Disclaimer: All characters and storylines used here from the Harry Potter universe and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them belong to J K Rowling.
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As seemed to be the way every year, exams were on them before they had barely seemed to have packed away the Christmas decorations. Leta and Newt spent long hours in the library, attempting to drill facts into his head until he could tell that he was irritating even her and he felt so full of information he might burst. All too soon, the first exam rolled around.
"Nervous?" Leta asked, squeezing his hand as they waited to go in.
"Just a smidge," he grimaced, returning the squeeze.
However, after long two weeks of sitting with his long limbs cramped at a desk in the Great Hall, feeling like fire ants were crawling through his brain as he tried to winkle facts out of the remote crevices of his brain and pin them down onto the paper, it was at last time for their final exam – care of magical creatures.
As luck would have it, he and Leta were called into the hall at the same time. He chanced a wink at her and she grinned back. They hadn't actually dedicated any time to revising this subject, unless you could call their continued extra-curricular research into magical creatures revision, yet he was more than confident that they would both pass with flying colours.
He was just making his way to the screened off area that the wizened examiner was waving him over to, already noting with glee a profusion of horklumps – something he had been dealing with competently since he was eight years old – when a commotion on the other side of the hall distracted him.
A high pitched, metallic screeching, a flurry of wings and a flash of claws. A hippogriff had broken loose from its handler. A flash of annoyance rippled through him for a moment – any competent handler would know that bringing such a beast into an enclosed space, to be manhandled by nervous students more concerned with passing their exam than remembering the proper etiquette was bound to end in trouble – before his instinct took over and he broke into a run towards the creature, his wand outstretched. The hippogriff reared up on its hind legs, screeching louder than ever. Professor Kettleburn edged towards it, arms held out in front of him, but the hippogriff suddenly pulled free from the chain attached to the collar around its neck and rushed at him in a blind panic. The Professor was knocked to the floor, his head cracking noisily against a flagstone, and he didn't get back up.
Newt caught sight of Leta out of the corner of his eye, moving with infinitesimal slowness towards the creature, her head bowed low, her eyes downcast through her curtain of long raven hair. He trained his wand towards the hippogriff, prepared to stun it if it reared again, but other than pawing the ground in distress, its feathers puffed agitatedly, it seemed to make no move to attack. He glanced quickly around the room and noted that the other examiners were set back from them, holding their wands similarly to him but seeming to be allowing them to take charge.
Leta was crooning lowly under her breath as she shuffled closer and closer, until she was directly before it, bowing low. The hippogriff didn't return the action, watching her coldly with its enormous orange eyes. She made to try again but it hissed at her and she stepped back carefully. Newt then pocketed his wand, feeling the palpable tension in the room settle on to him as he stepped forwards, his head dipped, and the palms of his hands resting on his thighs.
"Come on girl, come on," he whispered, peeking up at the hippogriff. To his relief, it grudgingly bowed its head to him. He moved slowly and carefully, running his competent hands over the plumage on its wings and neck to make sure no damage had been done to it during the struggle but it seemed to be unharmed.
Apparating the beast out would be too dangerous, he knew that, "Open the windows," he murmured to Leta, who ran to throw the massive stained glass windows wide open. Keeping his head low, he led the beast over to the window and climbed out ahead of it, fingers gripping tightly to the stone sill as he made the small drop down to the ground. His heart was in his mouth as he waited to see if it would follow but after an almost eternal moment, he saw it stretching its long neck out of the window, sniffing the fresh air. Disdainfully the hippogriff stepped out onto the window ledge, its wings brushing the window and peered down at him with a tiny nod of the head, before taking flight in the direction of the distant mountains.
He breathed deeply for a moment, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers, before scrambling back into the room. There was a beat of silence then, slowly at first, but soon spreading across the assembled students and professors, soft applause broke out. Newt rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, biting back a smile as he hid behind his fringe.
Eventually the room settled down and the exams recommenced but he found himself no longer being tested by the ancient but friendly examiner but his own Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Kettleburn. He sat across the desk from him, his shock of wiry red hair escaping from under the hastily applied bandage to his head.
"It seems almost churlish to give you an exam now," the professor, who must only have been in his late twenties, grinned ruefully.
"It's alright Sir, I don't mind," Newt smiled as he placed his hands palm down onto the desk, allowing the bowtruckles that were creeping out of a box full of leaves, to clamber over his outstretched fingers. It was true, he didn't mind. He'd rather sit Care of Magical Creatures exams every day than try to puzzle out the mysteries of human behaviour.
Professor Kettleburn humoured him, perhaps more because the boy seemed so content to sit and play with the small, twiglike creatures, than any need to assess his abilities. He asked him a few basic questions about the identification and care of bowtruckles but it was more like a friendly chat of two equals than a stringent exam. Not that Newt seemed to notice; he was too taken by a tiny bowtruckle, scarcely bigger than his thumbnail.
"He's called Pickett," the Professor offered, "a newborn. He just hatched yesterday. He seems to have taken to you,"
Newt looked up from the tiny green creature who was clinging ticklishly to his wrist as it attempted to climb up his sleeve.
"Pickett," he murmured to the bowtruckle, earning a chirruping purr as reward.
Professor Kettleburn leaned back in his chair, his arms folded over his chest, "Scamander, it goes without saying you've got an outstanding in your exam. But have you thought about the future? You're the most talented student I've ever met,"
"Well that's hardly difficult, Sir, you've only been teaching for three years."
"Don't be obtuse, Scamander, it doesn't suit you, and don't let your talents go to waste. I'd hate to see you end up mouldering away in some Ministry Department. I've got some contacts with some dragon handlers if you're interested."
"Thank you Sir," Newt smiled shyly.
"Go on then, get out of here, enjoy the holidays," Kettleburn smiled indulgently as Newt had to prise the furious Pickett away from the crook of his elbow with gentle fingers, "and think about those dragons," he called after him as he hurried from the hall.
oOoOoOo
Leta and Newt were lounging in the shade of the beech tree by the lake. Leta was attempting to perfect a bubblehead charm so she could go under the water and study the merpeople more closely but Newt, worn out with the effort of studying, was happy just to lay on the grass and allow the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves to play over his closed eyelids, creating red and black patterns in his vision.
Finally seeming exhausted by the effort, she flopped down next to him, folding her arms behind her head.
"The whole summer ahead of us," Newt grinned in satisfaction, yet a small anxiety niggled in the pit of his stomach. The summer holidays meant being apart, with only the promise of owl correspondence to soften the blow, "did you, err, I don't suppose you want to visit me during the holidays? It would be quite proper!" he elaborated, his cheeks pinking.
Leta giggled, "Oh quite proper, would it be? And what might that entail? No sneaking into my bedroom in the dead of night to make mad, passionate love to me?"
"Of course not!" his voice squeaked embarrassingly at the strength of his denial. His face now was rather red and hot, not helped by the tantalising image that Leta had just provided him with.
"No, of course not," she sighed, a small smile playing over her lips as she patted him consolingly on the leg. He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her, drinking in the almost luminous golden glow of her skin, the brush of her eyelashes on her cheek.
"My mother could write to your mother. I know she doesn't think much of our family name but we are at least purebloods and that might…."
"We're going to Bulgaria for the summer," Leta cut him off, and although her voice was sorrowful, her eyes were bright and keen.
Newt sat bolt upright, "Bulgaria? Whatever for? Is it to do with your grandfather's work? Maybe you should stay at home – I saw in the Prophet that Grindelwald's followers have been massing in Bulgaria."
Leta smirked to herself, a sly smile that slithered across her face for just a moment.
"Oh," said Newt, flatly, feeling stupid.
"You know what father's like, he loves to kiss up to anyone with a bit of power," she shrugged, as though it didn't mean anything. As though she spent hours telling him about the whims of her father, someone she had, in reality, told him almost nothing about.
Newt swallowed deeply. They had been avoiding this subject for so long. His willful ignorance of her family's proclivities. Her glossing over the complications that being one of the country's pureblooded elite presented her with. Being from an impoverished and often ridiculed family, he had little more than a suspicion as to how closely dark magic was woven into the lives of the old families, "Even when that power comes from dark magic? Even when he's happy to kill for power?"
"Father says a lot of the stuff in the papers is just exaggerated. You shouldn't believe everything you read, Newt." She looked down at him contemptuously. Newt was reminded, just for a second, of the way young children dress up in their parents clothes and parrot things they say, effecting their mannerisms as they trip about in overly large shoes, " Some of the things he says make a lot of sense. Why should we skulk around in the shadows hiding from muggles? I'd have thought you'd agree with that one – just think, all your precious beasts would have the run of the land, instead of cowering in unplottable forests where the Ministry contains them." If he thought that would persuade him, she was quite wrong. The decimation in numbers of magical creatures had more to do with over enthusiastic hunting by wizards for potion ingredients than their need to hide from muggles. The fact that she would even say such a thing, when they had spent so many hours discussing the conservation of magical creatures rankled deeply.
"Don't go. Stay with me," he was aware that he was begging, sounding desperate but he didn't care. He could feel something growing between them, expanding as rapidly and dangerously as an Occamy, coiling about them and forcing them down channels that it would not be easy to return from.
"You're being ridiculous, you know I can't do that," Leta laughed bitterly, her hands on her hips. Somehow they were both standing now, although Newt didn't remember getting to his feet.
"I'm being ridiculous, when you're the one traipsing half way round the world to court some mad man?" it was the first time he could remember raising his voice to her, and she shrank back as though he had raised a hand to her.
"Well why don't you come with me? See for yourself what he's got to say. Make your own mind up instead of believing rumours," for a moment he entertained the idea, allowed it to unfold, shining bright in his mind's eye. He could go along with her, be her protector and savior, rescue her from the darkness. Then he remembered that he was a gangly teenager who didn't even have the balls to tell a girl he fancied her, let alone confront a dark wizard who was seizing power all over mainland Europe.
"I don't think so," he stuffed his hands into his pockets, kicking at a tuft of grass with the toe of his boot.
"Don't make me choose between you and my family,"
"Me?" he laughed incredulously, "This isn't about me and – this is about right and wrong!"
"I thought we were friends?" she grabbed his hand and kneaded it between her own, her eyes wide and beseeching as she asked him the question that she had asked so many times before. He fought his own nature not to answer automatically, to appease her, to make her smile.
"So did I," he muttered sadly, as he strode away, leaving her under the beech tree. She made no attempt to follow him.
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