"I truly appreciate you coming with me," Newt said for the third time as they all headed toward Central Park in search of one of his missing beasts. Elvira merely rolled her eyes and assured him,
"It's no trouble, English. I wouldn't want to see any of your creatures get caught and destroyed by MACUSA."
"Sorry you can't do your little, uh, teleporting thing because of me," Kowalski added sheepishly.
"It wouldn't be a good idea considering what you've been through today," Newt admitted. "But it's no trouble. I'm glad to get to see more of New York. I've never been here before."
"Once this is all squared away, I'll show you the sights by daylight," Elvira added, her can tapping gently as she walked by Newt's side, Jacob leading the way.
"That would be lovely," Newt said, imagining wrapping up the last few of his creatures that had gone rogue and then spending the entire day strolling through New York City with Elvira at his side, showing him her little corner of the world. The only corner of the world she was allowed. Newt recalled the sight of the runes etched into her skin like inflamed wounds, glowing brilliant red, and felt sick once more.
In a quest for something lighter, he asked Kowalski, "Why did you decide to be a baker?"
Kowalski seemed a little surprised, but replied, "Well... because I'm dying in that canning factory. Everyone there's dying." He sighed. "It just crushes the life outta you. You like canned food?"
"No."
"Does anyone?" Elvira asked, one corner of her lip wrinkling up.
"That's why I want to make pastries, you know. It makes people happy," he grinned faintly and pointed, "Come on, we can go this way."
They darted across the street and Newt glanced uncertainly to the side at the sound of Elvira's uneven gate. She didn't seem to be struggling, but it had to be difficult for her to be walking this far especially after already being on her feet half the night behind the bar. But when his eyes flicked up, he saw her looking at him with an arched eyebrow, a knowing, challenging gleam in her eyes. Newt flushed, knowing he'd been caught out, and that she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"So did you get your loan?" Newt scrambled, and Elvira smothered a smile. It was sweet of him to worry after her, but he was clever enough to know she wouldn't have taken kindly to him fluttering over her and trying to tend to her like one of his freshly-hatched occamies.
"No," Kowalski scoffed. "I ain't got no collateral. Stayed in the army too long, apparently, I don't know." He threw up his hands irritably.
"You fought in the war?" Newt queried, and got a sideways look.
"Of course I fought in the war, everyone fought in the war. She probably fought in the war," Kowalski chuckled, gesturing to Elvira, who snickered. "Wait, you didn't fight in the war?"
"I worked mostly with dragons," Newt replied, and when Kowalski gave him yet another one of those staggered looks he'd been getting from the Muggle all night, Newt clarified, "Ukrainian Ironbellies, Eastern Front."
"English," Elvira said abruptly, catching his arm and pulling him to a stop. Newt looked back at her questioningly and she pointed at the ground in front of them, where small bits of crystal and brass fittings, looking like they'd been looted from an elaborate chandelier, littered the sidewalk. "You said your niffler likes sparkly things, correct?"
"He's here somewhere," Newt murmured, slowly creeping along the damp pavement, peering into the nooks and crannies of the shopfronts along the side of the road. "Or at least, he was."
It was Kowalski who spotted him, slowly raising a finger and pointing into the window of a jewelry store. "Uh, Newt?"
Perched on one of the display stands, an elaborately-jeweled necklace draped over its arm, stood the niffler. Elvira stared. The thing was about the size of a small melon and was stock-still, obviously trying to avoid being caught. Newt stared at the animal, thoroughly unimpressed, and as he did, the necklace slowly slipped off its outstretched arm, the sound of the jewelry clattering against the carved stand muffled through the glass.
The niffler snatched the necklace and darted out of the window display back into the depths of the store and Newt drew his wand.
"Finestra."
The glass dissolved into sand and Newt went flying inside, and Elvira saw what he meant about him being a bit clumsy, because she certainly could have thought of a better way to do this than what Newt was doing. He was yanking open drawers, trying to figure out where the creature had gotten to, when it climbed up his arm and used his shoulder to jump up onto a display on the counter. Newt jumped up onto the counter and made a swipe for the niffler. The little kleptomaniac leaped and caught the chandelier, and Newt, in a move Elvira was certain made perfect sense to him, did the same thing so that both of them were hanging from the slowly-revolving chandelier.
"Lord," Kowalski whimpered, looking up and down the street nervously, but the few pedestrians still out this late seemed to be too far down the road to notice them.
A moment later though, the chandelier ripped free from the ceiling under Newt's weight and there was an ungodly shattering and crashing sound that made Elvira wince and looked heavenward as man, niffler, and chandelier hit the ground in a heap.
As Newt continued to climb over and ruin the interior of the jewelry store, Elvira and Jacob both found their eyes drawn to his case, left sitting innocently on the sidewalk, as one clasp on it flicked open and a loud roar echoed from inside. Kowalski looked up at Elvira in horror.
"Uh...?" he asked nervously, and Elvira responded by flicking her wrist sharply and slamming the catch back into place from a distance. Kowalski breathed a sigh of relief, and at that moment Newt and the niffler crashed through the other window of the shop, the pair of them riding on top of an expensive wooden display case. The display case exploded on the ground, flinging rings and bracelets and necklaces in every direction. They both hit the ground and rolled, the niffler recovering faster and diving for the road, trying to make an escape.
"For the love of... accio!" Elvira barked, and the niffler scrambled at the asphalt for purchase as it was yanked backwards back into her waiting palm. Elvira wrapped her fingers tightly around the niffler's middle. It whined pitifully, looking up at her with big, sad eyes, and even sniffled a bit. "Oh no, don't even try that." The niffler whimpered again, clasping its hands together under its chin pleadingly and Elvira chortled.
"Oh, you're adorable, don't get me wrong, but I like your momma better." And with that, she turned and proudly presented Newt with her handful of thieving fur. "I believe this is yours?"
"Hands up!"
And, of course, that was how the police found them, fires squealing on the road as the police cars slammed to a stop and ordinary No-Maj cops flooded out arms with shotguns. Kowalski, with his hands in the air, Newt with one hand outstretched, Elvira holding the niffler out with her cane standing perfectly upright on the sidewalk where she'd left it, and all of them covered in jewelry.
"They went that way officer," Jacob offered, which would have been more convincing if a tennis bracelet hadn't chosen that moment to slide off his head and down the front of his face.
"What... is that thing?" as one of the cops uncertainly, looking at the niffler.
Kowalski took that moment to offer up a considerably more convincing distraction, pointing down the sidewalk. "Lion," he gulped, and it was made all the more convincing by the actual lion slowly prowling down the sidewalk like it belonged there.
"Well, that at least means we're on the right track," Elvira offered, and stretched out her hand. Her cane smacked into her palm, she turned and hooked her arms through Newt's and Jacob's, and then turned and stepped into nothingness.
They emerged in the open, snowy fields of Central Park, standing just on the opposite side of a small stone footbridge on the road leading to the zoo.
"Only place that lion could have come from is the zoo, and if it's loose I'm betting its because whatever of yours broke in there did a hell of a number on the place," Elvira guessed, pointing to the brick walls surrounding the place not far away. "Here's this, by the way," she said, and offered the niffler to Newt, who snatched it up and pointed a finger at it sternly.
"You and I are going to be having a conversation later," he informed the niffler, which slumped defeatedly in his grip and allowed itself to be replaced in the suitcase without much fuss.
Elvira, her attention caught by something shiny, reached out and plucked up a chain that was draped over Newt's shoulder. It was silver and dangling from it was a decent-sized ovular pendant, a black stone in the middle surrounded by concentric geometric designs made of tiny blue and yellow semi-precious gems. Newt turned around when he felt the tug at his collar and raised his eyebrows in shock when he saw her standing there, the necklace dangling off one finger pointedly.
"Souvenir?" she asked lightly, and Newt flushed.
"Er, a gift?" he offered weakly. "Thanks for continuing to exchange letters with a mess like me?" He offered a quick, hesitant grin and was pleased when Elvira chuckled and handed over the necklace obligingly, turning to present her back to him.
"You're sweet, though it wasn't exactly much of a burden on my part. Put it on me?"
Newt flushed, carefully undoing the clasp and fitting it around her throat, allowing himself a single moment to delight in how nice she smelled - cedar, hard liquor, and something electric, masculine scents, but it still made him feel light-headed - as he closed the clasp and let the pendant fall to hang against her chest. She turned and presented herself to him, looking down and trailing her fingers over the jewelry.
"You shouldn't have," she said coyly, and Elvira knew most people wouldn't have been pleased to be offered a necklace that was technically stolen property, but she wasn't one to be picky about that sort of thing. It certainly had a story behind it, and a funny memory besides, which made it an excellent gift in her opinion.
"Uh, I hate to interrupt," Jacob interjected, pointing in the direction of the zoo. "But I think there's an ostrich heading for us."
"Technically, that's an emu," Newt supplied as he nudged Elvira out of the way, Jacob plastering himself against the rail on the other side of the bridge. The emu raced past them, letting out a warbling cry as it went and flaring its wings.
"Your critters," Elvira supplied, forcing down the blush that had risen when she felt Newt's breath against the back of her throat and felt his fingers brush against the baby hairs at the nape of her neck. "We should..."
"We should," Newt agreed, and reached into his coat, pulling from a pocket a helmet that by all normal estimation should not have fit in such a small pocket, but magic covered many faults. He passed it to Jacob, urging him, "Put this on."
"Why would I have to wear something like this?" Jacob asked, looking understandably a bit nervous about being handed protective gear.
"Because your skull is susceptible to breakage under immense force," Newt supplied, and Elvira found herself rolling her eyes for the second time in ten minutes.
"English, we need to talk about your bedside manner after this is done."
It might have been difficult to get into the zoo. Understandably, the place was locked up tight after it closed for the day and all the workers went home. The goal was to prevent any of the animals from getting loose or someone coming in and stealing them.
However, when a massive hole had been broken through the side of the brick wall, all bets were off.
Newt pulled a padded chest protector from another improbably small pocket, shaking it out and pressing it into Kowalski's hand.
"Okay, if you just, pop this on."
"Okay," Kowalski said, looking like he wasn't about to refuse any sort of protective gear but also was really not okay with how much of the stuff he was being handed, and Elvira couldn't blame him.
"Now, there's absolutely nothing for you to worry about," Newt said, in complete odds with the way he was securely fastening the chest protector behind Jacob's back.
"Tell me, has anyone ever believed you when you told them not to worry?" Jacob asked sarcastically.
"My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice," Newt said, which again was probably not as supportive as he'd meant for it to be.
They stepped through the rubble, picking their way carefully over the scattered pieces of wall and bits of broken brick. There were several creatures still in cages looking incredibly put off by the massive erumpent that had broken in. The erumpent had corner in its enclosed a male hippopotamus. Elvira had never realized that an erumpent could look terrified, but this one was somehow managing it.
"She's in season," Newt explained, digging in his pocket and pulling out a vial. He pulled the stopped out with his teeth and spat it aside, dabbing a bit of whatever was in the bottle on his wrists. "She needs to mate. Erumpent musk," he added at seeing Jacob's confused look. "She is mad for it." He passed the bottle to Jacob to hold and added, "Er, might want to stay back for this bit..."
Elvira stared as Newt stepped out into the open walkways, placing his suitcase on the ground and lifting the lid. What followed was perhaps the most simultaneously hilarious, adorable, and downright shameless thing she had ever seen as Newt offered up his erumpent musk-covered wrists and performed a mating dance. It came complete with grunts, snorts, and moans, and involved him taking huge, stomping steps, tossing his head, even flipping back the tail of his coat and presenting his backside to the intrigued erumpent. Finally, he dropped to the ground and rolled, hopping up and looking at the erumpent expectantly. The erumpent hit her knees with a thud that shook the entire zoo and began to roll towards the case.
"Good girl… Come on, into the case," Newt urged quietly.
"I am going to tease him mercilessly for this," Elvira breathed, and staggered into Kowalski as something suddenly struck her on the head. "What the hell?" she cried, quite a bit louder than she meant to, and the faint shattering sound made her freeze in horror.
Slowly, she and Jacob mad eye contact, and both their gazes dropped to the shattered bottle of erumpent musk soaking into the snow between their feet. Both of them slowly looked up, locking eyes with the other.
"Oh no," Jacob whimpered, and they slowly turned to look at the erumpent, who was on her feet and staring at the both of them with hearts in her eyes. Behind them, a seal apparently sensed the mood. It gave a nervous bark before turning and fleeing the scene as fast as its flippers could carry it.
"Abigail Williams," Elvira swore, and dove to the side, landing painfully in a pile of bricks as the erumpent charged. She winced, feeling the broken edges tear into the sensitive skin of her palms, and her bad leg throbbed badly as she caught the corner of a piece of rubble with her kneecap. The erumpent thundered past her, shaking the ground and sending the bricks shifting under her as she tried to rise. Gasping in pain, she scrambled to flip over and try to make sense of where everyone had gone, only to see the remains of the wall giving up the ghost after that last pass from the erumpent.
Elvira cried out, making a quick seal with her hands, and throwing her palm forward. The bricks caught themselves midair and began to slowly fit themselves back into place, glowing with a pinkish energy that matched what was around her hands.
Newt rushed to her side, taking her elbow and gently lifting her to her feet. "Are you alright?" he asked, unable to quite put into words the sheer amount of terror that had flooded him upon seeing Elvira almost squashed under the falling bricks. His heart was still going a mile a minute as he ran his hands all over her, for once putting his own nerves aside in favor of making sure nothing was wrong with her, not even a hangnail.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Elvira assured him, although that was a lie. She was going to be feeling that crash-landing onto bricks tomorrow unless she managed to get a healthy does of muscle relaxer and anti-inflammatory potions in her before the night was over. "Don't worry about me."
"You were almost crush under falling bricks, I feel that's a very valid reason to worry over someone you care about," Newt responded snappishly, his own nerves making him short, and there was a heavy moment between the two of them as Newt realized his hands were on her cheeks, turning her face up to his to examine her for any cuts or bruises there, and Elvira had one hand hooked over his elbow to balance on the rubble underneath her.
"Newt!" Kowalski yelled from outside the zoo, and the pair of them jumped, scrambling out through the rapidly-closing hole in the brick wall, Elvira's spell piecing the whole thing back together slowly in their wake.
Jacob had, somehow, managed to climb up a bare-branched tree that looked like it was half dead. He was dangling upside down from a branch while the female erumpent pranced with surprising lightness for a creature its size, looking eager. The base of the tree trunk was bubbling ominously, slowly expanding as a glow built within the depths of the aged wood.
"Oh, that's extremely very not good," Elvira said faintly.
The base of the tree exploded, sending the trunk toppling. Kowalski hit the snow and rolled as the erumpent gave a triumphant bugle and began to rush at him again. Jacob scrambled to his feet with a cry and staggered out onto the iced-over river that cut through the park. He slipped and slid but was at least doing better than the erumpent, who almost immediately started skidding out of control.
"I'll get Kowalski, you get the erumpent?" Elvira suggested, and Newt nodded.
"Sounds reasonable."
They moved, Elvira turning on the spot and vanishing, reappearing out on the ice and seizing Jacob by the arm, turning into and stepping into nothingness once more. They reappeared on the bridge as the erumpent gave a confused bugle and then a disappointed one as Newt slid onto the ice on his knees, the suitcase open and slowly sucking the massive creature in, something that was roughly the size of two tanks squeezing tinier and tinier until it vanished and Newt closed the case with a sharp snap. He remained kneeling on the ice, panting.
"Come on, let's get down there," Elvira urged, tugging at Jacob's arm. Together they moved to the snowy bank of the river and picked their way out across the ice, using the base of the bridge for support as they edged out. Newt met them at the base of the support, lowering his suitcase to the ground and lifting the latch. He shimmied down the ladder, keen on checking to see if there were any more animals out of place and making sure the erumpent made it back from her escapades unscathed. Jacob gave Elvira a look reminiscent of one a weary parent might give another parent with a particularly hard-to-control child before descending as well. Elvira chuckled, nudging the suitcase a bit so that it was more in the shadow of the stonework before stepping inside herself.
Again, Newt took her hand and helped her down, and this time Elvira appreciated the gesture. Her knee was throbbing and going by the reddish stain on the front of her trousers she was fairly certain that there was a cut under the fabric.
"Jacob, would you mind going and making sure the niffler is where he's meant to be?" Newt requested. "You can't miss his nest."
Jacob paused in lifting off the chest protector. "Am I gonna need this?"
"No, no, of course not," Newt assured him, and Jacob gave him a suspicious look but nevertheless took it the rest of the way off and hung it on the coatrack next to Newt's overcoat before moving out of the shed that served as Newt's base of operations and back into the sea of habitats and enclosures.
Newt gestured to the stain on Elvira's leg and asked, "Would you like me to take a look at it?"
Elvira nodded. "If you wouldn't mind. And I wouldn't mind a dose of pain-relief, if you've got it."
"Oh, ah..." Newt immediately turned and began to fumble through the various bottles and vials lining one of his many cabinets, filtering through a range of healing potions before finding what she requested. He turned to find Elvira sitting on his countertop, a few books slid aside to make room for her. Newt cleared his throat and offered her the potion. She took it and popped the cork out easily, downing the dose like a shot and making a face as she did.
"Won't do much," she judged, "but it'll keep the worst of it down until we get done hunting your little friends the length and breadth of the city."
"Won't do much?" Newt asked blankly as he hooked a stool with his foot and pulled it over to where Elvira was sitting. He settled himself down, gently lifting her foot up and setting it on his thigh so that he could get a good look at what he was dealing with. Newt reached up to the hem of her trousers and paused as he realized he'd just managed to get himself an up-close peek at her leg, something he hadn't exactly been looking for but also wasn't terribly upset about. He looked up at her, torn between apologizing and trying to play it off as nothing. Of course, he got to look at ladies' legs all the time.
"You can build up a resistance to pain reliever, and I used to down it like candy when I first got back," Elvira explain, looking a bit irritable at the memory. "It was stupid, I knew it was dangerous to take it like I was, but I didn't care. I was having a whole cocktail of potions when I woke up and before I went to bed back then. Iliana was furious, she finally tossed out all my potions and refused to brew me anymore until I took a good, hard look at what I was doing to myself."
Newt swallowed thickly. He knew of a few people who had dealt with potion addiction in the past, but they were always whispered about derisively. People thought it showed some great flaw in a person's character to become dependent on a potion to get through the day, but Newt had never quite understood that. If a person was hurting, really hurting, was it surprising that they would want relief? And was it not completely understandable that they might soon develop a fear of going back to what they were without that blanket.
"Is it... safe for you to take that?" Newt asked awkwardly, knowing there was some sort of social line he wasn't supposed to cross here but not knowing precisely where it was here.
Elvira chuckled. "Yes, I'm fine. I broke myself of the habit. Now I only take it if it's been a particularly rough day."
"Ah yes." Newt winced. "I am sorry about that, Elvira, truly."
She shrugged. "Don't be, English. I'm not." She smiled at him crookedly, but her expression was soft despite what should have been by most normal reckoning a teasing sort of look. "I got to run around the city, doing the sort of work I used to do with my father. I met Jacob, who's a delight, got this lovely necklace..." She touched the pendant and offered him a wink. "And to top it all off, I got to spend the entire evening with you, so all in all, I say its one of my best days in a while."
Newt flushed, not quite sure how to respond to that. So many people would have been furious if he had crashed into their lives dragging all of this behind him. She should have been furious too, but Elvira just kept smiling and teasing him and calling him 'English' and being amazingly resistant to any sort of stress or anger over the whole affair. He didn't know how to say that for all he was worried about his creatures, he was also having the time of his life spending his night in her and Jacob's company without sounding like a complete and utter sap, and so he busied himself with the injury he was supposed to have been addressing all along.
Newt began to pull up the leg of her trousers, admiring the intricate lines of sewing up the side of her boot that kept the leather stiff all the way to the top. Above it, he could see the top of her sock, a deceptively dainty scrap of fabric edged in lace, held up with a garter, and somehow he wasn't even remotely surprised. Her entire wardrobe seemed to skew towards the masculine, but the clean lines and tailored cut fit her more flatteringly than he suspected the drop-waisted fashion of the day could ever have managed.
Above that was smooth, silky-looking skin and Newt barely managed to restrain the urge to do what he usually did when confronted with something new and fascinating, which was reach out and run his hand over it. Elvira might be fond of him, but he was fairly confident something like that would get him kicked clean off his stool. He saw the long, raised edges of the puckered pink scars running here and there across her leg, a remnant of the No-Maj surgery that had been performed to patch her leg up. They looked angry, and one such cut was bisected right at the base of her kneecap by a long gash that was starting to clot, bruises already forming around the edges.
"It doesn't look too bad," Newt assured her, raising his wand. He cast a quick spell to clean out the injury of any debris - bits of grit or random loose bits of lint from her pants - and sealed the gash with a quick spell. That done, a third spell flashed at the tip of his wand and the bruising began to slowly fade as the blood beneath the skin was reabsorbed into capillaries.
Elvira breathed a sigh of relief, steadfastly ignoring the way she was blushing bright red. It wasn't as if this bit of her wouldn't have been display under a layer of sheer hose if she had been wearing a dress, but it was very different when Newt was right in front of her and staring intently at her legs, a feature of hers that she'd actually been very proud of before one of them was blown to bits. "That's a relief. Could you do my palms?" she requested.
The seat of the stool Newt was perched on was long and thin, made to slid easily under the counter, and so she placed her feet up on either side of Newt's hips to keep her balance as she offered up her skinned hands. Newt reached up, taking first her left hand in his, and cast a quick series of spells to clean them out and fix the gashes, doing the same to the right.
With that done, they were both left with the realization that Newt was perched between her legs and holding her hands with their faces barely two feet apart as Elvira watched him work. Both of their faces burned bright red. Elvira knew she needed to do something about this soon; whether it was getting some breathing room from Newt to get her head back on straight or simply grabbing him by the lapels of his stupidly blue coat and planting one on him was yet to be seen. For his part, Newt was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do in a situation like this, because his heart was eagerly urging him to kiss her and his head was screaming frantically that was a weird thing to do after almost being trampled by an erumpent and his gut was tying itself in knots over the whole thing.
"There's something I want to show you!" he exclaimed, although it came out a bit more like a yelp. He stood up sharply, the stool sliding out from him with the force, and summarily taking Elvira's balance with him. She cried out as she pitched forward, reaching up and grabbing onto Newt's shoulders to keep from faceplanting on the wooden floor. Newt grabbed her waist instinctively to help stabilize her. Slowly, Elvira eased her hips off the edge of the counter, placing her feet flat on the ground, her boots in between Newt's. His hands were still on her waist and they were nearly chest to chest. If there was ever a moment, this was it, but when she looked up, Newt looked... well, the best word for it would have been terrified.
Elvira sighed and lifted her hands away from him. It wasn't exactly a flattering expression to see on his face, but he clearly wasn't quite as ready to jump her as she was with him, and she didn't like the idea of making him any more uncomfortable with the situation than he already seemed to be. Newt whipped his hands back, looking like he'd been caught in the cookie jar.
"You said you had something to show me?" Elvira murmured, and Newt nodded mechanically.
"Oh, ah, yes." His voice was strained and he knew it but he wasn't quite sure how to fix his damned anxiety around this woman. He could not for the life of him find a solid answer on whether or not she would welcome any kind of advance from him, and he had never been more angry at himself for his inability to read social cues like a normal human being. "This way."
It was a grim change of subject compared to what they'd been up to a moment before, Newt knew that, but he also needed her to see it. He could already feel the earlier warmth that had filled him at being so close to her leeching away as they approached the arctic enclosure, a few snowflakes drifting out from the flapping tarp that covered the entrance.
"If you have an abominable snowman in there," she said teasingly, and Newt chuckled weakly.
"No, it's nothing like that. I'm afraid it's rather more... well," he finished sorrowfully, reaching up and pulling back the curtain, lowering his gaze in shame.
Elvira's eyes widened. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. She'd felt the strength of the cooling charms and seen the snow before Newt had even pulled back the curtain. Maybe an arctic jackalope, or something a bit more dangerous than an antlered rabbit.
What she wasn't expecting was to see a mass of writhing, pulsing, oozing black smoke trapped in an orb shape by a strong magical barrier, hovering in the middle of the habitat. Elvira took a sharp step back, her heart hammering as the vision of grey veins slowly creeping across Ellis's screaming form flashed behind her eyes. She had only seem something like that once before and it had certainly not been as contained as this, but there was no doubt what it was.
"Sweet Sayre," Elvira whispered. "Newt did you... is that?"
"The ritual worked, in a way," Newt explained quietly, looking at the rising mass. "I was able to separate the Obscurus from the girl, but she died. I have no idea if she had just been drained by that point or if it was the Obscurus leaving her body that killed her. The ritual might not have been anything more than an elaborate and complicated way to kill an Obscurial. I might have..." His voice cracked and he trailed off.
"Newt," Elvira whispered, and Newt was sharply aware that this was the first time she had directly addressed him as such instead of English. She reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "You said yourself, the girl was sedated when you arrived to keep the Obscurus from escaping. It's very possible that she was simply... already gone," she finished lamely. "Even before you got there. You can't blame yourself."
Newt shook his head. "But if there is one here in New York-"
"Then we will try again, and hopefully this time it will work," she assured him. "That's all we can do. It's not as if an answer will simply fall out of the sky, and it's a damn sight more than the Aurors would try to do."
Elvira bit her lip. She had not told him about the Barebones, about the family she was certain was playing host to the Obscurus if there was one. The Barebone family was the perfect storm for the formation of such a creature, but if that was the case, then she was already well-placed to do something about it through Iliana's connection with Credence. It made her feel guilty, to think of it like that, and she fully intended to try the ritual, but New York City was not a random village in the Sudan. The casualties an Obscurus could cause in place like Manhattan could be staggering. Something would have to be done, whether it was fair or not.
She was just praying it wouldn't come to that. Looking at Newt, she didn't know if he could handle losing another child to its Obscurus.
Tina wasn't certain what she was doing, it was all so messy and convoluted. A man with a suitcase full of monsters, a No-Maj with a nasty bite from one of apparently several escaped creatures that was running around unObliviated and as if it weren't already mad enough, apparently there was a connection to the Cactus Cat and Elvira Blödgarmr.
Tina remembered the day she saw Elvira climb off that boat. She had only been a junior Auror then. Catching the witches and wizards trying to sneak off to Europe to get involved in a conflict they were supposed to stay out of was something like grunt work back then - long hours standing on the docks waiting for someone suspicious, chasing down leads that were often nothing, and
It had been a big day when she heard that they had found the name Elvira Blödgarmr on a passenger list. She'd never met a member from the eccentric family before, and the Aurors had been laughing and cutting up the entire time, talking about how batty and out of their minds they were. They had laughed about how she'd managed to get out of the country scot free, only to get caught coming home, and didn't that just fall right in line with the ridiculous things that family seemed to get into? Tina had joined in with the mocking, thinking it would help her bond with the Aurors. She'd never met a Blödgarmr before, she had no reason to think they were any less insane than she'd always heard they were.
But when Elvira had stepped off the boat, she had been thin and obviously underfed. Her hair was lank and there was a haunted look in her eyes. She was on crutches, a thick wrapping of bandages visible under her skirt around one leg. Any kind of movement seemed to cause her pain. She seemed barely capable of shouldering her tiny pack of possessions, but she was still managing - painfully slowly - to hobble herself down the gangway.
The Aurors had descended on her the moment her feet hit the ground, spiriting her into an unused waiting room and warding the door. Tina remembered Elvira's head snapping up, eyes widening in horror as she saw that she was surrounded. One of the Aurors had grabbed her, a fellow who had moved to stand behind her. Something slipped behind Elvira's eyes and it was like all of her pain had just been shrugged off in favor of mind-numbing terror. A wave of power had ripped off of her, throwing the Aurors off of her as she broke for the door. A few had gotten up, fired spells at her, but she turned and yelled something and the spells stopped in midair and reversed exactly, striking their casters in the face.
It was Tina, sprawled on the floor with a chair half on top of her, that managed to make the shot to her ankle that took her down, and once she was on her knees if was over. Tina had never been looked at with such outright hate as she was at the moment when Elvira lifted her head and saw who had stopped her escape. Tina was commended for her quick action, it had made her a little bit of a celebrity within the office for a while and gotten her a few juicy cases that had helped jump-start her career. But sometimes, when she was lying awake at night and thinking of the cases she hadn't been able to solve, she could hear Elvira Blödgarmr screaming as the runes were cursed into her flesh.
She knew what would happen when she turned them in. Elvira, with her track record, connected with something like this? She would be sentenced to death. And she should be, she broke the law in a hundred different ways and took delight in dancing around any and all charges they tried to throw at her. Now, she went and got herself mixed up in creatures, in whatever it was that was running around and terrorizing Manhattan and sucking the life out of people? She should have known better, she should have been smarter than that. It was a vicious, terrible thing to be involved in, something that had to be stopped before the Statute of Secrecy went up in flames.
And yet, Tina knew in her heart of hearts that Elvira was a good person. That Newt fellow seemed alright too. Even the No-Maj had been decent when he wasn't drooling on himself.
But her career was in shambles after the Barebones incident, and maybe, just maybe, if she got this right, she'd be able to bring herself back from the brink. She didn't even care if she lost her status and was a junior Auror once more, anything was better than Wand Registry, and she was young, she had time to build herself back up. Being an Auror was all she knew, it was all she was good at. She was dying in Wand Registry and this smoke monster thing was threatening to blow the lid of the biggest secret in the magical community - that it existed at all. It had to be stopped, and if she was the one to do it, there was no way she wouldn't be returned to where she belonged, a full Auror once more. Once again bringing down Elvira Blödgarmr would just be the cherry on top.