Newt woke up sweating from the heat of the hot water bottle pressed against his stomach. He lifted the blanket and took out his wand from under his pillow.
"Lumos." He whispered.
The tip of his wand lit up softly and he quickly covered it with his hand and put it under the blanket so as not to wake the other boys in his dorm. He pulled the blanket over his head and slowly pulled the bottle away from his midriff. Sitting, pressed against Newt's skin was a dark green colored egg about the size of his fist. It was beating like a faint heartbeat. The beating was stronger today. Newt would have to start preparing soon.
He smiled and stroked the shell before saying the incantation to turn out the light. Replacing the egg and bottle, he lay his head back down. He took comfort in the small, steady heartbeat, but couldn't help worrying about how difficult the egg would be to hide once it had been hatched.
That day after Charms lesson, Newt set off for the greenhouse. Once the egg had hatched, the baby was sure to be extremely hungry. He'd used the greenhouse before as it was always well-stocked and well-groomed. No one would miss a few pluckings here and there, even on the more valuable herbs. He did wonder why they kept it so loosely guarded. When he reached it, he put his bag down just inside leaning up against the door so that anyone who was going to come through would knock it down and set to work, collecting a few snips here and there and collecting the flies from the air. Newt had become quite adept at this and got it done quickly. He folded his little collecting bag up and put it in his pocket. He was making mental lists of all the other things he needed to prepare as he turned to leave when he caught the sound of someone humming softly.
He froze. There was someone in the greenhouse. No one was ever in the greenhouse at this time. If he was caught and someone told a teacher, he could get in a lot of trouble. Not only because he wasn't supposed to be there, but because they would surely want to know why he was there as well. And Newt definitely wouldn't be explaining that.
He stepped carefully. He peeked around a shelf just in time for a girl about his age to turn away from him, something else catching her eye at the last second. A huge smile lit her face and she grabbed a ladder. Practically running up it, she reached the top shelf of a particularly tall bookcase full of flowers and such. She reverently lifted a purple plant and half turned on the ladder to hold it better. The way she was holding something obviously weighty on such a high, precarious setting made Newt nervous. It seemed to bring her no such worry. She pet the plant and seemed to be cooing to it as one would a baby.
Newt noticed a certain light in her eyes. It was the same kind of light he saw in his mother's eyes when she talked to anyone about Hippogriffs. Breeding them, riding them it didn't matter.
She was a pretty enough girl, but the enraptured look on her face made her seem in that moment, extremely beautiful.
Newt's concern about her position sprung to life as he saw her ladder begin to tilt in the wrong direction. Knowing that it would be useless to call out to her at this point, he sprinted across the small enclosed space of the greenhouse, weaving between tables. He knocked an empty pot down in his haste and it shattered. The sound alerted the girl and she finally became aware, too late of course, of the danger. She dropped the pot she was holding and screamed, grabbing the ladder. Newt just barely reached the ladder in time to catch the falling pot before it smashed over his head and shove her ladder back against the shelving. He gripped the ladder tightly to keep it steady and breathed out, relieved as he raised his head to look at her. She was shaking, face looking down at his, frozen with shock.
"Are you quite alright?" He asked. He hoped to all the stars in the heavens that she was not one of those girls prone to fainting. But she nodded and seemed to swallow hard before descending. When she reached the floor with shaky legs, she gasped, noticing the pot in Newt's left arm.
"You caught it?" She seemed to finally release some of the tension from her limbs, reaching out for the plant. He carefully handed it to her and she whispered in soft, soothing tones to it. He noticed for the first time that the plant itself was trembling in fear, shaking tendrils curled in on itself.
"Thank you so much."
It took Newt a second to realize she was addressing him.
"Ah, it's no problem really." He realized quickly that he should leave immediately, but she grabbed him firmly by the arm.
"Wait, but what's your name? What are you doing in here?" Uh oh.
"Ah...it's um.." Newt tried to think quickly. "Michael. Michael Sult." Michael Sult? What is that? He berated himself in his head. "Pleased to meet you but I'm in a hurry." He quickly managed to pull away from her and run out of the greenhouse, scooping up his bag and bee lining to Hufflepuff commons. He scolded himself. She looked his age. She was probably in 6th year with him. If she tried even a little bit she would probably figure out that his name wasn't Michael Sult.
He didn't stop running until he reached his dorm, he bent over, hands on his knees in exhaustion. He put his bag on his bed and pulled out a small trunk from under it. Checking that no one was sleeping in a bed nearby, he pulled out his wand.
"Alohomora."
With a click, the lock fell open and he opened it carefully. To his relief, the egg sat on the warm bottle, intact where he'd left it. He pulled the now-dead flies and herb clippings from his coat pocket. Setting the insects in a small collecting jar in the trunk alongside the egg and the clippings into a different jar of dirt on the other side, Newt sighed.
"What am I going to do with you. Heaven forbid it starts to rain during the autumn season. I can't keep you in this little trunk either. You'd go out of your little mind. Not to mention you wouldn't develop your wings properly either." He stroked the egg, feeling the strong small beat. "Heaven knows how mum would react if I even managed to keep you long enough to take you home with me." He began to tear up with worry. "I promise...I'll figure something out."
