see where your father is, he should be back from his fishing trip by now. If he got some catch in those fish traps of his, we will have fresh fish to lunch," she smiled at the boy, who immediately ran off to find his father.
"Good morning, mrs Midnight," Newt greeted in a slightly loud voice, so she would hear him come.
"Newt Scamander! How good to see you! I guess that you are here to check on the American little fellow you left here earlier in winter?" Elizabeth Midnight smiled at him at seeing who it was.
"Yes, exactly. I hope that things are well with Credence?"
"Oh yes, he is much loved by everyone in the family. We are forever grateful for that you came with him, given that my family sadly is haunted by difficulty in continuing the family line, or rather have more than one child per generation, despite not marrying close relatives like many of the Pure-blood families do. Thankfully Credence is in the right age to be the result of a surprise pregnancy that I and Erik kept hidden from our fellow Wizards around my 40th birthday."
Despite being a woman Elizabeth was the current Head of the House of Midnight, a British wizarding family of Half-blood status infamous among their fellow Wizards for rarely marrying someone from the Pure-blood families and instead preferring to marrying Muggle-borns or even Muggles at times as Elizabeth herself had gone, staying loyal to their family motto "Mixed blood and Proud of it". Her only child Richard had been six years below Newt at Hogwarts, and while Newt had not been close to Richard at school because of that age difference he still found the Midnight heir to be one of the few friends he had after being expelled.
"Where is Richard and Erik?"
"Erik is down at the beach to hopefully catch something fresh for lunch, he can not really escape from his humble background in Norway even after thirty years of living in England. And Richard is finishing the last part of a mission in Sweden."
Well, that explained why neither her husband or son were anywhere to be seen right now. At her offer, Newt sat down at the breakfast table in the kitchen while Elizabeth began to make tea.
"I...am glad that you could take in Credence despite it coming as a thunderbolt from the blue sky. As a bachelor without any permanent home unless you count in the Scamander Manor, I would be unable to give him a stable home even if I wanted to. And mom...would most likely mistake Credence as...something else," Newt admitted in a low voice.
With "Something else", Newt meant the more polite term of a young child being dumped at a wizarding home, often with a letter and other small proof of being born of wedlock. Since the WWI, there had been several scandals over unwed witches from Pure-blood families sneaking under the watchful eyes of mortalists and having a secret relationship, often ending in pregnancy unless they were quick to take portions that would prevent them from getting with child in the first case.
"Bah! As if those people have any right to complain, they should actually be happy for any grandchild their unwed daughters may give birth to, when it is so few Pure-blood bachelors left since the Great War thanks to many of them being foolish enough to underestimate those new weapons that Muggles have invented over the last two centuries! Besides, several of them could use some new blood unless they want the family name to actually die out. You who are so familiar with animals and beasts, should get what I mean, correct?"
Newt nodded in unease, inbreeding was a unspoken matter in the British Wizarding World but he had only needed to see on the family trees to know what fate may await many of the Pure-blood families in the future. They needed to open their eyes for the harsh truth of that their family name risked to die out unless they accepted new blood in the family from a Muggle-born or Half-blood because of the slowly growing difficulty in propagating their families. Most of those families would be lucky if they survived throughout the coming decades if their sons and daughters kept marrying spouses they already was related to in some degree. At least Theseus was happy married and a father of two children since his marriage in 1920, so Newt did not need to worry about having to be the one to continue the family line or being the direct heir as he had been until the birth of his oldest nephew.
"Ma! Pa is home!" Credence cheerfully called from the front door, followed by a older man, whose reddish hair caught in a long braid was starting to go grey, dressed in overall of blue cotton over an long sleeve work shirt and finishing off the look with a sturdy pair of rubber work boots, who was carrying a wicker basket with some fresh fish and a fishing net over one shoulder. Something in his well-worn clothes spoke of a humble upbringing, since they were layered and patched several times. But he still had strength in his body, as proved by his strong arms.
"My, are it not the local odd-ball to animal lover on visit!" Erik joked in good humour at seeing who the guest was, pushing up the large straw hat he used as protection against the sun. Out of habit Newt did not look anyone in the eye, but smiled shyly since the Midnight family was among the few people he felt comfortable around.
"I ... came to check on Credence. Was a bit worried about how he may be in a land so different from America where I found him...ow!" Newt gasped in surprise when Erik gave him a noticeable pat on the back with a little too much force
"Not as strange as I found Great Britain after leaving my native Norge to marry my dear Elizabeth, and children have easier to adjust to a new home. He will forget soon enough if his old memories does not show up again."
"Mister Scamander! Look, Ma and Pa got me this just last week! They want me to study the various breasts in there and surprise older brother Rickard with what I have learnt when he comes back home from his mission in Sweden in a few weeks," Credence interrupted the adults. In his hands, a book with a very familiar title was shown:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Newt was moved by the simple words. He also enjoyed to hear that Credence did not seem to dislike his older foster brother, despite that Rickard were already an adult on 24 years of age that would have made him 18 years older than Credence's supposed age and neither one being used to having a brother at the beginning, Rickard being the only child of his parents and Credence more used to his now forgotten adoptive sisters in New York. It was good news that Credence seemed to enjoy his current life better than his first even if he now was a de-aged child with no memories of the past. Then again, this was a new chance to give him the happy life he deserved.
"Come on, gutt, let's set things up for your mor in the kitchen so she can fix a nice fish with mashed potatoes for lunch later," Erik commented, making Credence following after him while not letting go of the book. For that, Newt and Elizabeth heard Erik give the boy a soft scolding.
A hour later, Newt bid them goodbye as he needed to return home to the Scamander Mansion and help his mother with the mother hippogriffs that had gotten their offsprings in the last few days.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Roughy at the same time, in the far distant land of Japan, a very serious crisis was happening. Not involving the Muggles, magic was well-known by the non-magical population since ancient times and most of them knew the local wizard or witch by face since they often took up the role of folk healer for poor people, even if they did not that it was actual magic that helped them.
But right now, it was becoming more and more serious in Hakkaido where one could find the dragon reservate for the most rare of the Japanese dragon breeds, the Silver Dragons.
The overwhelming cries from one of the nests echoed in the nearest area, sounding sorrowful and fearful on the same time. Those in change of guarding the dragon reservate, bowed in respect for the Japanese Minister of Magic, Hino Sakura, as she arrived there with two samurai guards for protection. The Muggle samurai families may not have the social class or power of former centuries anymore, but among the magical population they were still somewhat common thanks to adjusting to the changing times.
"How are the Queen?" she asked in a serious voice, looking around with her wand ready.
"It is not good, Hino-sama. She have searched for the attackers the past day and night after the first cry of distress from her young, even attempting to break out from the protective barrier around the reservate…" a female worker responded, her voice revealed her terror of punishment by death for this failure. Now, her murdered co-workers could not be blamed for failing to raise the alarm due to being hit with the Killing Curse, but the fact that intruders had managed to sneak into the dragon reservate and escape before capture, was unforgivable.
The first sign of something being wrong had been the been the sudden roar of fury, powerful enough to rip up trees with their roots from the earth in the most northern border of the reservate, quickly followed by heart wrenching cries of the Silver Queen where she had been found, two non-Japanese persons laying death on the ground due to not managing to flee from her in time. And as dragons often acted by instincts, especially mothers when their nests, eggs or offspring were threatened, this made it impossible to interrogate any captured prisoners.
"Was there any sign that could reveal the mastermind of this...horrible act?"
Another worker held up a small item to her, and in the light of the lamps it was revealed as a triangular necklace, with a straight vertical line, a circle surrounding it, and finally a triangle enclosing them both.
Only one person were known for it.
"Gellert Grindelwald! He...he would dare to use…one of our oldest national treasures among our beasts...?! Against both the Wizard and Muggle worlds!?"
Time could not be wasted, not with this risk that showed why the Silver Dragons had been hidden away. Not just famed for their beauty, they could be used in far darker intentions as well.
"Send a messenger to Great Britain at once! Find the magizoologist Newton Scamander and tell him that this rescue mission needs his skills in magical beasts and the people who helped him to capture Grindelwald in New York last year! If Grindelwald manages to use this young Silver Dragon as a weapon, he will be much harder to defeat than what he already is!"
They could only hope that Newt Scamander indeed could help, or things could grow to catastrophe.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author's note: The Midnight family are part of a longer series I wrote a few years ago in my native Swedish, and I wanted to re-use them again so more people could read about them. Elizabeth and Erik were not the main characters there, but rather a few descendants of them.
Erik is meant to be from Norway, so he is mixing some words from Norwegian language in when he speaks in English. The words he uses in this chapter is: gutt = boy, mor = mother and Norge = Norway
One of the most formal Japanese honorific suffix is -sama, used for people of a higher rank than oneself or divine, toward one's guests or customers, and sometimes toward people one greatly admires. I imagine that Japanese witches have a strong social status and can have important posts like a Minister of Magic