The thudding echoed loudly through the case, and Elvira looked around curiously. "Is that... one of your creatures?" she asked uncertainly, and Newt shook his head.
"Hey Newt, you're hearing that too right?" Jacob asked, appearing from around the edge of another habitat. Newt hastily let the tarp concealing the Obscurus fall back into place. "I didn't just take one too many hints from the erumpent thing?"
"No," Newt said slowly, looking up. "I believe someone is knocking on the case."
Elvira stared at him blankly. "Knocking on the-?"
"Well, what do we do?" Jacob asked, looking up nervously, as if at any moent the whole roof might rip off the place.
"I believe the polite thing would be to see what they want," Newt noted, which sounded a bit ridiculous to Elvira but he would know better than she would, after all. Moving together back into the shed, Newt started up the stairs, lifting the small trapdoor that led out into the world beyond the suitcase. Jacob went next and Elvira, still favoring her leg, followed him out last.
The room they were in was lined on two sides by tiered aisles of seats, where dignitaries from all over the world stood and stared at them incredulously. The seal on the wall at the front of the room and the woman in glittering robes standing below it made it clear that they were in the midst of the MACUSA, and the reason why was obvious as Elvira's eyes landed hatefully on Tina Goldstein, shrinking under the stare of everyone in the room.
"Oh Tina..." Elvira breathed. "You're gonna pay for this one."
"Scamander?" asked a voice incredulously, and Newt winced.
"Hello, Minister," he said weakly.
"Theseus Scamander? The war hero?" someone queried, and Elvira looked at Newt curiously. He'd never mentioned his brother was a war hero, only that he was a rather dry fellow.
"No, this is his little brother," the British Minister corrected. "And what are you doing in New York?"
"I came to buy an Appaloosa Puffskein, sir," Newt said swiftly, but it was such a ridiculous thing to say that he was trailing off even before he'd finished his sentence.
"Right," the British Minister said skeptically. "What are you really doing here?"
"He was meeting me," Elvira said, stepping forward and giving Tina one last glare before addressing the room at large. "We started consulting by owl on a case he came across while travelling and, when we hit it off, he was kind enough to come and see me. You know, seeing as I can't travel," she said, giving Picquery a spiteful stare.
"Elvira Blödgarmr," Picquery said slowly, narrowing her eyes. "Why am I not surprised to see you tangled up in this?"
"Probably because you like to blame me whenever anything even mildly magically inconvenient happens in this godforsaken city," Elvira replied sharply.
"Blödgarmr?" repeated a voice with a thick German accent. A man in one of the upper tiers around the room moved forward. "Elvira Blödgarmr you said?" The speaker was a man in a suit and sash, both studded with medals and pins denoting various honors and positions within the German magical government. "I know of you. My nephew, Nils Turnau… you saved his life!"
Elvira paused. She remembered Nils, another of the Irregular Medics who had been assigned to her squad. He had talked often about how his family wanted him to stay out of the war for fear of causing political scandal. Soldiering was for poor families, not for families that had boasted three German Ministers in the past few centuries, Nils had recited bitterly more than once when he explained that the only way he was going to be able to fight in the war was under the table.
"He has asked you to visit so many times," the German Minister continued. "You haf never responded, he says."
"Ask Madam President why that is," Elvira said, staring down the president, who opened her mouth and cut her off sharply. She was very well aware that Elvira had made contact with influential people while overseas. She knew that it was very possible that Elvira's sentence could create a small international scandal when it was discovered that one of the Irregular Medics - a group every European country supported with various degrees of openness - had been sentenced as she had when she returned from the war.
"Goldstein, who is this?" Picquery barked, gesturing to Jacob.
"This is Jacob Kowalski, Madam President, he's a No-Maj who got bitten by one of Mr. Scamander's creatures," Tina said in a rush.
"No-Maj?"
"Obliviate him!"
Newt stepped forward, laying his hand on Elvira's arm. She glanced at him. Her attention had been grabbed instantly by President Seraphina Picquery, the woman who had personally handed down her sentence and who she hated more than she hated almost anyone in the world. but now she followed Newt's gaze to the image floating in th eair in the middle of the room, of a man on the floor, dead. Greyish, cracking veins covered what was visible of his skin under his nice suit and Elvira's stomach dropped.
"Merlin's beard," Newt whispered, clearly having come to the same conclusion we had.
"You know which of your creatures was responsible, Mr. Scamander?" asked one of the Chinese delegates.
"No creature did this."'
"Don't pretend," Newt murmured. "You must know what that was, look at the marks… That was an Obscurus."
The series of whispers that raced around the room was predictable, and President Picquery took a deep breath, eyes burning with rage at the mere suggestion of such a thing within her country. "You go too far, Mr. Scamander. There is no Obscurial in America."
"Bullshit!" Elvira shrieked, thrusting a finger damningly in the president's face. Newt grabbed her arm, trying to hold her back, but she ignored him.
She was fully aware of what was about to happen. She already had a record with MACUSA and they would have absolutely no compunctions about sentencing her to death for her 'involvement' in this. Especially since Newt had dared to suggest such a silly thing as an Obscurial loose in the saintedly perfect country that the MACUSA controlled with an iron first. She was going to die, perhaps not today, but soon, for getting to know Newt and getting involved in his hunt for his loose monsters and for being a member of a family that the country had decided long ago to demonize, and if that was her fate, then be damned if she was going to go quietly.
"Thomas Crane!" Elvira roared. "He was an Obscurial in Utah! I went out there with two wizards because none of the Aurors in the area could be bothered to check out all the strange things happening in that town because there was no magical community nearby to be affected. And you know what we found? An Obscurial! I watched it lift my friend in the air and start to drain the life out of him! I fought the damn thing until it was dead and when the Aurors showed up they said the same damn thing. There hasn't been an Obscurus in American in a hundred years!" She made her voice high and mocking. "Well there has been, and maybe if you weren't so damn concerned with tracking down werewolves and vampires who are just trying to live their lives you'd have a fucking clue what goes on in your country, esteemed Madam President - mph!"
Elvira was jerked backwards as Picquery drew her wand and flicked it. A gag slammed into place over her mouth with enough force to send her toppling to the ground. Newt, reacting quickly, only barely managed to catch her before her head made contact with the marble. He looked up at the president incredulously as Elvira frantically tried to remove the gag, but it was stuck fast across her mouth.
"Impound that case, Graves!" Picquery ordered, and Newt jumped as the suitcase whizzed from behind him and to the side of one Percival Graves.
"Wait. No. Give that back!"
"Arrest them!"
Graves raised his hand and as Newt fumbled for his wand it was ripped from him. He, Tina, and Jacob were dragged to their knees on the ground beside Elvira, who was forced upright into the same position, her mouth still covered and muffling her shrieks of outrage and pain.
"Don't hurt those creatures! Please, you don't understand, nothing in there is dangerous, nothing!"
In all the commotion, Elvira closed her eyes, concentrating hard. She didn't need to say the spell, she didn't need to wave a wand, but she did need her focus to be strong, and if she could just get her fingers to unclench... There!
A figure made of golden light, an indistinct shape of a small figure, burst from her palm and tore from the meeting room faster than anyone could react, faster than they could stop it.
"What was that?" Graves barked at her, and Elvira couldn't verbally respond, but her expression spoke volumes.
"Would you like to know?"
And with that, the four of them were hauled from the room with Newt screaming the whole way, "Don't hurt those creatures, nothing in there is dangerous! Please, don't hurt my creatures! They aren't dangerous! Please, they are not dangerous! They are not dangerous!"
Iliana was worried. Elvira had left her a note saying they were going out to recover a few of Mr. Scamander's creatures that had gotten loose from his suitcase, but as good as Elvira was with creatures and as well as she knew the city, it shouldn't have taken this long. Certainly not this long without any kind of word. She'd already hung up a sign on the door of the Cactus Cat saying that they were closed indefinitely due to unforeseen circumstances and raised any and all wards around the place she could without Elvira there to help.
Now she was stuck, because she didn't know what to do. She had no idea where her sister had gotten off to and she wasn't any good at the sort of scrying spells she'd need to find her. Her mind was too consumed to focus on her research or lose herself in a project. Part of her wanted to go to Credence, but it was too dangerous in daylight and besides, it hadn't been long enough. To run to him after her self-imposed break between them, her heart full of fear for her sister's sake, didn't seem fair to him. That left her sitting on the couch, running her fingers over the fabric of her skirt absently to give her hands something to do.
At that moment, the front door suddenly blazed with light and a figure composed of pure sunbeams filtered around the edges before consolidating into a thin, sprightly form that settled itself on the coffee table in front of Iliana. It was a communication method, something they used to send out an SOS, and her heart tightened in fear no matter how innocent the figure looked.
It spoke in a light, tinkling tone that sounded nothing like her sister, but the words were hers. "Captured by Goldstein. Newt's creatures blamed for Obscurial attacks. Imprisoned in cells. I love you."
"No..." Iliana breathed as the figure dissolved into flickers of light and vanished into nothingness. I love you... that sounded far too much like goodbye, and if MACUSA was finally able to get their hands on Elvira for something, especially something as serious as this, as dead No-Majs… there was really only one thing left that they could do to her.
Iliana narrowed her eyes, and as she did, fire rolled from her shoulders and down to her hands, burning fingerprints into the cushion her fingers were locked around.
"No," she said, and this time it was a statement. This was not going to happen. She wouldn't allow it.
"Hold on, I'm sorry, I've almost got it," Newt said apologetically as he began to pry the gag off the skin at the corner of Elvira's mouth. The whole lower half of her face was red from where the gag had pressed tightly to her skin and there were dents in her cheeks that looked deep enough to bruise. He hated it, hated that this was how Elvira was treated by her own country's leader. Admittedly, she shouldn't have gone off like that in front of delegates from a dozen magical governments, but nothing she had said had been incorrect, and President Picquery had just shut her down.
"Got it!" Newt said triumphantly, the bit of fabric going limp in his fingers as it was finally removed from her and then vanishing in a small puff of smoke.
"You shouldn't have yelled at Madam Picquery like that," Tina said woodenly from her post, wisely in the corner of the cell farthest from where Elvira stood.
Elvira glared and tucked her feet under her. Newt jumped to her side, taking her elbow and helping to guide her to her feet. But the moment she was upright, she stormed across the cell. Tina was a full four inches taller than Elvira, but she was left cringing into the corner of the cell under the force of the glare Elvira levelled her way. Her hands slammed into the bars on either side of Tina, caging her in.
"Why is it," she hissed "that whenever my life falls apart you're the one standing there, Goldstein? When I get off that ship, you're there, and when I try to run from the Aurors, you're the one who takes me down! A muscle shredding hex straight to my bad leg, real classy." Newt's mouth dropped open and he looked up at Tina in horror as he realized exactly why Elvira seemed to hate this particular Auror so much. He'd seen enough to realize that Elvira was a terrifyingly capable witch. He suspected she probably could have escaped a few Aurors back then, had Tina not acted as she did. "And here I thought, when you apologized after my trial, 'maybe she's a decent Auror, maybe she's just one of those who can't fathom the idea of MACUSA making a mistake.' I had to watch you come into my bar every few months on Auror raids to try and bring me up on charges for anything. But no, you're not even an Auror anymore, and you continue to stick your nose in places it doesn't belong!"
"Elvira!" Newt called out worriedly, because she looked very close to doing something violent to Tina, and he almost didn't blame her. He couldn't imagine what he would do if he was in her position and he was faced with the person who had trapped him in that situation once again getting him tossed in a cell. Her face snapped to him, loose hairs frizzed wildly around her face, and he could have sworn he saw a snap of magical sparks among the flyaway strands. The look she pinned him with made his blood run cold and he was made suddenly very aware of the fact that this was a woman no person in their right mind should ever cross. Elvira looked ready to kill Tina with her bare hands.
But the minute her eyes landed on him, her expression softened, and something like shame flashed behind her eyes for a moment before being washed away. Newt stretched out his hand, approaching her slowly, as if she were one of his creatures who had been frightened by a loud noise. "It's not worth it, you'll only get yourself into more trouble."
Elvira offered him a faint, sad smile. "You don't understand, do you English? I was warned last time. Next time they caught me in something illegal, it would be the maximum sentence." Newt's mouth dropped open. "They're going to kill me for this."
There was a ringing silence in the cells as Newt stared in horror at the woman in front of him. He had just met her, but already she seemed so vibrant, so much larger than life, and the idea that she might no longer be in the world was... impossible. How could MACUSA do something like this?
"W-What?" Jacob asked faintly. "They're gonna... Aw geez... Ellie..."
Elvira offered Jacob a reassuring glance. "Don't worry, Jacob. They wont hurt you. They'll Obliviate you - take away your memories of all of this - and then they'll return you to your old life. Newt..." Her eyes flicked to him. "I... I honestly don't know what will happen to you but your creatures... I'm so sorry..." she shook her head pitifully, and Newt felt his stomach drop.
The niffler, who he'd just spent the majority of the past few days berating for creeping off and getting into trouble. The occamies, they'd just come into this world, and now they were going to be extinguished. Dougal, he was such a kind, passive creature, he'd never done a bit of harm to anybody. And poor Pickett and his siblings, what would become of them? Would they be lit on fire along with their tree? The graphorns, with them gone the species would be lost forever, and that was a massive tragedy.
"I never meant for this to happen," Tina whispered from behind Elvira, and her reaction was immediate. Elvira whipped around on the hell of her good foot and her fist slammed home in Tina's right eye. The woman's head snapped back into the cell bars behind her, letting out a loud clang. She slid down to the ground, clutching her face and moaning in pain.
"The next time, think about someone other than yourself before you do something," Elvira said coldly. "I know it'll be a bit difficult for you, but do make an effort."
"Feel better?" Newt asked her, unable to keep a bit of rebuke out of his voice as he did. He didn't necessarily approve of violence, but there was no denying the way some of the tension leeched from Elvira's shoulders the moment she threw that punch.
"Actually, yes," she said absently as she shook her hand gently, blowing across her knuckles to take the sting out. "I've been wanting to do that for almost a decade."
"Glad I could help," Tina grunted from the floor, her eye already swelling.
"Hey, if that was some fella who did that to me, I'd have done the same thing," Jacob assured her, giving Tina a nervous look where she was slowly picking herself up off the floor, wincing as she did.
There was a long stretch of quiet as Elvira moved back to Newt's side of the cell, pressing her back against the wall and letting her head fall forward, her hand coming up to brace her forehead wearily. She let out a long breath, and Newt thought he picked out the words, "Least Annie will know..." mixed in. He remembered the burst of light she'd let off the moment before they were taken and guessed that had been some kind of message sent to her sister, perhaps a variation on a Patronus, and then he realized with yet another stone settling in his stomach that Iliana was about to be without family.
"This is all my fault," Newt whispered in horror. "If I hadn't come to you..."
Elvira's head snapped up and she pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare. "Don't you dare, English. I'm a big girl, I make my own decisions. I knew the risks when I ran along with you. I... I could have been smart and stayed home, but I didn't," she said, voice rich with self-recrimination. "And now Iliana, she'll be alone, and with this whole Obscurus mess..."
"Can someone please tell me what this Obscurial… Obscurius thing is?" Jacob asked faintly. "Please?"
"There hasn't been one for centuries," Tina recited, drawing another glare from Elvira.
"There was one in Utah that I saw when I was about fifteen." Newt jerked. He hadn't realized she'd been that young.
"I met one in Sudan three months ago.," he added. "There used to be more of them but they still exist."
Elvira sighed. "Before wizards went underground, when we were still being hunted by Muggles, young wizards and witches sometimes tried to suppress their magic to avoid persecution. Instead of learning to harness or to control their powers, they developed what was called an Obscurus. It's an unstable, uncontrollable Dark force that busts out and attacks… and then vanishes."
"Obscurials can't survive long, can they?" Tina recalled.
"There's no documented case of any Obscurial surviving past the age of ten. The one I met in Africa was eight when she…" Newt swallowed thickly. "She was eight when she died."
"What are you telling me here..." Jacob looked horrified."That Senator Shaw was killed... by a kid?"
"Yes," Elvira said sorrowfully, leaning back against the cell bars and bracing herself. "And I think I know who?"
"You do?" Newt asked in shock, because in all the time they'd discussed it she'd never mentioned that she had a theory about who the Obscurial was. "Who? How?"
"The Second Salemers, that anti-magic group that's been raising a fuss? Mary Lou Barebone, their leader, has three orphans she took in. I suspect they all were magical, perhaps No-Maj-born, that she took upon herself to beat the magic out of. I know one of the children, at least, he has magic."
"Wait..." Tina said slowly, and comprehension washed across her face. "Credence Barebone? He has magic? That's who... Your sister, she came to ask me about a No-Maj-bron boy who never made it to Ilvermorny. That's who she meant?"
"What do you know about it?" Elvira snapped. "I thought the official MACUSA line was just to ignore the crazy No-Majs?"
Tina's expression hardened. "Do you know how I lost my job in the Auror's Office?"
"No, frankly I was just pleased you had, I didn't much care about the details," Elvira replied bluntly.
"It was because I took after Mary Lou Barebone when I tried to infiltrate their church and found her beating that poor boy's back bloody!" Tina said hotly. "I attacked a No-Maj with magic and that was what got me booted to Wand Registry."
Elvira's face went flat and it was clear she was pleased by what Tina had done, and was angry about the fact that she was left to support something the woman had done. Her mouth tightened and her jaw clenched. "He has magic. Iliana has been... seeing him?" she said uncertainly. "She realized, she's been teaching him in secret. His sister, Modesty, she'd be about the right age, wouldn't she?" and this time she looked to Tina questioningly, the only other person in the cell who had any idea about the family.
"She can't be more than seven or eight," Tina agreed. "She'd be... be close to... Well, she'd be dangerously unstable by now." She was clearly unable to talk about such a young girl dying.
"Great," Elvira muttered, and flexed her fingers experimentally towards the cell doors. She cringed as a sharp red light flashed and yanked her hand back. "And there's no way for me to warn Iliana to be careful around the girl."
Queenie Goldstein didn't know much about the Blödgarmr family, but she had heard Tina's stories of them over the years, from her sister's capture of Elvira Blögarmr to the raids on the Cactus Cat, and everything in between. She'd even gone down there one night after she got off work, sliding in with the rest of the crowd with no one the wiser that she was Tina's sister, and sat and listened to Iliana Velikova sing.
So, when a hand flashed out from an empty storage room at MACUSA headquarters and yanked her inside, Queenie was fully aware of who was holding her at wand point.
Queenie's face crumpled as she plumbed the depths of the distraught-looking girl's mind, pulling details free and piecing together an image of what had happened and what the girl was up to. "Oh, Iliana, I'm sorry about your sister... I understand what you're so upset... And..." Her eyes widened and she whimpered pitifully, "Teeny."
There was a sharp shock to her throat from the tip of Iliana's wand - she shouldn't have that, Queenie noted - but it was no worse than sliding across the carpet and touching a doorknob.
"Stay out of my head, Goldstein," Iliana growled. "I'm no good with Legilimency, but I'm a dab had with Occlumency, and I will make you regret it."
Queenie realized that in the next second as she tried to find details of what exactly Iliana wanted from her and was rewarded with a flare of fire in the back of her mind, burning and searing and settling into a headache at the base of her skull. She winced and glanced down at the slightly shorter girl, and the expression of wrath carved on her face left Queenie with no trouble believing the girl's mother could turn into a fireball-flinging harpy.
"Now, seeing as you sister has seen fit to ruin my sister's life again," Iliana said dangerously, "I think it's only fair you help me get her out of this jam. Think of it as paying off Tina's debt, huh? Your skills at mind reading will make it easy for you to get what I need."
"I want to help!" Queenie insisted. "I ain't got anything against your sister and her fella, this Scamander guy. And that poor No-Maj! I just want Teeny back safe!"
Iliana stepped back a bit, and Queenie was able to unstick herself from the shelves she'd been crunched up against a little bit, breathing more easily. "Good. That makes this easier." She smoothed down the front of her skirt with her free hand. "Now, here's what I need you to do for me..."
The three of them were rounded up at wandpoint by some witches in long, white robes. Witches from the Execution Office. Their fate had already been decided, Elvira realized, despite the fact that they were now supposedly going for 'interrogation.'
"You're an interesting man, Mr. Scamander," Graves commented where he sat casually across from Newt, who had his wrists chained.
"Mr. Graves…"Tina tried to protest, but was quelled by a finger to Graves' lips. He looked away from her, continuing to focus on Newt's file open in front of him on the gleaming metal table.
"You were thrown out of Hogwarts for endangering human life…"
"That was an accident," Newt said over his shoulder, and Elvira's eyes widened. She'd guessed that he hadn't finished school, it had been addressed in their letters, but no details had ever been offered up. Endangering human life, however, wasn't what she'd expected. But after Newt had seen her fly off the handle at Tina and the whole of the MACUSA meeting earlier, she couldn't bring herself to judge him for it. She was sure that, just as he'd given her the benefit of the doubt after she confessed to having a criminal record, there was more to the story.
"With a beast," Graves added, trying to pull Newt's attention back to him. "Yet one of your teachers argued strongly against your expulsion. What makes Albus Dumbledore so fond of you?"
Newt shook his head helplessly and whispered, "I really couldn't say."
"So setting a pack of dangerous creatures loose here was…" He spread his hands wide, inviting Newt to jump in with an explanation at any time. "Was just another accident, is that right?" Graves prodded.
"Why would I do it deliberately?" Newt asked blankly.
"To expose wizardkind," he provided swiftly. "To provoke war between the magical and non-magical worlds."
There was a ringing moment of silence before Newt said slowly, "Mass slaughter for the greater good, you mean?"
Graves sent a meaningful look at the witches holding Tina and Elvira at wandpoint, as if to say 'now we're getting somewhere.'
"Yes. Quite," he agreed, urging Newt on.
Newt glanced up. "I'm not one of Grindelwald's fanatics, Mr. Graves."
Graves stretched out his hand towards the corner of the room closest to him. "I wonder what you can tell me about this, Mr. Scamander?" The concealment spell that must have been covering it suddenly dropped, revealing the Obscurus of the Sudanese girl. At a wave of Graves's hand, it floated closer to them, settling itself in its protective orb on the edge of the table. It moved violently, thrashing within its prison, and seemed almost too aggressive for such a quiet moment.
"Its an Obscurus." Newt turned back, looking at Tina now, as Elvira already had seen the thing before. "But its not what you think. I managed to separate it from the Sudanese girl as I tried to save her. Wanted to take it home, to study it. But it cannot survive outside that box, it could not hurt anyone, Tina!"
"So its useless without the host," Graves said, shifting in his chair and looking mildly annoyed.
Elvira's mouth dropped open slightly as she stared at the man, a faint glimmer of understanding beginning to prick at the back of her mind. In times of trouble, the Auror office always gained special powers, and as the Aurors gained power, the influence of the head of their department would likewise grow exponentially...
"'Useless?'" Newt repeated incredulously. "'Useless?' That is a parasitical magical force that killed a child. What on earth would you use it for?"
Graves averted his eyes for a moment, his hand coming up. He gestured to the witches in the long, white robes. "You fool nobody, Mr. Scamander," he said grimly, rising to his feet. "You brought this Obscurus into the city of New York in the hope of causing mass disruption, breaking the Statute of Secrecy and revealing the magical world."
"You know that can't hurt anyone, you know that!" Newt insisted.
"You are therefore guilty of a treasonous betrayal of your fellow wizards and are sentenced to death," Graves continued as a wand was pressed threateningly into Newt's throat.
"Miss Goldstein and Miss Blödgarmr, who have aided and abetted you…"
"No, they've done nothing of the kind!" Newt pleaded, eyes widening.
"They receive the same sentence," Graves finished, completely unmoved. his eyes flicked up to their executioners. "Just do it immediately. I will inform President Picquery myself. And perhaps... start with the Blödgarmr. She has been a thorn in our side for too long. Her sister can be rounded up later."
Elvira lunged, a sick pool of fear welling up in her stomach. She didn't mind so much if she died, she'd always assumed MACUSA would get her for one thing or anyother at some point and that would be it for her, whether the sentence with jail or life in prison. But Iliana had nothing to do with any of this, with the Obscurial, with Newt's case, none of it.
"If you lay a hand on my sister I will rip you apart!" she roared, attempting to leap over the table at Graves, but the witch holding her at wandpoint was faster. Elvira was hit with a spell that wrapped yet another gag tightly across her mouth and bound her upraised arms tightly against her chest, her wrists pinned uncomfortably at the level of her collarbones. Elvira thrashed and shrieked helplessly behind the gag, fighting the urge to cry at the thought of Iliana facing the same fate as she would. She wouldn't give Graves the satisfaction.
Tina was sobbing as they were marched through the halls, and all Newt could do was stare apologetically at the two women whom he had unintentionally sentenced to die the moment he crossed their paths. And Iliana, Graves was going to go after her too, would she be able to make it through this? The sight of Elvira, bound and gagged, being forced to limp along at wand point, made his stomach turn. Merlin, she looked as if she was about to cry, and Newt would have happily done anything in the world at that moment if it meant that she never shed a single tear ever again. Just seeing the reddened rims of her eyes made him want to throw things or wretch in a corner.
"Please. Don't do this, Bernadette, please…" Tina begged as they were led into a large room made of white marble. There was a small platform made of the same stuff spread along one wall of the square room, but the rest of it was filled with some sort of oddly-reflective liquid. It was not quite clear, there was a grey-black tinge to it, and floating in the middle was a simple white chair that looked deceptively innocent.
"It don't hurt, Tina," said the woman holding her captive soothingly, as if that made their deaths somehow more acceptable.
"Elvira, I'm so sorry." The apologies began to fall from Newt's lips without end as he saw the chair, knew that this was the end of the road for all of them. "I never meant to bring any of this to your doorstep, I swear, I had no idea it would come to this, I hate that I have done this to you, I can't... I can't..."
The worst part of all of it was that, as Elvira was marched to the edge of the platform, she looked back at him, and there was nothing hateful in her expression. Newt would have preferred it if she had been hateful, tried to hex him from behind the gag, but she just looked at him with the same kind of affection she always seemed to, like she didn't blame him one bit when all of this was his fault.
And then, to twist the knife, a single tear fell down her cheek.
The witch holding her reached up, touching the tip of her wand to Elvira's temple, Elvira stiffened and her expression turned glassy as the wand pulled away, a silvery thread of memory clinging to the tip. The witch in white turned and flung the collected memory into the water. It bloomed in a swirl of silvery-white, and a man with a full beard and well-oiled moustache, standing in his shirt sleeves with his suspenders around his waist, reached out from the memory. Elvira slumped, suddenly placid, as she stared down at her memory. In some kind of last act of mercy, the witch holding her vanished the ropes and gag holding her.
"Come on, Ellie, come here and I'll tell you a story of one of my adventures before bed," said the man in the memory, and Newt realized with a jolt that this was her father, Absalom Blödgarmr, the man he had originally meant to contact. A younger version of Elvira ran across the memory, climbing into her father's lap, and she looked like a painfully sweet little ragamuffin, wearing a long cotton nightgown with her hair in braids and a slight scuff on her cheek.
"Don't that look good? You wanna get in? Huh?" asked the witch holding her encouragingly, and, to Newt's horror, Elvira slowly nodded, her eyes fixed longingly on the image of the man, half-flit from one side as if he sat by the fire, holding her close on his lap and whispering a story to her younger self.
"Daddy," she whispered.
It was at that moment that Newt felt as Pickett jerked on his wrists and the lock on his shackles came loose.
"Let's get the good stuff out of you," said the witch holding him, raising her hand with her wand to his temple.
Newt lunged, slamming into her, and skittered back away, drawing the Swooping Evil from his pocket as he did and flinging it out into the room, letting it unfurl to its full size. Pickett crawled up the arm of the witch who had been holding him, who cried out as she spotted him. Newt grabbed at her wand arm as she started to try and fire a spell to curse Pickett off if her, managing to yank her wrist around. It hit the woman holding Tina squarely in the side and she was jerked away, her head cracking against the wall with a painful-sounding thump, wand flying from her hand and landing in whatever evil concoction filled the room.
"Mr. Scamander," Tina pleaded as Newt wrested the wand from the slight witch's hand and hit her with a Stunner, sending her slumping to the floor. Pickett scrambled away from her and Newt felt him making his way up his pants leg to the safety of his coat as he turned his wand to Tina, who presented her chains. Newt blasted them off and they both turned to look in horror at Elvira, who was still being slowly lowered towards the now-roiling potion beneath her.
The aura of the liquid holding her captive was broken as it reacted violently to the sudden surge of magic from the dissolved wand. It splashed like the ocean in a storm, licking dangerously at the sides of the platform and breaking against the walls of the room. Elvira jerked as she realized how close to death she was and yanked her feet up and away from the fluid, rising swiftly to stand on the seat of the chair.
"Elvira!" Newt called out, eyes darting to the side to the Swooping Evil, which was racing circuits around the room in its delight at being free to stretch its wings.
Elvira was panting, eyeing the distance between herself and the platform helplessly. It was much too far for her to possibly be able to jump it and land safely, probably by design. She would have lifted herself aloft with a simple levitation charm, but she didn't have her wand with her and the wandless version of the spell took a bit of chanting to manage, time she didn't have.
"Elvira, don't look down, just look at me!" Newt begged her, and her eyes snapped up, landing on his. She stared into his eyes, and for the first time she didn't seem like the indomitable woman who always had a plan, but rather a scared woman staring down the barrel of what was likely a painful death with no clue of how to escape. "Just look at me," he urged soothingly.
"I'm looking English, and you're much prettier to look at than what's below me," Elvira said shakily, and Newt, in spite of the direness of the situation, felt the corners of his mouth tilt up as a blush stained his cheeks.
"I want you to jump on his back," he said as the Swooping Evil began to swoop lower, skating low over the top of the roiling potion, low enough for Elvira to get a foot on.
"Are you insane? It'll kill her!" Tina demanded, and there was a visible hesitance in Elvira's eyes as she continued to stare into his.
"No, he won't," Newt snapped, before turning his attention back to Elvira, stretching out his arms to her. "I promise, Elvira, I will catch you. I won't let you fall, I swear. Do you trust me?"
Elvira swayed, shifting on the seat of the chair as the metal began to creak and dissolve beneath her. But then the corners of her mouth picked up and she whispered a quiet quip of, "With my life, English," and leaped. Her foot landed squarely in the middle of the Swooping Evil's back and it let out an irritated caw, but it was enough for her to push off, the knee of her bad leg folding as she landed on the platform. True to his word, Newt grabbed her, holding her tightly to him as she struggled to get her feet stable under her. For a moment Newt just clung to her, her face buried in his chest, wishing he could do more to stop the trembling in her limbs. Her could feel her fingers digging deeply into his back as she held him back just as tight, her breath coming in fast puffs against his chest.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Elvira murmured against the soft fabric of his shirt. "English, you sure know how to keep a girl entertained."
"And the show's not over," Newt found himself murmuring, allowing himself to bow his head over hers for just a moment before releasing all but a grip on her hand. He looked back at Tina, who nodded at him determinedly. "Come on, we've got to go."