Words

It was always sad to see a tale of unrequited love. It was even more sad when it wasn't unrequited, but neither party realized it. 

This was the case of one Leta Lestrange and one Newt Scamander.

Newt never knew of the carved L + N carved inside of Leta's desk.

Leta never realized that Newt so readily took her place in expulsion because of his feelings for her. But alas, this was how it was. 

And how it was unfortunate.

When Queenie intruded into Newt's mind that one evening and spoke with him, she was only looking from the eye view of a sibling hoping to help her sister find love. She didn't fully understand what she was saying when she told Newt that the beautiful woman in the picture was a "taker". 

She only saw Newt's most recently recalled memories, ones that he had already tinged with sadness due to recently learning of Leta and his brother…

She only saw the bad. The moments where Leta snapped at Newt or when she eventually stood by as he took the fall for something he hadn't done.

What she didn't see were the moments where Leta apologized to Newt afterward in her own small ways, never verbally, but through gifts and pleading eyes or with caring hands that made sure he was taken care of when he neglected his own well-being for the sake of his creatures. She didn't see how Newt himself rarely stood up for himself, nor took into account that perhaps the Lestrange girl didn't always realize when she was being cruel because the moment she did realize it, she automatically stopped. 

She didn't see the times that Leta purposely got detention just to accompany Newt, how she defended him more viciously than the loyal mascot his house resembled when he was bullied, or how the day he was expelled, she earnestly tried to convince him to let her take the blame.

Queenie didn't see any of that. Yet it was with her words that a seed was planted inside Newt's mind.

Perhaps Leta wasn't good for him. Perhaps he just needed to let her go and look for something better. His gaze then wandered off to the brown-haired witch not too far away from him.

Someone like Tina. Because, after all, hadn't Leta already found someone else better for her?

Contrary to what most people believed, Newt and Leta never went off on bad terms. Although they both were terribly saddened to be away from each other, they still wrote each other letters. But, of course, that could only go so far.

In between school work, or in the case of Newt, beginning his travels across the world to study magical creatures, and the often long-awaited times for the delivery of mail by birds (especially at times when the seasons changed or when Newt was traveling through a particularly bad place that was not safe for the owls to traverse), Leta and Newt began to grow apart as distance and time increased. It wasn't like today's age where, with one tap of a phone, one could reach people worldwide within seconds. 

Yet they still never forgot each other and remained in contact, even if that contact was sparse. It was telling enough that Leta had even managed to continue to be on the receiving end of Newt's letters as just about everyone else, with the exception of Dumbledore, got little to no words from him. It made her feel special and giddy. 

However, it didn't make up for the fact that Newt was barely physically present in her life. On the rare occasions that he did come to England, which was often only for a day or two within many months, she missed him, as the dates never properly aligned, and she always had something important to do that made it where she couldn't see him.

She once even sent him an angry howler after missing his departure by just a few minutes. She argued he said he would be there until Sunday. He retorted he said he would 'if and only if' another sighting of a particular bird species hadn't been found. It had.

After several years of their letters, Leta asked him when he thought he would be coming back home ("to stay," she added for emphasis). Newt did not give her a satisfactory response. "These things take time," he wrote to her. "Creatures take time." She pressed for more, and eventually, he bent. "It will probably take a few more years, Leta."

Although Leta loved that Newt was pursuing his passions, she was disappointed and, admittedly, jealous of his creatures. 

Leta was thirty years old and, with her father's passing, was now eligible to be the heir of the Lestrange family. Yet there were two requirements for this: she had to take care of the family estate and be married. 

She packed up her bags and headed for France. The second requirement she would be ignoring. For the time being.

She found herself working in the French ministry and alongside Newt's older brother, Theseus Scamander. He was nothing like Newt, but he wasn't bad looking (not as attractive as Newt, in her opinion, but not bad), and he had a passion for work. They got along easily enough, not that she hadn't expected them to, as they had been acquainted for years. He liked to think he was the reason she was there, and although it wasn't, she didn't bother correcting him.

She learned very fast that bringing up Newt was not a topic Theseus particularly liked, especially when it was in regard to her own personal relationship with him. She didn't realize quite why until Theseus looked up at her one day and asked her on a date. Apparently, he thought that they had always fancied one another but never acted on anything out of respect for Newt (and ah, now his initial assumption of her "following him" made sense). Now that Newt was out of the picture and they got along so well, why not go for it?

She hesitated at first. She went home and opened the last letter sent to her by Newt. She had asked him again when he was going to return home. He still wasn't sure. He wanted her to join him instead. And oh, how she so badly wanted to! But she couldn't, not with her now being the heir to the Lestrange estate. She had yet to tell him of her need to get married…

After much debating that night, Leta sorrowfully decided to push back Newt (and the romantic relationship she once wished to bloom between them) to the back of her mind. 

'He isn't here. He cares more about those bloody creatures than you.' she thought, forcing more bite into her thoughts than she actually felt.

The next day, she accepted Theseus's invitation.

She thought she had gotten over Newt but realized that this was not the case. Not in the slightest. Her eyes finally land on him again after so many years. He had gone to America the year prior and finally completed the catalog of his magical creatures (and helped put a dark wizard behind bars in the process). 

He was taller than she remembered. He had been tall when they were 16, but not like he was now. Now, he towered over her petite frame. He had more freckles due to how much he had been in the sun, and she could see new muscles in his arms (from wrestling and working with the creatures, no doubt). And yet...as he lifted a bowtruckle that he fondly referred to as Pickett (and doesn't this bring back a swarm of memories), she saw how despite his new largeness and strength, the man before her was still as gentle as ever. 

She had yet to tell him of the engagement. She quickly decided she didn't want to. Theseus had already told Newt of them being together long before there was ever really a "thing" going on between them, and she saw now how that had affected Newt - as if she and Theseus had killed one of his nifflers. She didn't want-

"I have an announcement, everyone!" She turned to look at Theseus in complete shock. Newt was staring at her with a look of confusion that was slowly morphing into something else. Something that she was unable to name as it quickly shifted into a blank mask with Theseus's next words. 

"Me and Leta are getting married!"

Some might say that she and Theseus were rushing into things with the marriage. After all, they hadn't gone through the whole courting phase. Wasn't that supposed to be a year? But Leta was desperate with the way her affairs were being handled. She didn't have much time left to get married unless she wanted to lose everything. As Theseus was one of the only people she was closest to (and the only way she could get closest to Newt without actually having him; she knows - she's terrible), he seemed to be the most probable option.

She thought now that it may have been a mistake as she put on a fake smile for the photographer and touched Newt on the arm with what (she hoped) was a placating gesture. It wasn't hard to see that he was wholly uncomfortable; his eyes refused to meet their gazes, and he flinched under any touch. As soon as the photographers left, he muttered a swift farewell and apparated away. 

Leta felt horrible. 

She and Theseus got into a yelling match that night.