000

Against My Nature
Newt/Harry, Timetravel Shenanigans, Canon Divergent

His plan was to avoid changing the timeline. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist if the opportunity presented itself. So he fled to Africa, where opportunity found him instead.

000

Chapter Two

Newt woke up feeling a lot better than he expected to.

After having that run in with the abandoned Nundu cub, he had known he was poisoned. It wouldn't be lethal, an infant Nundu was born with only mild poison, it was as they suckled from their mother that it would become more and more potent, once that suckling period was done, the mother would move on to find a new mate, and the father would teach his cub how to wield that venom and hunt. A unique and fascinating method of child-rearing that he had yet to see in the Mytho-animal kingdom. But never the less, he was well aware he wasn't in any truly significant danger, nothing he couldn't handle.

Sadly, the cub was abandoned for his collapsed venom glands, he could not inflate them properly. It was a simple enough issue, given enough time those collapsed glands would swell as they should. But the parent Nundu did not know that, they only knew their cub was unlikely to survive, so opted not to waste the energy in rearing it. If the cub survived without their aid then all the better for them because it survived and they hadn't needed to waste their energy on it, win win, they still abandoned it though. And the poor thing got in the wrong side of a few magical locals.

Newt found it hiding under a thicket, licking its wounds, whimpering in pain, hunger, and fear.

It had taken him the better part of a day to coax the poor thing out with cuts of raw meat. Poor baby was covered in open cuts and wounds, burns dotting its crumpled venom sacks from spell fire.

Healing charms had dealt with the spell burns, and unexpectedly the crumpled venom sacks – Newt ended up getting a face full of poison gas when the cub whipped around to roar at him. He didn't think he'd cast a bubblehead charm so fast before, it was almost on par with the time that Prewitt boy in Gryffindor stuffed a box of dungbombs in his bag and set them off. Newt ended up having to dump that bag, there was just no getting the smell out. The smell of said breath was almost on par with it.

Working with the bubblehead, he managed to heal the majority of the cub's wounds while it was distracted with the raw meat he kept throwing to it. It was exceptionally hungry, and that was probably what gave Newt the time to see to its injuries before he ended up with what was essentially a very large kitten trying to climb into his lap. The size of a fully grown lion, Newt went down under nearly two-hundred pounds of poisonous feline whose needle-like claws lacerated the length of his arms quite by accident.

He got the cub into one of the habitats in his case, but by then he was beginning to feel the effects of the poison. He choked back a bezoar and climbed out of his suitcase to grab his backpack, feeling himself getting light headed. He managed to drop his pack into the case, but knew he couldn't risk going down the ladder-like steps, he would fall and break his neck. So it was the work of a very drunken ten minutes as he did his best with his injuries, and passed out over his case, hugging it tightly to his chest so as to keep it shut, keep it safe.

He expected to wake up with the mother of all hang-overs, feeling sick to his stomach, with infections festering in his cuts, and one hell of a sunburn. Instead, he was somewhat warm, comfortable, lying on his back, only a little groggy and sore, with the scent of flowers tickling his nose.

Slowly, he peeked one eye open and saw a canvas canopy overhead. Through a bubblehead charm that had floating fushia and yellow flower petals in it.

It was still daylight, he couldn't have been out for longer than a few hours, or a day at the longest. Turning his head, he realised he was on a little wire and canvas camp-bed, not quite nude but close to it, his clothing and boots on the floor next to him, clean and folded. There was a table covered in potions ingredients, he identified a surprising assortment of different ingredients, cactus flowers, smoked shredded gillyweed, dried air-weed, and ozone-herbs to name a few. He squinted at his bubblehead charm. Someone had applied the potions and raw materials to the charm and adjusted it to... to deal with the poison inhalation he suffered earlier? That was genius! He had never seen spells and potions applied in concert to each other before, who on earth had rescued him?

He was in a surprisingly large space, hardly a tent and more of a pavilion with canvas walls. There was a simple ground mat on the floor, white canvas walls and roof, his camp-bed, his suitcase at the foot of it, and the table with the potions supplies on top of it. Nothing else. If Newt had been a betting man, he would have thought the pavilion were conjured solely for his benefit, because it certainly wasn't being used for anything else.

Pushing himself upright, he paused as he heard voices outside. He blinked and grimaced a little, he had never been great shakes at languages, barely got his brain around Spanish, and no matter how much effort he poured into the various magical languages, he just couldn't gets his lips around them. Ask him to mimic almost any animal sound and he would manage it, his favourite thing to do as a child was mimic the cries of the augrey that nested in the blackberry bushes down the end of the lane. But languages... his knuckles used to sting after every French lesson as a child, his tutor lashing at his knuckles with a wooden ruler for what she deemed an improper lack of attention to her tutelage.

He tilted his head a little, watching the entry flaps from the corner of his eyes. Almost reflexively his chin ducked a little to protect his throat as the voices outside took a sharp, almost angry tone.

That was when the flap was suddenly ripped open and – a very small young man stomped in, throwing one last parting shot over his shoulder at one of the local tribesmen who was looking very frustrated behind him, before spelling the flaps shut.

Newt felt his eyebrow climb as he heard the man outside mutter something and leave.

The young man scoffed at the 'door' before turning his attention back to Newt and jumping a little, "Jesus shit! You're awake!" he cursed, before relaxing, "Fuck, sorry, you startled me," he continued making the Hufflepuff blink a little in shock at the foul mouthed young man.

This... couldn't be the man who rescued him, could it? The genius who seamlessly combined potions and charms with healing to repair his lungs in the middle of nowhere, right?

"How are you feeling?" the young man asked kneeling down beside Newt's bed, not waiting for permission or an answer before he was already sticking his hands straight into the thick gel of the bubblehead charm to check his temperature, whether or not he had been sweating, the whites of his eyes, and even began to grope along his jawline and throat.

Newt squirmed, "I do – beg your pardon, but I don't think we've been – introduced," he objected as politely as he could, attempting to squirm away from the unwanted molestation.

He got a swat to the tip of his nose for his efforts that had him freezing out of sheer startlement, "Quit squirming, I need to check your lymph nodes," the healer scolded. Newt obediently went still now that he knew his face wasn't being fondled without reason, still considerably dismayed that this decidedly rude young man was apparently the healer he had been praising in his head only moments before. "Little bit of swelling, not too much. Take a deep breath for me," he commanded as he pulled his hands out of the goop and, Newt stiffened when the young man ducked down and pressed his ear to his chest.

"Is this really –" he began only to be prodded sharply in the side, right in a ticklish spot. He squawked and jerked to the side as the healer straightened up and treated him to a scowl.

"You got into a tangle with a Nundu cub. You're lucky we found you when we did, any longer and it's quite possible you may have had permanent repository problems for the rest of your life!" the healer scolded, "If you had been any less swift with that bubblehead charm, it's likely you would have died. Just because it was a cub you tangled with does not make it any less lethal than its parents after a twenty four hour period from birth. If the breath doesn't kill you immediately, then the virulent diseases it carries will get you afterwards! I've already had to cleanse your system of at least three major lethal illnesses! On the bright side, you need never fear Small Pox anymore," he added in a vicious tone that left little to the imagination regarding his sarcasm, fingertip jabbing into the Hufflepuff's collarbone with increasing force.

Newt couldn't help but subside into the bedding feeling remarkably like a naughty school boy at the mercy of Madam Siliance, the school nurse. Which was ridiculous because he was -

"Now, take a deep breath and let me listen to your chest for any sign of fluid build up. Take ten quick breath for me," the young man commanded as he once again placed his head against Newt's chest without giving him a chance to finish formulating an indignant mental defence of himself.

He did as he was told.

And the young man sat up with a look on his face, "I need to smell your breath," he stated slowly, "I can hear some kind of fluid in there, but I'm not sure what kind it is. I'm going to cancel the bubblehead charm," he explained before with a simple clawing motion with his hand had the odd gel around Newt's face tearing open, and then vanishing like the popping of a soap-bubble.

He took a deep breath and was gratified by the familiar earthy scents of sunbaked dirt, dried grasses, a whiff of animal dung, and now the various colliding odours of the potions ingredients beside him. He fought not to flinch and shield his neck when the healer once again appeared in his personal space. Being this close, he couldn't help but notice the strange scar on the young man's forehead, a spell burn long healed, but it was deep, and in the shape of a rune of power.

Suddenly the healer was pulling back with a satisfied nod, wearing the hard expression of a man who was not surprised by his own competence.

"Your lungs are fine, the fluid will drain before the end of the day, try not to over exert yourself. Now, arms," he commanded as he reached for Newt's hand.

This was getting ridiculous, he moved back and pinned the healer with a Look, "Enough," he stated firmly, making the young man frown at him indignantly in thwarted anger, "As grateful as I am to you for seeing to me, I would very much like to know who you are, and exactly why you are here!" he proclaimed. In his experience, wizards rarely show up in the wilds of Africa with the best of intentions. Especially not with such a well stocked potions kit.

A dark eyebrow shot up, and the young man sat back.

"Auror Harry P-everell, British Ministry of Magic. Got into an accident, cracked my skull open yesterday. Woke up under a rock here in Africa, and the locals asked me for a bit of help. We found you on our way to deal with some manner of snake problem," he explained blandly before rummaging for something in his pocket, sticking his arm in up to the elbow in front of Newt's astonished gaze (he shouldn't be, he had created a space roughly the size six quidditch pitches in his suitcase, but he'd never seen or heard of it being done on someone's trouser pockets), and withdrew a familiar heavy woollen auror robe. He rummaged his I.D. badge out, and flashed it at him. Newt blinked rapidly, tilting his head. He had good eyes and was able to memorise a bit before it was snapped shut and stowed away once more. His rescuer was a Gryffindor, Pureblood, he was authorised for multiple wand usage (one of which was phoenix feather), and he was only 5'3" in height. He didn't manage to catch a glimpse of his date of birth, more interested in house, blood status, and wand – that information could tell him an awful lot more about his rescuer than a date of birth.

"Gryffindor..." he observed.

Harry rolled his eyes, "I am not here to steal a lion," he declared, sounding almost bored and Newt couldn't help but quirk a grin.

"Why ever not?" he asked, tone bordering on teasing. Clearly that was some kind of inside joke.

He got a bland look in return, "My dog would never stand for a cat in the house, no matter how big it is," he informed the Hufflepuff quite dryly, "What house were you?" he asked as he grabbed Newt's arm and pulled it towards him.

"Hufflepuff myself," he admitted, tone tinged with pride, eyeing the Gryffindor warily but he just nodded.

"You want to take a honeybadger home then?" the auror asked dryly.

Newt blinked, and peered sideways at him, "Honeybadger? I- I do believe I am unfamiliar with that creature," he admitted, curious and fascinated despite himself. There were very few creatures he didn't know about these days.

Harry snorted as he casually spelled his bandages off with a long dark wand made of holly wood, "They're a muggle creature, locally known as Ratel, you've probably seen them around here actually. Silver backs, black body, known to give precisely zero fucks about what they attack and try to eat."

Newt shook his head, "Nnno, I can't recall any creature by that description. How big are they? You said they were a muggle animal, so they must not be very large," he theorised as the auror examined the cuts on his arms. Even Newt was surprised by how good they looked, the bandages themselves were bloody, and yellow with pus and discharge, but his skin was only slightly pink and raised. He watched as Auror Peverell kneaded them a little, and it hurt, but there was no tearing of his skin, or white discharge, the young man nodded, pleased with the result before dragging a stone jar from the table to his side. A potion Newt had never seen before was cut out with a butter knife and then spread liberally over the cuts before bandages were conjured to wrap around the wound.

"They're about thirty-thirty five inches long, eleven tall. They've got long narrow bodies and long legs. Known to kill and eat most anything smaller than them, and go for the throat or genitalia of anything bigger in a chance to do the same. If there's one non-magical creature you don't want to tangle with, that's the one I'd pick. They walk off snake bites, then track the snake that bit them, and eat it in revenge, because fuck that guy," the Gryffindor explained mirthfully as he reached for Newt's other arm and began the same process. "Always thought honeybadgers would have been more appropriate than a British badger for Hufflepuff. One of the girls in my year was aiming to be director of the DMLE, she has a good shot too. Most of the aurors I actually work with are puffs, you lot are scarier than anyone at Hogwarts thinks you are. Sneakier too, they never realise until much much later," he added with a sideways look at Newt that told him he would not be so easily fooled.

Newt offered him his best attempt at a charming smile.

Auror Peverell's expression was amused, but also told him in no uncertain terms he was fooling no one.

"Right, well, you're as good as I can get you," the Gryffindor announced, giving the bandaged wrist in his hand a slap that made Newt open his mouth in a silent yelp before he got to his feet. "Give me a few to pack all this up, and then I'll leave you to get dressed."

"Thank you, Auror Peverell," Newt said, quirking a half smile as the dark haired young man flicked his wand and summoned all of his ingredients back into his kit and packed it into his auror gear.

"Just Harry. I'm not on duty," he told the Hufflepuff with a smile before ducking out of the flaps to the rapid Afrikaans of his guide.

Newt heard the Gryffindor retort something with a tone of sarcasm, and the tribesman take a tone of irritation with him. He shook his head in mirth, Gryffindors, able to frustrate anyone to the point of frothing violence no matter the culture. His brother was perhaps the only one he had met who hadn't quite managed it, instead of drove Newt to distraction with his frustration instead, but he was somewhat sure that was just something that all brothers did.

Swinging himself out of the bedsheets, Newt dressed quickly, taking a moment to appreciate the cleaning and repair work done to his socks and shirt as he did so. One dressed, he charmed the tent flaps shut, and quickly moved to his suitcase. Risky with an Auror within spitting distance, but he had to make sure everything and everyone inside was settled before he could risk going any length of time without supervising them. One quick trip, ten minutes, a quick feeding, and then he would be out.

He quickly slid down to the bottom of the ladder, and immediately moved towards the various feeding containers.

Thankfully the Nundu cub was sleeping, he had scraped himself a small rocky outcropping to lounge on and was quite happily snoozing there. Newt carefully charmed his particular enclosure on his way past as he began to feed the other creatures. He took his time with the graphorns, the female was in her first trimester of her pregnancy, and if he wasn't mistaken, she was expecting at least two foals. He was monitoring her condition carefully and noting it as extensively as he could.

With everyone fed as quickly as he could, and his newest arrival now warded into his enclosure, Newt hurried out of his suitcase and breathed a sigh of relief when he surfaced and found no one present. Hauling his pack out once again, he quickly moved to strap his suitcase to it so he wouldn't lose it or damage it while trekking through the African wilderness once again.

Slapping some sunscreen on, Newt left the tent and was only mildly surprised to find himself in the exact same spot he had been when he passed out, under the same tree even.

Auror Peverell – Harry, was arguing with the two tribesmen, or rather, just the one while the other glanced between them, clearly not understanding the language they were snipping at each other in. Newt didn't even try to talk, he was quite hopeless at Afrikaans though he made certain to memorise three simple phrases just in case 'I don't speak Afrikaans', 'do you speak English', and 'where is the toilet'.

"Erm, ahem," he coughed a little when the argument showed no sign of slowing down or stopping now that he had shown up, Harry got the last word in before turning on heel to look at Newt. Behind him the tribesman sighed, and shook his head in annoyance. "You mentioned something about a snake problem? A magical snake?" he asked curiously.

Auror Peverell nodded, "Not sure what breed, but a large magical serpent has moved into their tribe's holy land and eaten about four people attempting to gain access. About three days ago? Yeah. Supposedly the local Nundu female has started blooding her kills again after she rejected the cub that roughed you up. Chances are the snake in question fled into the mountain tunnels in order to avoid being put on the menu. I'm going to have a word with it, see what can be done," he explained as he rolled his neck and glanced at the two tribesmen, "These two are pretty insistent we get it sorted as soon as possible and kill it. They haven't quite cottoned onto the fact that I only plan to kill it if its a Basilisk."

Newt stared.

"And you... run into Basilisks often, do you?" he found himself asking almost faintly.

Auror Peverell wrinkled his nose, "More often than I'd like to," he admitted in disgust, "Still. Fingers crossed. Basilisks are a pain in the ass to deal with."

The Hufflepuff made a strangled noise in the back of his throat that could have been agreement, or disbelief, or perhaps the sound to prelude the potential stroke he was about to have. Either way, the Gryffindor took it as understanding and flashed him a winning smile. Newt shook his head, pinching the back of his hand as he tried to wrap his mind around that oh-so-casually dropped nugget of information (basilisks were apparently more common out in the world than anyone would have believed, good to know, he had better practice his inanimate to animate transfiguration).

"Wh-when you said 'have a word' with it, what..." he trailed off, unable to actually think of an ending to that question as he peered up through his dirty hair at the Gryffindor who paused for a moment and flashed him a steady look.

Silence stretched between them for a moment before, "I'm a Parselmouth. So I quite literally mean exchanging words with it," he finally answered.

Newt's mouth opened as shock, horror, and excitement immediately began to war with each other. His found his eyes closing as he bounced a little in place, frowning as he tried to – he didn't even know. How was he supposed to even react to something like this?

"Can you understand dragons?" he found himself asking instead of anything truly actually important.

Peverell's eyebrow inched up, and Newt flushed in embarrassment. Of all things to say...

"No," Auror Peverell answered instead, now looking amused, "Dragon speak is remarkably akin to that of crocodile and other lizards. Snakes are different. Kind of a bit like comparing Spanish and French," he explained much to Newt's fascination.

His fingers immediately went digging into his pockets for his notebook and pencil.

000

Curly dogged their steps to the Hamare tribe's sacred land, asking him a multitude of questions about his Parselmouth abilities the whole while, scribbling in his little notebook with feverish excitement. His guides weren't happy with the intrusion, Fancy Skirt wanted to abandon him once Harry had finished treating his injuries in order to hasten to the sacred land (Harry would later learn that his wife was heavily pregnant and he wished for his child to be born with the blessings of the land), but the Gryffindor wouldn't hear of it.

When Harry had admitted to being a snake speaker, he had expected the fear, the confusion as well (what kind of snake speaker was a Gryffindor), but the fascination that followed was... unexpected. And Curly was somewhat endearing with his boundless enthusiasm and curiosity. A lot of his questions were ones that Harry had never even considered before, like if snakes in different countries had different accents, did captive/domesticated snakes behave or think differently to wild snakes, were magical snakes really more intelligent than non-magical ones, just how intelligent were they, etc, etc. There were personal questions peppered in there, like how he was related to Slytherin, what was his upbringing like, did he believe that muggles were dangerous. They were difficult questions to answer, especially without giving too much of himself away. Harry kept his answers on personal things short and to the point. He wasn't related to Slytherin in any meaningful way, he gained the talent in a magical accident as a child, he wasn't born with it; he lived with his abusive muggle relatives until he graduated, and moved in with his bestfriend's older brother; and he believed that people were people, and people whether they had magic or not were dangerous as a whole.

After that, Curly stopped asking such personal questions, and stopped his, admittedly discreet, attempts at interrogating him. Instead his interest became totally academic from that point on, and Harry could only be grateful for that, even if he did have to be careful about how he answered; a lot of things he knew and took for granted had not yet even been discovered or theorised at this point in time.

They passed into the forest that bordered the mountains before he fell at least a little quiet. The two wizards observing the broken trees and shredded undergrowth as they moved along in the wake of a truly gargantuan path through the trees.

"What kind of snake could do something like this?" Curly asked in a hushed tone as Harry grimaced in discomfort, toeing the ground with his hands on his hips as he glared at the floor, Dakarai and Fancy Skirt lingering in the forest rather than risk setting foot into the obvious trail of destruction, muttering about curses. "Auror Peverell?" Curly prompted, making Harry look up at him through his fringe.

Harry grimaced, pulling a face as he tasted the words on his tongue.

"Basilisk."

0000

Chapter two finished! And we have a Newt! yaaay

People may be a smidge confused about my characterisation of Newt, and while yes I will agree that he is a cinnamon roll, you're all kind of forgetting that he isn't actually shy, and no, he doesn't have anxiety. Autism to a degree I can buy, I mean, no one thinks I have autism but surprise, I'm just high-functioning. No, Newt is just very good at what he does, he works with animals all the time, to the point where he probably feels more comfortable with creatures than he does with people because he understand them better. In the film you can see it in the way he ducks his chin to hide his throat, hunches slightly with his arms forward ready to protect his vulnerable stomach, how he walks through New York, how he doesn't meet anyone's eyes for particularly long, but he's always tilting his head in order to listen a bit better. He moves very quietly, as evidenced in the Goldsteins' household when Queenie busts him before he can leave unlike Tina who is paying attention, it's Queenie who catches him because she can read his mind.

(The actor even admits to having trained with animal handlers specifically to pick up their habits, the way they move out in the field to be quiet, and adopts it for the film when moving in New York.)

Newt isn't shy. Awkward I'll grant you. But not shy. He's got no problem with interacting with people, he isn't hesitant when dealing with Gnarlak, or Picquery, or even Credence or Mary Lou Barebone. He's a little thrown to be addressed in so public a setting, but he doesn't cringe or shy away from her, or even from Jacob. He even makes a bad joke when she asks if he's a Seeker, and says he's more of a Chaser. If that isn't a quidditch reference I will literally eat my Ravenclaw hoodie.

So my depiction of Newt will probably be very different to what fanon has decreed. And I'm not even a little bit sorry. 8DD

And yeah, I know nothing of science, but I figured that armadillo bile would be more acidic than humans since they have to deal with insect carapace and the like. Plus, magic. XDD at least it SOUNDS like I know what I'm talking about. Fake it till you make it? No? Okay. (sadface)