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Dwell
(Spaces He Leaves)
Part II
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Tina sees him in all of the spaces that Newt desperately tries to flit through. But Newt moves with a limp now. He's easy to catch.
She watches him with eagle eyes when he's first carted off to the converted chateau-hospital in southeast England, her gaze focused on following him, even though he's a wisp of a man, just a shadow weighted by guilt and memory.
Like a good nurse, she talks to him, constantly, cajoling him to be treated when all Newt wants to do is run away, and hide from her strong, kind gaze. He would travel the world again, if he could. (He plays with escape-by-floo scenarios.) But a small, lurking voice tells him that, sometimes, the world isn't big enough to run away from yourself.
The voice sounds like Leta.
Newt is quite certain he's going mad.
"Please don't," he tries when Tina—eternal patience run dry—storms into his ward. It's not really a ward, more of a bed with flimsy white curtains drawn around it. All the same, she flicks the curtains aside and pulls out her wand, face stony. The injured man next door lets out a demure squeak.
"The doctors are here," Tina says, wearing her nurse hat and brandishing her wand as if she dares Newt, cursed leg and all, to leave ("just try it"). Newt swallows heavily.
So he sits very still as they brace both of his knees and apply various charms to his bad leg, locking him down to one place for good.
Although Newt believes (wants to believe) the prescribing mediwitch means well, her poultice and medical order see fit to confine him to his childhood estate as the world outside slowly burns down around them.
Tina comes with him (Newt tries not to wonder if she would have, barring mediwitch's instructions) carrying a familiar suitcase. The dull, battered old thing is something she uniquely understands is his life, what little is left.
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"How do you do, Mr. and Mrs. Scamander," Tina says, dressed as an English nurse but looking every inch an Investigative Auror, a soft fire in her eyes. "I'm your son's nurse, Porpentina Goldstein."
"We received the hospital's letter," his mother says. She steps forward to grasp a slightly surprised Tina's hand. "I've made accommodations for you here, so you cancel that reservation at the Apothecary Inn, dear. Any friend of our son's is a friend of ours."
Tina's eyes soften.
She next turns to Newt's father, his aging, stubborn father, dressed in dark tweeds and formally retired from consulting at Gringotts. "Sir, I've heard so much about your work advising the global economy. You are a great asset to the magical community here and in America."
Tina speaks clearly, honestly, without any difficulty.
It's bewildering, because Newt's not sure he's seen this side of her, except when she's fighting for those she loves.
Merlin's bloody beard.
Then Leta's voice whispers that it's impossible, he's undeserving.
Undeserving is the least of Newt's problems. The roles that he's carefully inhabited have been permanently reversed. He's no longer fit to be the caretaker, but the one forced to receive. Tina seems content enough to give. For now. Newt's not sure how he feels about this.
He wants to run away, but he can't. He's never been good at it in the past.
"It's me, Newt. I can't ever abandon you, you know that."
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The world churns on. Newly-acclaimed author Newton Scamander struggles over the second edition of Fantastic Beasts, the first edition on international shelves is earning a steady stream of revenue to pay for his… whatever this is.
The troops come home at the end of December, and Theseus, Ministry Senior Auror, arrives on the doorstep to attend some social functions in his bid for Head Auror.
"Mingling's best done during vacation," Theseus winks at a glum, cast-wearing Newt, proffering a small container of Diagon Alley scones, as he gives his mother and father hugs. "Could never see the use of those old ladies' parties, until now. Mum, you coming to London for Season this year?"
"Never could see the fun of it, after Christmas," Mrs. Scamander says airily. "And your father's a bit ill."
"Old man's in the shock stage of retirement. He'll be better by February," Theseus laughs, charming the house elves (that Newt relocated at his previous 2-sickle desk job) into snickering a bit.
Theseus grins back, before his eyes land on Tina.
"Tina Goldstein, from New York—" She moves before the elder Scamander brother can speak. Tina's all poise as she walks smartly toward him, hand outreached to shake. "—Newt's friend."
Newt can't run, is forced to watch, his cast heavy and weighting him down to the chair. Still, he must count his blessings. He's glad she's left out the 'nurse' bit.
But a strange sensation squeezes around the hollow space in his chest, seeing Tina's face as Theseus kisses her knuckles.
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There are lots of well-wishers, and people who try to be encouraging (or just lie) when they say one published book is good enough for an entire lifetime. Ironically, it's Theseus—perfect, unreachable Theseus—who comes to Newt, first, with something more substantial than a pitying face.
"Newt, about Ms. Goldstein…"
Newt wishes he has collapsible ears like a grindylow.
There was once another girl, another admonishment. Newt's handicapped, not stupid. Though he's unable to fully comprehend Tina Goldstein's meaning in his life, he knows that staying here would feel worthless if not for her.
His surprisingly fierce feelings give him his voice.
"She's the best person I know, Theseus. Don't you dare."
Theseus recoils as if he's been disarmed in a duel. "Right," he says, and the usual grin he wears for dinner parties and business meetings slides off his face, replaced by a small, lopsided one not unlike Newt's own. "Well, that's not what I was going to say."
"What, then?"
"Think of this as an early Christmas present, Newt. I just thought you'd like to know, have a right to know—Dad told me that we're going to start introducing Tina—can I call her that—Tina, as your fiancée."
Newt's mouth tastes of ash. He's not a fat man descending the chimney, but even he could do better than Theseus' idea of a present.
"It's just in name, Newt, but Dad's insistent that we let the news blow over since she's been living with us and spending so much time… well, you know. I thought the girl might mean more to you than rumor fodder, Newt. It could hurt you, to attach that label to her. I doubt she'll like it either, no-nonsense American gal like her."
"'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'"
"You won't ever scorn me, will you?"
"No, never," Newt says.
He shakes his head, confused. He needs to be strong for her (for who?) in this elaborate cage she's unused to. So this is what this unfeeling place would reduce her to. Strong, resilient, wild and free, dragged into the weeds of English wizarding society.
"You can ask her," Newt finally grits out, knuckles white. "It's her choice."
His head clears. He knows what selfless Tina will choose.
He's a coward, fully human.
Theseus frowns, and puts an arm around his baby brother. "Newt, I'm sorry, but I'm just giving you the heads up. The information's already planted, per Dad's instructions. Now it's in the hands of the local gossip. You know how these things work. It's society."
"How dare they," a girl sobs. "No one understands."
"I understand. I try."
"Alright," Newt murmurs after a minute. "Thanks, Theseus."
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Again, Tina exceeds expectations. She really is much, much stronger than him.
Tina sees. She sees the murmuring mouths, fluttering fans, wrinkling crepe and dazzling chandeliers, and she does not quake. She does not bow, grow insular, nor become imperious as they assail her.
Porpentina Goldstein—for that is how Society introduces her—arrives at every event, her long, lithe frame seeming to grow taller and straighter with each individual encounter.
After a while around the circuit, Newt sees the admiring glances, the intrigued looks. He's always been observant like that. There's gentlemen, soldiers, estate owners, political heirs, waiting in the wings.
The strange sensation squeezes again, insistently, around the hollow space in his chest.
"Why don't you try a waltz?" he blurts, sitting with his bad leg propped up.
He catches her mid-sip, and Tina sputters a bit cutely. She puts down her champagne flute and her mouth grimaces at him quickly while no one is looking.
"I'm American, Newt," she says, as if that settles it. "I don't fit here. Anyway, I'm not here for the dancing."
'Why are you here, then?' Newt wants to shout. But doesn't. He can take a lot of things for granted, sometimes, just like the worst of humans would.
Tina sees and still inhabits this space. With him.
Maybe she cares for him.
The hollow feeling expands. This is bewildering. There have been a few creatures who were loathe to part with him to the point of staying inside his suitcase, content to choose a caged life with him over any other.
But Newt's never thought any human would want that, too.
Against reason, against his ghosts, Newt feels a hope churning.
An insatiable hunger he thought gone reignites along with that hope.
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Eventually they give him a crutch, which is good, except that it reminds Newt of an unpleasant DaDA teacher he had second year, who thankfully left after Professor Dumbledore inquired into the costs and benefits of corporeal punishment with a bejeweled walking stick.
Most of the exercise in his day is hobbling to Tina's guest room and back.
He's not sure when traveling the world (running away) has become an afterthought to traveling the one hundred and thirty-two paces to her corridor.
Newt knocks on her slightly ajar door one evening, and sees Tina's face reflected in the mirror.
There are tears streaming down. She's holding a letter (her sister's, Newt guesses), and her slender frame crumpled over the bed, swathed in beautiful pale green organza his mother bought her for tonight's party.
Newt doesn't hobble back to his room. He practically levitates.
When he gets there, Newt throws the crutch against his wall, where it shatters after Newt utters a few low curses, feeling a rage like Leta's old tantrums.
He's been using Tina—brilliant, strong Tina—like a tool.
There are ecosystems in which only certain species can dwell.
But that's too simple.
Newt is the jailer, tying Tina captive to this place.
After all, he learnt from the best.
"Newt, it's us against the world. Don't you dare abandon me, ever."
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Tina tries to get him to open up, tries to tie herself down to death, with him. She's tireless in her efforts.
So he scorns her.
"Would you rather Leta Lestrange be here?" she asks one day, her heart clearly breaking.
Newt's own nearly stops, because Tina doesn't understand. She's too different, too good, to understand.
Leta was born here.
He was born here, with a name too long for his small, stubbly stature.
There are ecosystems in which only certain species can dwell.
Doesn't Tina understand that this place will be the slow death of her? That she could, and should, be free? Her strength and heart make her deserving of a world as wide and gracious as she is. She is deserving of much more than him as a companion.
Leta eventually came to understand that she was above this stifling place, and above Newt.
"We're like night and day now. Look what I've taught our creatures to become. The heights I've achieved."
And though it hurts—Merlin, so much—Newt wishes Tina understood that, too.
So he scorns her the only way he knows how.
Leta's ghosts have always been efficient at hurting people.
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Tina moves out and Newt is left with his ghosts.
His hunger for the world outside is slowly fading, as he learns to dwell in a menagerie with other weakened creatures that cannot dwell outside the suitcase or his mother's enclosures.
It's in the last light of autumn that Ms. Goldstein comes to bid him a final farewell.
Newt knows, because Theseus has told him—Theseus, who would not open any avenues for his baby brother, is now his closest informant. Despite the prestige of each worldly title Theseus inhabits, those pale in comparison to his new strength of character. But, Newt realizes, Theseus has always been tall, sturdy, like a tree, while Newt is at most like a bowtruckle, picking locks and flitting across spaces, struggling with attachment issues.
She pours hot velvety coffee into his mug. Newt has trouble sleeping at night anyways, and he doesn't touch it.
"I'm not Leta," Tina whispers, and her voice is beautiful, soulful, breaking.
She continues, puzzling him, forcing his neurons alive as no black coffee ever could.
"Newt, it's us against the world. Don't you dare abandon me, ever."
"I feel about you the way—the way I imagine she might have, once."
"Don't you dare abandon me, ever."
Newt's not sure that Tina's got it quite right. Although a raw, Tina-shaped hole in him is exultant, this knowledge of Tina's attachment to him only alarms Newt further.
They are two species of girls, Newt thinks.
"She didn't take you with her," Tina whispers.
Newt is unsure. Leta, wild, soulful Leta, was a taker. His leg still stings with the feeling of Leta taking him, ripping through his flesh and bone in her effort as she soared to the sky, and he was left on earth.
"I have to thank Leta for that," Tina whispers.
Tina doesn't know. Tina is a giver, and has known no other mode. Her soulful eyes won't meet his, but they are the most beautiful he's ever seen.
"I can't figure out how to hate her, when she's so different from me."
If Leta was a dragon, her fire burning all opposition. Tina is something else entirely, a nonetheless fierce creature he's not yet discovered, giving life through blood, sweat, and tears, for others.
The enclosed spaces that Leta tried to crush from the inside with force, Tina widened and accepted until the cage was so large, the space so vast, that it could not be called an enclosure any longer.
He's torn.
Newt realizes that he wants, so intensely, to dwell in her space. To be near her gravity.
But he doesn't know how. It's like the moment he lets a formerly injured creature out of his suitcase. Newt's no thunderbird, not even an erumpent, content to launch itself into any desirable object. Newt has attachment issues.
Still, with great difficulty, his calloused fingers find Tina's cheek, draws her close, as if she's his tree.
"Thank you," he says.
There's no space Newt can imagine dwelling in, other than one that houses both of them, together.
Truly, truly. Newt will not lie.
'It's you. Only you', he wants to say.
There's no space Newt can imagine dwelling in, other than one that houses him with her, together.
Then he lets her leave.
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End Part II.