"Step...Step inside it?" Leta stared at Newt, wondering if maybe he had gone insane after listening to too much Fwooper singing.
"Yup. Go ahead!" Newt replied cheerily. "Don't worry, there's nothing scary down there!"
Leta squinted at the dark briefcase. She was no stranger to quaint Ministry entrances in unlikely spots, but the briefcase did not seem to betray any hint of a larger space. It looked dark and claustrophobic. Just like...just like... She swallowed. Just like the sort of place a boggart would love to take up residence in.
She turned back to Newt. "You're absolutely, positively sure that there's nothing going to eat or kill me down there?"
Newt smiled at her. "I'm sure you'll be able to handle whatever is down there, Miss Lestrange."
Although his smile was warm, a chill ran down her spine. That was the first time she'd heard him say her name, confirming that he did truly know it was her that he was working with.
Leta swallowed and looked down, suddenly feeling like a first-year schoolgirl all over again. Steeling herself, she straightened her back and stepped one foot into the briefcase.
And immediately fell into a dark abyss.
Down,
down
down,
down,
down
"EEEK!" Leta shrieked loudly, wildly flailing and banging her arms on something metallic-sounding. "Ow!" she exclaimed, pulling her hand away.
Pull yourself together! A voice hissed. You're an Auror, not Alice in Wonderland! You should know what to do.
Remembering the maneuver she'd been taught in training, she pulled her arms tight to her body and ascertained the space allowance (which was not enough to attempt a roll). Instead, she assumed the best position that would ensure the least damage and managed to land somewhat gracefully on her bottom.
After having been plunged into the darkness, her eyes took a few seconds to adjust.
She was now in some sort of wooden shed, which contained all sorts of odds and ends and was what Leta could only describe as comfortably cluttered. Some plants and rusty old pots and pans hung from the ceiling or peeked out of the sink, and strange blue butterflies flitted from one end of the room to the other, unnerving her slightly.
Swooping Evils, she recognized them briefly from a disastrous Care for Magical Creatures class. Instinctively, she reached for her wand to cast a Bubble-Head Charm and protect her brain.
"There you go, easy does it. See? It's not so scary after all."
She turned around to find Newt gingerly climbing down a ladder one-handed while holding up the Fwooper with his left arm.
"You didn't warn me there'd be stairsteps," Leta said reproachfully.
"Oh, my apologies," Newt replied a bit remorsefully. "I've been considering installing a steel slide, perhaps that would simply the process...only, I'm afraid that the angle of the incline would produce so much momentum...why, you might shoot out and hit the wall and get a concussion."
Leta frowned and stepped back, allowing him to walk over to the sink and deposit the Fwooper gently on an already-hanging bird perch. "So, you farm brain-eating butterflies now, huh?" she asked.
"I think they're quite beautiful, actually," Newt replied. "And I've managed to train these to not bite everyone they see. Quite harmless, you know, once you feed them regularly so they know they don't have to attack me for nourishment."
Leta raised an eyebrow. She did know of a Ministry division that specialized in brains, but she found it somewhat hard to believe the would waste precious human resources on a kooky magizoologist's encephalous glorified pet butterflies. "And what do you feed them, exactly?"
"Oh, well they absolutely love hamburgers!" Newt replied excitedly. Leta raised an eyebrow, mildly amused. "Anyways, the reason I brought you here is that we need to show this little guy home," he grinned, gently ruffling the Fwooper's chin feathers. "Would you like a juicy Flobberworm? Yes, yes you do." To Leta's horror, he reached into the sink, pulled out a moist head of lettuce, and extracted a large, slimy Flobberworm from within. "Here you go, my friend," Newt smiled, holding out the writhing, mucousy insect for the Fwooper to eat, which it did with much gusto. "Don't you worry, I'll build you a nice habitat with a nest to sleep in."
Leta wished she'd had the common sense to look away in time and felt something die within her from witnessing this horrifying vision. She willed her gag reflex not to activate.
"So...how did you build this place, exactly?" Leta asked.
"Oh, just a handy little Undetectable Extension Charm," Newt replied cheekily.
Leta raised an eyebrow.
He was always quite good at Charms, she thought to herself.
"Leta, Leta, look!" Newt exclaimed excitedly, holding his wand. "Watch this!"
"Newt, it's already been a week. Come on, let's work on Potions."
"No, no, I got it this time! I found a sixth year and he showed me how to actually do it!"
"You found a sixth year who was willing to teach you? Well, that's-"
"AVIS!" Newt shouted, and immediately both of them recoiled back as his wand made a loud bang sound and shot smoke and sparks from the tip.
Leta ducked, then immediately pointed her wand at his singed wand tip. "Aguamenti!" She yelled, preparing herself to put out yet another fire.
But this time, the wand did not ignite itself on fire. Instead, a flock of birds burst from the cloud of smoke, chirping and flapping happily.
"Wow. You really did it," Leta muttered.
"Yes, isn't it amazing? Now, what are they supposed to eat, do you think?"
Leta laughed out loud slightly, then stopped herself. Newt smiled faintly at her.
"Well, it's definitely interesting," she mused, looking around.
"Isn't it?" Newt brightened. "I'm planning to expand it even further, into a sanctuary of sorts."
"A what?"
"You know, a sort of refuge. For other beasts." Newt smiled. "So far, all I have is the Swooping Evils and the Flobberworms. But I plan to find and study every kind of magical creature."
Leta raised an eyebrow. "Not boggarts, hopefully."
"No, no boggarts," Newt laughed, and she found herself chuckling along with him.
For a few seconds, it felt like they were back at Hogwarts. Laughing at some dumb joke, while standing still awkwardly.
It was nice.
If only you didn't ruin everything, you imbecile.
Leta looked down at her feet and scratched the back of her head awkwardly. Newt glanced over at her, his expression unreadable. "So...what exactly do you need an assistant for, then?"
"Oh, all sorts of things!" Newt exclaimed. "You know, protection, counterjinxing, medical assistance, elbow grease...everyone needs an assistant! Especially when embarking on a huge journey like the one I am about to."
"What sort of journey?" Leta raised an eyebrow.
"Well. You may not know this, but for the past few years I have been working with the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."
"Oh. Well that's wonderful. Good for you," Leta replied, pleasantly surprised.
"No! You don't understand. They put me in the Office for House-Elf Relocation," Newt hissed, grabbing her shoulders. Leta looked up at him awkwardly, and he let go. "Anyways, that got dreadfully boring, so I asked to be transferred and they put me to the Beast Division."
"That's good, right?" Leta asked, confused.
"Yes, it's been much better. But it's still not enough. We mainly handle small incidents, like territorial disputes and loose dragons. No...no fieldwork," Newt muttered. "It's not the same as being out and about and really experiencing the beasts yourself. All I do is sit in an office and draft out strategies for tackling local incidents. Where's the fun in that? You don't get to explore the world."
"I see," Leta replied hesitantly.
"You know what's more fascinating though, Miss Lestrange?" It hurt a little to hear him call her that, instead of Leta, though a part of her was just glad to hear him call her name at all. "The average wizard knows only about 20% of all the wondrous magical creatures that live in our world. 20%! Imagine if someone were to write a book, or say some sort of encyclopedia so everyone could have access to and recognize them all. Wouldn't that be something?"
Leta smiled back at him, seeing a bit of the old glint of his eyes from during Care of Magical Creatures.
"Yes, I suppose that would be something wonderful," she replied.
"Newt? Are you quite alright?" Jedediah Weasley called from above, interrupting them. "Or were your brains sucked out by those ghastly butterflies?"
Newt turned away from her, and Leta also took a step back, remembering her place. "No, I'm quite fine!" Newt replied cheerily. "Won't you please come down and join us, Jedd?"
After some coaxing and reassurance ("Well, there are carnivorous butterflies down here," Leta called out, "But apparently they're harmless and well-fed,"), Jedd undertook the perilous journey of descending into the interior of the suitcase. Newt and Leta both cast Cushioning Charms at the ground at the same time, both which Jedd missed by a few feet and ended up landing rather roughly on his rump. After a few seconds of brushing himself off and straightening up, he looked around and blinked, noticing the Swooping Evils around him.
"Those-those are the ones that eat your brain, aren't they?" Jedd asked, suspicious.
Well, even if they did decide to eat our brains, it doesn't seem they'd have much to work with, Leta found herself thinking.
Newt shrugged, as if to say "Yes, I suppose so," which is not really the response that most people enjoy when confronted by man-eating brain evil fluttering creatures, but this did not really seem to occur to him. Some might consider him an insensitive man, but really a fair amount of his odd responses stemmed from simply not knowing how others might react. To him, being in the presence of a brain-eating creature seemed terribly interesting and exciting. "Would you like to feed him?" He asked, gesturing eagerly at the Fwooper perched near him.
Jedd walked up hesitatingly to the bird, and reached up as if to pet its head. The bird obliged, and he ruffled its feathers. "It seems well-behaved," he said.
"Oh, yes. Fwoopers are surprisingly easy to get along with, which is why I believe we should remove the stigma attached to them." Newt's eyes twinkled slightly, "Most birds would scream at you or try to bite your hand off, but Fwoopers are intrigued by human contact. It's just too bad that their song drives us insane."
"Well, that doesn't seem to be problem for you," Leta remarked.
"I promise you, my Silencing Charms are very secure," Newt replied.
Leta raised an eyebrow, as if to challenge him, and he smiled and turned away, picking at another head of wet lettuce.
Jedd looked as if he was about to withdraw his hand, then hesitated, and then continued to ruffle the bird's head feathers. It leaned further into his touch and opened its beak, although no noise came out.
Leta looked around the room, trying to see what other things Newt had. It appeared he had a wheelbarrow, some bags of different feeds, and a box with some Muggle tools. She found this interesting, especially given how he had always heavily relied on Charms to get by during their time at Hogwarts.
"Be careful not to pet him on his stomach or back," Newt called out from the corner, wrangling a few Flobberworms.
"Why not?" Jedd asked.
"You might give him the wrong impression," Newt replied.
"What?" Jedd asked, before the Fwooper's eyes started bulging and it snapped at his hand. "Get off!" He exclaimed, taken by surprise.
Leta backed away, deciding to give him a moment. She had previously volunteered with civilian-protection squads during controlled captures, but there weren't really any guidelines for how to incapacitate a Fwooper.
Newt walked over and began wrangling the Fwooper from Jedd. "Only mates touch below the head, so only pet him above the head," he demonstrated. "Got it?"
"Understood," Jedd said, somewhat shaken.
Both Leta and Jedd watched in mild horror as Newt fed the Fwooper another Flobberworm. It seemed to take great joy in chomping down on the poor creature, which squirmed and leaked mucus from both ends in protest. Leta decided not to think too much about which end was which.
"Well, I think I've seen enough, " Jedd sniffed. "If you don't mind, I'll see you two upstairs." With that, he turned and started climbing the ladder that Leta had already forgotten existed. Newt shrugged, and went back to rinsing off Flobberworm mucus from his protective gloves. To her mild disgust, she also noticed him collecting a portion of the mucus into a small vat.
"What's that for?" she asked suspiciously.
"All-natural potion thickener," newt replied, humming cheerily to himself. "And other stuff."
Leta frowned, and stomped over to have a look at it herself. The mucus was thick and greenish-grey and sludgey, and not at all like something most people wanted to think about consuming. Then again, most Potion ingredients were a bit unsavory to look at as you got more advanced. For one of her partnered exams with Lilly, Leta herself had been the once forced to reach into a jar of bloody eyeballs and wrangle a live squid because Lillyrefused to go near it. But this mucus looked rather suspicious and of a questionable quality.
"Surely you don't sell this to people?" she demanded.
"Oh, no. You need a license for that," Newt chuckled.
"Then how do you use it?"
"Well, I find it does wonders for my garden," he said. "And it helps quite well with constipation, in a pinch."
Leta stared at him, horrified.
"Would you like to try some?" he asked eagerly.
Leta sighed and brought her palm slowly to her forehead. "I...No thank you," she replied.
After all this time, he really is more or less the same person, she thought to herself. For better, or for worse.