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“Promise you’ll write,” Queenie had tears running down her cheeks, squeezing Tina close to her chest. “Every week.”
“Of course,” Tina squeezed back with a laugh, “But … just think, in a few months, letters can be sent in a day, no having to wait two weeks for a reply.”
“Yeah,” Queenie hiccupped.
“Hey Queen,” Tina smoothed her sister hair soothingly, “It’s ok, we’ll see you soon!”
“Love you,” She hugged Tina tighter.
“I love you too,” Tina replied.
Behind them, Newt and Jacob, having already completed their brief farewell, were watching their wives with matching distinctly impressed looks on their faces. Aurie had her head resting on her fathers shoulder, thumb in mouth and almost asleep.
The ship’s horn blared.
“Queenie, we gotta go,” Jacob said gently, pressing a hand to his wife’s elbow. “We’ll see em soon.”
“I know,” Queenie stepped back, “But somehow, knowing we’ll be moving here soon… it’s harder to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye Queenie,” Newt pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “Safe trip home.”
“You look after my sister Newt,” Queenie warned with a watery smile.
“Always,” He promised faithfully, “As she looks after me.”
“Take care of each other,” Tina pressed a kiss to Aurie’s forehead. “Have a safe trip home, okay?”
Jacob took Queenie’s hand, tugging her back towards the steamer. The sisters exchanged a final wave, before the Kowalski’s made their way onto the ship ready for boarding.
Tina lent against Newt, waiting till Queenie had disappeared from sight before letting her tears fall.
“They’ll be back soon,” Newt gripped her waist tightly, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I told Jacob we’d find them some suitable properties, so it seems we do get to go house hunting after all.”
“Can we go home?” Tina asked quietly. “Have a cup of tea.”
“I’ll make you English yet,” he teased softly, taking her hand. “Come on love, we need to get the suitcase and then we can go back. Make our home.”
The walked off into the drizzle of the mid-morning, following the dispersing crowd back into Liverpool, arm in arm.
…………………………………….
“Have you seen the news?” Diana asked carefully, as Newt and Tina returned to the manor to pick up the suitcase and return to Dorset to start making the cottage theirs.
“We were up and out with Queenie and Jacob,” Tina commented, taking her hat off and letting Newt assist her with her coat. “We skipped the newspapers.”
“Anything fun?” Newt asked conversationally. “We weren’t planning on staying long, just long enough to get the case then we were going to be off.”
“You’ll want to see the papers,” Diana advised, “I put them on the coffee table.”
“That bad?” Tina asked wryly.
“Interesting,” Diana said slowly.
Newt indicated for Tina to precede him down the hall.
“Are you coming mother?” He asked as his mother veered off towards a different part of the house.
“No,” Diana smiled, “You two enjoy the articles.”
Newt raised his eyebrows at Tina, indicating she should precede him into the room before walking into her back.
He peered over her shoulder, eyes widening in shock.
“Oh,” he said faintly, taking in the small pile of letters taking up one end of the table.
“We have…mail…” Tina said slowly, stepping into the room. “Oh, wow… I mean… shouldn’t all this be going to Mr Worme?”
“I’ll go and get some tea…” Newt trailed off, he pushed Tina gently into the room. “I think these are the newspapers, over here… why in the name of Merlin has Mother got Witch Weekly? And… this one… this one is called Love Potion? Have you heard of them?”
“Witch Weekly, yes,” Tina wrinkled her nose in distaste, taking the pink paper from him. “It’s all very…. Pink…”
“Tea?” he asked her, dropping the paper he was holding. Tina nodded absently, already flicking through to find their article as she sank into a chair.
When he reappeared minutes later, he was surprised to find Tina glaring holes into the pink paper while attempting to leaf through another.
“Oh dear,” he pulled a face, “That bad? Pregnant?”
“They called me your field assistant,” Tina informed him hotly. “Your field assistant! Like I’m your secretary or something! Or, I don’t know, a stage hand. What am I? There to make you look pretty?”
She handed the paper over to Newt.
“Although,” She conceded, “It’s hilarious. Apparently you’re a heartthrob and I’ve taken you away from honest hard working English witches. And I’ve married you for your money. And you only married me because I’m pregnant.”
Newt glanced back at Tina in amazement.
“You know love,” he said seriously, “You never cease to amaze me! Most women would be upset that they’re saying you’re pregnant… or, marrying for wealth, but not you.”
“Well, how’s that gonna hurt me?” she shrugged, sipping her tea. “But field assistant is just insulting.”
“It is,” Newt agreed, turning to read through the article himself, “If anything, I were your field assistant.”
“No you weren’t,” Tina replied sternly, pulling the next paper closer, “We were neither of us field assistants, and neither of us lead researchers or whatever the non-field assistant is called. We were two adults travelling together!”
Newt threw the Witch Weekly article to the side with a snort of derision at the content. “If I turned something like that in to Mr Worme it would never get published,” he huffed, “Pass me the Prophet please, Hetty should have something nice to say.”
“And probably a letter in all this being upset I didn’t tell her myself,” Tina added, eyeing the pile of mail. “Another pregnancy bet by the way. And… yeah, the Love Potion don’t like me either. Again, I am stealing on of England’s most eligible bachelors. How is it you are only eligible when
you get money?”
“Well, theoretically I would have been an eligible bachelor on the basis of my surname alone,” Newt replied absently, leafing through the paper to find their article. “Scamander is a pureblood name. Goes back generations. Theseus and I are the last ones bearing the name. By that logic
alone, we were both eligible bachelors.”
“And then you proved to be super weird and they decided to leave you alone?” Tina guessed, glancing over at Newt with a smile on her lips. She watched as his eyes darted over the page, rocketing from side to side. Tina lay down her paper while waiting for his verdict, waving her wand at
the pile of letters, muttering a sorting spell she had been taught within her first days at MACUSA. Back when she made coffee and sorted post. “What’s Hetty got to say for herself? Or wasn’t it Hetty who wrote it?”
“No, no, Hetty wrote it,” Newt folded the paper over quickly, “She came to congratulate us the night of the gala remember?”
“She was so excited to be covering the story,” Tina snorted, pulling one of the piles towards her. “What’d she say?”
“Well, she was delighted,” He avoided eye contact. Tina narrowed her eyes at him, leaning forward. “Said you had a lot of patience. Which you do. Tell me dear, have you been gossiping?”
“What else did she say?” She probed.
“She…also…wondered if we married because we were expecting…” he said carefully, wondering if Tina would react less positively now it was one of her best friends saying this.
“Seriously?” Tina asked in amusement. “Oh, I am gonna tease her so bad when I see her next!”
Newt glanced at her in surprise. Tina grinned, shrugging self-consciously.
“Seriously,” She asked, wide eyed, “Have I put that much weight on?”
Newt rushed to reassure her that wasn’t the case, unsurprised when Tina just laughed fondly, pecked him on the lips and told him he was adorable. She then dumped a pile of letters addressed “To Mr and Mrs N. Scamander” in front of him and told him to tell her if he found anything interesting.
They ended up staying for lunch, occasionally bursting into laughter and reading something that had been written to them. Tina’s favourites were insults to her person, magical heritage and looks from distraught women who loved the famed magizoologist and harboured secret desires of making him their own. “Like something from a goddam novel!” Tina had laughed, wiping tears from her eyes after one particular comment calling her a “money-wrangling, fluffy haired, big nosed harpy”.
Newt had just left to replenish the tea stocks (leaving Tina compiling her favourite insults and congratulation letters into a pile) when he heard a shriek of pain. Without a second thought, he dropped the tray, sprinting the remaining difference, wand out.
Tina was standing next to the table, her hands held in front of her, slowly blistering as tears streamed down her face from the shock. The letter she had been opening lay on the table, still oozing a yellow-green pus.
“Tina?” Newt asked in worry, jumping forward and turning her gently towards him. “Come now, it’s ok. We can fix this.”
“Someone sent me butober pus?” She asked in suspended belief. “Who could possibly hate me that much?”
Newt glanced down at the letter, not knowing how he could answer. He couldn’t understand anyone hating Tina, even when he first met her and he didn’t trust her.
“I heard screaming?” Diana appeared in the doorway, out of breath from having crossed the house. Her gaze zeroed in on Tina’s hands. “Oh my dear!” She gasped, surging forward. “I’ll fetch the chest.” With that, she turned, bustling away.
Tina whimpered as the pus burned her skin, trying not to flinch as Newt slowly moved his wand over her hands, murmuring the spell to clean them off. When complete, she lifted her puffy raw hands, turning them over to examine the damage.
“We aren’t opening any more,” Newt said firmly, pointing his wand at the pile and watching it reshuffle away from Tina. “Envanesco.” The pus leaking out of the letter disappeared. Newt picked up the heavy parchment carefully.
“It isn’t signed,” He threw it down, teeth gritted and anger radiating from the stiffness in his shoulders.
“Hey, stop,” Tina said quietly, her hands still in pain but doing her best to ignore it. “We don’t know who it is, we just leave it. Don’t.”
“Someone hurt you,” He said firmly, jaw clenched.
“And I’ll be fine,” she said just as firmly. “We can’t win over everyone. And, most of those letters wished us happiness and joy. Congratulated us on our marriage. One really nasty one, out of over a hundred? I got worse at MACUSA.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” he insisted just as Diana could be heard jostling jars down the corridor.
She pulled up short at the anger on Newt’s face, at Tina trying to placate him, at the letters stacking themselves roughly by the window.
“Newt,” she said sharply, “Focus on Tina’s hands. She’s a big scary Auror and everything, she can handle this.”
“Thank you Diana,” Tina glared at her husband, sitting down as Diana bid. Newt closed his eyes, letting out a long hiss of air, before stepping to Tina’s shoulder and letting her lean against him. Diana pulled out the essence of murtlap, glancing at Tina for permission, before pouring the potion over her hands.
Tina wincing in pain, biting down on her lip to prevent herself from crying out, featured heavily in Newt’s nightmares that night.
………………………………………………………………………….
Mr Worme of Obscurus books had taken a gamble with an eighteen-year-old boy with eyes too big for his face and limbs too long for his control. He had found him in the Beasts division of the ministry, bored out of his mind. The boy had come alive in front of him, explaining nuances of Crups when Mr Worme had gone to renew his licence.
A relatively boring magical creature like the crup, but the boy, barely able to grow a moustache, had been so enthusiastic. Mr Worme ended up staying half an hour, letting the boy inform him of the other magical creatures in Britain, hearing the wistfulness in his voice at the thought of undiscovered magical creatures in the world.
The Magical world had joined the muggle war effort. And the next Mr Augustus Worme heard of one Newt Scamander, it was in the Daily Prophet, linking him with Ukrainian Ironbellies and the disbanding of the “draco initiative” on the Eastern front. It was rumoured that Newt Scamander was the only one who had any measure of control over the majestic and deadly beasts.
In 1918, Mr Worme found himself back at the Ministry, watching a gangly young man with a mop of hair loping his way across the atrium. Later that day, he offered Mr Newt Scamander a way out of his boring, paper-pushing job, offered him the chance to research something he loved.
He had taken a gamble with Newt Scamander. It had been nearly ten years of funding expeditions and receiving scattered notes from various places around the world; it had been nearly ten years of Newt appearing with a draft and announcing further investigation he needed. The book on magical creatures would be the first of its kind. It needed to be perfect.
Then, in 1926 Newt had returned to England and been impressively devoted to getting his guide to Magical Creatures written. He had tried to rush through the publication process, demanding (as far as Newt was able to demand) the first copy of the book as soon as it was printed. That had been delivered, and Newt had shot off to America, ignoring all and any mention of interviews and promotions.
Mr Worme rather considered Newt to be family. Ten years of chivvying a frightfully scatterbrained young man who had few others in the world who appreciated his passion, Mr Worme had begun to view young Newt as, maybe not a son, but a much adored nephew. Newt was family.
Being introduced to Tina in 1929 after hearing Newt enthuse about her via the written page for almost three years, had been extremely satisfying. Commissioning her book had been an easy decision. The last gamble he had taken had yielded a book which required a new edition per year, with talk of including it on first year Hogwarts curriculum. He was sure Miss Goldstein would be another worthwhile gamble.
Hearing that they were married whilst at the New Year Gala had been a bit of a shock to the system. He had thought that Newt and Tina would at least pen him a note to let him know of their plans (he had expected an invitation to their wedding, but eloping he could see why he was omitted. He was just their publisher after all).
It was a mere three days post New Year when Mr Worme heard the door to his office jangle open. A beat of silence followed, before a hesitant voice called out: “Hello?”
“Newton, my boy!” Augustus surged upright, his robes tight over his waist (Christmas dinner and double helpings hadn’t helped). He burst through the door, reaching for Newt’s hand and pulling him into a hug. He repeated the action for Tina, gifting her with a scratchy kiss on the cheek as well. “Porpentina, you look lovely, as always.”
“Hey Mr Worme,” Tina chuckled, removing her hat. “Take it you aren’t mad at us, right?”
“A note would have been nice, Mrs Scamander,” he said pointedly, “I like to know what happens in the lives of my two favourite authors sweet Merlin what happened to your hands?”
His eyes were fixed on the considerably less scarred and puffy, but still incredibly red hands that Tina revealed by removing her gloves. Tina winced, glancing down at them. They had stopped hurting, for the most part, and she had almost forgotten their state.
“Someone sent butober pus in a letter for her,” Newt said, incredibly casually, his eyes glinting dangerously. “We bought all our post. We would prefer all fanmail to go through the office now… or, at least until my wife stops receiving hate mail.”
“Of course,” Mr Worme agreed, dragging his eyes away from Tina’s hands. “Come, sit! We have much to discuss. On todays agenda is the funding for your next books, where about you hope to be going Tina. Hogwarts curriculum offers Newt. And… come, sit! I’ll put the kettle on. But first, tell me all about your wedding that I didn’t receive a notification of, and we can discuss how we are going to deal with the journalists on this.”