With his quill hovering above a sheaf of fresh parchment, Newt Scamander finds himself unable to scratch out a single word, which is an altogether unusual phenomenon for him. For all he's rarely ever had the words to speak, he seems always at the ready to write them, has field journal upon field journal dedicated to the most intricate and lengthly descriptions of incredible creatures, their habits, their preferences, their abilities.
And yet. Yet here he fails, brought to a veritable halt by the most incredible and intriguing creature he has ever encountered: Tina Goldstein.
He means to pen her a letter, something to idle away some of the multitudes of time he has while crossing the ocean, but now the written word fails him as surely as only spoken words have managed to before. He had thought, perhaps, as his quill had first hovered at a standstill above the page, that it was the boldness of the assumption that he write her at all that left him lingering. But a thorough study of that idea, once his quill was dropped back into his ink well, had concluded that to not be the case. After all, Tina had seemed sufficiently agreeable to a visit, so a letter did not seem overly forward by any means.
They were, after all, friends of sorts and friends wrote one another letters all the time. He may have limited experience in that arena, but it's enough to be sure of that fact.
"Really Pickett, how hard can a letter be to pen?" he mutters to his green friend, who has taken up residence within the folds of his scarf, discarded along the top edge of his writing desk, the only luxury he'd requested in reserving a cramped quarters on the ship. The bow truckle pops up at the sound of his name, shaking it's little head in a sign of exasperation that rather reminds Newt of his brother's wife: somehow both fond and exhausted by him, a hint of laughter in the expression. "I carry you around and this is the support you give?"
Thin, tiny shoulders shake, the laughter less of a hint now. Newt can only shake his head, disappointed, and turn back to the blank page mocking him.
There are so many thoughts vying for dominance in his head, all of them not quite full formed, like a hinkypunk in a fog, trying to lead him down a path only to be intercepted by another smoke like form. He thinks perhaps they're less thoughts than feelings, tangled up together in an ill-defined mass that's getting lodged somewhere within him -- heart, mind, throat, Newt cannot be certain, though one, a feeling of acute loss, seems to be mounting a particular lead.
But he can't possibly pen that: Dear Tina, I miss you? How do you miss someone you've scarcely come to know? How can you possibly tell them that in a first correspondence, if, indeed, any at all?
Then again, if there is one thing Newt knows, it's that Tina Goldstein is quite unlike any woman he's met before, and the multitudes of proof he has for that can be nicely summarized in that breathtaking hint of a smile she'd worn in their last exchange, looking the picture of certainty and hope.
What had Queenie called her? A giver.
In the span of barely a few days, she'd given Newt more truth and more insight into a person than all his years at Hogwarts, all his time spent with Leta or Theseus or even his parents, for though he'd loved them all in some way (and still did, in the case of his family, strained as that sometimes was), none had ever been so wholly themselves in every moment as Tina had been.
Brave, stubborn, careless but careful Tina, who is doubtlessly as passionate about her work as an auror as he is about protecting his beasts. Who had been ready to sacrifice everything she worked for and cared about to set things right, even when setting them right set her outside the confines of the law. It's a familiar feeling, an old friend as it were, to lay aside the rules in favor of the cause. A feeling that led Newt's education to be cut short, that has led him to his case of creatures, and now to his new friends.
A very hufflepuff feeling, he suspects, reaching for his inked quill with a smile. It feels as good a start as any other, and although he cannot say where the urge to vex her, just a bit, comes from, there's a distinct wash of pleasure as the mass at his heart (or throat or mind) eases a bit and he sets quill to parchment.
Dear Tina,
As I while away the passing hours, thinking over the course of our adventures this past week, I cannot help but suppose that you would have made an exemplary Hufflepuff, had you the luck to attend the finest wizarding school in the world.
Hufflepuff, which is my own house, is known for...