Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or storylines from Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Wow, thanks for all the support for my first chapter of this story.

I do not have a beta for this fic so if you notice any errors, I will not be offended if you point them out.

As firm as their unlikely friendship was, neither of them would claim that it was perfect. Every journey had bumps in the road though, Newt tried to tell himself, when his parents were warning him against getting too cosy with a Lestrange, or his fellow Hufflepuffs were looking at him askance for fraternising with the enemy.

One such bump came at the beginning of the sixth year. Newt turned a corner in a corridor on the fourth floor to see Abraxas Malfoy, his huge back pressed against the wall, with Leta's wand at his throat. The fact that he was nearly a foot taller than her, didn't seem to bother the Slytherin witch, her eyes flashing angrily as she glared at him.

"You say that again and I swear I'll kill you," she spat the words up into his face, making his eyelids twitch involuntarily.

"Fuck you," Abraxas returned, equally viciously

"Hey!" Newt called, breaking into a loping half run, "What's going on?" he longed to throw his arm around her shoulders proprietorially as he approached the pair of them, to make some witty remark to diffuse the situation.

"Just teaching this prat some manners," sneered Leta.

"Come on," he said, his voice more sharp than normal as he grasped her by the elbow and ushered her away. This wasn't the first time he had noticed tension between the two Slytherins but whenever he asked Leta about it, she just said that it was family stuff and he wouldn't understand.

They were three clear steps away from him, Newt's shoulders tense and hunched with the effort of not turning round to make sure he wasn't going to get a curse in the back when he heard it. Abraxas muttering a single syllable under his breath. The pair of them wheeled round in unison.

"Say again?" Newt asked in as pleasant a tone as he could muster even though his insides were hot and squirming.

"She is a bitch Scamander, surely even you must be able to see it, even with the massive hard on you've got for her."

It was the hint of a smirk, crossing Leta's face, even in her fury that did it. Newt's wand was drawn before he was even aware he had done it. He had no idea what he was going to do, just that he wanted to pour all of his impotent anger out through the end of his wand into Malfoy.

Leta nudged him gently with her elbow, "Come on, let's leave him. He isn't worth getting in any trouble over."

"Scamander doesn't even know one end of the wand from the other, I'm hardly shitting myself here over him trying to curse me," Malfoy sniggered.

"You really don't know when to shut up, do you?" Now her wand snapped to attention, directed at the bigger boy's heart. Unlike Newt, she seemed perfectly calm, scarily so, "People think that the best way to kill someone is an Avada curse, but I think they are just unimaginative. Accelerente."

For a moment nothing happened and Newt wondered if something had gone wrong. Then he noticed Malfoy's normally pale face reddening, standing out starkly against his blonde hair, his eyes starting to bulge, his breath coming in pants. He pressed a shaking hand to his chest as his jugular vein thrummed and bulged in his neck. Newt's eyes darted from him, then down the corridor then to Leta who was smiling, her head cocked to the side as she watched in amusement.

"Stop it," he pleaded, slapping at her wand, "stop it, you're going to kill him,"

A shriek of horror rent the air and broke the spell. Three faces, one red and trembling, one pale and wide eyed and one blazing with triumph turned to see Galatea Merrythought, the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor standing hands on hips, clearly waiting for an explanation. A beat of silence stretched out paper thin.

"It was me Professor," Newt scuffed the ground with his foot, "My fault. A spell went wrong. Leta was trying to help," he slid a sidelong glance to Abraxas Malfoy who was massaging his chest, glaring evilly at Leta but it was clear that he was not going to contradict Newt's story. Perhaps due to an unspoken code that tales shouldn't be told to the teacher, or perhaps he had shrewdly ascertained that it would be better for house points to be deducted from Hufflepuff and in any case, he could catch up with Leta in the Common Room, when he had back up. He didn't even think to wonder if Leta would own up – she had told him in the past how her parents reacted to her behaving in a manner unfitting to a lady, as they called it. There had been other, smaller things that he had taken the blame for – a spilled cauldron, a note passed in class – so this was just a continuation of the larger lie that had grown in such small increments that it took him a moment to realise that trying to kill someone wasn't a playground game that he could easily smooth over.

Professor Merrythought eyed him skeptically. Newt's jaw jutted out sullenly as he silently dared her to voice what he knew she was thinking. That he, who was almost a squib, wasn't capable, even by accident of casting such a powerful spell. She pursed her lips, shaking her head almost imperceptibly, but seemed to guess that pressing the matter wouldn't achieve anything.

"Detention," she snapped finally, "Every night for a week."

One last look top Newt, almost hopeful, like she thought he might buckle under the weight of the punishment and tell the truth, before she swept along the corridor, her black robes swirling around her ankles as she chivvied Malfoy along and away from them.

"What did you do that for?" Leta frowned, sulkily confused.

Newt gazed at her through his fringe. He could hardly make claims to being her knight in shining armour. Not when it was obvious even to a moron like Malfoy that she was by far his superior. Taking the blame was the only offering he could think of making.

oOoOoOo

His eyelids, heavy and drooping, snapped open as his quill slid across the page. Perhaps there was something soporific about the History of Magic classroom. Whatever it was, it seemed to have had an effect on Professor Binns. Newt longed to lay his head down on the desk and sleep like the Professor but the sooner he finished writing the seven foot parchment on the history of Vampire migration across Europe that he had been tasked to do for his detention, the sooner he could leave the warm and dusty room, so he redoubled his efforts, dipping his quill into the ink well and scratching out a few more words.

A scraping at the window woke him up fully. The ink well tipped over, pouring its contents all over the parchment to drip down onto his robes. He jumped up, mopping at himself ineffectually, as Leta climbed in through the window.

"Rescue party's here," she grinned, as she slid into the desk next to his. Despite himself, despite the fact that he had spent the last three hours wondering whether he should confront her over what she had done to Abraxas, what she would have done if she hadn't been stopped, he smiled back.

"You shouldn't be here," he murmured, one eye on Binns, even though he knew deep down that were the Professor to wake, it was unlikely he'd notice an extra student.

"Actually, I should. It's you that shouldn't. I didn't need you to cover for me," Leta's arms were folded over her chest and she refused to meet his eyes. As though he had wronged her somehow by taking the punishment for her.

Newt laughed softly, nudging her thigh with his knee, "You're welcome," he revelled in the smile that broke across her face.

"Well I've come to break you out. One good turn deserves another"

"Leta," he pleaded, "I can't….what happened back there…." he trailed off, unable to formulate the words to explain that it wasn't just about sneaking out of detention. It was that she had scared him. That he hadn't liked her in those moments in the corridor, didn't like the glimpse of the darkness that he usually managed to pretend he couldn't see.

"I thought we were friends?" she asked sharply, her face a picture of dejection. He sighed. She did this from time to time, if something threatened to encroach on their bubble of friendship. Made him pledge his allegiance to her. Her possessiveness irritated him as much as it thrilled him with a sick pleasure.

"We are!" he urged, reaching out for her hand and chafing it between his own, "It's just, well, it's detention isn't it," he finished lamely.

"He's asleep!" She exclaimed, forgetting to maintain a whisper as she gesticulated towards the professor who nodded and snorted gently in response to her raised voice. They stifled giggles until the elderly Professor settled back down.

"Go on," she urged gently, "Let's get out of here for a bit. Oh don't sulk Newt. Don't be cross with me, I've said sorry," and with that she stood and stretched out her hand expectantly, as though that was the end of the matter.

Had she apologised? Was it even him she should be saying sorry to? Abraxas Malfoy was probably somewhere right now feeling his mortality acutely, being as it was nearly ended prematurely by an accelerating spell on his heart. Still, he supposed that wasn't his concern.

When they got to the window, a problem presented itself – there wasn't room in the narrow opening to both squeeze out onto the crumbling ledge and mount the broom she had used to get up to the window. Newt, as the stronger flyer, scrambled on and scooted back as far as he could without overbalancing, before holding out his large hands for her.

"Jump," he urged, as she balanced on the ledge, wavering. She looked down – a mistake – and clung back to the wall, "Trust me,"

For a moment he became the confident man that she spied from time to time in the Care of Magical Creatures lessons. The man she could see he would become. His tone, the way he looked out from under his thick curls to meet her eyes, the ghost of a smile on his lips. She jumped.

For a moment the broom dipped, then they soared upwards, both whooping cheers into the sky. Sat there on the broom, flying up towards the sun with Leta between his legs, her thin fingers snaked around his biceps as he gripped the broom. He'd have taken a hundred detentions just for that moment.

"Do you think we could fly this broom out of school and away from here?" she asked, as they swooped towards the perimeter of the grounds. She drew a knut from her pocket and threw it over the school wall and they both winced as it sparked against an invisible barrier and fell to the ground.

"That's a no then. Where would you even go if you could get out?"

"Sometimes I just want to get away from everything," she sighed, her eyes on the horizon. Eventually, he turned the broom around, sweeping lazily over the lake, flying up so high that they could see the entirety of the giant squid silhouetted darkly in the water. Then he dived down, enjoying the way she gripped onto his forearms tightly, until their feet skimmed across the surface of the water, sending ripples kicking out behind them.

Leta let go of his arms as they drifted a couple of feet above the surface of the water and steadied the broom, "Hold me tightly Newt," she instructed, then she was all elbows and pointed boots kicking him in the shins and hair in his eyes, the broom wobbling between his knees and somehow they didn't fall into the lake and she had turned to face him, knees touching, her hands over his on the handle of the broom.

There in the sunset with the wind whipping her hair around her head like a halo of crows, he wondered for the hundredth time, what she would do if he kissed her.