Salsify had trudged up the path to the cabin to deliver all the texts relevant to legilimency that Gloriana could recommend from their library. Gloriana's hands-on approach with animals sometimes belied her very research-based approach to everything else. Queenie, Newt was now sure, would not have been in Ravenclaw had she gone to Hogwarts. Rather than cheering her, the arrival of the big books made her groan. Newt had been bringing Tina by to visit when Salsify had arrived, levitating book after book from the bag she had brought.
"I'd rather wax all the floors in the front of the castle—without magic!" Queenie groaned.
"It's not so bad honey, there's probably some real interesting stuff in there," said Jacob encouragingly. After the upset about finding out about Queenie's injury, Jacob had been taken by George to view the dragons, from a safe distance of course, and he had warmed up to the whole place even more. He'd been entrusted with a few magical objects to make him a little safer on the grounds, like a completely impermeable mackintosh that kept him warm and dry while outside, not to mention safe from any beaks or claws he might run afoul of. Gloriana had also dug up a whistle that, when blown, would transport the user several yards backward to safety. Jacob was so enamored of the effect that he could be seen rapidly blasting himself backward across the grounds as a way to get around more quickly. Between the magical objects that he was allowed to use and the hippogriff riding, and the magical kitchen that did half the work for him already by opening the oven when anything was perfectly cooked, Jacob was actually having a wonderful holiday.
The only damper seemed to be how guilty he felt about having a wonderful time while Queenie was stuck in bed with a pile of homework and the knowledge that Gloriana could appear at any moment to drill her on it all. He tried to be upbeat, but Queenie seemed to find that slightly irritating when she could well see inside his head that he was itching to get back outside, toasty warm in his enchanted outerwear, where he could explore the grounds and help the Scamanders with their fascinating household. Queenie had taken to wearing the amulet that Gloriana had given her all the time and not just around George and Theseus as she'd been instructed.
"Yeah, and some of these books have some real interesting stuff in them!" enthused Tina, looking up from where she'd already become engrossed in a spell for heightened mental fortitude. "This is a chance for you to learn how to use your gifts—a real blessing," she said sincerely.
They were in the front living area of the cabin, where all the windows let in a surprising amount of light considering the forest around the house. Queenie was carefully propped up on the deep green velvet sofa, and Tina was sitting at her side in a leather armchair with her feet tucked under her. Newt sat in a matching leather chair on the opposite side, listening to the sisters even while he organized some of his notes from the work they'd been doing on magical barriers. He was trying to make an accurate map of the various layers that kept which creatures where.
Queenie smiled into her sleeve, and turned to Tina with mock-severity. "I like that. You're the one who gets all excited about this spell-book stuff, and you want me to be grateful you scared me half to death running headlong at a dragon—"
"A very nice dragon!" Tina interjected.
Salsify had been leaning over Queenie's shoulder at the sofa, delivering the last of her load of books.
"Father says that no dragon is to be thought of as 'nice' or 'tame' but that a mutual respect may be developed by years of careful cooperation."
"Sounds like Father," Newt said.
"Well he's done more for keeping Herself on the right side of the law than you. It's not exactly easy to exercise a dragon forty meters long from tip to tail, but somehow father does it without half the trouble that you've made."
Newt rolled his eyes. So he had in his exuberant youth, done a few less than careful stunts when taking Reggie out for her exercise. Now that she had layed her eggs, she mostly stuck close to home, eating the deer and cattle that the Scamanders carefully bought or caught and gave to her and her mate. Newt did on the one hand miss the exhileration of dragonriding, but there were plenty of other matters that kept his attention.
"How did your family end up taking care of two dragons anyway?"
Salsify smirked in self-satisfaction and pulled one more book from her bag. It was A History of Medieval English Magic. Newt remembered having had the thought that this might be a bad thing to give Queenie, but seeing as her curiosity must have been satisfied by coming face-to-face with Reggie, hopefully now it wouldn't matter. She'd understand why it was so important to keep Reggie safe from the outside world, and the outside world safe from her.
"Our ancestor did a favor to the Queen, and she thought keeping a dragon around might be a good enough insurance policy to part with a good bit of land up here. It's too rocky to provide excellent farmland, and in the sixteenth century it seemed like a perfect out-of-the-way place."
"And what was the favor?" Jacob asked.
"Oh, routing the Spaniards, of course. She had a great deal of trouble with them, you know," said Salsify, with a grin. "They must have been quite surprised back home to find that their most impressive warships were destroyed by Britain's rather pitiful navy."
"But that was nothing to how surprised the Spanish sailors were by the enormous dragon that swooped down upon them and reduced their ships to ashes," finished Newt. Both Newt and Salsify were now grinning identical slightly evil grins.
Tina set down her book in her lap. Jacob was looking at them both. "So you're saying that your guy rode a dragon out to sea and roasted the Spanish Armada?"
"Yep," said Salsify happily. "That was Elizabeth's greatest victory, so you can see how she was pleased enough to place new restrictions on dragon-hunting. Sadly, the dragon that Norbert Scamander rode into battle was the last English White in existence. The muggles had killed all the others," Salsify said.
Newt looked down at his hands. "They had plenty of help from wizards as well. That's why Norbert helped the Queen, you see. He needed to convince someone to stop the killing before there was no one left."
"So that dragon in there is the only one of her kind?" asked Queenie, sounding more sympathetic than she had before.
"She's actually the daughter of the original Dragon of England," said Newt. "They were able to find her a mate of a related type of dragon, and Reggie was one of the only two hatchlings that inherited their mother's characteristic size and coloring. The family let the male go in Siberia, but kept track of his offspring. So the dragons that we tried out for Reggie are distantly related to her, but it shouldn't be close enough to cause any issues with inbreeding. Dragons in the wild reproduce every few decades, whereas Reggie has only gone the once in her whole life. So her mate is like her great great great nephew, or something like."
"Weird," said Jacob.
"Not really," chorused Newt and Salsify, both used to years of explaining rare-animal breeding to laypeople.
"Anyway, I'm off to the village. Jenny from the post office said she had something she wanted to ask me about," said Salsify, rising from where she'd been leaning on the sofa, "and I want to get down there before Mummy notices I've delivered these books and comes up with something else for me to do."
She strode toward the door and paused, turning. "And today is the day that you're expecting the midwife, isn't it?"
Newt grimaced. Salsify was still being a little cold with him on the subject, but he was gratified that she'd apologized to Tina and had offered her congratulations. For all her annoying little habits, she really was the most genuinely gracious of all of his family members, and Newt felt very bad for offending her.
"Yes, the midwife sent work this morning that she had finished up with a lengthy case and would be up to see us today."
"Will she be using the fireplace in the pub?" asked Salsify. "I can wait around and bring her up on my way back from the village."
"I don't think so…" said Newt. "She didn't really say."
"Well, I hope she's not planning on coming by broomstick," Sal said. "Father was saying this storm looks like it'll be the first real snow of the season."
Salsify left, the chill winter air stealing in through the door as she stepped outside. It did look gray out there. As they'd been siting and talking the room had darkened considerably. A bespelled lamp had lit itself on the end table at Queenie's head, and she reluctantly opened the book in her lap to the assigned chapter.
"You should be safe and cozy here," Newt said to Queenie and Jacob, "But please remember to pull the rope if you need anything."
The rope-pull system extended out to various parts of the grounds, and would let those in the big house know if anyone needed attention. They'd had a time of it keying it to wizards and witches rather than the house-elves it had been designed for, but it was generally reliable.
"Tina and I had better get back to the house. I don't know when the midwife will be arriving."
Tina nodded a little nervously, and she took Newt's offered arm to hurry back through the bare trees and frosty air to the solid bulk of the main house.
-o-o-o-
If Newt had wanted to keep it quiet that he and Tina were expecting, he was sadly thwarted by the events of the next few days. Salsify had visited the Innkeeper's wife, and had told her quite plainly that the dark-haired woman who Newt had brought through the village was his wife and that they were expecting a child together. This raced through the village like wildfire. The village had been starved of the regular flow of news from the big house by Mrs. Simmons and Katy's departure for Skipville and the Scamanders' every movement was naturally of great interest. They tried to keep the most obviously odd things away from the villagers, like Theseus coming and going from the disused members' club room of the pub every morning and night, but there were plenty of other little details that had not escaped their notice. Such as the very peculiar wildlife that overflowed from Blethering Wood, and the occasional sightings of winged creatures far too large to be any of the native raptors.
This was doubtless why, when the dark sky spit out a middle aged woman of severe countenance, the owner of the pub immediately ran up to Blethering house with the news. George happened to be hurrying across the front drive toward the house, having spent the morning walking the perimeter of the property nearest the house. Newt and Tina were watching the blustery scene outside from where they were sitting warm in the library. Despite the many books of spells and stories available there they were both feeling a little ill at ease. Tina had been looking forward to the visit from the Midwife, but now Newt noticed that she'd gone a bit pale and kept worrying her lower lip with her teeth. She had a thick stack of parchment that she kept sorting through and reshuffling like a giant deck of cards. Some of it was the original instruction fromt he midwife, but it seemed to have grown in size. Newt saw his father meeting the figure of Tom the barman, and with much nodding, they both walked back up the drive. George sent Tom back to his pub, and a new figure joined him at the gates and advanced toward the house.
"I think that's her," Newt said. Tina sprang up and joined him at the window, her long skirts flying behind her. Then Tina whirled back and she and Newt both took off through the small door leading to the front of the house, up to the entry, and out the front door. As soon as they reached the chill air, Newt called out to Tina to stop. Her skirts, a dark gray, were whipping around her legs like a stormcloud. Tina ignored him, calling out and waving to the figure next to Newt's father.
Once Jane Moon-Leanfear was near enough, she greeted Tina with a kind smile, but then looked appraisingly up at the towering bulk of Blethering House with its four grand turrets across the front, and leveled Newt with an unimpressed glance.
"Perhaps we should get Mrs. Scamander back inside and out of this weather, hmm?" she said when he attempted to say hello.
At least she seemed to have had a similarly quelling effect on Newt's father, whose grimace made Newt curious about the conversation coming up the drive.
"Right this way," Newt managed, and they all reentered the house. Tina looked invigorated by the short trip out into the cold and wind, but George and Midwife Moon-Leanfear both looked a little the worse for wear.
"Is there someplace in this very large house where one can warm up?" she asked. The size of the house seemed to offend her sensibilities. Newt tried not to mind, since it was extremely cold in the front part of the house. The magical heat distribution didn't do so well out front.
"Please, come back to the family apartments," Newt said. "It's much more comfortable in the magical part of the house."
The midwife raised a dark brow. "The magical part…do you mean to say that the front part of the house is entirely devoid of magic? How do you make do then, with a house this large? Why, it's practically a castle. It seems a bit disingenuous to call it a house."
"Blethering House has an old and storied tradition of mixing magical and nonmagical elements," said George, trying to dredge up a little of his ex-Lord Warden gravitas. This was impeded a bit by his removing his hat, revealing bright ginger hair which was sticking up every which way. "We have kept the front of the house in the traditional way to offer hospitality to muggles."
"Muggles? In a magical home? This is highly unusual," she said. "And those villagers did not seem nearly so surprised to see me land as one would suppose. I was ready to obliviate them, but the barman came out of the pub and escorted me up here."
"Yes," said Newt. "It is unusual. But you see, it's all perfectly legal. This is the seat of the Lord Warden, and as such has some exemptions from the Statute of Secrecy."
Jane Moon-Leanfear remained poised, but her other eyebrow joined the first to reveal her incredulity. She looked between George and Newt, settling on George.
"Lord Warden?"
George cleared his throat. "Emeritus. I resigned the official post two years ago and passed it on to my son."
The midwife stared back at Newt.
"No, no—my eldest son. Theseus Scamander." George hurried to explain.
"Ah. Well, that makes far more sense," she said.
They had reached the door that led into the back part of the house, and as they passed through the warmth had them all sighing.
"May I take your cloak?" Newt said politely, wand outstretched.
"Yes thank you," the midwife answered. "Though I will hold onto my bag."
Newt carefully levitated the capacious cloak over to the coat tree standing in the side of the corridor. It was wet, probably from moisture in the clouds if she had in fact arrived via broomstick. There was no evidence one way or another.
"Did you have a good trip up, Jane?" Tina asked anxiously. "It wasn't too bad I hope. Did you fly?"
"I did fly," said the midwife, smiling faintly at Tina, "though the weather certainly left something to be desired. Well. Shall we sit, or would you like me to conduct the home inspection right away?"
Tina and Newt looked at each other, and then, as if they were children, back to George. He sighed.
"Why don't you settle Madame Moon-Leanfear in the library, since the fire is already lit, and I'll see what can be done about some tea for you all. I do have to mention that there are some areas of the house that are strictly off-limits, both to Tina and to visitors, due to structural instabilities. It is very old, and some parts are in better shape than others. Newt will have to guide you through the accessible parts of the house."
"Thank you, Mr. Scamander, that should be quite sufficient for the time being. I will let you know if there are any concerns that need to be addressed after my inspection."
George nodded after a slight hesitation, and set off for the kitchen.
Tina turned and led the way back to the library, where she offered the midwife the comfortable wingback chair that Newt had been sitting in while they had waited for her arrival. Tina sat back in the matching chair and turned to watch the midwife.
Newt pulled over a wooden stool that they used to reach the upper shelves and seated himself at Tina's elbow. Once the midwife had arranged her robes, opened her large carpetbag and set a quill to taking notes, she spoke.
"Well Mr. Scamander, this is something of a surprise. You had seemed determined to stay in London when we last met, and now here you are ensconced in an extremely comfortable and unusually large house. Why did you lead me to believe you have nowhere to go when in fact your family home was so suitable?"
"Uh, well, you see—my family—"
"Your father seemed quite pleased about the prospect of a grandchild when he greeted me. Are there other family members that objected to the news?"
"Er, not exactly. Though it was a bit of a shock," Newt stuttered out. "I mean, I was just as shocked you remember, to find out at St. Mungo's."
"They were shocked because they had no idea who I was," Tina said. She sounded ever so slightly petulant. Newt winced.
The midwife squinted at a roll of parchment she had taken from her bag.
"You mean to say that they had forgotten you? I was under the impression that Tina was the only individual effected by the unfortunate memory spell."
Tina carefully did not meet Newt's eyes.
"I guess they never knew about me in the first place," she said, the hurt tone in her voice more prevalent now.
Jane Moon-Leanfear turned in her seat to regard Newt.
"Well you see," he began, "Tina and I had just gotten married a few weeks before her injury, and in that time, I hadn't managed to send off an owl, and then afterward, of course, I was thoroughly occupied searching for a cure—"
"Most people," the midwife interrupted, "would immediately send word of such a misfortune to their loved ones."
"My family and I—well, my parents and I," Newt searched for the best way to put it. "We had had a falling out last year."
"You had a falling out that resulted in your refusal to notify them of your marriage?"
"Um, yes."
Newt had been staring very carefully at the moving shapes and patterns in the carpet at their feet, but he steeled himself and looked up. Both pairs of eyes on him looked very unimpressed with his answer.
"Tina and I had talked about coming back to England later in the year, perhaps in the spring," he said defensively. "I had thought we could meet my parents and sister down in London, and do introductions then."
"Your parents and sister—but you also have an elder brother then, correct? The current Lord Warden."
Newt answered slowly. "Yes. He lives here. He's—we're not close. We've never been close. But he's away in London at work right now, as he is much of the time."
For a moment it felt like the midwife might inquire further, but then she moved on. "So the residents of the house are presumably your parents and elder brother, you had mentioned a sister? Elder or younger?"
"My sister is nine years younger. She traveled for a year after finishing at Hogwarts but now she's back at home. She's probably around here somewhere if you need to meet her."
"That won't be necessary. Any other siblings or family in residence?"
"No. Well, Tina's sister Queenie and her husband Jacob who I believe you met in London, are staying in the gamekeeper's cabin."
"Ah. Any other people in residence? House elves?"
"There's a gardener, Sikes, who has a cottage on the grounds."
"Wizard or Muggle?" she asked.
"Squib, actually," Newt answered. "There's a muggle woman and her daughter who usually help my mother, but they're away visiting a sick relative."
The midwife gave a wave of her wand, and the quill suspended in midair by her right side sprang into action. "Pets or livestock?" she asked.
"Yes," said Newt.
"Ah yes, you mentioned that you were traveling with a case of exotic animals. Is that what you were referring to?"
"Among other things. My mother breeds Aetherions and racing hippogriffs. We also have quite a rich number of native species, magical and non, on the grounds here."
"Hmm. Any that are particular cause for alarm? Any that might pose a danger to a pregnant female with limited magical capacities?"
Pregnant female…why was that jogging his memory? What had posed the biggest threat to Tina thus far? It wasn't Reggie, no matter what his father believed. It was actually Ethel, the erumpent. Of course—erumpents, for all their good nature most of the time, were competitive breeders.
"Hey! I can still do magic," Tina protested.
"Of course you can, dear, but you are naturally limited by your memory loss. Have you gained back enough of your auror competency to defend yourself adequately?"
Tina frowned. "Not really. I can't remember much outside of school at Ilvermorny," she admitted.
"Then it will be up to your husband to take care of that side of things. Mr. Scamander?" she said sharply, "Are you paying attention?"
"What?" Newt emerged from his thoughts. "I've just realized, Tina! Erumpents are highly competitive, and females who suspect that their mate has impregnated another will fight them to try to ensure that it's only their genes that are carried on to the next generation!"
"What? I thought your erumpent didn't have a mate. It's just the one in there."
"Exactly! She's sort of impressed on me, since she's without other male companionship!" Well, that was one mystery solved. Newt had not for the life of him been able to figure out why Ethel had singled out Tina, and why now. But of course, she must have scented that Tina was pregnant, and been ready to defend what she saw as her territory.
Newt smiled happily at the resolution of this troubling puzzle, but when he looked up, both witches in the room with him were staring.
"You have an erumpent, inside your case, that is under the impression that you are her mate?" asked the midwife.
"Well, I did sort of mislead her a little in order to get her into the case in the first place," Newt admitted. "But it was for her own good—there were poachers arriving, and using erumpent musk was the only thing that I could think of at the time to get her to come quietly. Erumpents are, after all, very capable creatures who would be difficult if not impossible to subdue forcibly without risking injury."
"And you had Tina around such a creature?" the midwife looked ready to sweep Tina up and put her in care.
"I—uh—Tina was never exactly in danger. I made sure to get her out of harm's way well before anything could happen."
Newt guiltily realized that this was not true. When Tina had sought out Dougal inside of his case it was only chance that had kept her scent far enough away from Ethel that she hadn't immediately gone on the offensive.
"Anyway. The creatures inside my case are endangered, and are heavily protected. Tina is to stay away from them, and there should be no trouble."
The midwife looked unconvinced.
"Really," Tina broke in, "The only time I came close to that beast, Newt was right there between us. I came straight upstairs and everything was fine. He's really amazing with all those animals. If you could only see the baby occamies, and all the bowtruckles. Did you know that while bowtruckles look like sticks, the babies look like fat little green berries? They're so amazing, Jane."
The midwife nodded slowly. "Well. I am concerned, but there has never been a wizarding home that I've inspected that has been completely safe. However, I want to impress upon you both that this inspection is not just for the comfort and safety of an expectant mother, but to begin to childproof the environment so that when the baby comes, they will not be in undue danger. Were you and your siblings raised in this house?"
"Yes. We had a nurse, when my brother and I were very young. Though at the time there were also three house elves charged with keeping us safe."
"And all three are no longer in residence?"
"No." Newt glanced at Tina to see if she would push the subject. He suspected that either Queenie or Salsify had filled her in on his emancipation spree at the age of thirteen, but he would prefer not to address it with the midwife.
"Then you will likely have your work cut out for you."
"The nursery is still upstairs, though, and probably in decent working order."
"Then let us start our tour there."
Newt rose quickly, and led Tina and Midwife Moon-Leanfear up the winding back staircase to the corridor with the family rooms. He hesitated at the landing.
"Would you like to see Tina's room? It's just down the corridor in this direction," he started.
"Afterward," commanded the midwife.
So Newt turned the opposite direction and led them past Salsify, Theseus, and his own bedrooms, turning to the back area that contained his parents' private rooms. The walls in this corridor were wood paneling, though not quite so dark as downstairs, with green and gold floral wallpaper above. Newt tapped a bird hiding in the foliage of the wallpaper with his wand.
Tina scrunched up her nose in thought. "Is that a bird of paradise?" she asked.
"A phoenix," he replied.
"Hmm," said the midwife, as the paneling moved out of the way to reveal a double door. Both the top and bottom portions were shut firmly.
"They used to leave the top half open so that we could speak to mother and father when they came by without them having to actually come all the way up," Newt explained.
Tina looked appalled. "They just left you in there?" she asked.
"Well, we weren't alone," Newt said. "Our nurse was with us, and we had a kneezle who used to come up to see us. And we were let out for chores, once we were old enough. And to take air in the garden. But when we were very small, well, it's as she said." Newt nodded his head toward the midwife. "It was for our own good. Mother fwoopers do keep their young in the nest until they can fly, you know."
"Yes, children cannot wander a house like this unattended, not until they're old enough to avoid the most obvious dangers. Very prudent of your parents," she said. "And you may call me Jane."
"Oh," said Newt, somehow pleased, though it had little to do with him that his parents had been very traditional about caring for magical young. They had made their way up the staircase, these walls patterned with paper covered in animals, some mundane and some magical, that pranced and leapt about. Newt smiled at how familiar it was. There were the expected winged horses and griffins, sphinxes and lions, but also nifflers and ducks, flantanagers with their showy bills, and kneezles. There was even a friendly Basset Hound, and the smoking snout of a dragon, mostly obscured by a large boulder. The stair wound up two and a half stories, and opened into the nursery, which was a good portion of the attic level of the house. It was a little dusty, but mostly as Newt remembered it. Drop cloths covered much of the furniture.
Newt removed them with a flick of his wand, and banished them and the subsequent cloud of dust to the lawn below.
"Oh wow," said Tina, taking in the carved tree house and wooden fort in the corner, as well as the two neat single beds on the opposite wall. There were shelves of toys and books, and the far corner had been set up as a classroom, with a blackboard, and two little chairs pulled up to desks that still contained the child-sized quills and inkwells.
"This is nostalgic," said Newt, walking over to a shelf, no more than knee-high now, that contained baskets of various seashells. He'd spent hours studying and categorizing them, and had squealed with joy when his grandfather, whose collection it had originally been, had brought back a new specimen from his travels as Lord Warden.
Jane the midwife had her wand out, and was testing the various protective wardings on the room.
"Still in very good condition. You might want to put another layer of inflammability on the whole thing, and of course improve the air quality, but on the whole I'm quite impressed. If you are planning to keep your child in this area for the first three years, I can qualify this space as safe."
"You mean, keep the baby up here all the time?" asked Tina, looking as if this were some form of child abuse.
The midwife smiled. "Do you think you were out and about unattended as a small child?" she asked. "Magical children attract trouble many orders of magnitude greater than their muggle counterparts, who aren't too shabby at getting into it themselves, believe it or not. But tiny witches and wizards also have an amazing capacity to cause destruction that most muggles simply cannot match in scale. Unstable and emerging gifts need a safe place to flourish, and believe me when I tell you it is exhausting trying to parent them in the best of circumstances. Any sane witch or wizard needs to know that their children are in a safe place when they can't immediately attend to them. No one's saying that you can't take your baby down to dinner or out to the garden. But you will likely want to stay up here as well, especially as long as you're nursing."
The midwife tried to open an arched wooden door to the side of the beds, but it stuck fast.
"I think it still goes to my mother's room," Newt said. "But it should be possible to change it so that it goes to Tina's." He indicated the door on the other side of the beds. "And that goes into the nurse's quarters. The door opened, showing a further room with furniture covered in white cloths. Newt remembered sitting on his nurse's lap listening to stories of lands far away. He'd always loved hearing about the creatures in her stories, of course, but he'd listened happily as Theseus asked for stories of the noble wizard-princes over and over.
"Excellent. That will be quite suitable. Tina, if you are concerned about leaving your child and are not planning to employ a nurse, you could move up to these quarters."
Newt nodded. "There's plenty of room. The nursery was built to accommodate a good many more than three children at a time, as some of the earlier Scamanders had vast quantities of children. I have plenty of second and third cousins twice removed to prove it. Father was one of four, and then of course there were the three of us, but as you see, there were only ever two of us in here at a time because of the age gap between my brother and I and our younger sister."
"How long a gap?" asked the midwife.
"Nine years between Salsify and I, and Theseus was eleven when she was born."
"Do you know how many miscarriages your mother suffered in the interrim?" she asked. Newt looked startled.
"I—why would you think?"
"It would be unusual to have such a gap without some explanation." She shrugged. "Every situation is different, of course."
Newt frowned. He'd known it was a bit odd to have such a gap in ages, but he'd never thought about it before, whether or not his parents had intended to have more children or whether Salsify had been a sort of happy accident. They concluded the tour of the nursery and Jane the midwife had huffed in amusement at the eagerness of the Rose Room to impress. It was extremely demure in pinks and whites with festoons of rosebuds twining round the bedposts. It had somehow managed to rustle up a matching pink and white bassinet from somewhere, and Newt wondered if it had overheard the midwife's suggestion that Tina move up to the nursery after the baby was born.
It managed to comport itself relatively well, and the midwife declared herself satisfied. They returned downstairs to the library where her bag sat waiting. Jane seated herself in the chair next to it, and Newt and Tina stood awkwardly like schoolchildren waiting for a disciplinary decision.
"I must ask, where is that case of yours being kept, Mister Scamander?" she asked.
"Um, Newt, if you please," he said, not wanting to lose the ground he felt he'd gained by getting on a first name basis with the imposing witch. "And I do have to be able to access it to care for the creatures."
He cast a nervous glance at Tina, "But I've been keeping it, um, out of the way," he finished lamely.
"Ah, so you've been trying to keep Tina from becoming tempted." She turned to Tina. "If you do come across it, Tina, do I have your word that you'll stay out of it?"
"Yes," Tina said.
"Then we have concluded the most pressing points of a home inspection. If either of you have any concerns about the physical environment, please let me know, and we can get someone up here to scry for you."
Newt and Tina nodded, though Newt thought it would be a cold day in a dragon's den when his father would let a diviner poke her nose about in Blethering House.
"Now, there is the matter of Tina's memory difficulties. I had the occasion to spend quite a bit of time with Professor Slughorn this past weekend up in Hogsmeade."
"Did you?" asked Newt, surprised.
"Yes. In fact, it's why it took me such a long time to respond to your owl. Mrs. Slughorn gave birth to a girl Sunday evening, and did very well under the circumstances, the poor woman. Slughorn," Jane Moon-Leanfear still did not seem to approve of the man, "was extremely preoccupied with his work developing a potion for Mrs. Scamander. I certainly didn't approve of the fixation at that particular moment, but I daresay we all deal with stress in our own ways. A pity that so many men choose detachment."
She rounded on Newt, looking him straight in the eye. "You don't seem inclined to do that, Newt, at least not naturally."
"I—hope not?" Newt said, not entirely sure what she meant.
"See that you don't let outside conventions press you into such behavior. We'll see how you do when it's your turn. But despite his preoccupation, Slughorn did convince me that any potion he made would be safe for Tina to take during pregnancy—indeed, taking steps to recover her memory may help her feel more confident and in control, which are only to the good for someone doing the hard internal work of becoming a mother."
"So you permit Tina to go to her appointment in London this Saturday?" Newt asked.
"Yes. Just be sure to follow the instructions to the letter, and to keep me advised of any developments. Slughorn assured me that Healer Lockhart—who certainly seems to have her head screwed on straight—will continue officially supervising Tina's case."
Jane opened her carpet bag and took out a wide and sturdy old-fashioned looking broomstick. It was almost round as a bucket, with a gnarled handle, nothing like the sleek things being sold in Diagon Alley for quiddich. "And Tina does seem much more stable," the midwife admitted. "Keep up the good work. Do you have a good place to kick off?" She asked.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay the night—" Newt began. The storm had died down, but it was sure to be an unpleasant flight.
"No, I have other clients to see to," she said simply.
Newt led her and Tina up to the North Tower, which was even higher than the nursery, and mostly abandoned. It had been bedrooms capped with an observation desk at the highest level when Blethering House had housed a great many more people. Newt opened the latched door, and the midwife mounted her broom and kicked off. Newt waved as she ascended, but didn't know quite what to make of her last remarks about keeping up the good work. He hadn't done much, and wished desperately that he was able to do more to help Tina come back to herself. "So, we have permission," Newt said awkwardly. "Are you going to want to go to London, or do you want to put it off?"
He couldn't quite bring himself to say cancel, since he couldn't bear the thought of never having Tina come back to herself ever again. What would it be like, always living with a different version of his wife, both of them knowing that things weren't quite right?
"Let me think about it," Tina said quietly, looking out over the dark clouds. She turned back toward the stair. "Can I go look at the nursery room again?"
"Of course," said Newt, turning and latching the door against the elements once more.
-o-o-o-
Queenie had been able to make it up to the house under her own power after a couple of days. Though she said she hated to miss the midwife's visit, she seemed in good spirits, and Tina was very glad to see her. Despite having been to visit her at least twice a day since Queenie had hurt herself, Tina had still seemed listless. Newt knew she blamed herself for frightening Queenie into twisting her ankle, but Queenie had waved off her apology and said that Tina had always been impulsive. It had taken her a long time to learn to temper that with self-defense and good judgment, so maybe Tina could remember that was something that was important enough to her to work on. Tina had nodded, and looked sobered. As soon as she'd left the Gamekeeper's Cabin, however, Tina had exploded that she'd known that the dragon wouldn't hurt her and Theseus and then Newt had been there and it sure was frustrating having one's younger sister suddenly act all high and mighty.
Newt smiled, but had to privately agree with Queenie that walking into danger was something that Tina struggled with. Why, if she hadn't gone to Brooklyn on her own that night, everything would be so different right now. For one thing, they'd probably still be in New York. They'd have their own lives and their own pursuits, without the interference of Newt's family. He hesitated, unable to imagine exactly what they would be doing in New York at this moment. Would it really be so different? A small voice asked. Would you really have planned to raise a baby in a place where you had next to no family or connections, or even a job? Tina had a career as an auror, but would not have likely wanted to continue the risky and demanding job while pregnant and caring for an infant. It certainly wouldn't have been fair of him to depend on her doing so. No, Newt gloomily conceded, they would probably be back in England anyway, and as the housing market wasn't hinged upon Tina's mental health, nothing would have been different about that either. In fact, they might have ended up at Blethering begging for a place to stay all the same.
Still, Newt could not help but feel like everything would have been different with his Tina—his actual wife in possession of all her memories. He had never spoken at great length about his upbringing, but when he'd mentioned bits and pieces she had always seemed curious, and Newt couldn't help but feel that it was a bit unfair to her that she wasn't getting to experience it all with her usual sense of wonder.
But the Tina of now, sitting at table beside her sister this time, was also quite curious, even if she did not have any details from prior conversations to draw on in her explorations. She was in a girlish green dress that Queenie had made for her from an older gown that Tina had found in the Rose Room closet. Queenie had chosen to give it a high neck and calf-length pleated skirt, so while the silk fabric was fine enough for a dinner gown, it still had a bit of an awkward, in-between look to it. Newt looked up over his beet soup and caught Queenie's eye. She looked like she knew exactly what he was thinking, even though she still wore the heavy amulet that would prevent her from hearing his thoughts.
Was this her way of reminding him that Tina was still a child mentally? Or was the reminder for Tina? Newt had avoided spending too much time with her alone. After the Midwife left, Tina had occupied herself with cleaning up the nursery, and going through its contents. Newt had left her to it, because whenever he was alone with Tina lately, she seemed to want something from him. Whether it was just simple affection or something more, Newt still felt it would be wrong to give in to her when she wasn't exactly sure what she was asking for. If he changed the subject or tried to speak lightly of other things, she could get quite depressed. So Newt had left her to her work upstairs, and had done extra chores for Salsify so that she would have the free time to keep Tina company.
Sal had got Tina to help her make the dinner tonight, which was an interesting dish that Salsify had come back with from her travels after graduating. There were chunks of lamb or mutton in a rich spicy sauce, filled with vegetables and herbs over a fluffy kind of grainy pasta. It was quite good.
"Where exactly did you say this dish was from, Sally?" he asked.
"I picked it up in Morocco from a witch I stayed with for a few days. She was extremely handy in the kitchen. You should have seen her spice cupboard! It was a treasure trove. The dish is called couscous. Well, the stuff at the bottom is called couscous. I'm not entirely sure what to call the stuff on top. Some kind of curry maybe?"
"It's delicious, dear," said Gloriana. She looked especially tired this evening, and Newt wondered what she had been up to the past few days. Apart from handing out chores at breakfast, he'd hardly seen her.
"How were things in the village today, Daddy?" asked Salsify. George set down his napkin in his lap and cleared his throat. He also looked tired, but had finished up his obsessive walking of the perimeters of the property early on this day so that he could go down to the pub and listen to the concerns of the locals. Theseus was away on business, not due back for two more days, and Jacob was in the kitchen preparing the desert. George looked round at Newt and the four ladies before answering.
"They were enlightening. Thankfully there have been no more creatures destroying tenant property."
"But were they upset? About the murtlap and the piskies?" Gloriana asked. "What is the general feeling?"
"I'd say they were wary, but as usual I was impressed with their fortitude. I have never been sure exactly how much knowledge of wizardkind the locals have."
"Shouldn't they not have any?" asked Queenie. "I mean, what with the Statute and everything. I know you guys make exceptions for spouses, for which I"m real grateful—but isn't it dangerous for any group to know about us?"
George sat back in his chair, and deliberated a minute before deciding what to tell her. It was difficult to explain Blethering Village to outsiders, whether muggle or wizardkind.
"Blethering was set up to be a sort of trial attempt for us to live together. When Queen Elizabeth gave the grounds and the surrounding land to Norbert Scamander, it was with the understanding that his tenants would be muggles, and would be aware of magic and his powers, though the dragons were still supposed to be a secret. There was some concern that if countries on the continent were aware that her majesty had a dragon at her beck and call, they would do whatever they could to get one of their own. Our ancestor, of course, was completely horrified by the thought of dragon-on-dragon violence in the name of nationalistic conflicts, so he agreed to keep our dragons out of sight.
"I believe they tried to be open with the muggles in the village, but too much familiarity led to overwork. Norbert's wife was something of a healer, and she was put to it mending breaks and scrapes, and then the plague came and she had to heal an entire town. She was glad to do it, but the exhaustion was cited as one reason why when she suffered a blow to the head during the construction of the portico on the front of the house, she immediately died."
"Oh, that's so sad!" said Queenie.
"Yes, and it had the effect of placing some distance between the family at Blethering House and the villagers. Norbert wasn't exactly cruel to them, but he couldn't help but blame them for depleting his wife so that something that ought to have bounced right off her ended up killing her like a muggle."
"I can see that," said Tina. "That would be hard to get over."
"Anyway, it's led to a strange relationship with the villagers. We talk to them, and help them when we can, but not so much with magic. At least not when they can see," Salsify added. "And for their part they seem to want the things from us that other villagers do from their landlords. Keep things up, donate heaps of money to the school, keep that ridiculous sweeping lawn that they can point at from beyond the gate when relatives come to visit. Oh, and go to church."
Salsify sounded rather glum about it.
"Oh," Queenie sounded surprised. "Do you guys follow a muggle religion?"
"Not exactly…" Gloriaana stifled a yawn. Mother, yawning at the table? She must have really overworked herself. "We attend the church in the village because it's a very useful way to connect with the villagers and tenants. They're all in one place, and then of course we also get the vicar on our side. Priests can be very troublesome, but we've been quite lucky. Both of the ones that we've had at St. Ambrose's here in the village since I've been here are very live and let live. Besides, there are some very fascinating and beautiful aspects of the muggle liturgy. There is certainly something to be gained from any prayerful reflection."
"So you're Wiccans then?" pressed Tina. Religion was not usually a major function of life in Britain outside of the muggle church holidays, but Newt had noticed that in America there was a little more discussion around it, perhaps because of their status as a melting pot of cultures.
"Well, we celebrate the high festivals like everyone," said George carefully, "as well as the muggle holidays. But we're not terribly religious on the whole."
"When our Grandpa married our Grandma, she made him officially convert to Wicca," said Queenie, "Even though she wasn't religious herself. She said it was the best way to stay on the right side of MACUSA at the time. But as he got older, he went back to Judaism and even got our parents to send us to Hebrew School when we were little."
"So we follow a muggle religion a little bit too," said Tina.
"It does give a fascinating alternate perspective on the world, doesn't it?" Gloriana usually loved delving into anthropological discussions like world religions, but now she covered her mouth as a yawn finally escaped her. "Excuse me please. I think I've overextended myself for the day. Please apologize to Jacob—I very much regret missing the dessert that he's prepared."
Gloriana inclined her head at them and left the table.
"Well, since you're used to muggle religious stuff, perhaps you'll come to church with us," said Salsify. "Misery does love company, after all. The vicar's always after us to sing with the choir for the Christmas holidays. He'll be in ecstasies that you're home, Newt."
Both Goldstein sisters perked up at this.
"Why?" asked Tina, looking between Newt and his little sister.
Newt heaved a sigh, and narrowly resisted setting his head down on the table. Perhaps climbing all the way under the table would be better. Salsify grinned evilly, then feigned surprise.
"What? You didn't realize that you were married to the man who was the most prized boy soprano in this part of England? When he was home from school the priest over in the Priory Church of Lancaster would try to poach him from the village church for holiday services. Even after his voice finally changed he remained an—and here I quote directly the visiting bishop—'angelic' tenor."
Newt coughed slightly. "That is all in the past though, Sally. I haven't sung in years, and there's no way—"
"You, sing?" Queenie seemed especially affronted by this. "I sing! You know that about me! Why did you never say anything about it?"
"You sing jazz and popular music!" protested Newt. "I've only ever sung in vast church choirs, and that only years ago!"
Newt glanced over to the head of the table where his father was looking extremely amused.
"Truth will out eventually, eh Newt?" he said.
Newt pursed his lips and frowned. He looked reluctantly over to Tina, who was smiling slightly. He supposed this wasn't the worst secret that could meet the light of day, but something about it was quite uncomfotable.
"You'll just have to make your church guy happy and do the Christmas singing," Tina said, "so we can all hear for ourselves."
"Really—I don't think that's a good—"
Newt was cut off by protests from around the table. Jacob opened the door from the Kitchen and came out with a huge and delicious looking trifle.
"What's all the commotion," he asked. "What'd I miss?"
"Newt," Queenie pronounced his name accusingly, "is apparently some great singer. He's supposed to sing at his church this Christmas and now he's trying to weasel out of it."
"I'm not weaseling—" Newt began.
"Ha!" A laugh escaped Jacob before he could stop it. "Good luck resisting buddy, with these three on your case."
He nodded at the three young women who were already holding up their plates for dessert.
"We'll see," said Newt. Perhaps they would forget about the singing. Maybe? Newt glanced over at Tina, who grinned. He would hope they'd all move on to some other topic. Though if Tina really wanted him to, Newt knew he could hardly refuse her.
-o-o-o-
Several days passed, with each of the Scamanders charged with visiting and revisiting the enclosures of their largest creatures to make absolutely certain that all was secure. Theseus had been staying in London with a friend, but would there was little more than a week now until his guests would arrive and there was still much to be done. On a cold and windy afternoon, Newt was coming around the back garden at Blethering House from the stables when he ran into Tina as she stepped out of Salsify's garden. It felt strange to casually run into her around the house. He'd been careful to make sure that she had company and entertainment and not to neglect her, but at the same time he had tried to only spend time with Tina in company. She looked so much like herself this afternoon though. It gave Newt hope to see Tina so engaged and purposeful and involved with family life at Blethering. Family life for the Scamanders was, of course, deeply tied to their charge to protect and care for the creatures they lived with, great and small, all of which tied back to their purpose of caring for the dragons. The winged horses and hippogriffs were of course very helpful for getting someone to ride point and cast any invisibility spell touch-ups on Reggie or her mate as they flew, while various creatures provided sustenance, protection, or ingredients. It was slightly brutal, as most farming life was, but it was functional.
Glorianna had been bulking up the stables with fliers since they would soon have to exercise not two dragons, but possibly up to ten, which boggled the mind. It might take as little as one year or as many as three before they would be able to return to the wilds of Eastern Europe with their father and fend for themselves. And of course one would be staying with Reggie to train up as the next White Dragon, at least, that was their hope.
But Theseus' little Christmas party was putting quite a damper on preparations. There should already be cousins flooding in, ready to work the moment that the hatchlings emerged from their shells. Instead, his mother was going over lavish dinner menus with Jacob and drilling Queenie on proper legillimency etiquette. Poor Queenie. She'd had almost a rougher time of it here than Tina, and that was saying something. At least Tina was free to roam around and had made something of a friend in Salsify. Queenie was too much in the house and the cabin to spend all that much time with Sal, who was tending her greenhouse or doing magical-creature-related chores most of the time. What with how she'd been worked over the past couple of years, Dumbledore might offer her the Care of Magical Creatures post, even if it wasn't her preference.
Newt waved at Tina and she smiled at him, and hurried to his side.
"Salsify's got me trying to memorize all the uses of herbs on hippogriffs. I think she thinks you've been slacking off because of that poor guy who was injured and stuck in your case."
Newt grimaced. He was never going to live that one down, was he?
"If she really wants to teach you something useful, you could ask her to research some remedies for calming graphorns. I've got a male that I'm hoping to breed with the female Queenie's been calling Princess when she's old enough, but he's very cagey. Something must have happened to him to make him so mistrustful. I keep intending to spend more time with him but I'm just overwhelmed with all the tasks and as much as I love my work, being at home has also given me other obligations—"
"Like what?" Tina looked back at where he'd come from. "Where were you earlier?"
"I was riding one of the horses down to the village."
"Jeez that's crazy! You rode a flying horse right into a village of muggles? I know you said it's an exception to the Statute, but this place is insane—"
Tina's eyes were bulging out slightly, which made Newt laugh. Even if she didn't remember it, she had been suspended merely for saving a boy from pain in front of muggles. Even though all of them had been safely obliviated, she'd been demoted to wand registration permits, something that crushed her ambitions. When had Tina stopped caring about the appearance of things and become the bold witch that he had met in New York?
"No, no. It was a regular horse. Well, Kiann would resent that description, as he's a very fine animal with warhorse ancestry, but he hasn't got wings. And how the Aetherions lord it over him in the stable! For this reason, Blethering used to have one stable for horses with wings, and one for those without, but once Mother brought in the hippogriffs, all the equines had to share. Their needs and temperaments are really quite alike—maybe too alike and that's why they don't get along."
"Oh. So you can ride a regular horse?" Tina thought about that for a second, while Newt tried not to smile. He had ridden a great many things stranger than a garden-variety horse, and Tina herself was getting some instruction on winged horse ridership from Salsify and his mother when she had the time.
"Yes, I can. Would you like to try?"
Tina looked interested, but shook her head. "Weirdly, that's one thing that the midwife said was right out. The packet says no horses, but I told her you guys used winged horses to get around here, and Jane said that might be all right because there wasn't any jolting if I only did flying and no running on the ground."
"Oh, well, I suppose that makes sense." Newt was always a little concerned to find there was a new rule or regulation on the list that he hadn't noticed when he'd glanced at it. He really ought to take a better look at that towering stack of parchment with all the midwife's recommendations. Somehow whenever he sat down to it his eyes crossed and his stomach turned over. It was dizzying to consider all the things that could go wrong with Tina's pregnancy, and that on top of it he was planning to subject her to a highly experimental memory treatment.
"But where were you?" Tina persisted. "What were you doing in the village?"
Newt looked off to the side, a little embarrassed. "Well, I was telling Father Wentworth that I was available to sing at Christmas, if he wanted me to."
"So you're going to? Really?" Tina looked surprised and interested as she had the other night.
Newt just nodded his head. As Sal had predicted, the vicar had been quite enthusiastic about the idea, even after Newt reminded him not to expect too much as he was badly out of practice. Father Wentworth waved this away and pointed out quite rightly that there was scarcely another decent tenor in the county and they might as well rejoice in what God had given them. Newt had shrugged uncomfortably and hurried home. The storms of the past weekend had kept the dragons inside, but George had wanted to make sure that Reggie and her mate each had the opportunity to exercise before staying with the eggs became too pressing. Newt looked at the sky. There wasn't going to be much time for it today, since it was already afternoon and getting cold and dark. Playing in the dark with huge and deadly dragons was not usually worth it, even considering the cover the darkness gave them. Too much could go wrong. Besides, they were reptiles, even though huge and with magically aided auxiliary circulation that kept them from suffering as much as their tiny reptilian brethren without heat from the sun to warm them. Night was not usually their time, and certainly not in the dead of winter.
Their lair was kept hot by the concentration of layers of Scamander spells on it, and Reggie likely wouldn't want to leave her nest. But she needed to keep her strength up, and it wasn't good for her to go too long without stretching her flight muscles.
Newt's thoughts were mostly on dragons as he and Tina ambled up to the house, taking the back stair up and into the family wing. Newt had thought that he would check in on the denizens of his case, which was still semi-hidden in the owlery, but he'd been keeping it from Tina so that she wouldn't have the temptation. He'd assumed Tina was heading up to her room. Instead, when they reached the corridor that went toward his parents room, Tina stopped and tugged on his arm.
"Come on," she said.
Newt had guessed that she was headed for the nursery, and his guess was proved right as she towed him over to the placed where the door was hidden. She tapped her wand on the phoenix as he'd shown her and the door opened.
"I've been thinking about what you and Jane said, about needing to protect magical little ones," she said. "Though I still don't remember being separated from everybody when I was little."
Newt shrugged. "I believe some people say that girls have more control of their magic than boys. But I don't remember Salsify having remarkable willpower. She certainly lit her share of things on fire. Though she did have two rather bad examples, as Theseus and I were always getting up to something we oughtn't."
They were ascending the stair, but Tina turned and smiled at him. "Like what?"
"Oh, my specialty was getting in with the large animals when everyone thought I was safely doing lessons or helping in the garden. I got quite good at it."
She laughed, and it warmed Newt's heart to hear the familiar sound.
"So one second you were pulling turnips and the next you were climbing up on a hippogriff? That must have driven your parents crazy."
Newt shook his head. "Oh no, if that were the case my poor parents and the nurse would have had much less to worry about. When I was very small I was actually quite good at slipping between the layers of spells up on the hillside. They'd spend an afternoon looking for me and find me asleep on top of Reggie. That was quite shocking, that I hadn't been immediately eaten, Scamander or no, and it's one of the signs that convinced my father and grandfather that she was feeling a bit broody and it might be time to try her with a mate. Other children had in the past tried it and very narrowly escaped being roasted alive."
Tina's eyes had gone wide, so Newt hastened to say, "But I never did manage to get out of the nursery. This place was rock-solid in terms of containment spells. Theseus once managed to enact an emergency contingency that got the door to open, but he was much older—nine or ten—and unbeknownst to him it also alerted my parents immediately. My mother and Madame Givern patched up that hole immediately."
"Huh," she said. "I wonder what stuff my parents would have had to say about Queenie and I. There were a couple of times we overstepped—like when Queenie really wanted a pink headband when she'd got a brown one and she changed it—and her dress and shoes and even her hair to match—but all in all I don't remember doing much magic until I went to school."
They had reached the expanse of the nursery space, with the tree house on one side and the beds on the other. Tina drifted over to one of the long row of dormer windows that looked out over the roof and sat on the window seat.
"I would love to know about small Tina too," Newt said, coming up to stand behind her and look out over the lake. It was such a shame that Tina and Queenie's aunt had turned out to be such a terrible guardian. Something really would have to be done about her. There might be little point in fighting with her, but if she had all the family albums and memorabilia that might ease Tina and Queenie's grief, she should be made to share what she had.
Tina turned to him, her eyes big and serious. "And that's one reason why I've been thinking. I want to get my memory back. I think it'll be best for this baby, to have the two parents who wanted it in the first place. I just—I don't feel ready. I still feel so sad about my parents and my grandparents, and I don't know how to take care of babies even a little. So I wanna take that potion, and remember who I am and how I feel about things. Just—I hope I don't have to lose this part of my memory to do it."
Newt frowned. "I hope it won't, Tina. But truthfully we don't know how it will work, if it does work at all."
Tina looked down and pulled something from her jacket pocket. Black and white figures beamed and hugged. Newt started. It was the photograph of them at their wedding. His hand immediately flew to his breast pocket. He couldn't feel the paper edge anywhere.
"Sorry. Your mother said yesterday that she was sorry we hadn't gotten married in England, but that she was glad we'd had a nice wedding anyway. Salsify asked how she knew, and Gloriana said you'd showed her a picture. I really wanted to see it, so Salsify swiped it while you were eating breakfast."
"You could have asked, Tina," he said in a pained voice. "You didn't need to take it. It's very precious to me, but I would have showed you if you'd asked."
"Would you?" asked Tina sadly. "Because I've hardly seen you in days. I feel like you've spent most of your time avoiding me, even after we talked about it."
Newt sighed. "The truth of it is that it's not very easy for me, Tina."
"To be around me?"
"Well, yes."
"Because you still miss her." Tina looked down at the photograph. "I guess this helps me see a little better. You miss her, and you have to deal with knowing that she—me—doesn't miss you at all. But that's where you're wrong. Part of me still does. Every time I look at you, something inside me aches, and it's even worse when you're not there. Even when I barely knew you, that feeling was there. It was kinda scary at first. But now I just want to take the potion and have it done. I want you to have her back, and I want it to stop hurting."
Tina reached up with her hand and touched Newt's face. She leaned forward, pulling him down to his knees, and Newt couldn't bring himself to move away. She kissed him sweetly, if a little inexpertly, and Newt pulled back only slightly to wrap his arms around her.
"I think that's the right decision too, Tina," he said. "I've thought about it back and forth, over and over. I know there are risks, but everything's a risk in this life, and I want more than anything to live life with you. This part of you and all the rest too."
He leaned forward, touching his forehead to hers. Little tendrils of hope wrapped themselves around his heart. Tina still cared, enough to influence this part of her personality. In all the months since her injury, Newt hadn't felt closer to his Tina than that moment.
-o-o-o-
Newt had left Tina upstairs to reflect and distract herself with thoughts about whether and how to redecorate the nursery. He'd asked if she'd like to wait and see if the baby was a boy or a girl but she'd shrugged and said it didn't make much of a difference as to whether they'd like a moon and stars mobile or flying beasts over his or her cot. Newt had a memory of a mobile from his early childhood with carefully carved miniatures of the different breeds of Northern European Dragons in flight, with the English White flying over the others at the top. He'd have to ask his mother where such a thing might have been packed off to. A quick hour spent in his case had got the animals who were still housed inside fed and watered and examined for any complaints. There was a moon calf who had been gorging a bit on pellets, and the bowtruckles had been teasing Pickett again, but other than that, all was relatively quiet. Newt had given the bowtruckles a reprieve from Pickett's peevishness by offering him a ride on his lapel, and had headed down to see if Jacob needed a hand with dinner. Despite all his mother's assurances that Jacob and Queenie would only be needed when Theseus' guests were here, the moment Jacob had set foot in the kitchen, Gloriana had gratefully retreated. Newt felt a familiar pang of guilt at how much she had to do, and at the blow he had dealt her almost twenty years ago by dismissing their house elves.
"So little brother, I hear that congratulations are in order."
Theseus smoothly oozed from behind the bookcase that Newt had just been passing. Theseus had been staying in London for most of the past week, and Newt had not realized that he was back home. He was holding the first edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the one with the rather painfully bad cover. Newt had attempted to draw a Siberian Cave Gnome, but as that entry had been edited out of the book, it not only was painfully amateur, but made no sense. Thankfully the first print run had been quite limited and sold out quickly enough to convince the publisher to commission a cover by a professional artist for the next one. Newt had never been a very good hand at sketching. Of course Theseus would love to draw attention to the awkward cover.
"Oh um, thank you," Newt said awkwardly, only after he'd spoken realizing that Theseus hadn't exactly offered his congratulations, only announced that he knew they ought to be given. Theseus looked down his perfect nose at Newt and sighed, running a hand through his fashionably slicked-back golden hair. Newt and Salsify favored their father's ginger curls, while Theseus took after Gloriana, though his hair was a little brighter than hers. Theseus had always got quite far on his looks, with both teachers and peers reacting to him with instant attraction, or at least the desire to give him the benefit of the doubt. Newt wondered what it would be like to go through life so easily, with everything laid out so perfectly. Of course there had been some upset when Theseus was placed in Slytherin, but Newt had been small and his mother had explained to him very carefully that Slytherins might favor slightly different methods of solving problems, and did not mean that they were evil or incapable of working good.
Newt had accepted this, but after Theseus had come home at Christmas that first year so changed, it had troubled Newt to no end. Theseus returned not just scornful of his little brother whom he'd always found annoying, but he had refused to meet with the village boys with whom he'd always played. Tommy Davies down at Merriwether Farm and Charles the schoolteacher's son came right up to the house and boldly asked Gloriana to have Theseus meet them in the wood by Longwood Lake. Newt had hung about, and snuck out on Corwin to spy on his brother, who at that point he still looked up to despite himself, and watched him snub his friends quite painfully. The muggle boys called Theseus a freak and seemed to want to give him a thumping, but Theseus pulled out his wand, and though Newt didn't see him perform a spell—something that would certainly be serious enough that he'd have to bring to the attention of their parents—the boys seemed scared and ran off.
The incident was made all the more disturbing by the fact that just as nine-year-old Newt was getting up the courage to go down and confront his brother, Theseus fell to his knees and burst into tears. "I never asked to be put in Slytherin!" was the only phrase that Newt was sure he'd heard in all the crying, hiccuping mess. Newt knew that if Theseus realized he'd had an audience for that complete and total breakdown, he would never forgive him. So Newt had whispered the silencing charm his father had taught him for creeping away with an ungainly beast when surprised by a muggle, and had left Theseus alone.
Later, Newt had come down from the nursery to knock on the big door of Theseus' new room, thinking he'd ask if Theseus would like to play darts or skittles. He'd felt sorry for Theseus that afternoon in the woods in a way that he never had before, but when Theseus opened his door it was clear from the icy expression on his face and the contempt dripping from his voice that he had no interest in Newt's compassion.
They had only drifted further apart from there. The only point when Newt could recall Theseus feeling well disposed toward him was when he first came to see Newt after his expulsion. He'd been positively delighted, having gotten the news while away at the muggle school, Harrow, that Theseus attended for a year after finishing at Hogwarts. By then Theseus had learned to temper or cover—Newt was never sure which—his contempt with a friendly manner that charmed muggles and wizards alike.
"Well, nobody's perfect after all," Theseus had said to Newt that day, which had struck Newt as a very strange thing to say. Theseus seemed to operate on the principle that he himself could do no wrong and that his job was convincing both the muggle and magical governments of that fact.
Then the war came, and by all accounts Theseus had comported himself well, a hero in the eyes of wizards and muggles alike. Newt had done his part, but was assigned to a remote area training dragons. It was something that he was certainly well equipped for, but every time Newt thought his squadron would see action, it was recalled and told to stand by. They really only accomplished one major action during the war, and that hadn't been enough to earn Newt any recognition, especially as he had teed off all of his superiors by being the only wizard that the dragons would actually obey, ruining their visions of scores of dragonriders flying through the skies at the Germans. Newt had argued long and hard that the dragons were just as effective if not more without the riders, but the Wizard General would not hear of such a thing.
Nevertheless, it was not as if they were a bunch of Reggies, who'd been doting on him since birth. Newt had had to work hard to earn their trust, and it had often come at the expense of his standing with the humans who stupidly tried to assert control over all the wrong situations.
Newt blinked, realizing that this had been a rather long reminiscence and that Theseus had spoken to him.
"Sorry, what?" he said.
Theseus sighed. "Pay attention. I was asking you if you intended to settle at Blethering and stay on after the child is born."
"I never intended to, but Mother and Father have asked us to. I suppose it depends."
"On?"
"We came here to try to find a cure, for Tina—"
"You keep insisting something's wrong with that girl, but she doesn't seem particularly troubled. When she came here she seemed a bit muddled, but the country air seems to have sorted her out. Just because she's been effected by an accident—"
"It wasn't an accident." That came out a little more sharply than Newt had intended. He exhaled, trying to calm down. Still, if the ponce couldn't get this much straight, there was no point in talking to him at all.
"Oh? What exactly happened then?"
Newt paused, the tone of Theseus' voice making him suddenly wary. This was a tactic that Theseus frequently employed. The victim or target of the conversation would be led to a subject that Theseus wanted to know more about, and then their version of events would be trivialized or questioned, leading them to be much more forthcoming as they struggled to set the record straight. It reminded Newt of Slughorn, acutally. Newt couldn't let Theseus manipulate him like that any more. He was an adult. Where Tina was concerned, he might be the only adult. He was certainly the responsible party.
"Tina was injured during the course of her duties as an auror."
"Tina, an auror? I know you said she worked for MACUSA, but her sister made it sound like they just served coffee and bespelled the quills."
"Queenie was a secretary in the Muggle Relations department, but Tina was an auror. She apprenticed under Percival Graves, before he came under the influence of Grindelwald."
To tell the truth, no one was entirely sure what had happened to the original Percival Graves, or when. Newt still didn't know much about him, only that he was a man Tina had spent her professional life looking up to. The official line was that he had been influenced by Grindelwald, because the President wanted to keep knowledge of the actual impersonation quiet. It did not make her organization look good to say that they had absolutely no idea how long their top auror had been missing and exactly when Grindelwald had personally replaced him. President Picquery had persuaded those present when Newt unmasked him to believe that he had only taken Graves' form for a limited amount of time, though he may have been influencing his actions beforehand. This led to the idea that Graves was under the Imperius Curse before Grindelwald used some of his tissue to prepare polyjuice potion. But if he'd been doing that for some time, then where was the real Percival Graves? It seemed most likely that he'd been killed long before anyone became aware of Grindelwald's deception, but then how would the potion have been prepared? It was a bit of a conundrum.
"Grindelwald?" Theseus' head had jerked back slightly, though his voice remained calm.
"Yes, as you would well know, MACUSA have been searching relentlessly for him after he escaped them."
Theseus set the copy of Fantastic Beasts down on the end table by the blue sofa.
"I had heard," he said slowly, "that you had been in New York at the time of his original capture. But surely you wouldn't have had anything to do with that."
Newt hesitated. He knew that his Uncle Ashley, who headed up the Ministry aurors, had the full story. Would he have shared it with Theseus? Wouldn't he have had to tell the Lord Warden anyway if he asked? Still, Newt felt that it would be a mistake to tell all to Theseus.
"As I said, Tina was an auror for MACUSA, and that was the trip where we met. She hauled me in for smuggling illegal livestock."
Theseus chuckled. "Unsurprising. How did you get off? Surely you didn't charm your way out of it?"
Theseus looked amused but disbelieving that Newt might be capable of taking a page from his elder brother's book.
"I managed to make myself useful when they had some difficulties upholding the Statue of Secrecy. For that the President was willing to pardon me, but she did send me back to Britain immediately, and it was some time before I was able to make it back to Tina."
"But did you see—were you personally in the presence of—Gellert Grindelwald?" Theseus asked. He sounded very intense and a glance at his eyes showed that his gaze was clear and penetrating.
"I was." Newt didn't see the point in trying to lie. It rarely worked on Theseus and never when he was in a mood like this.
"Did he say anything, to you?"
Newt looked at Theseus a little oddly. "He said, 'Will we die, just a little?'"
Theseus took that in, and then snapped his gaze back to the cloudy outside.
"Well, that sounds like gibberish, doesn't it?"
Newt nodded, hesitantly. "It certainly seems like the ravings of a disturbed man, but at the time…"
"Yes?" asked Theseus eagerly.
"I don't know. It seemed calculated." Newt reached out and touched the embarrassing sketch of a pixie embossed on the cover of his book. "Why, does it mean anything to you?"
Theseus pinned him with another piercing look. "To me? Why would it? I've never so much as laid eyes on Gellert Grindelwald."
Newt recalled a fact that had troubled him for years, one that he'd told his father in confidence when they'd had that dreadful row about Theseus ascending as Lord Warden. That Grindelwald-as-Graves had mentioned that he'd corresponded with Theseus. George had argued that if all of MACUSA was caught unawares there was absolutely no reason to believe that Theseus knew who he was corresponding with, but Newt had been able to tell that his parents were as troubled as he was.
"Very few wizards have, apparently. But it seems his ideas have been infiltrating the continent nevertheless."
Was Theseus aware of what had happened in Paris, the second time that Newt and Tina had encountered Gellert Grindelwald? Even Uncle Ashley didn't know all of that story.
Theseus smiled very slightly. "Yes, they are quite pervasive. Would it surprise you to hear that there is an amount of sympathy in the British Isles as well?"
Newt frowned.
"Oh yes," replied Theseus, "there are quite a few for whom the idea of stepping out of the shadows is quite attractive."
Newt sighed. "We've been down this path before. Perhaps those who can't recall the past need remedial Magical History Lessons. I'm sure Professor Binns would be happy to oblige."
"Hmm," said Theseus. "It has been tried before, it's true. But wars have been fought together with muggles now. It's a whole new world. Muggle technology may start to be useful as a substitute for low skill magic. I've heard that in New York, all witches and wizards live side-by-side with muggles, and not in their own quarter."
"That's true, but they more than anybody know the costs of violating the Statute."
"I hope that the charming Goldstein sisters will be able to tell my guests all about how they make it work at dinner next week." Theseus stalked off, leaving Newt with a sour expression. Tina and Queenie were not setpieces in some intercontinental wizarding drama Theseus had cooked up, and he didn't want them being treated that way. Theseus hadn't said that he or any of his friends found sympathy for Grindelwald's views, but something about the flip way Theseus had spoken made Newt uneasy. Still, Theseus was probably the last person to want an end to the Statute of Secrecy in Britain, since that was what put him in such a unique position of power as Lord Warden, and there was nothing so important to Theseus as his position.
Newt continued on about his day, trying to neither dwell on Theseus nor the impending trip to London with Tina that might change everything once more.