Some time much later...

Newt blinked, dazed, and stared around his shed, quite perplexed. He'd come down here to fetch something, hadn't he? But what? For the life of him, he couldn't remember. Papers were strewn over his work bench, littered amongst a mortar and pestle, pocket watch, several beakers, and tins.

He noticed something odd—a small note pinned to his shirt. Now that was strange, wasn't it? How had that gotten there?

Puzzled, Newt opened the note. His eyebrows raised in surprise at what was written.

Dear Newt,

Before I proceed into any of the details of your current circumstance, I must remind you in earnest not to worry—

Newt nearly dropped the note—it was written in his own hand. He read on:

As you have likely surmised, you wrote this letter yourself not long ago. Yes, this is most definitely you. Hello!

Newt believed it, but just in case, his eyes jumped to the bottom where he instantly recognized his own name scrawled in his unmistakable signature.

You may or may not recall the following, so I shall include it in detail. You are currently in the preliminary stages of an experiment to examine the Obliviative properties of Swooping Evil venom. Moments ago, you administered to yourself .01 mL of Swooping Evil venom diluted in 1 L of water. If all went well, this should have had the effect of Obliviating your memories from the present moment back to an uncertain time in the past.

This is our preliminary trial, so I am uncertain of how much you will remember, and at which point of time your memories may be affected. The intention of this trial was to determine how far back in time your memories have been Obliviated by this particular dose.

As you will hopefully recall, you have been checking the time at half-hour intervals for the past three days. Kindly enter the last time you remember viewing on your pocket watch in the first line of the table on your workbench.

That last part stumped Newt. He remembered the Swooping Evil well—such an intriguing, agile creature!—and he certainly could remember planning an experiment with the Obliviative venom. He'd really gone through with it, hadn't he? The letter to himself was a rather good touch, Newt thought. That could have been quite disorienting otherwise.

But he could remember nothing about checking any clocks over the past few days, even though it seemed like the sort of thing he would do in a controlled experiment.

He approached his work bench. Sure enough, there was a neat table drawn up on a wide piece of parchment, with a row titled "Trial 1" and space to write the last time he remembered—if he could remember.

Three days (or more!) of memories gone, just from that little drop, eh? Newt was impressed. He only hoped he remembered properly which country he was in. That could be catastrophic if he'd lost months of memories—it was lucky he took thorough notes, at least. He ran a hand through his hair, and hastily made a note in the table.

Quantity Obliviated more than three days of memory. Trial 2, increase dilution.

Satisfied for now, Newt shrugged on his coat emerged from his suitcase to find out what day and hemisphere it was.