The Girl Who Lived in a Suitcase
"Home is a direction, not a place."
The tent smelled of damp earth and dragonhide, the air thick with the musk of creatures Dani couldn't name. She knelt beside a crate of Occamy eggs, her fingers tracing their iridescent shells, when her mother's shadow fell over her.
Dani Scamander had never owned a pair of shoes that didn't smell of chimera dung or mooncalf musk. Her life was measured in portkeys, not birthdays; in creature tracks, not textbooks. But today, for the first time, her mother handed her a letter sealed with wax the color of blood.
"It's time," her mom said, holding out a letter stamped with a wax seal the color of dried blood.
Dani didn't look up. "Hogwarts has walls. And rules. And schedules."
"And friends," her mother countered, softer now. "You can't spend your life talking only to Graphorns and Grandfather."
Newt Scamander shuffled into the tent, his hair wilder than the Hungarian Horntail he'd rescued last winter. He pressed a leather satchel into Dani's hands—the same one he'd carried for decades, scarred by claws and teeth. "The stars have their own schedules, Dani. Even we must follow them sometimes."
She glared at the letter. "Why now? Why not let me stay?"
Her mother's gaze flickered to a photograph on the rickety table: Herself, glowing like a struck match, cradling a newborn Dani under a meteor shower. The edges of the photo were singed.
"Because," she said, "you're starting to burn through your shoes."