Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
[Assignment 2]: Travel and Tourism with Professor Elizabeth / Task 3 – Write about someone who prefers animals to people.
[Scamander's Case]: Occamy / Male – (setting) Forbidden Forest
A.N. Poor Newt :0
Word count: 670
the odd one out
The Scamander boy is strange. Everyone who's ever spoken to him agrees on that count. He's odd, jumpy, nervous, and – quite frankly – too bizarre to be associated with. He's from a respected pureblood family, yes, and his older brother might be a very capable Auror, but – all the same – he isn't to be interacted with. Every family has a bad egg, after all, and Newton Artemis Fido Scamander seems to fulfill such a role in the dynamic he shares with his mother, father, and brother Theseus.
Even among the Hufflepuffs, he seems to be the odd one out. His house gives him a wide berth, often exchanging looks and whispering amongst each other whenever he passes by, clearly marking him as somewhat of an outcast within a house that is known for advocating for kindness and inclusion. It's a strange phenomenon that he's made of himself, but what is perhaps even odder than his situation is how completely unbothered he seems to be by it.
Leta Lestrange often thinks that that might've been what initially drew her to him. Watching him weave between the school's social structure, seemingly not realizing how the students try to cast him out… She had been intrigued then, and she is intrigued now.
"Are you sure I'm petting his snout?" Newt wonders out loud, dragging her out of her thoughts.
Her lips quirk up. "Yes. Can't you feel his breathing?"
He wrinkles his brows. "I suppose so… But he's so bony, I can't possibly tell."
"Well, I can assure you, you're touching his snout." She smiles, holding the basket in her arms out to him.
The thestral moves before Newt does. Leaning out of the boy's grasp, he extends his long, lithe neck to sniff at the goodies contained in the basket – goodies that had been brought to the Forbidden Forest especially for him.
"He's sniffing the meat, isn't he?" Newt gets up, brushing some wayward leaves off of his school robes.
"Mhmm," Leta confirms, watching with entertainment as the skeletal horse nudges the basket to and fro.
"Give him some!" He urges her.
At that, she frowns. "Oh, no. Not me. I so hate the feeling of raw meat against my skin. You know that, Newt."
"Oh, come now!" He complains. "You came all the way here. You even brought the meat. Just give it to him!"
"Telling the house elf to get raw meat versus actually touching it are two different things." Leta refuses. She puts the basket down on the ground, allowing the thestral to eat unimpeded.
Newt sighs, but is quickly distracted by the meat being gobbled up without anything seemingly eating it. He can't see the thestral, of course; that's the reason he asked Leta to come to the forest with him. Without thinking, he says, "You're very lucky you can see them. I wish I could."
Leta stiffens up slightly, but brushes it off with an uncomfortable laugh. "Lucky is not the word I would use."
He freezes, before his eyes widen. "Leta, I–"
She shakes her head. "It's alright, Newt. I know you didn't mean anything by it."
"No, I–" he stutters. "I'm– What I meant to say…" he drifts off, not really knowing how to make up for his misstep. His shoulders slump in defeat. "I'm sorry."
She smiles at him sadly. "It's alright. I know." But her tone is significantly less chipper, and when the sun starts to go down just a few minutes later, she uses it as an excuse to get away.
Newt watches her retreating back in defeat, and turns to the thestral, who's still somehow eating. There have been times when he'd wished for animals to be able to talk, for them to tell him exactly what they wanted and needed, but thinking about it now, he feels a sense of relief that they can't. No doubt, if they did, he would be just as bad interacting with them as he is with humans.
Even with his best friend, Newt can't win.