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“You aren’t going to carry me over the threshold again are you?” Tina asked warily, stopping dead a few feet from their new front door. Newt paused, a step ahead, turning back to smirk at her. “Newt…” she warned.
Newt laughed, stepping forward and attempting to sweep a resisting Tina up into his arms. “Really love,” he huffed after they’d scrambled with each other for a few seconds. “You bought it up.”
“I am perfectly capable of walking,” Tina giggled, pushing away from Newt and darting to slam her palm against the wooden door. Her breath frosted in the cold air as she laughed. Newt joined her on the doorstep, his scarf pulled tightly against the elements.
“So,” he held up the key, wiggling it a little. “Mrs Scamander, welcome home!”
He slotted the key into the lock, and was just about to twist it when Tina’s ungloved hand rested atop his. He glanced up at her. Tina simply shrugged self-consciously, a smile playing the corner of her lips. Newt beamed, carefully twisting the key in the lock, and letting Tina push the door open.
They had been away from the cottage a matter of days, going to visit various people and organise various things, but arriving now, with their suitcase in Tina’s grasp and their key in Newt’s, they felt they were arriving home.
Tina stepped in first, setting the case down and rubbing her palms together to counteract the chill. Fluidly, she pulled her wand from her sleeve, stepping level with door to the sitting room to cast a silent incendio to the fireplace. Within seconds, pulling her knitted hat off didn’t feel quite so daunting. She was certain Newt didn’t feel the cold, because he had already hung his coat and scarf on the taller of the three iron hooks, and was holding his arms out to help her.
He had his favourite tweed suit on, his hair slightly mussed from the wind and his cheeks rosy from the sting of the cold air outside. Without thinking about it, Tina pressed a kiss to his lips, pulling away with a smile and her hands linked behind his head.
“Welcome home, Mister Scamander,” she said softly as Newt’s hands rested on her waist. “Our home.”
“Our home,” he repeated with a wide smile, “You, and me-”
“Dougal, Bennie, Laurel, Hardy, Graphorns, Hippogriffs, a Nundu and another nest full of occamy, not to mention grindylows and fwoopers,” Tina teased with a laugh. “It’s a good thing I love you isn’t it?”
“Yes, rather,” Newt agreed easily, “But I think you’ll find you love them all just as much as I do.”
“Yeah,” Tina pretended to sigh, “Come on, let’s get this place feeling like our place, rather than your crazy uncle on your mom’s side’s place.”
She disentangled her hands, stepping back to remove her coat, the warmth from the magical fire warming the house.
“I’m gonna go set a few more fires,” she informed him, handing her coat over.
“I don’t understand how you are always cold,” Newt shook his head in amazement, “You were bought up in New York, with deep snowfalls. Then your formative years on a mountain side in Massachusetts … surely you would have some tolerance to chill.”
“Not all of us spent our teens in a big drafty castle,” she called over her shoulder, walking up the stairs.
Newt chuckled, shaking his head in amusement, before ducking down to pick up their suitcases, the one with the creatures tied with thick rope while they cast the various spells on their cottage.
The other, newer and significantly less battered than his creatures case, Newt laid on the heavy oak kitchen table, flipping open to start setting their kitchen up.
“Tea dear?” Newt called absently into the house, straining his ears for the faint reply to come floating down. He smiled, pulling out the kettle and setting it on the stove with an absent minded flick of his wand. He slid his wand behind his ear for ease of access, digging into the magically expanded suitcase again to find the new tea set Queenie and Jacob had gifted them for their wedding.
“You’re going to lose an ear, one day,” Tina reminded him absently, snagging his wand and laying it on the table. “Or your entire head,” she commented, picking the wand up and examining the smooth wood, pointing to a series of grooves about halfway down from where Newt held it between his teeth. “See?”
“My wand and I have an understanding,” Newt defended playfully, his head pulling out of the suitcase to flash Tina a disarming grin.
“Do they not teach wand safety at Hogwarts?” Tina put the wand down, crossing to pull two battered mugs from the glass fronted cupboards and begin making their tea.
“I think they rather assume it’s common sense,” he replied absently, emerging victorious with the white box containing their tea service.
“Clearly not,” she teased, leaning against the counter.
With a careless wave of her wand, the crockery on the sideboard – chipped and faded from use – began to pile itself up on the far side of the room, and a cloth wrung itself over the sink before wiping down the shelves.
“Am I going to have to explain to our children that daddy is an idiot, and that you should never be so careless with your wand?” Tina joked, a little surprised when she saw Newt freeze, before slowly unpacking the last of the teacups.
Queenie and Jacob had the tea set commissioned specifically, each mug a different shade with creatures playing. One had a demiguise that turned invisible periodically, another a niffler straining to escape from the confines of the tea cup. Another, occamy slid round the rim and down the handle. The teapot had all the creatures in the case, interacting and playing. They loved it. But even the dancing creatures had stilled now.
“Newt?” Tina asked carefully, “What’s wrong?”
“Do you think we should have children?” he asked hesitantly, “There’s a war, Tina, and it’s only going to get worse. And, we will both want to fight. We once said ‘we go together or not at all’ but how will that work with children? Will one of use stay, worrying about the other? Should we even be bringing children into a world that… won’t love them like we will?”
Tina crossed the room quickly, pulling Newt into her arms. She murmured soothingly into his ear, smoothing his hair as his hiccupping tears subsided. She pulled back to look at him.
“What bought this on?” She asked softly, gently smoothing his hair around his face. “You’ve been making jokes about our kids for weeks now. I thought we weren’t going to plan for them, but if it happened, it happened…”
“When we were in Diagon Alley yesterday,” he confessed, “I heard two mothers talking about how much they worried about Grindlewald attacking, of not being able to protect their children… and… it made me remember that if we are the sorts who go to fight for what is right… what about our children then? What if we don’t survive?”
“That’s a lot of ‘what if’s’,” Tina murmured, “Newt, being a parent means worrying, constantly. It’s what you sign up for. And… if we have children and we go to fight Grindlewald, and if we die, it will be fighting for the future for our children. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. But, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t deny ourselves children.”
Newt pressed his lips together, and took a deep breath before nodding.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”
“You’ll be a great dad,” Tina added, smiling sadly, “So, you don’t need to worry.”
Newt started, his eyes darting back to Tina’s in surprise. He probably hadn’t realised that was what he was really worried about, Tina reasoned. She felt the muscles in his neck tense again briefly, before he relaxed a little, nodding half-heartedly.
“Come on,” She said, stepping back enough to pick up the tea-pot. “Let’s unpack. I’m back to work the day after tomorrow and we still need to turn the garden into three kinds of tropics.”
Newt smiled gratefully, pressing a quick kiss to Tina’s cheek before helping her unload their minimal kitchen into the great wooden expanse that was theirs.
……………………………………………………….
They had been discussing whether to set up their potions ingredients on the far side of the kitchen when an owl swooped through the half open door, settling on the back of one of the chairs and hooting deeply.
Tina turned first, reaching forward to snag the letter from the claw it held up. She turned it over, noting the handwriting and the double underscoring of the “Scamander”. She chuckled, slotting it open as Newt appeared at her shoulder, curiosity having got the better of him. Absently, Newt dug into his pocket, offering a treat to the tawny creature in his kitchen.
“It’s from Hetty,” Tina informed him, scanning the letter. “She wants to know if I’m still gonna be able to make girls night, it’s tonight, at her house in Ottery.”
“Go,” Newt said firmly, “I have some reading to do on the adaptations for environmental transfigurations in an open space. I’ve only ever used them in a confined space and there wasn’t really an environment to transfigure. I was planning on taking them down to the suitcase and spending time with the creatures. Go on, you haven’t seen Hetty and the other ladies for weeks now.”
“You sure?” Tina asked hopefully, she had missed her friends, that was for sure. Newt nodded with a light laugh at the fact she was checking.
“Go,” he tucked a hand around her waist. Tina grinned, pulling a crumpled quill and ink set from her pocket to scribble a quick reply on the back. She handed it back to the owl, the creature taking off almost instantly with a hoot. “Remind me again how I became friends with a journalist?”
Newt reached up to finish his spells on the unsecure looking ceiling, replying absently: “You got into a disagreement about the correct form of address for an Egyptian delegate, before bonding over the lack of pockets in witches clothing and where you were expected to put your wands for formal events.”
“Oh yeah,” Tina grinned at the memory. Henrietta Lovegood was a whirlwind in a woman’s body, excitable and well informed. It had surprised Tina when she found that, not only did she like Hetty, the other witch liked her as well. They had maintained communication when Tina and Newt had left again, and Tina would count Hetty as one of her firmest friends. She was strangely exotic even in the wizarding world, and was one of the few who didn't consider Newt to be peculiar.
“And at least you know ‘supper at mine’ doesn’t mean Hetty is going to interrogate you and put in in her newspaper,” Newt continued, surveying his work before climbing down from the stool Tina had been holding steady. “It means Hetty, Louisiana and Elladora will interrogate you over wine.”
“Gee, thanks for that,” Tina muttered sarcastically. “Hey, speaking of wine, we got any left from Christmas?”
“Probably,” Newt frowned, trying to remember, “I think it’s in the case still though. Bottle of spiced mead from Professor Dumbledore? Possibly?”
“We definitely haven’t drunk it,” Tina reminded him, moving towards the case. She and Newt drank rarely. One glass of wine with supper was generally enough for them. Fuzzy heads were not conductive to caring for potentially dangerous creatures.
………………………………………………………..
“Tina!” Hetty cried in delight, opening the door wider and beckoning her friend into the low slung house. “I’m afraid I have Xavier, Xante had to pull a double shift at the ministry tonight. He’s asleep though. Come in!”
“Thanks Hetty,” Tina grinned, shrugging her coat off, and handing over the bottle of wine she had found. “The other two here already?”
“Absolutely,” Hetty declared, waving the bottle at the door. “You have a lot of explaining to do!”
Tina laughed, leading the way into Hetty’s cluttered living room. She greeted the other two women: stay-at-home mother of three Elladora Prewett and the best potioneer Tina had ever met; and full-time MLE lawyer and mother Louisianna Boot. They seemed an unlikely group of friends, but Tina had found true and good friends in each and every one of them.
“How was your holidays?” Tina asked after the pleasantries had been exchanged, shoes had been discarded and goblets of wine had been passed around.
“Xavier was ill and we had to visit family,” Hetty pulled a face, that had her friends laughing.
“Ignatius took his first steps,” Elladora announced proudly, “And other two didn’t try to kill the kneazle so I suppose it’s an advance on last year.”
“I left my two with my mother-in-law for a night without the children,” Louisiana reminded them, “I thought we would be talking about Tina’s incredibly eventful Christmas! Come along Tina! Show us the ring, and spill all!”
Tina blushed, ducking her face as her friends all fixed on her. As an auror she was trained to withstand interrogations, but when faced with her three friends wanting to know about her private life, she couldn’t supress the awkward giggle.
“We, er,” she paused, wondering how to frame it, “Well, we had to go to Castelobruxo, in Brazil to identify a mysterious creature terrorising their forest. Turned out to be a Jarvey. Wildly exotic to them, not to us. Anyway, that evening, Newt took me to watch the sunset, got a picnic…”
“Oh how romantic,” Elladora sighed dreamily. “He planned all that?”
“Merlin, no,” Tina snorted, “Newt doesn’t plan. The picnic was just because sunset coincided with supper. And… he looked as surprised as I was when he blurted ‘marry me’ on the top of a temple in South America.”
Hetty and Louisiana laughed while Elladora continued to protest about how romantic it all was.
“It honestly sounds like a romance novel,” Louisiana offered in explanation of the tears of laugher rolling down her face. “I didn’t know Newt -I-have-yet-to-realise-I’m-in-love-with-Tina-Goldstein Scamander had such romantic tendencies in him!”
“It is romantic,” Hetty conceded, wrinkling her nose. “Aww. So, he suggested an elopement?”
“Oh, no,” Tina shook her head firmly, “That was my idea.”
Three gaping faces looked at her.
“What?” She shrugged, “You know I hate attention, and if Newt and I had a ‘proper’ wedding, then it would have turned into a freakin’ international circus. All that should matter was me and Newt. We would have married in Brazil if my sister hadn’t been staying with the Scamander’s over Christmas. So, we came home, got married the next day, announced in New Year.”
Tina smiled awkwardly, not sure what else there was to say. She watched as Louisiana and Hetty exchanged a loaded glanced before Louisiana leant forward eagerly.
“Soooo,” She drew out the word, raising her eyebrows significantly. Tina waited for her to actually ask a question.
“So what?” She asked, more than a little confused. Hetty laughed while Louisiana rolled her eyes. Suddenly it dawned on her what they were suggesting, what they wanted to know, and her face flushed scarlet. “No!”
“We are all married now,” Elladora reminded her gently. “We are none of us maids now. And…”
“I am not telling you that!” Tina exclaimed, a little scandalised. “No! That’s private! Is that what you three talk about when I’m not around?”
“Not anymore,” Hetty shrugged, “We’ve all been married years now, you’ve been married days. We might be able to help with any problems… or…”
“No problems,” Tina said firmly, taking a large gulp of wine.
“Really?” Louisiana’s eyes gleamed. “That good?”
“Lou!” Tina exclaimed again, putting her goblet down to hide her face in her hands. “I do not want to talk about this!”
The other three all laughed at Tina’s mortification, before Elladora changed the subject to Tina’s new house and when they would be able to visit. It took a good half an hour for the red in her cheeks to fully recede.
Arriving home late that night, she climbed into bed next to a lightly snoring Newt, pushing Pickett and Charlie further up her pillow so she could sleep. She watched Newt in the darkness, before smiling and snuggling down into the quilt.
That good indeed.>