I was actually planning for this chapter to go very differently, but I like how it ended up. Very fun to write!
The next morning Newt and Tina woke up in their bedrooms, exhausted but with a smile on their faces as they remembered last night. Tina rolled out of bed first, padding to Newt's room and settling down on the floor by his guest bed.
"You look tired." She smirked as he blinked, trying to get her into focus.
"I am tired." Newt mumbled.
Tina rolled her eyes and got up, sitting down on his bed. Newt let out a grunt as she perched on his stretched-out legs.
"Oh! Sorry!" she jumped up.
He snorted softly. "It's fine."
A few seconds later, after Tina folded her arms and gave him a look, Newt sat up with a groan and made room for her to sit properly. She perched next to him, tucking her legs to the side and leaning on her palms. Newt closed his eyes with a smile, breathed out through his nose, and sighed.
"What should we do today?" he asked.
Tina shrugged. "Queenie won't be back until the Wednesday and today is just Sunday. We'll be alone for the next few days. So… I don't know."
Newt nodded drowsily. They sat quietly together, Tina gently poking Newt every time he started to drift off.
"Stay awake." She commanded him with a grin. "Come on."
He blinked at her, then leaned forwards all of a sudden and kissed her gently. Tina gasped quietly and twitched, not expecting it. His lips pressed against hers. Tina could see his closed eyes. She broke apart and stretched her head up, brushing a soft kiss against his shut eyelids. Newt shook his head, pulling away.
"It feels like butterflies." He chuckled. "Tickles."
Tina giggled. Butterflies again. Maybe that was their relationship symbol- butterflies. She mused about it for a little. Butterflies were gentle and fragile and beautiful, but also died very quickly and were crushed easily (she knew from terrible experience). So perhaps it wasn't a very good mascot for a relationship.
Tina heard snoring- Newt had fallen asleep again. She rolled her eyes but left the room on tiptoes, careful not to disturb her resting mate.
Yes. That was how she'd think of him, for now. Mate. Like animals. Newt would like that, and Tina just appreciated the term for not being "husband" but still hinting at a romantic connection. Because that was what they had now- a romantic connection. It made Tina's insides quiver just thinking about it. She and Newt were… a non-married couple. He was his mate and she was his. Though the term had a slightly suggestive edge, Tina chose to ignore it. Mate was a good name.
She went to the kitchen alone and made herself some toast, eating it on the couch. The street outside was littered with remnants of the previous night: single gloves, bands, confetti, burnt out candles and paper wrappers used to hold street-sold food. Tina looked at the trash from the window. She'd go down later and clean it up. Usually that was what she and Queenie did together on New Year's Day; it seemed, however, that she'd be doing it with Newt this year. It was just another one of the changes that were slowly creeping up on them nowadays. Tina wondered what the next big change would be.
Newt woke up forty-five minutes later. Tina quietly made him a cup of tea as he sat down on the couch and rubbed his eyes; he accepted it with thanks.
"If you don't mind, we'll go down to the street later and clear it up a bit." Tina told Newt, plopping down beside him.
"I don't mind." Newt smiled and took a sip of the tea. Then he made a face. "But Tina, I must admit your tea is awful."
She frowned.
"British sense of taste." He was quick to explain, seeing her expression. "I'm sure it'd be the same if I tried making coffee."
Tina smirked. "But I don't drink coffee."
For some reason this made them both snort. Newt set the cup of tea on the little coffee table by his legs and got up, stretching.
"I'll go and get dressed properly, shall I?" he asked, running a hand through his messy hair. "So we won't have to clear the street like this."
"I'll dress as well." Tina said, fingering the fabric of her blue spotted pajama shirt. "But hey- do you remember how last year I was rushing around the city in my pajamas in the middle of the night?"
Newt grinned. "I remember."
Neither mentioned the true events of that night; in reality, they had involved two execution orders, a runaway Erumpent, a ransacked jewelry shop and an accusation of cooperation with a mass-murderer. Not the best day of Newt or Tina's life, to be honest.
The two got dressed relatively quickly and were down on the pavement in no time. Tina grabbed the broom she'd taken with her and began sweeping the street with swift, steady movements. Newt picked up the bigger litter: candles and scattered objects and paper. Their breath made clouds in the crisp air.
"So." Tina said, after ten minutes of silent cleaning. "Um. I was meaning to ask you about the war."
"What about it?"
"Where you there?"
Newt stooped to pick up a single glove. "It started when I was seventeen. I should have been at Hogwarts, but- well, anyway, I signed up to fight. My assignment was on the Eastern Front, handling dragons."
"Sounds like your kind of job." Tina smiled.
"I thought so as well." Newt murmured, eyes fixed on the ground. "But even with dragons you see more than you want to see."
His fingers brushed a lone baby's shoe, still delicate on the sole from where the child had not yet stood. Tina shivered, pulling her cardigan tighter around her body.
"What about you?" Newt raised his head abruptly, slipping the baby shoe into his pocket.
"What, the war?" Tina asked.
He nodded.
"I was only thirteen when it began." She said. "And even by the time it ended, I was still in school. So I never got to do anything or help."
"You missed a lot."
With a soft snicker, Tina set back to sweeping the sidewalk clear of trash.
They were finished an hour or so later and hurried back upstairs to warm their frozen fingers. Newt made himself tea and Tina made herself hot cocoa and they both sat together on the couch with a blanket draped on their lap.
"Now it's my turn to ask you a question." Newt said, after each of their drinks were dangerously close to finishing and the warmth had filled him inside out.
"Ask away."
"What about your family?"
Tina froze, finger pressed against the rim of her mug to collect cocoa foam. She waited for a beat, then: "They died when I was six."
"Who?"
"My parents."
Newt didn't respond, letting her talk.
"Queenie was only four and neither of us knew what was going on. I mean, we understood that our parents were not feeling so well. But nothing more than that. And then one day a MACUSA official popped by our house. I opened the door for him. I did most of the home jobs then; caring for Queenie and stuff like that. The official was called… right, Ebenezer Jones. He was a good man. Apparently our parents had sent him an owl asking him to come and get us out of the house. So he did, quickly, because our parents were sick with the dragon pox and we were at risk of being infected. We were in an orphanage for about a year after that until he gave us the news that they'd died."
Tina paused for a second. Newt looked up at her. "You were seven?"
A nod. "It was awful, especially because we were taken to the American Wizarding Hospital immediately after that to make sure that we weren't sick. The treatment was very painful for a seven-year-old. I remember crying a lot. And the worst was the Queenie never cried. She made terrible whimpering noises like a wounded animal. She was only five and already suffering so much. And then one day, when I getting three vaccinations and a spoon of medicine that made my throat burn, she just started wailing from the hallway. Real tears and sobbing. The doctors were panicking because all she said was 'it hurts like fire, I don't want it' and 'it hurts, it hurts, my shoulder' and they thought she was having severe after-pain."
Newt furrowed his brow.
"But anyway, that cleared up and we were sent back to our orphanage and it was only when Queenie started knowing things I never told her a few weeks after our release that I called Ebenezer Jones and told him I was suspecting something. He went to the AWH and got Queenie's health reports- she never got shots to her shoulder and hadn't gotten any medicine the day she'd cried about it. But I had."
"So… she was reading your mind?"
"That's how we found out that she was a Legilimens." Tina confirmed Newt's question. "We were quickly moved to a special orphanage for magic orphans. And they tried teaching Queenie to control her power, but she didn't really manage to. We let it slide until Ilvermorny, but then she really had to learn. So they took her off to the hospital again and tortured her with horrible potions and on her first day she felt like her eyes were on fire and passed out in the crowd of First-years. But she managed to control it, eventually. And by the time I left school we could get our own apartment and we're better now. Happier."
Tina stopped talking. She sat in silence, eyes a bit damp. Her fingers shakenly searched her mug for drops of cocoa, trying to find something to do so she could let out her jitters.
Newt reached out for her, clasping her hand with his. He didn't say anything, and he didn't need to. She understood what he was trying to say.
And then all of a sudden they were leaning forwards and kissing and the world around Tina imploded, sending them both into what seemed like explosion after explosion of fireworks in her mind. Newt's lips were warm and firm against hers. They lingered there forever, pressed against eachother, squeezing hands. Tina's nose bumped Newt's as she moved a bit, which made her laugh. Still so close to him she could count his light, faint freckles.