11
LYALL regarded the now open door of Newt and Tina Scamander's spare bedroom with no small look of trepidation in his eyes as Newt stood hovering in the doorway, a dawning look of outrage and anger as he clutched Miss Howell's purse she'd dropped in the woods with no small measure of disgust and revulsion on his face.
He almost rolled his eyes at his behavior. He didn't know where Newt's ridiculous, and in his mind, the unfounded attitude was coming from, but if you were to ask Lyall, Lupin would say Newt's behavior was entirely uncalled for.
Lyall was not entirely sure he liked the growing look of annoyance and anger in Newt Scamander's eyes, especially considering how not even fifteen minutes ago, the famed Magizoologist had, at a minimum, be polite and quite cordial towards Miss Howell.
"This is yours, Miss Howell, is it not? We found your…bag out in the Welsh forest a few feet away from where I found you lying unconscious," he murmured, no small hint of disgust laced throughout his quiet, slightly warbling tone in the man's old age.
The way he spat the word 'bag' made it sound as though a bitter poison had seeped its way up to his throat and settled upon his tone, and the look of disgust on the aging man's face was quite evident as he crinkled his nose and pulled a face.
"Y—yes, Mr. Scamander. I—it is," she stammered, her voice quite low and quiet. "Thank you for retrieving it for me, sir. I—I don't know what I'd have done if I'd lost it."
Hope blinked as Newt Scamander proceeded to step through the threshold of the spare bedroom's entryway and promptly crossed the hardwood floor and approached Hope's bedside in two quick strides with a surprisingly deft and nimbleness to his movements, which Hope, Lyall could tell by the look of bewilderment in her eyes, thought rather astonishing considering his age.
Clearly, she had expected Mr. Scamander's gait to be lame, and his joints wonky with arthritis or lumbago at his age of sixty-two, but that was quite obviously not the case with Mr. Newt Scamander.
The Magizoologist was quite spry for his age, and it was with little effort on his part that he pulled up the spare chair on the opposite side of her bed, the one that Lyall had previously been occupying, since having vacated it to perch himself on the edge of her bed's mattress, near the foot.
Newt folded his arms across his chest, plunking Hope Howell's black little faux leather crocodile skin shoulder bag onto the small wooden night table that was placed by her bed with a loud audible thump that made poor Hope flinch.
Hope blinked owlishly at her purse for a few long moments, before lifting her chin and nervously meeting her other savior's now-hardened gaze, not sure at all she liked the growing look of anger and annoyance in Newt's eyes.
Hope was so utterly confused, not to mention, outright terrified by Mr. Scamander's question he had just posed. Well, perhaps not by the question itself, yes, it was in fact, her bag, and she was more than grateful to whichever one of these men had thought of the good graces to pick it up.
Her little black shoulder bag was most precious to her. A gift from Janey for Christmas last year, it was one of her most prized possession. Not real crocodile skin, of course, good heavens, no!
Hope would never condone carrying a bag made of real crocodile skin, but you could hardly tell the difference with how well it was made, and considering it contained the keys to her flat, her wallet, and not to mention, a copy of the office keys, it was perhaps her most precious and prized possession in her life right about now.
If nothing else if for the fact that inside her bag, alongside her wallet, which everything within could easily be replaced, the one possession gifted to her by her parents before they'd died could not: her copy of one of her all-time favorite books, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The little paperback copy of the treasured tale was just small enough to fit inside her bag, and Hope had taken to reading it during her lunch break whenever her coworkers were being particularly demanding and difficult on a given day. It gave her a good sense of escapism, to lose herself in the world of magic and adventure as she followed Bilbo Baggins and Thorin and company.
Janey always chastised her for losing herself in the fanciful touches of the story, but that was exactly what she liked about stories like The Hobbit.
Hope had a tendency to carry the little book in her purse with her wherever she went, so she could have something to read in the event she needed a pick-me-up.
She surely would have gone into a panic if she'd lost her purse, and as a consequence, her copy of the book, too, and she was grateful that one of these men had thought to pick it up and bring it back with them when they escorted her here back to Mr. Scamander's home to let her recover.
Though, for the life of her, Hope could not place the man's sudden shift in countenance, or why he was eyeballing her purse (and her, for that matter!) with such a look of disgust and distrust that she didn't know what to make of it, and Hope felt a stab of a fear prick at her heart.
His eyes widened slightly, and he continued to look in Hope's general direction, occasionally flitting back to her bag, as though her purse was riddled with some kind of disease, and that Hope had…spat in his face or something.
Hope wasn't even going to comment on how much of a peculiar fellow he was.
Hope's dark chocolate eyes raked once over his outfit, and while there was nothing particularly unusual about it, it did seem old-fashioned, and there was a bit of a quirky air about the old man that she could not quite place or put her finger on, for the life of her, and it bothered Hope that she didn't know what to do.
Though before Hope could part open her lips to intervene, she could see Lupin stiffen from the edge of her bed, and he too was looking like he wanted to say something, a contemplative, thoughtful expression forming on his features, but he must have thought better of it, for he closed his mouth and merely glowered at the aging man.
Mr. Scamander pursed his lips into a thin line, keeping his arms folded across his slender chest, shrinking into the sweater vest that was slightly too big for him as much as he possibly could before speaking.
"What dragonhide is it made out of, Miss Howell? It is nothing like any kind that I've ever seen before? It's not Romanian, nor is it a Hungarian Horntail, so what species is it, then?" he questioned, looking towards Hope as she was propped up behind a mountain of pillows.
The old sixty-two-year-old was regarding Hope with furrowed, raised eyebrows and such a look of annoyance that Hope didn't know what to do.
One quick glance out of the corner of her eye in Lupin's direction was more than enough for Hope to know she'd get no help from Lyall here.
"D—dragonhide?!" Hope whispered. She blinked owlishly at the aging old man, at his weathered features.
Was this man serious? Did Mr. Scamander really expect her to answer? How on God's green earth was she to do that?!
She could barely stop her hands from shaking, much less get her racing heart, now little more than a throbbing mass of corded muscle within the confines of its cage of bone and cartilage, to calm down even for five minutes at a time.
After a considerable night she'd suffered through, one which, Hope wasn't sure she would survive or not, her second savior was expecting her to open up and talk to him? And now, to make things even more awkward in her already precarious and rather unfavorable position she now found herself in, Mr. Newt Scamander was wanting to discuss the material her purse was made out of, thinking it was dragonhide?! Was the man perhaps short of a marble?
Was that it?! Hope bit the wall of her cheek, nervously fidgeting with her fingers, constantly weaving the digits in between her white-boned knuckles, waiting with bated breath and gritted teeth.
She had no idea what to say at all.
For that matter, Hope wasn't even sure what to do! Her mind felt as though it were reeling, and the front and sides of her temples were pounding, throbbing, causing a sheen of sweat to break out along her browbone and beads of perspiration to drip slick down the front of her temples.
Her heart was beating so fast in her chest, Hope was momentarily afraid the muscle would cease its rhythmic beating and just give out on her.
And more to the point, was it possible that she could quite likely die from fright?
Those two men were still alive in the forest, or so Hope had been led to believe. Mr. Scamander and Mr. Lupin did not strike her as the type to kill those men, no matter how much of a brute they both had been towards her, then.
What if they're still out there? They both saw my face, what if they manage to track me down again and find me?
Her heart pounded even hard at that unpleasant thought. Hope swallowed down hard past a growing lump in her throat as she cast a nervous glance towards Lyall.
The handsome man who had saved her life tonight was looking visibly disappointed in his friend and colleague, as though he had expected better from Mr. Scamander, but neither did he try to jump to Hope's defense, which wounded Hope and cut her more deeply than anything else that could have happened to her tonight, which Hope thought rather strange, considering she'd known Mr. Lupin now for a few precious hours, at best.
It was rather strange, how quickly she seemed to be forming a liking to this man. Strange, yes, and new to her, but not necessarily unwanted, Hope was able to recognize her growing fondness for Lyall Lupin as what it truly was: pure affection.
And to see him regarding Hope with a look akin to pity, it hurt her, for reasons that she could not explain.
"Lyall…?" she breathed, his name rolling off her tongue and sounded to her like smooth, melted butter. "Help me, what...what do you think I should say to calm him down, sir?" she pleaded, nervously casting her glance towards Mr. Scamander and then towards her purse, which Newt had unceremoniously plunked onto the bedside night table.
Judging by the look of annoyance and anger in the older wizard's eyes, the way he was currently looking at her bag, Hope believed it to be the man's designs to destroy it, to throw it into the lighted fireplace or something along those lines, and if that happened, Hope would be devastated.
To say that she had not expected any form of anger from either one of the men who'd saved her life tonight was a gross understatement, and Hope found she could barely contain her racing heart or her nearly frantic breaths. Mr. Scamander was angry with her… because of her purse?!
Oh, but none of this was making any sense. But the older man was angry, Hope could see that quite clearly as was as plain as the nose on her face. Mr. Scamander had not spoken yet to either Hope or Lyall of his anger, but he did not need to, for the disappointment was visible in his eyes.
She hoped she'd done nothing to offend Mr. Scamander, or his wife, Tina, who she had yet to meet, since regaining consciousness, but right now, as she dared to meet Newt's gaze, the elderly fellow's eyes were laced to the brim with what Hope could only describe as betrayal and utter anger.
Hope exhaled a slightly shaking breath, and by some miracle of God Himself, managed, at last, to find her voice.
"I—it's not…dragonhide, sir, it's fake crocodile skin. I—it's not real, Mr. Scamander, believe me, I—Earth doesn't have…dragons, Mr. Scamander," she began, choosing her words cautiously and speaking slowly and carefully, as though she were speaking to a five-year-old child, rather than a fully grown adult male of sixty-two-years of age.
She let out a hiss of breath as she swore a muscle in the man's jaw tensed, and his posture straightened as he sat upright in his chair, the tension mounting in the room unmistakable.
If the air in the room would have been a color visible to the human eye, the entire bedroom would have been scarlet at this very moment, Hope thought.
"You may find yourself surprised, Miss Howell, in the days to come, should you continue to enjoy Mr. Lupin's company over here," Newt Scamander grumbled darkly to himself under his breath, still maintaining his grumpy disposition as he cast a distrusting look towards her bag. He looked back toward her with raised white eyebrows. "You're quite certain it's fake? You aren't lying to me? Please don't think of lying. I'll know if you're lying, dear."
Hope felt a cold chill of fear travel up and down her spine and she was unable to repress the shudder upon hearing Mr. Newt Scamander's strangely cold words.
She furrowed her brows into a frown as her mind struggled to process the old man's words. Newt had mentioned she might find herself…surprised. But why?
What on earth did it all mean? Were there…were there really dragons on earth?
What on earth was she dealing with here? Social ineptitude for lack of social graces? Mild schizophrenia?
Was Lyall's colleague at his job insane?!
Hope nervously met Lyall's gaze as Lupin turned his head towards the old wizard seated in the wooden chair beside Hope's bedside, just a fraction of an inch, before a light pink blush speckled along his cheeks and the man looked back towards the floral wallpaper, at a spot just above Hope's head.
Lupin was very clearly embarrassed, though whether it was for himself or at the strange way the old man was behaving towards Hope, asking her ridiculous questions about the material of her purse and dragonhide, of all the ridiculous things to discuss in conversation, she couldn't quite say, but possibly a combination of the latter.
"My…my bag is made out of fake leather, Mr. Scamander. N—no…dragons…or—or any other animals were…were harmed when it was made, sir. At least, I think so."
She let out a soft, albeit nervous chuckle, hoping her statement would be enough to calm Mr. Scamander down from his state of what looked to be rapidly growing anger.
Hope expected Mr. Scamander to interrupt her, to yell at her, and refuse to let her speak, but Newt did no such thing. Maybe he was willing to listen to Hope's explanation, after all, and in return, Hope could ask a question or two of her own. Such as how it was that this man had come to believe that dragons, of all creatures, could possibly exist on earth?
There was no such thing as dragons, and even if there were, their sheer existence alone would be enough to send the entire world into chaos! Dragons were reputed to be monstrous beasts, capable of destroying entire towns with a single breath of fire from their lungs, and they took no pity on humans.
At least, that's how it was with the dragon, Smaug, in her copy of The Hobbit, which she hoped lay unscathed in her purse.
Hope breathed in a deep breath and continued. "A—are you an animal rights activist, sir? Is that what all this is about, Mr. Scamander?" Her voice was very nearly shaking from fear, as she knew anything she said as it pertained to her bag's material might only anger the old man even more.
Newt Scamander inhaled but seemed to have sudden trouble meeting the young brunette woman's gaze.
It was almost as if he were growing nervous or afraid to look at her. Perhaps he had a mild form of autism, she couldn't say.
"In a sense. I'm…quite fond of all types of creatures. Beasts, you might say. My wife Tina helps me run a menagerie of sorts, almost like a zoo. If you hold any interest, if you promise not to hurt my creatures and treat them with respect, I'd be delighted to show you," Mr. Scamander spoke to Hope in a voice that could almost be described as a lowly little growl. "It is only because of Mr. Lupin's insistence that you are here in my home tonight, Miss Howell," he spoke up, lowering his voice and shooting her what she perceived to be a brief sympathetic look. "It is Lyall you should thank, not me. I do not let just anyone into our home, Miss Howell. If you say that you have a fondness for animals, then I will choose to take you at your word and believe you, but if you should happen to treat any of my creatures with disrespect, then I must kindly ask you to leave my home and return from wherever you came."
Hope slowly nodded her head at the new information, swallowing a lump in her throat. "Th—that's good, Mr. Scamander. I love all sorts of animals, e—except for reptiles, I don't do well with lizards or frogs, sir, and I would love to see your zoo sometime if you'll have me," she managed to gasp out in little more than a breathy squeak.
Lyall, from his place at the edge of Hope's bed, laughed nervously, but Mr. Scamander sanguinely and slowly turned his head to look towards Mr. Lupin's direction.
"Old Newt here is something of an animal-lover, Hope. He meant no offense by asking after your bag, he takes any animal-made products quite seriously and refuses to use them, and even abhors it when his wife, Tina, uses them."
Here, Lyall hardened his gaze in response to his friend and colleague's sudden aggression towards Hope and shot him a truly withering look of anger, almost dagger eyes.
Hope could almost in her imagination picture the literal knives shooting a straight line from Lyall's eyes towards Mr. Scamander's face, and the mental image was somewhat amusing, though it did nothing to calm down the tension.
"Tina does no such thing! She—she loves my creatures just as much as I do, Lyall, you know that. She'd have not supported my menagerie otherwise," Scamander barked in a voice that suddenly sounded rather rough and coarse, in Hope's mind. He half-rose from his chair, and Hope winced.
Oh, no. Things were definitely not looking good. Hope let out a muffled little whine, her fingers curling tightly into fists as they found purchase in a twist of the bedsheets as she bit her lip, her gaze darting from Lupin towards Mr. Scamander, as though watching a cricket match, wanting to know who would win this argument.
Lyall shot Hope a quizzical, somewhat worried glance out of the corner of his eye, wondering how she was taking the sudden rising tension and the unexpected turn their conversation had taken since she'd woken up and regained consciousness, before raising his voice and turning his attention back towards Newt, who'd risen from his chair and was now standing directly in front of Lupin, leaving Lyall with no other choice but to get up and face the man, to look him square in the eyes.
"He picks on people who use products even remotely close to resembling something that looks like they might be made from various types of animals because Mr. Scamander apparently has nothing better to do with his life," Lyall snorted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Newt.
Hope visibly winced, swearing she could see in Mr. Scamander's face how surprised the man truly looked.
She knew his last cutting remark was supposed to have been taken as a joke meant to make fun of him, but Newt did not seem to be able to recognize that particular social cue.
"Oh, Lyall, please don't do this," she begged, and Lyall turned his gaze sharply to his immediate left to look at her.
He raised his eyebrows at her and she shook her head, mouthing "no" to Lyall in the hopes it would dissuade the man from starting an argument with someone he considered a dear friend, and all over her stupid purse.
She grimaced at Lupin's seemingly inability to tell a joke that did not seem to be somewhat rude or cutting in any way, and she wondered if the quirk came from his shyness.
"It's not worth it," Hope whispered.
She nervously flitted her gaze towards her purse and before she could lose her newfound resolve, reached across for it, and held the little black bag closely to her chest, before unzipping the bag's main compartment and digging into it for her book.
Newt and Lyall both turned their heads in an almost slow, methodical manner, equal looks of stunned disbelief on their faces as Hope rested a little paperback book on her lap with a dark forest green cover and bright gold letters, and all the while she held out her bag for Newt to take.
"H—here," she stammered in a half-choking voice. "I—if it will stop you two from fighting, a—and if it really means that much to you, Mr. Scamander, you can just take it, sir."
Newt and Lyall did not immediately speak to her, merely proceeding to look at her with raised eyebrows and looks of alarm etching their way onto their faces suddenly.
"I…I…" Hope felt her breaths catch in her throat as she continued to hold out her purse, almost wanting Mr. Scamander to take it from her, do whatever he wanted with her purse if it meant it would get him to leave Lupin alone.
The old man could throw it into the fireplace for all she cared, but she did not appreciate or approve how Mr. Scamander was turning the worst of his annoyance on Lyall, when the only thing Lupin had done tonight was save her life, not once, but twice.
Hope did not want Lupin getting in trouble with his friend and a colleague or starting a rift that would cause a wedge over something so mundane and trivial as what material her purse was made out of.
"Take…it…" she pleaded. Hope wasn't sure if she was trying to speak at all or instead, making a noise in the back of her parched throat that sounded rather like a dying fish.
The shaking of her limbs was becoming even more pronounced now, due to the mounting tensions between her two saviors of the night, Hope could feel it travel from her hands, all the way up and down her arms, to her feet.
Panic was beginning to claw at her throat, growing tighter and tighter, constricting her throat as it hollowed, rendering poor Hope feeling like she was unable to breathe.
With two strange blokes cornering her in those unfamiliar woods that she had assumed would have been nothing more than an innocent walk in the woods and both men trying to attack her, coupled with this strange overwhelming fear that Hope could not quite place that something, whatever it was, felt strangely…well, amiss, for lack of a better word.
And now, this white-haired chap, this Mr. Newt Scamander, an animal rights activist of sorts, was demanding her to tell her the material of her purse and wanting more information on what kind of woman she was, just how attached to various animals that she was.
He was more or less demanding answers of her that Hope wasn't quite sure she could give at the moment, considering her throat had hollowed to the point where she didn't think she could force air into her lungs at all now.
It felt as if all the air had been forcefully sucked from her. Her eyes began to dart across the bedroom again. It happened so fast, poor Hope wasn't sure how it happened.
What Hope was searching the room for, she didn't know. Perhaps a sign that another man with devious intentions would pop out from behind one of the corners?
Hope remembered vaguely that she had previously thought of herself as something of a ticking time bomb, ready to go off without any kind of warning on her part.
Well, it appeared her fuse had reached its limit, and without any warning whatsoever to either Newt or Lyall, Hope, from her place in the bed, still propped up against her mountain of pillows, let out a truly agonized scream and flung herself onto her stomach, burying her head in her eyes, surrounded by men who were likely going to leave her to fend for herself for the rest of the weekend, injured, terrified, and alone, considering the strife she had caused, and despite all else, promptly burst into hard, wracking sobs.
Lyall's temper bristled as he heard Mr. Scamander grumble something unintelligibly under his breath from in front, though before Lyall could open his mouth to retort, a new voice spoke up, shattering the uneasy tension in the room.
"I do believe that is quite enough, Newt Scamander."
Lyall jerked his head away from his challenger in search of the speaker.
There, standing in the open doorway out in the hallway on the threshold that separated the hallway of the Scamander's simple little cottage from their spare room, stood the petite, but still a nevertheless somewhat imposing figure of the famed Magizoologist's wife.
Lyall swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat as he cast a nervous, apprehensive gaze towards Newt, who was suddenly looking uncomfortable, though Lupin did not dare avert his gaze from the witch standing in the door.
Lupin nervously lifted his gaze and forced his kind hazel eyes to rest on the young woman's dark brown eyes, flinching as he shot the new arrival a furtive, guilty look.
For the first time tonight since their unannounced arrival, Lyall found himself looking into the eyes of Newt's wife, Tina Scamander.
And he was quick to decide he did not like it, judging by the look of pure outrage in her eyes.
Lyall knew he and Newt were about to in a very serious spot of trouble, and there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening.
Yay, Tina putting a stop to it before tensions could mount even further! I always got it into my mind while re-watching the two Fantastic Beasts movies that Newt Scamander would probably have been an animal rights activist of sorts and that he would go out of his way to avoid using products made from animals, and thought it would be amusing at first for him to try to confront Hope over her purse. What a way to start off a friendship, though!
Coming up in Ch. 12, Tina attempts to de-escalate the situation, and Lyall and Newt attempt to go back to the Welsh forest in search of Greyback, meanwhile Lupin is forced to confess prematurely before he is anywhere close to ready to Hope that he is a wizard, but how will Hope react?