Birth Announcements
Daily Prophet, 6th December 1931
Birth Announcements
Newt and Porpentina of the House Scamander
Welcomed their son at 03:34 04th December 1931.
*29 Hours Earlier*
“Newton Scamander will you please stop fussing?” Tina batted her husbands hand away as he tried to fluff up her pillow behind her head. “I mean it. Stop. Just sit down will you?”
His nervous energy had stopped amusing her several hours into her labour. After he’d been up and down the stairs a number of times, Tina had insisted he may as well make himself useful and give her something to grip onto. He’d apologised profusely, pale as a sheet, for putting her through that much pain.
“I can’t sit still,” he admitted, bags under his eyes, “What if he’s not ok, and the mediwitch brings him back and it’s like that graphorn we-”
“Say it and I’ll stun you,” Tina said firmly. She was exhausted, her body ached, feeling as if she’d been torn apart and glued back together. She had been the one who’d been forced to push a watermelon out of a space the size of a knut. She wanted to sleep. But more than that, she wanted her son in her arms again, so she could just look at him a while.
Newt nodded, and gingerly sat down on the bed next to her, gently resting his long legs out next to hers, being extremely careful not to jostle her. It both irritated her and soothed her, knowing that Newt was aware of how much pain she had been in just a very short time ago.
He slid his arm around her shoulder and nuzzled his nose against her ear.
“I love you,” he whispered, “I can’t even tell you how much.”
“You’d better,” Tina replied wryly, “I just gave birth to our child.”
Newt chuckled. Tina rested her head against his shoulder, both their eyes fixed on the door to the side room, waiting for the mediwitch to return with their baby. Their baby. Their baby who was here with them, who had entered the world with a wail and quietened when he took in the room. Their baby with dark hair and ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes.
“Well, honestly,” The mediwitch huffed, entering the room again with the swaddled blanket, seeing both Newt and Tina perk up. “I only took him for a clean up! You can have him back now. He’s a perfectly healthy little boy. A bit skinny if you ask me, but then, looking at you two, I’m not all that surprised. I tell you what, I’ll pop up to talk to Queenie and that nice muggle husband of hers, give you a bit of time with the little un. Here you go poppet, this here’s your daddy!”
The mediwitch passed the baby over to Newt, a wide-eyed slightly awed looking Newt. Tina snorted, holding her arms out for Newt to pass the baby, so they could hold him between them.
“Oh no,” Tina whispered so he could hear, as the mediwitch prepared to leave, “His mommy.”
The mediwitch stopped and looked at them curiously, before raising her eyebrows and shaking her head in a way which clearly said “Scamanders!” Tina tried to laugh without using her stomach muscles, failed so settled for smiling. Newt grinned at her as the mediwitch bustled her way from the room.
Newt held most of the babys weight, Tina supporting his head.
“Look at his hair!” She whispered, fingers dancing over the light dusking of hair as dark as her own. “Aw, look Newt, he’s got your chin!”
“He looks like you,” Newt said proudly, helping Tina peel back the blanket so they could admire him some more. “I’m so glad he looks like you.”
“Well, I clearly don’t think you’re too bad yourself,” Tina smirked at him, “But I don’t know about that, he’s got your crazy long limbs.”
And he did. Their experience of newborns were Aurie, were Helena, were the twins, all of which were small. And their little one was small, but he was also long. He would be as long as the twins were now at nearly four weeks.
“He’s certainly going to have our height,” Newt agreed, dropping a kiss to Tina’s bent head. “You’re marvellous you know.”
It was so matter of fact, such a simple statement of belief that Tina blushed a little, smiling a little self-consciously. She was used to Newt just dropping heartfelt comments near constantly and they barely bothered her. But she wasn’t feeling very marvellous. She was feeling a little miraculous, because honestly only a miracle could have lead to this little boy snuffling between them. But she didn’t feel all that marvellous.
“You really are,” Newt reaffirmed, his voice carrying a note of wonder. Tina looked up at him, and smiled a tired, sunny smile, not needing words but just letting her response shine through. Newt returned the smile, leaning forward to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth over their newborn son. “He’s beautiful Tina.”
“Course he is,” Tina pretended to look affronted, “With us for parents, he couldn’t be anything but beautiful.”
They pressed their foreheads together, the baby now resting on Newt’s knees, propped up so they could just stare at him in something akin to awe.
“You feel this way when a creature is born?” Tina asked quietly, not going to judge if he said yes, for the creatures were like his children, like her children.
“Not quite like this,” Newt replied, just as quietly, his tone a little reverent as he held his finger out for the baby to take. “No, not like this. He’s wonderful.
“He looks like a baby bird,” Tina smiled, dropping her head back to Newt’s shoulder, and studying the scrunched up limbs all red and wrinkled from just being born. “I don’t think we can call him beautiful just yet. Look at him, he looks like a newly hatched direcrawl!”
“When he’s all grown up,” Newt said lightly, “We are not telling our son that you thought he looked like a baby bird.”
“What does baby bird mean in Latin?” Tina mused, eyes twinkling a little. “Come on, you speak Latin, what’s it mean?”
Newt thought for a second, brow pulled together as he sifted through his knowledge of language and creatures to find the right word.
“I think,” he said slowly, “It’s ‘puer aven’, but I’m not sure. We aren’t calling him Baby Bird.”
“We should definitely give him an animal name though,” Tina insisted a little sleepily, “I mean, you’re a Newt, I’m a porcupine, and our surname is Scamander. That’s a pureblood tradition just waiting to happen.”
“We aren’t calling him baby bird,” Newt said firmly, the corner of his lips turning up. Tina pursed her lips, her fingers gently tracing their son’s cheeks.
“What about Leo,” she suggested quietly, eyes scrunched up as she looked at him, shuffling slightly in his sleep. Newt cocked his head. In unison they discarded the name as you would an ill fitting sweater. “Phoenix?”
“We aren’t giving him a creature name,” Newt ruled quickly, “It will just get confusing, what with our line of work.”
It was a fair enough assertion. Tina studied their infant, her mind running through boys names she knew, had heard of, could possibly be. All she could think of was that he looked like a bird.
“He looks like a bird,” She insisted, “Are there any bird names that aren’t magical and would fit a boy quite nicely? I mean, we could call him…Robin, Robin Scamander.”
She wrinkled her nose as she said it, the consonants sitting heavy in her mouth.
“Jay?” Newt offered, shaking his head soon after. He studied his son, seeing what his wife had seen, a long scrunched body, “He looks like a blackbird chick.”
“What’s that in something?” Tina asked hopefully.
“No idea,” Newt admitted, “But raven in latin is Corvus… No, I don’t think Corvus works… but…”
“It’s closer,” Tina agreed.
“Of course, a variation of corvus is corvin,” Newt said quietly. They sat there, looking at their little bird like baby with dark dark hair.
“Corvin Scamander,” Tina tested, smiling slightly.
“Corvin Scamander,” Newt repeated. “Well, looks like your mother is naming you baby bird after all. And she thinks I give magical creatures ill-advised names!”
“Hey Newt,” Tina rested her chin against his arm, hiding a yawn behind her hand. The baby stirred, his little fists getting closer to his face as he yawned, his little mouth opening wide, before he blinked up at his parents with clear blue eyes. He blinked at them a little owlishly, studying them with his head lolled to one side, a curious little creature. “We just named our son.”
“Hello Corvin,” Newt whispered, bringing the baby closer to his chest, clad as it was in his favourite yellow waistcoat, hastily donned as Tina had fed the baby for the first time and been cleaned up. “I’m your daddy, and this wonderfully beautiful woman here? She’s your mum. Now, we’re going to look after you, till you’re ready to fly the nest. And then after.”
He pressed a kiss to the dusky head, before passing him over to Tina for a proper cuddle. As Tina cooed and marvelled, Newt continued.
“You know, the thing about ravens,” he started slowly.
“Aha, a creature lesson!” Tina teased, “You better listen Corvin, Daddy tells a lot of creature lessons but they’re really interesting.”
“The thing about ravens,” Newt repeated pointedly with a grin, “is that they mate for life, and once the fledglings fly the nest, they always come home to their parents. So you’ll have generations of ravens in the same area, always finding each other and remembering. It seems rather apt, really.”
Tina smiled at Newt, and he smiled back, their baby snuffling happily between him.
“Corvin Scamander,” Tina announced, “Seems a pretty fantastic name to me.”
Hours later they would argue over the birth announcement, Newt citing precedence that the name was given, that if they gave the name in the announcement it would stop people from speculating what they were naming their child. Tina had insisted that it was no-one’s business, that they deserved privacy, that they deserved time to be a family.
But in that moment, everything was perfect, in the still hour between nighttime and dawn, the cold air pressing up against their windows. Just them and Corvin. Scamander’s together. They couldn’t quite forget there was a war on, poking at the borders of their country, but in that time, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t touch them. For that one glorious moment, everything was exactly as it should be.