The next few days at Seaview House were wonderful. The run up to Christmas always had a beautiful, exciting magic all of its own; the sort that couldn't be taught at Hogwarts. It was intangible, ethereal and indescribable.
Cosima was ecstatic to be reunited with the multitude of magical creatures who lived in either specially-designed habitats in their magically enlarged barn or out in the grounds of their home. Among them were a herd of mooncalfs (her favourites), a pair of nundu, the bowtruckles who made up Pip's family, Dougal the demiguise (who'd been with her father since long before she and Cassian were born), a nest of new occamies and many more.
Tina Scamander had returned from the Ministry on Sunday evening with a sachet of lavender-scented herbs from the apothecary for Cosima to place under her pillow. The mixture, used to promote deep sleep, was less potent than the dreamless sleep potion she'd been given at Hogwarts (which had the potential to become addictive if overused), but it did do the trick in keeping her nightmares away. She had slept right around the clock two nights in a row without unpleasant dreams and, surrounded by her family, her creatures and with only days to go until Christmas, felt much improved.
Her little brother Cassian, an excitable, sunny-natured boy of nine, was keen to hear every detail about Hogwarts and so peppered her with endless questions as they helped their father feed and tend to all the creatures and assisted their mother with wrapping Christmas presents. He was excited to meet Merlin, who would be coming to visit just before New Year, interested in hearing all about Hagrid and the giant squid, and determined that when he went to Hogwarts, he would be a Hufflepuff. Cosima thought he would make a very good one.
In turn, he told Cosima all about what he had been doing at the local muggle primary school that she herself had attended up until the previous June. Newt and Tina were both very keen that their children learn and understand muggle culture and insisted that they be given the change to mix with muggle children before starting at Hogwarts. Cassian had played the angel Gabriel in the school nativity play and Cosima was sorry she had not been home from Hogwarts in time to see it.
The fierce wind coming in off the English Channel had made it bitingly cold and prevented too much outdoor exploration but the siblings, who were of similarly even and placid temperaments, always got on well together and so found it no hardship to entertain themselves indoors. They played endless games of exploding snap and gobstones, and hid shiny trinkets in their bedrooms for Newt's niffler to hunt for. Niff was very old now, but just as determined to fill his lair with anything sparkly, and he made short work of finding everything they'd hidden. He even indulged being snuggled by Cosima, though was apt to make off with her earrings when she did so!
As he had promised, Newt wrote a little message to Hagrid in the book Cosima had purchased for him and she wrapped it up and sent it off to Hogwarts with Tostig along with a letter wishing him a Merry Christmas. Asteria had hooted disgruntledly; offended not to be entrusted with the task but Cosima reminded the barn owl that she had made two very long journeys in the last ten days and instead asked her to make the much shorter journey to deliver Merlin's Christmas present to where he lived with his uncle in London.
On the evening before Christmas Eve, the family got ready to travel by the floo network up to Newt's mother's estate in Hertfordshire, where the Scamanders traditionally spent every Christmas. Newt would apparate back down to Seaview House early each morning and then again in the evening to make sure the creatures were all right, and everyone else would return on Boxing Day night.
Newt and Cassian stepped into the fire first, called out 'Scamander Lodge' and vanished in a swirl of green light. Tina and Cosima followed directly afterwards, materialising in the large kitchen fireplace of Scamander lodge to find Phryne and Helios had also just arrived moments before.
"Mum's just finishing up outside," explained Theseus, who'd evidently come up a bit earlier than the others and who was busy boiling the kettle and taking teacups out of the cupboard. "She'll be in in a moment and we can head through to the sitting room."
As if on cue, the door to the kitchen opened. "Ah, here are my favourite three grandchildren!" cried Diana Scamander delightedly, bustling in the door and coming to hug and kiss all three of them.
"Granny, we're your only three grandchildren!" Cassian completed the old joke with a giggle as she ruffled his tawny curls.
"Still my favourites!" Diana twinkled at him. She was a fine looking, dignified witch of seventy, with shrewd, intelligent green eyes, iron-grey hair twisted up into an elegant knot and a kindly face. She had been a hippogriff breeder in her day, and the estate was still home to half a dozen of the magnificent beasts, who lived in the stables she had just come from. Though she was elderly, she was as fit as a fiddle and still enjoyed looking after them. Her chiefest delight, however, were her grandchildren and she fussed over them fondly now.
"You're looking more like yourself again than you were at the weekend, Cosima dear. A few proper sleeps have done you good. As for you," She swatted Helios's arm affectionately. "I don't know what your mother is feeding you, but I swear you're taller every time I see you! Come through and sit down and you can tell me all about school."
Newt and Theseus picked up two laden tea trays and the family moved through to the large, elegant sitting room, furnished in rich oak wood and dark green fabrics. A warm fire was already burning so the room, dominated by an enormous, twinkling Christmas tree, was cosy as the small crowd sat down to drink tea or hot chocolate and munch through slices of a spectacular Christmas cake. Diana Scamander was, in her grandchildren's not unbiased opinion, the world's very best baker. Phryne always agreed; and remarked that it was a real miracle that Newt and Theseus had turned out so thin!
To Cosima's embarrassment, Helios decided this was the perfect time to regale the rest of the family with the tale of the Helios Scamander Defence Squad. Everyone else seemed to find it as entertaining as he had, Cassian looking fairly impressed that she'd been brave enough to try and take on a seventh year, even if she had been disarmed in three seconds.
"Jumping into other people's practice duels?" remarked Theseus with a grin exactly like his son's. "Where do you suppose she gets that from, Tina?"
Tina Scamander laughed ruefully. "You're not ever going to let me live that one down are you?" she asked.
"Certainly not!" Theseus returned cheerfully, passing her the teapot. "But you remain the only person ever to stupefy me unawares, so I congratulate you for that!"
"Mum?" Cassian turned to Tina in amazement, his piece of cake frozen halfway to his mouth. "You attacked Uncle Theseus? Why?"
"A bit of a misunderstanding after I'd first met your father," Tina confessed, sharing an embarrassed glance with Newt, who was watching the exchange with twinkling eyes. The adults were all laughing; evidently they had heard the story before.
"Righto," Helios said, making himself comfortable on the sofa beside Cosima and taking a sip of his tea. "Consider us all ears, Aunt Tina! Do tell!"
"Maybe I'd better explain how it all came about in the first place," Newt began. "In 1926, after we'd helped uncover Gellert Grindelwald who was posing as an auror in New York, I came back to London to drop off my manuscript for Fantastic Beasts and then decided to return to New York to help with the clean-up. There was a lot going on. The auror he'd been impersonating, Percival Graves – you remember Mr Graves, who visited last year? – had only just been found, your Uncle Jacob had been obliviated and MACUSA was still in turmoil after having to deal with magical creatures for the first time in years. I was at least able to help on that front. I'd been there for a few weeks or so when I got a letter saying that Theseus was coming to see me. He'd been in Europe when I'd got back to London so we'd not seen each other in almost a year. Now, in the course of meeting your mother, Queenie and Jacob, I'd inadvertently been responsible for the release of a demiguise, an occamy, and an erumpant on New York. My niffler had tried to rob a bank, then a jewellery shop and I'd also managed to get myself sentenced to immediate death...all of this before I fought Grindelwald. I knew Theseus wasn't going to be best pleased with me!"
"So Newt tells us all about this war hero big brother who he was expecting to arrive and chew him out, despite the fact he'd just trapped the darkest wizard on the planet and saved MACUSA from major exposure," Tina continued, eyeing Theseus apologetically. "And he'd muttered all these things about his brother never having approved of his travelling and how he was going to be in so much trouble. We all started to feel a little protective of him!"
"What I'd unfortunately forgotten to explain, having taken it for granted they would understand," Newt interjected. "Was that as well as being my brother, Theseus was my best friend and had been immensely supportive of my magizoology career. It's only thanks to your Uncle Theseus that I got a job at the Ministry at all, you know. What he very much less fond of was the fact I occasionally ended up in…sticky situations while travelling."
"Sticky situations?" Diana Scamander shook her head wrly. "That's a rather inventive way of putting it, Newt, I must say!"
"Bloody well nearly got yourself killed all the time is a more accurate description, little brother!" Theseus said flatly. "I lived in dread of the day I was going to get an owl asking me to identify your body. You had no sense of self-preservation at all! You still don't, actually!"
"Well, anyway," Tina picked the thread up again, smiling at the three younger members of the family who were looking vastly entertained. "We completely misinterpreted what Newt was telling us and got it into our heads – Queenie, Mr Graves and I – that Theseus was a bully where Newt was concerned. Mr Graves had known Theseus from the war and had been his penpal ever since. He said Theseus was the bravest wizard he'd ever met, but it was possible that his hero status might have gone to his head. So we were all on our guard when he came to MACUSA, determined that we wouldn't let him hurt Newt, who'd after all just saved our entire city. Queenie tried to read him but Theseus is a pretty talented Occlumens. We never stopped to think that that was because of everything he'd gone through in the war; we just thought he was deliberately hiding something, and every time he teased Newt, we thought he was being cruel."
"They made it pretty dashed clear I wasn't welcome," Theseus laughed. "Perce had been a mate of mine for years and I couldn't for the life of me understand why he was suddenly giving me the cold shoulder. Couldn't get me out of his office quick enough, kept making the most obviously false excuses so he didn't even have to talk to me, and the rest of the auror department followed suit. I thought he was angry that I hadn't realised he'd been taken by Grindelwald sooner – we'd been writing to each other fairly frequently since the war – but then I was introduced to Newt's new lady friend and she was exactly the same; cold as ice. Never obviously so in front of Newt, but definitely unfriendly. Any attempt I made to get to know them fell flat. Remember when we were all supposed to meet for dinner and you deliberately gave me the wrong directions?"
"Mum!" exclaimed Cosima reproachfully.
"Mercy Lewis, don't remind me!" Tina shook her head, really embarrassed now. "We were pretty awful to you!"
"And of course, I got back to the flat I was renting, found Theseus there on his own after having failed to show up for dinner, and thought it was all just an unfortunate accident," Newt confessed. "I was so excited to see him again, and so pleased to suddenly have so many friends that I was quite blind to what was going on in front of me!"
"I lasted about a week, then decided I was going back home," Theseus said. "I couldn't work out what I'd done or why I was so unwelcome and it was starting to rather sting a bit. I told Newt I was leaving and I'd see him again in the Spring, and he immediately said I couldn't go without at least having a duel first. We always had a practice every time we caught up and we kept a running tally of who won what. I thought there could be no harm in a match before I left, so we set to it."
"Queenie, Graves and I arrived at Newt's appartment and let ourselves in just in time to see Theseus shoot a jelly-legs jinx at him," Tina said, sharing a rueful smile with Cosima. "And we jumped to exactly the same conclusion you did, honey. We thought they were really fighting, not having a practice duel. I drew my wand and yelled 'Stupefy'. The problem was, so had Mr Graves and Queenie – at exactly the same time. Poor Theseus took three spells straight to the chest and went flying across the room right into a brick wall. The next thing we knew, he was on the floor unconscious, bleeding from the head, and Newt looked like the world had ended."
"I thought he wasn't breathing at first, and I…uh…I panicked a little!" Newt continued, cheeks colouring. "I was shouting at him and shaking him and he wouldn't wake up. I couldn't even begin to understand why they'd done it and I'm fairly certain I started howling."
"You did," Tina winced at the memory of Newt's devastated tears. "We said we'd only wanted to stop Theseus from hurting him and suddenly all the misunderstandings came to light. He said Theseus had never hurt him in his entire life; that he was the best brother that he could ask for and they had only been having a practice duel. Well, didn't we feel like heels! We helped him get Theseus to the healers and they said he might take a couple of days to recover, so we had to send a message to the Ministry of Magic explaining why one of their aurors had been incapacitated. The next day your Aunt Phryne stormed into MACUSA with another British auror, demanding to know what Yank wizard she had to hex."
"Steve Travers and I took an unauthorised Transatlantic portkey the minute we heard Thee was injured," Phryne took up the story now, smiling at the look of delighted incredulity on Helios's face when he heard her blatant flouting of the law. "Your father and I were only pals at the time. He, Steve and I were all that was left of the group we'd run off to war with – and we were ready to make the lives of anyone who'd hurt him a misery."
"She was like a Fury. I'd rather have faced off with an angry Ukranian Ironbelly!" Newt chuckled. "And of course, word soon got around that she was the Minister for Magic's daughter and so people had to be polite to her to avoid causing an international incident. You certainly took advantage of that, didn't you, Phryne? She was outrageously disrespectful to the MACUSA aurors – I think she and Steve had challenged half of them to duels within fifteen minutes of arriving, yelling at them about what they thought of people who attacked someone who'd done them no harm. I must say, Phryne, I've always been very glad never to have been on your bad side!"
"I was pretty afraid of you, I don't mind admitting!" Tina confessed to her now sister-in-law. "We'd been worried for our jobs when we realised how badly we'd got things wrong, but the minute you arrived we started to fear for our necks as well!"
"It all worked out all right in the end though," Newt told Cosima, Cassian and Helios. "I managed to keep Phryne and Steve from killing anyone. Theseus came round and of course everything was made clear and he received a fairly lengthy string of apologies. Thankfully, neither the Ministry nor MACUSA chose to make a big fuss about the incident and nothing was taken any further."
"I did not too badly out of it, in the end," Theseus said, looking at his wife with a loving smile, sliding an arm around her waist.
"I realised then I wasn't too keen on the idea of ever losing him," Phryne explained to her son, niece and nephew. "And it turned out he felt the same. We stayed in New York long enough for his head to mend and then we eloped."
"Yes, and left me to explain to Minister Fawley that you'd run off with my brother!" said Newt indignantly. "Thanks awfully for that, by the way!"
"Well it was about time," said Diana fondly. "You'd been dancing around each other since ever you got back from the war, I'm glad something made you finally come to your senses!"
"Ah well, titch, you didn't knock Vance out!" Helios grinned. "Things weren't too bad after all, were they? But it looks as though you can always ask Aunt Tina for tips!"
On Christmas day, after opening presents, they all sat down to a sumptuous feast of turkey and all the trimmings. They pulled Christmas crackers, making the dining room echo with the loud bangs, laughed at each other's ridiculous hats and laughed even more at the absurd jokes that came with them.
Over Christmas pudding, Newt, Theseus and Phryne regaled them with tales of some of the hijinks they themselves had got up to at Hogwarts; reminiscing about the full scale inter-house prank war that had occurred when Theseus and Phryne were in their seventh year and Newt in his fourth. It had apparently ended with the Herbology master's robes catching fire and every single member of the seventh year, across all four houses, being put in detention for a week.
"We had to clean every inch of the castle!" said Theseus ruefully, making the fez from his cracker wobble as he shook his head. "With no magic!"
"I remember Steve and Castor trying to 'accidentally' use a spell to help things along," Phryne, who had found an Egyptian headdress in hers, laughed. "Dippet caught them and they had to choose between being banned from their quidditch teams or cleaning the Great Hall once a week for the rest of the year."
"What did they pick?" asked Cassian eagerly, who was wearing a bicorn hat and looking like a little pirate.
"They opted for the cleaning," Theseus told them. "Though I think by the end of the year, they were regretting it. Personally, after scrubbing the dungeons, I've never been able to look at Ferriburg's Firecrackers the same way again!"
When the pudding was finished, Theseus Scamander rose and poured a glass of Oggden's Firewhisky for each of the adults and a slightly smaller one for Helios who was now considered fully of age. Cosima and Cassian were both young enough that they didn't really understand what all the fuss was about drinking anyway, and were quite content to have lemonade.
"To absent friends," said Theseus gravely, raising his glass.
"Absent friends," everyone else echoed, doing likewise.
It was a toast that Theseus, Newt and Phryne had made every year for as long as Cosima could remember; an acknowledgement of all the people they'd gone off to war with who had never got to see another Christmas. Cosima noticed the look of raw pain that flared across Phryne's face as she sipped her glass of firewhisky. Her twin brother Castor, the boy who they'd just moments ago had been describing playing quidditch and trying to get out of detention, had been amongst the fallen.
She looked down at the silver coin she'd found in her pudding and wished with all her might that this current war, which had followed the War To End All Wars, would soon draw to a close; before any more of the people left behind were forced to wear looks like her aunt's. She wished fervently that Grindelwald would be locked away forever before Helios joined the auror programme.
Later on in the afternoon, when everyone began to feel a little less stuffed, Helios and Cassian challenged Newt and Theseus to a game of two-against-two quidditch. The elder Scamanders, who had both played as Chasers for their house teams, acquiesced and the snowy garden was soon full of the sounds of teasing banter.
Cosima, who was dreadful at quidditch, went into the stables to visit the new hippogiff cub that Cassian had written to her about. Lydystra, it's mother, returned Cosima's bow regally and allowed the eleven year old to pat her neck and stroke her beak. Satisfied the girl was no threat, she stood aside to reveal her new cub; a beautiful bronze-coloured little creature who nodded its head to Cosima and then contendedly accepted her fusses and cuddles. She would have to ask to borrow her grandmother's camera and take a photo back to show Merlin and Hagrid!
Phryne stood with Tina and Diana for a while, laughing as they watched the quidditch game, before coming to join her in the stable, and Cosima seized her chance.
"Aunt Phryne," she began in what she hoped was an artless tone. "You and Uncle Theseus were duelling champions at Hogwarts, weren't you?"
"We were," Phryne confirmed with a smile, then quirked one dark eyebrow. "Have you got a taste for it after taking on that Slytherin boy?"
"No," Cosima laughed self-consciously. "I'll leave the duelling to Helios. But I've been thinking…about my friend Gwion, the one who was petrified. Is there a curse that can freeze someone like that – you know, totally petrify them?"
"Ah, investigating like a true Ravenclaw?" Phryne asked. "Well, not really, dear, not to the extent you're talking about. There's the body bind curse – you know, petrificus totalus – but that is effectively a temporary one. It freezes you physically, but not functionally: you still blink, breathe and so on. And of course it can be stopped the moment the moment someone says finite incantatem. I've never come across a spell that can completely petrify one's opponent, and we were on the receiving end of our fair share of curses in the war!"
"So it has to be a monster then, like the message at Halloween said," Cosima said, more to herself than her aunt. "Logically, there is no other option! But…what creature has the power to freeze someone? And how can it be at the school without anyone having seen it?"
"Well, your father is the expert there," Phryne replied. "But I can't say I've ever heard of a creature with that power either. I'm sure the teachers are looking into it though, Cosima. Let them take care of catching the culprit. You just focus on your schoolwork."
This was very much in the same vein as what her parents had said, but Cosima resolved to do a bit more research before Merlin visited at New Year, glad she'd taken half the library shelf on magical creatures home with her!
Between the two of them, surely they could figure out the answer!