We're finally here! Thank you as always, tremendous readers, for reading!
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Dwell
(Spaces He Leaves)
Part III (end)
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Newt is left with a limp and too many empty spaces in his enclosed, carpeted estate.
He keeps busy, or rather, business keeps him. His publisher threatens to ship him off to London to promote a new Fantastic Beasts edition, but Newt doesn't have the material.
He manages a compromise with small town book signings. They're well attended by those who inhabit his countryside ecosystem but don't run in the same circles—stodgy farmers, grandmas with too many kneazles, all country folk of modest means, the kind who cook a mean bean stew and find the field horklump to be their most dreaded enemy. They thus find Newt's childhood horklump experimentation most valuable.
In between book signings and research, Newt walks in and out of the estate as he wishes, in and out of his father's room with trays of tea and financial reports.
A once larger-than-life man is bedridden. He falls asleep reading, and the second Scamander son picks up after him as he would for his creatures. Once, Newt fingers brush the spine of a familiar book, nestled in the coverlet.
As Newt walks out, thumbing the well-worn pages, Theseus appears from the corner, on his routine weekend visit.
"Dad's not proud of me, is he?" Newt asks. Even his nonchalance is bewildered.
His brother laughs. "Intrigued, maybe. Dad always reads about the things he doesn't understand. Things he thinks are too dangerous to attempt himself."
"'Too dangerous'," Newt echoes. "But he married Mum."
Theseus' mirth only increases. "They adapted to each other, adapted to a world that didn't understand them at first. We managed to get Mum's appetite for life, for the wild things. You especially. Why d'you think you were the only one who hung around that Lestrange girl?"
Newt's face must have given him away.
Theseus' eyes are knowing. "It's time you reevaluated your old flame. Newt, you can't blame yourself for what you were drawn to, but when fire burns, it's alright to draw back."
"I already made my decision," Newt insists.
"And I'm just voicing my opinion," Theseus returns.
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Once, Newt thought himself human-but-not-quite. Now he knows he's human, the good and bad of it.
Being drawn to, repulsed from, and running through spaces has always been a natural process, sating a hunger he was born with. Humans obsess over questions of agency, reasoning, logic, morals—but creatures just are. Be.
Leta held animal magnetism, burned him, before their diverging paths cooled everything. But Dragonfire burns take time to heal. Time and space.
One hundred and thirty-two paces of space.
Limping to Tina's old room, to, and back, and to again, Newt thinks about why Tina followed him. He also thinks about why she left. About why he let her go. It's not just animal magnetism. There's also something chaotically human about the whole thing—a lot of logic, reasoning, and morals that Newt agonized and agonizes over.
In the empty room, Leta's voice sometimes recedes. Tina's gravity on him grows stronger, even as she's across time zones and a milieu of space.
But Newt—
—Newt is stuck in between, longing for escape from his enclosure.
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Newt's not the only one stuck. There are spaces certain creatures should not dwell in, no matter how temporarily comfortable. Though his actions won't bode well for an updated second edition, Newt sets free his suitcase's wonders, one by one. Usually, they flit out graciously, when he's healed or replenished their populations.
Some of them choose to stay, either too weak or too afraid.
After all, it's them against the world, the world inhabiting a space they can't inhabit.
Newt understands.
Like an odd, particular kind of creature, he can't (won't) free himself, no matter how much stronger his body becomes. Doing chores in his suitcase, pressing his back against the wheelbarrow as he hoists fertilizer, Newt haunts these enclosed habitats, until—Merlin.
He looks ruefully at his trousers.
Dung is dung, no matter what name (fertilizer) you call it. Spritzing a bit of water from his wand doesn't quite do it. He takes the nearby rusted watering can and splashes some fat droplets on his caked trouser leg. Then, Newt removes the lid and tilts the can.
An adventurous beetle, dislodging itself from dung, flits inside, a long streak of purple plumage slithering in soon after.
The displaced water soaks his shoes.
"Come on, now. Get out of there," Newt cajoles the opportune occamy. "You can't just go filling any space you like. It's not for you."
The shameless, spoiled thing squawks at him. Don't lie.
"Perhaps," says Newt. "You have a point."
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"Thes—Theseus," Newt says one day. He feels again like a baby bird in the rafters, and all he knows how to do is crane his neck and make incomprehensible noises. Then, with great difficulty:
"I think I need to travel again."
"Scones," declares the illustrious Head Auror, sending papers and an heirloom tea cup crashing down the un-waxed surface of his large, oaken desk, utterly scandalizing the secretary.
At Diagon Alley, over scones, his brother reveals that their father's not the only one who's read Newt's book. "You released Frank to Arizona. You say that certain species belong in certain spaces."
"Yes."
"Do you understand that humans aren't creatures?"
"Y-yes," Newt says, because of course, humans aren't like creatures. Theseus is the one who taught him that, at the beginning.
"Are you going to New York?"
"N-no, Australia. My editor was quite frank in telling me the second edition's not going to get written moping about. It's time I stopped lying to him."
"Ms. Goldstein's in New York."
Newt sputters. "Pardon."
"Tina, I mean." Theseus tosses a jaunty wave at a passing gaggle of Ministry secretarial staff. "If you miss her, you don't have to mope around here, Newt. You think you have it rough? Just think of the mismatch between Dad and Mum. Our parents look for the places they can share, together. They adapt to that world, and that world to them."
"Newt, it's us against the world."
Newt shakes his head, calms the receding whisper.
"Oh brother mine," Theseus grins. "Before updating your book, try researching something your own size."
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Theseus' sturdy oak desk in the morning holds one angry resignation note from his Secretary and one other, in assiduous, scrawling script.
"Theseus,
The scones are quite tasty. They were good when you brought them home for Christmas, but I was too upset to admit it then. Apologies. Since I know they won't be dulled by travel, I've picked some up myself for a quick trip.
Mum gave me her blessings. Before you ask for what, she says to bugger off about bothering with my prospects.
Please take care of Dad while I'm gone. I trust you. I'm depending on you.
Newt"
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For a brief moment, the salty sea wind whispers of Leta. He steps away from the starboard. You can't wander selfishly, closed in on yourself, forever. That's just called being stuck.
The world is a big place. His hunger is less daunting, as he explores its shape. There may be a hundred hollows inside of Newt, but he's filling them, slowly, surely. Some of his creatures are occamies, filling those available spaces.
Humans are not creatures, but some humans are like occamies too.
Leta and her Dragonfire burned the space, and Tina's settled in.
But Tina's presence expanded the space, somehow—
expanded his horizons
—until Newt's not the one looking to fill his own emptiness, but instead help fill hers.
"I'm not Leta, but I feel about you the way—the way I imagine she might have, once."
Newt is fine with that.
More than fine.
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The raindrops of New York are strangely like London's, as if they belong to the same ecosystem. Newt in his haste doesn't bother to launch an umbrella from his wand. Instead, he splashes through the last few steps from the deserted alleyway to Tina's brownstone. He hopes she's alright with this. He 'borrowed' Ministry resources once again, to decipher the things she doesn't tell him.
("Yours," she'd signed, all those months ago. Newt clings to that, now.)
When knocking produces no results, Newt considers mouthing an Alohamora at the front door. For a brief moment, he thinks he'll resort to Pickett. Then the doorknob transfigures into a crone-like face. It peers with squinty discerning eyes at him. 'Hmmm, too skinny', the knob hums, before it turns and the door swings open.
A familiar voice floats down to him.
"—ways alone, Mrs. Esposito."
Newt realizes again that he wants, so intensely, to dwell in her space. Her gravity alone carries him up the first few steps. Tina turns, and her eyes are soulful, beautiful. She edges towards the bannister as if unsure of him. He tries, with great difficulty, to not chase her away, as she is the rarest he's ever encountered. Say something unthreatening, Newt.
"I'd like to bring my fiancée back to Europe."
He sounds like an English poacher.
"This is most awkward," Newt murmurs. He bounds up the stairs, filled with mysterious energy as he is also propelled by her gravity on him. And suddenly, he's in front of her.
Tina's eyes are warm and scared and hopeful as she watches, sees him.
"This is just for me. Tina, I'm doing this for me. And I'd like you," he breathes. "To answer, just for you."
Truly, truly.
There's no space Newt can imagine dwelling in, other than one that houses them together.
"Tina," he says, without difficulty. "Will you marry me?"
She's staring at him as if he's sprouted tentacles from his mouth like a graphorn. Probably, she supposes that he thinks of them as the only breeding pair left on earth. That this is just animal magnetism, desperation. Creatures are fine with desperation, and mating for its own sake. This is where humans are different.
"Sorry, so sorry," Newt tries, cheeks flushing as he quickly sets his suitcase out on the floor and prepares to descend for the ring.
A very eager team of bowtruckles, with Pickett on top, make a discreet but effective ladder, holding the ring's box in their spindly arms. There's a right way to do this, but Newt's already in the right place. These stairs are infused with memories of her, feeding him, taking him and Jacob in, housing his creatures.
Then Tina says it.
"I'm not Leta," she interjects, and her face is stony.
'It's you. Only you', he wants to say. Shout.
Dragonfire wounds take time, but heal nonetheless. The scar will be there, and Newt thinks that's fine. There are a million other scars on his body, and, eventually, this one will hold no significance over the other ones caused by other wild, beautiful, imperious things.
"You're not," Newt smiles, and the truth sets him free.
He feels light as a bird in flight. The ring is a too-small rock that nonetheless grounds him, lest he float away in his newfound freedom.
"Merlin, I am so glad you're not."
Then he is assailed by a very yellow, very sharp parasol as it juts out from the wall.
"Oh for Merlin's sake, just kiss 'er, already! Tina! Your sister never took this long!"
Newt's explored wilderness before. He knows magizoolists must be quick, when a habitat becomes unsafe to dwell in. He hurries.
Humans are not creatures, but there are some universal languages Newt has waited too long to try. He guides her chin up smoothly, and melts into her gravity. Newt pulls back, and he cannot lie.
"It's you, you know. Only you."
Their joy mirror each other.
Tina pulls him into her again, into her space. Newt is loathe to ever let her go, but there's a bowtruckle with attachment issues pulling at his cuff.
"Pickett, what are you—"
He pulls open his suitcase. An outline of an erumpent horn is happily lodged into what used to be a box of delicate scones, but now are just crumbly bits exploded around the space of his shack. It smells warm and sweet.
"It smells like England in there," Tina says, kneeling by his side. "I missed that smell."
He gapes at her, surprised. "You like England?"
"Some things, you only find in England," she smiles.
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Tina,
I am still stuck at conferences celebrating the second edition's release in London.
Happily, I told my publicist that my leg's acting up again, and will not last unless I have my nurse across the Atlantic take a look at it within the week. This is not a lie, since there are times my knees grow a bit soft, thinking of you. Before my publicist threatens to detain me at St. Mungo's, I will be on a ship to see you and the returned Mr. and Mrs. Kowalski.
Just so you know, I haven't changed my decision despite fame, fortune, family (really, they love you), all those things you listed as obstructions. I intend to ask again. I want you to know that there are no boundaries for where we could live, or travel. I'm happiest when I'm with you, tea or coffee.
Yours,
Newt
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It's Tina—Tina soon-to-be Mrs. Scamander, with her determined face and her straight brown locks—who walks down the aisle of a too-small space, come to take the name of a man born with a too-long name.
When Tina finally comes to stand next to her sister, it feels like Newt's seeing himself, just a bit. (Except that she's much, much stronger, more gorgeous, more brilliant than him.)
Her soulful eyes see him.
The cleric tells him that she wants to dwell in his space for as long as they both live, die, the whole shebang. It's enough to make him want to stutter out something incomprehensible, thank Merlin, shoot a furtive glance at Mrs. Esposito in the stands, and glare daggers at a grinning Theseus beside him.
When he takes Tina's hand, Newt is anything but a wisp of a man. Her substance grounds him, seals him to her. Even Dragonfire is not enough to scatter their ashes away from each other, at the end of their days.
And when they turn to face the altar, the world is at their back, inhabiting the same small space that the happy couple inhabits. (Well, just some of the world, but Tina's always had the ability to expand his horizons.)
They give each other a chaste peck as a seal, and the space explodes in cries, tears, cheering.
Newt does not grow quiet against these echoing walls, but strangely exultant.
He submits to gravity and gives Tina another, and another, although this is outside the realm of conventional human ritual. Tina doesn't mind.
She sees him and wants to dwell in his space, anyhow.
The audience doesn't mind either, judging by the clapping and soft, teary smiles. They look ready to storm the altar, and Newt runs through several escape options.
"I knew we should have had a smaller wedding," whispers Tina, still a bit pink.
"Reception's small. Maybe quick, too," Newt says hopefully. He glances sideways at her, smiling at him, and feels bewildered and sated and whole.
She sees his bewildered look and laughs.
"Can I take you with me, Newt?" Her fingers entwine with his. "Are you ready?"
The rest of their lives is a long time, but Newt imagines it's already too short.
Then they run, half-skip, down the aisle, through the cheering crowds, out into the open spaces.
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End - Dwell
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