"How many times are we going to do that?" Anna asked, hunched over. She could feel dinner sliding back up her esophagus.

"Terribly sorry, Anna."

"You know…I might not want to be a witch anymore, not if I have to travel that way."

"Well, you could always travel by broom, but it's less conspicuous."

"No…" she lurched forward, the contents of her stomach spilling out into he snow, Newt and Jacob both flashed her a sympathetic look. The former rubbing her back in small circles, he'd had a similar reaction when he'd first learned apparition.

"There there…that's it. Just let it all out." As soon as the poor girl was finished throwing up they took off as an ostrich charged past them.

"What in the…?" the sound of multiple animal screeches snapped their attention elsewhere. "Oh…Wonderful!" Newt set his case down and pulled pout an odd shaped helmet.

"Put this on."

"Why would I have to wear something like this?"

"Because your skull is susceptible to breakage under immense force"

'Smooth…' Anna thought, watching him pick up his case and rush off again. Jacob looked back at her.

"I'd listen to him." With that she took off at a run, thankful she'd worn her ballet flats today.

Stepping onto the ice the three heard the sound of whatever it was they were looking for, Newt gently set his case down, fishing something out of his coat.

"Here you go."

"Okay, how are you possibly hiding those things in your jacket?"

"Just, um, pop this on." Newt slid the leather armor over Jacob's torso.

"Okay…"

"Now, there is absolutely nothing for you to worry about."

"Tell me, has anyone ever believed you when you told them not to worry?"

"Well, my philosophy is that—" he tightened the straps on Jacob's safety gear and stepped off to the side

"Worrying means you suffer twice…" Newt stared at her with another smile, "Okay, these memories need to pick better times to resurface…preferably when we're not facing off against magical creatures, in a zoo, in the heart of New York city..." The three stepped into the now demolished zoo.

"She's in season. She needs to mate." Anna looked at the gigantic rhinoceros like creature that had cornered an unwilling hippopotamus. He took out a green vial and dabbed some of the putrid smelling liquid onto his wrists.

"Erumpent musk, she's mad for it."

"You mean to tell me….that you just covered yourself in magical pheromones…to attract a beast that could toppled a building?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"Wonderful…I was friends with an absolute lunatic." He handed the glass vial to Jacob and stepped forward into eh habitat, case open on the ground in front of him before letting out a loud, and somewhat undignified scream, to garner the Erumpent attention.

She watched him as he performed the strangest set of actions she'd ever seen, slightly appalled when she figured out it was a mating ritual.

"Good girl….come on." The Erumpent rolled over, close to being in the case when something fell from and hit into Jacob, the putrid smelling perfume spread to both of them. The creatures attention shifting to the unsuspecting pair.

"Jacob…" Anna lightly tapped him on the shoulder, "Yeah?"

"We should…we should run…" Anna slowly backed towards the large hole in the wall before sprinting off ignoring the ice crack beneath her and Jacob's feet as she hurriedly climbed up the rocks and leapt off the side, into the icy water below.

"Anna!" the memory of her from their second year flooded his mind, she'd had a terrible fear of the stuff since then, but his brain told him to go help Jacob first, get the Erumpent back into the case, staring at the cracked ice in the animal habitat he hurried off to deal with the Erumpent.

Below the Icy surface, Images flashed through Anna's mind as she struggled to break through the surface.

"Ow! S-Stop…s-stop!" the group was inching her closer and closer to the edge of the lake, the smaller girl using her wand to deflect what spells she was able, some getting past and lashing her skin. Laughter followed her pleas of mercy.

"She wants us to stop. Why don't we show the little mud-blood where her kind belong?"

Her body felt as cold as it had that day as she pounded on the frozen surface. The last thing she felt before the cold got to her was a pair of arms wrapping around her waist.

"—ob, Could you fetch me that blanket over there?" She felt the familiar warmth of a fire, but her body felt sluggish, heavy, like she had no control. Her clothes were still wet, and she could feel her hair had matted down to her face. The same memory kept playing, over and over again behind her eye lids, a younger her, long brown hair dancing in the water as they held her below the surface, the color green and the cruel sneers of former upperclassman. Then, the safety of Newt's arms as he fished her out of the water. He had always been there when she needed saving…but when he needed her…she had just vanished.

"No problem." She could hear everything going on in the real world, but she couldn't contribute.

"I remember…" Both me turned to look at her, "We were in Michigan at my uncles invitation…" Newt and Jacob stopped what they were doing. Their eyes settling on the blonde.

"I remember reading about that, over 70 people were killed, many of them children."

"Yes. There was someone there…A man. He was screaming about a fire in Italian Hall… everyone was in a panic, people were screaming and running about in a hurry to get out of the building."

"Yes. The newspaper said 73 were killed, but your body…it was the only one they never found. But how did you get from Michigan to here?"

"I remember being on the floor as the people charged about, My dad was screaming I think, trying to find me. I had my wand tucked into my garter…My wand…" She shot up in the bed, Newt and Jacob looked on, concerned.

"MACUSA must have found my wand!"

"Anna, Lie down, please?" She turned her head to stare at him, "You need to take it easy."

"Newt, I fell through ice, not off the empire state building." He gave her a 'mothering' look of disapproval.

"Don't look at me like that, I'm fully capable of—" Her eyes drifted upwards as a knock sounded on the top of the case.

"Stay right here, I'll go see who it is." Jacob handed the blanket to Anna who quickly wrapped it around her shivering figure, as Newt went to see who'd knocked on the case.

"Jacob, will you help me. I want to make sure he's all right." The muggle man nodded, offering her his arm to stand up, smiling she took it and clambered to her feet, following him out and up the ladder.

"Scamander?" Anna's eyes trailed to an older looking gentleman, "Oh, Hello Minister."

"Theseus Scamander? The war hero?"

"No, this is his little brother. And what are you doing in New York?" she didn't like the looks of these people, their eyes glittered with judgement as the glared down at the group, her brown and green eyes finally coming to rest on Tina Goldstein.

"I came to buy and Appaloosa Puffskein, sir."

"Right, what are you really doing here?"

"Goldstein. Who is this?"

"This is Jacob Kowalski, Madame president. He's a No-Maj who was bitten by one of Mr. Scamander's creatures. And that is Anna Carrio, I tried to tell you the other day, she's the girl from the missing persons case 13 years ago."

"Merlin's beard…"

"Do you know which of your creatures was responsible, Mr. Scamander?"

"No creature did this. Don't pretend. You must know what that was, look at the marks. That was an obscurus."

"You go too far. Mr. Scamander. There is no obscurial in America. Impound that case, Graves." Anna felt anger bubble up in her chest, she vaguely recognized the man from yesterday.

"Wait, no, give that back!" Newt went for his wand and Anna's heart sank at the president's next words.

"Arrest them." She could feel the invisible shackles on her wrists as the blankets she had wrapped around herself fell to the ground.

"Don't hurt those creatures. please, you don't understand, nothing in there's dangerous. Nothing."

"We'll be the judges of that. Take them to the cells." Three individual Aurors yanked them to their feet, newts screams as they were escorted out were heartbreaking.

"Don't hurt those creatures! Nothing—Nothing in there is dangerous! Please, don't hurt my creatures, they aren't dangerous, Please, Please, they're not dangerous, THEY'RE NOT DANGEROUS!"

The four now sat in separate parts of their holding cell, Anna focused on drawing something in the dirt

"I'm so sorry about your creatures, Mr. Scamander. And Miss Carrio…I'm truly sorry about everything that's happened. I truly am." Anna slowly rose her head, Tina took notice that the once blonde woman's hair was now an inky shade of black.

"I just got my memories back…My life back. Tina, I've spent 13 years in complete darkness because of people like you, people who feel like they have something to prove. I'm sorry that you lost your Auror position, but none of that was our fault…I would have been better off if…"

"Anna…" Newt moved to sit next to her, bringing his arm up to her shoulders and pulling her close.

"Come on, none of that now." He placed a soft kiss to the top of her hair, even after all these years she still used the rose scented shampoo. Jacob had the ghost of a knowing smile on his lips, he'd seen the subtle glances Newt had given to Anna since yesterday, figuring they must have been close, even I their youth. The currently dark-haired woman cuddled into her former house-mates embrace.

"Can someone please tell me what this obscurial-obscurus thing is, please?"

"There hasn't been one for centuries."

"I met one in Sudan, three months ago. There used to be more of them, but they still exist. 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. So, 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."

"Obscurial's can't survive long, can they?"

"there's no documented cases of an obscurial surviving past the age of ten. The one I met in Africa was eight when she…she was eight when she died."

"What are you telling me here? That Senator Shaw was killed by a…a kid?" the door to their cell opened and the shackles were quickly re-administered to each of them individually, Jacob had been left back in the cell to be obliviated.

"It was good to make your acquaintance, Jacob. And, I hope you get your bakery."

"You're an interesting Man, Mr. Scamander."

"Mr. Graves…" Tina tried to cut in, looking for any possible way to save them, Anna watched the man with curious eyes as he told her to keep quiet.

"Thrown out of Hogwarts for endangering human life—"

"That was an accident." The images of chasing those damned Jarvey's flooded Anna's mind, the Name Leta floating at the forefront.

"With a beast. Yet one of your teachers argued strongly against your expulsion. Now, what makes Albus Dumbledore so fond of you?" after a few moments of silent deliberation Newt finally spoke again

"I really couldn't say…"

"So, setting a pack of dangerous creatures loose here was…" he paused, seeming to look for the right string of words, "Was just another accident, is that right?"

"He didn't mean to set that Niffler loose, they're incorrigible creatures, very precocious." Graves looked up at the blonde, disappointment clear on his face, he knew something, yet he wasn't sharing.

"Why would I do it deliberately?"

"To expose wizard kind. To provoke war between the magical and non-magical worlds."

"Mass slaughter for the greater good, you mean." Graves simply nodded in response.

"Yes."

"I'm not one of Grindelwald's fanatics, Mr. Graves." There was obvious tension in the room now as the older wizard leaned back in his chair.

"I wonder what you can tell me about this, Mr. Scamander." Another obscurus floated into view.

"It's an obscurus…but it's not what you think, see I managed to separate it from the Sudanese girl as I tried to save her. I wanted to bring it home to study, but it cannot survive outside of that, it could not hurt anyone."

"So it's useless without the host?"

"Useless, Useless? That is…a parasitical magical force that killed a child. What on earth would you use it for?"

"You fool nobody, Mr. Scamander. You brought this Obscurial into the city of New York, in hopes of causing mass disruption, breaking the statute of secrecy and revealing the magical world."

"You know that can't hurt anyone. You know that." There was desperation in Newts voice as Anna and Tina watched the exchange.

"You are therefore guilty of treasonous betrayal of your fellow wizards and are sentenced to death." One of the women pressed their wand to his neck, "Ms. Goldstein and Miss Carrio, who aided and abetted you…"

"No, they've done nothing of the kind—"

"The receive the same sentence." Tears flooded the eyes of both witches, "Just…do it immediately, but Leave Miss Carrio here, I'll deal with her myself."

"What?!" Panic filled her as she watched the two women escort Newt and Tina from the room,

"I'll inform president Piquery myself." He waved them out the door, turning to face Anna.

"Hello, Alaris." She pressed herself against the wall, with Newt and Tina gone paired with the fact she was still wandless, the ball was entirely in his court now, she was at his mercy while her friends went to die.

"I've been looking for you for quite a while…Little sister."