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your memory’s stronger than a thousand ships of war to call me home,
and though it's glory i'm chasing it's from glory i run,
those glory days are done
It’s something his father has always said – that a little pain is good for the soul.
Standing just outside MACUSA’s English Liaison office, Newt suspects that, like most of his father’s favorite phrases, this one was meant for the smaller tragedies of life – Newt’s near-expulsion, a broken heart, Puddlemore losing their chance at the cup.
Not war.
“Mr. Scamander?” A soft spoken American man pulls Newt from his memories. “I’m Finneas Scrawler, I was assigned to your case.”
“My case.”
“Yes. Your recommended leave?”
Newt blinks. “Oh. Oh, yes. That case.” He grips his bag a bit tighter in his hand. “Of course.”
Finneas nods and motions for him to follow. At his desk, he’s set out a small handful of documents, which he taps gently with his wand. “These are just little items the Ministry wants you to sign. This one says you promise to take your full leave, which for the purposes of your case is three weeks. This other one is just an assurance that you will return from leave should the Ministry request you.” He hands Newt a quill and pot of ink.
It feels a bit like signing away the next three weeks of his life, but Newt agrees. Finneas taps the papers with his wand again, and they roll up in a puff of paper shavings and dust before disappearing.
“Now, I’ve been tasked with escorting you to your room at the Pegasus. It’s highly suggested that you remain in or around the hotel for your leave, but won’t be enforced. If you attempt to leave the country—”
Newt says to the man’s desk, “I asked to come here, Mr. Scrawler. I specifically requested my leave be here. I’ve no intention of going before I’m told.”
“Well. So long as we understand one another, Mr. Scamander.”
Newt looks up at him. “Yes. I believe we do.”
His MACUSA liaison leaves him outside his hotel room, and Newt stands outside the door for five minutes with the key in his hand, wondering if he should open it. He can imagine himself doing it – going into this room and suffering for three weeks. She doesn’t even need to know he’s come here, and considering the amount of work it took to get the leave in the first place, it’s doubtful she’s aware of his narrative weaving its way through the Ministry and into MACUSA’s lap. Still – he’d returned once, for a brief moment and a quick hello. All he’d managed was a quick kiss to the cheek, but he’d heard her inhale, sharply, just before her hand reached out to grip his overcoat, and hold.
Newt’s surprised her grip didn’t burn holes into the fabric, but they’d somehow managed to part.
He hates that she might see him like this – but he hates more the idea of not seeing her at all. Even if it means Queenie might know…everything, right from the start. Occlumency is exhausting, and while Newt has been quite good at it since he was taught, he hates the idea of hiding from her.
Still.
Still.
For the moment, wants win over fear, and Newt Apparates out of the hotel and onto the front step of the brownstone he has come to know.
Cautiously, he makes his way up the stairs, careful to skip the one that commits a near perfect imitation of a scream – and stands outside the door to the Goldstein sister’s apartment. He can hear voices from within, Tina and Queenie, clearly, and perhaps Jacob, memories mostly recovered, heart so warm and good that Newt practically feels it from his cold, lonely spot outside their orbit.
He takes a breath and clears his mind, a process that grows harder and harder with every passing day. He’s not meant to live like this, he thinks. In a constant state of repression and emptiness. Exhausted. He is exhausted. Knocking on the door is a trial in and of itself, but it opens on Tina’s face, brow furrowed in confusion before she finally recognizes him, and her expression delights.
“Newt!” She opens the door wider, his presenter on the stage of her life, where she can show him off to her sister and her beau, and he can try to be impressive.
(Tonight, he is not.)
Queenie and Jacob echo her, hands outstretched to bring him in and Newt, still wearing the chill of his homeland, is startled by and drawn to their warmth, allowing it to draw him in, moth to flame.
Tina puts her hand on his arm and says quietly, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“It was an unexpected visit.”
“Is everything—”
“I’m here on a short leave, from my Ministry duties. From the war. They thought it might be good for my spirit.”
Newt feels through his haze of his Occlumency regime the push of Queenie’s magic, not really of her own volition. He also feels it when she recoils, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Newt is certain she’s seen everything and he opens his mouth to suggest that perhaps he should leave –
“It’s good to see you,” Queenie says instead, and the look in her eyes tells him she’s quite aware he’s keeping her out, but it doesn’t really seem to faze her.
“Yeah, bud.” Jacob puts an arm around him and brings him into the kitchen. “You’re just in time for pie.”
It’s very good pie, Newt decides, but it’s hard to enjoy it while he’s maintaining his defenses, and Queenie must be quite aware of that. Still, she keeps the knowledge to herself, and Tina and Jacob chat easily around them both, while Newt manages to answer their questions as best he can. He suspects half the effort is emotional – he doesn’t want to hide from Queenie, but if she knew, if she could see –
“—sure you’re alright?”
“Pardon?”
Tina’s fingers touch his wrist, flinching for a moment, shocked as his mother was to find so much bone on him. Both he and –
“You just…you look so tired.”
“I am,” he says. “Quite.”
“Are you staying at the Pegasus?”
“Yes.”
Queenie shakes her head. “No, you should stay here, in the spare room.”
“I couldn’t do that—”
“It’ll be warmer and nicer than that drafty hotel.”
“Queenie, he said no—”
“I just wouldn’t want to put you out.”
Queenie and Tina both make an odd little noise of dismissal, at which Jacob smiles.
“I don’t want to force you,” Tina says. “But we’re only happy to have you.”
Newt gives her a long look, and it’s worth it to see her cheeks flushed a bit from her wine, the way the candlelight flickers against her skin. Newt swallows.
“Alright. I’ll stay.”
“Excellent.” Queenie gets up and goes to one of the closets and starts pulling out sheets. “Jake, honey, come help me make the bed.”
“Sure, sure.” Jacob stands and gives Newt a quick squeeze of the shoulder before following Queenie into the spare room, leaving Newt and Tina in their silence.
It’s not a bad one. Not, really. Tina eventually cuts in with a quiet, “How is it? Over there?”
Newt considers his answer, pushing around a stray slice of apple that has escaped his pie crust. “Depends on the day,” he says, while his lungs scream with the effort of a long-repressed howl, which has become a living thing inside him. He is starving it, and Newt has taken care of creatures long enough to know that when you deny a beast that is also your own – it will often try to consume you.
(A howl, he reasons, is not a beast. A howl is a manifestation of the beast, and the beast, he decides, is himself.)
“Graves is thinking about sending a team of aurors over to help. I’ve thought about volunteering, maybe you and I—”
“You shouldn’t do that,” Newt says sharply, straightening in his chair.
Tina frowns. “I’m an auror, Newt. Not a spectator.”
“I’m…I’m aware of that, and your skill. Really. But you…he shouldn’t send anyone. You shouldn’t go.”
Tina’s cheeks seem to puff out, a perfect imitation of a sea creature, for a split second. “I could go,” she argues. “I could go if I wanted.”
“Certainly,” Newt says, not really wanting to debate this point with her. “I’m sure there’d be great use for you.”
Tina opens her mouth to counter him, but Queenie comes from the guest room and says brightly, “Bed’s made.”
Newt stands quickly. “I’ll just go to sleep, then.”
Jacob pouts. “Already? You don’t want to have a drink or something?”
“Perhaps…perhaps tomorrow night.”
“I think I’ll turn in, too,” Tina says quickly, and heads to her room. Her door snaps shut, and Newt flinches at the odd little personal message being delivered straight to him through such a passive display. She’s quite good at making her point.
Queenie sighs. “Well. Alright, I guess. G’night, Newt.”
Newt nods. “Goodnight, to you both,” he says, before going into the room and closing the door behind him.
It’s not a good practice, but Newt mutters a little charm before bed to guarantee a dreamless sleep, one that seems to last for only a moment – and still leaves him feeling exhausted. He remembers that he must keep his mind clear and his thoughts obscured, that Queenie will find him out, and push him away.
He also remembers that Tina went to bed rather angry with him the night before, and he regrets that particular action.
No one is in the kitchen when Newt comes out, so he takes his wand and sets about making himself a cup of tea, trying to maintain his composure.
From the other side of the apartment, Queenie says quietly, “Are you going to hide yourself from me the whole time you’re here?”
Newt turns, now clutching a cup of hot tea in his hand as Queenie pulls on a bathrobe and moves into the kitchen. “I’m not sure I understand your meaning.”
“Your Occlumency. You’ve practiced it.”
“A tool against Grindelwald and his followers,” he explains. “It’s Ministry policy currently.”
“It’s exhausting,” Queenie murmurs, putting a hand on his arm. She leads him to the table, settling him into a chair next to her. “You’re wasting away, inside and out.”
“I’m doing alright.”
Queenie shakes her head. “I can’t see inside, but I know that’s not true.”
Newt lets his head drop for a moment, can’t help but smile. “No one is doing alright, really. It’s not…it hasn’t been easy.”
“War never is. That’s what Jacob’s taught me.”
“He’s a clever man,” Newt murmurs.
Queenie smiles, and now she’s holding his hand in her own, stroking his knuckles and tracing a long, winding scar that stretches over them and down his wrist.
“Dragon,” Newt says quietly.
(The dam begins to crack.)
“Newt, please. Please don’t shut me out. I promise it won’t hurt.”
He closes his eyes. “But it will.”
“Will it hurt as much as keeping yourself hidden like this? Will it hurt as much as…as all this?”
“Yes,” he rasps. “Yes, absolutely.”
(The dam breaks, though. She is too strong, with good hands and gentle fingers that suddenly latch onto his scar to feel its memory, and the cracks become full schisms in the structure and Newt – )
– is running, casting stunning spells over his shoulder as Theseus’s long legs carry him ahead. They have found one another in the woods and the dragon is a beautiful thing, but it is still a dragon, his brother reasons.
“You can’t save all of them,” he says when they finally stop. “You’re not made for that, Newt.”
“Then why did you ask me to do this? Why did you bring me here?”
“I figured you’d be the one to know that.” Theseus gives him a smile, a good one, just like Newt remembers. “Isn’t it worth it all, to save just one?”
Newt wants to say yes, without hesitation, and realizes in this moment that his brother has known him better than he has ever thought –
And the tree next to them explodes, splinters scattering over them.
Green light flashes, an incantation called into the night, and Theseus –
Theseus gasps as the curse hits him square in the chest. Newt sees the literal breath and life suddenly leave his brother as his eyes go dark and his body grows limp, hitting the leaf strewn ground with an ungodly thud that Newt will hear in his dreams for as long as he lives.
More curses splinter the forest around them, and Newt turns, shielding himself and his brother (brother’s body brother’s body) from further onslaught. It is just one man, streaking through the woods and shouting to alert the others. Newt follows him, gaze flitting through the trees, wand at the ready.
He sees the man, and the words, they come so quickly, so forcefully from his own lips –
“Avada kedavra!”
The spell hits the man much the same way it hit Theseus, a sickening sound of life escaping a person in a single stroke of a wand, and Newt feels his whole self grow weak with the despair of it. He drops to his knees and crawls to Theseus, shaking him, trying to rouse him even through the haze of his own fitful logic – there is no spell, no curse or touch in this world that wakes the dead. It is a lesson taught very young.
Newt stoops over his brother’s body and, second-nature, puts his wand in his mouth and hefts Theseus into his arms.
He Apparates them to the edge of the woods, as close to the concealed Ministry camp as he possibly can, weaving in and out of the trees the way he was taught, in a method he is brutally shocked he can even remember. One turn, then another spin and the camp unfolds itself for him, and Newt falls to his knees, brother and wand both spilling from him in an undignified heap on the ground.
It is now that he begins to wail, unearthly and unnatural, a noise he has never heard from himself before –
A noise that spills out of him as the wall guarding his mind from Queenie’s finally breaks and it all spills forth, knocking the wind from his lungs and sending him to his knees.
The living creature in his chest claws out and Newt
Newt, Newt, Newt –
He howls.
Tina’s door bursts open, Jacob spills unceremoniously from the other bedroom, and they are both on him in an instant, Tina holding his face in her hands as Newt struggles to breathe, his lungs suddenly collapsing from the weight of releasing his own beast, heart hammering violently in his chest.
He is going to suffocate here, in this kitchen, from the weight of his own choices and emptiness.
And from the darkest edges of it, pooling like wine and water and nectar on the fringes –
He thinks it might be Tina, but it isn’t.
It’s Jacob.
“—panic attack, just give him some room.”
Newt tries to gasp, to tell him that this isn’t panic, this is unnatural, this is not quantifiable or namable, but Jacob –
“Breathe in, and hold it.”
Newt wants to say all he’s doing is breathing in, but Jacob says it again, over and over until Newt does it.
“Now, out.”
Newt closes his eyes.
Jacob has not a single drop of magical blood in his body, but in this moment, he is full of it, it would seem.
“Breathe in…good, now hold it.” Newt nods. “And out.”
Ten minutes or so of this, and Newt starts to feel like half a person.
Tina’s hands are still on his face.
Eventually, he feels brave enough to speak.
Instead, he collapses into Tina’s arms, and the world goes dark.
He wakes on the sofa, a soft afghan thrown over him, someone resting under his legs. Newt opens his eyes and sees Tina dozing on the other end of the count, his legs in her lap as she absently rests her hands over his knees in her slumber.
She wakes with him, starting and scrambling to get up from the couch. Newt pulls his legs in and releases her.
“Mercy Lewis. Newt.”
“…Hello,” he manages.
“Newt.” She drops to her knees and holds his face in her hands again before wrapping him in her arms. “You scared me.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Please. Please. Do not apologize.”
Newt tests his lungs, takes a few breaths. “Is Queenie alright?”
“Yes,” Queenie says, smiling at him from the kitchen. “You want a snack?”
“Um, I do, actually.” Newt looks up. “Chocolate, if you have it.”
“Sure thing, hon.”
Jacob leans against the kitchen counter, looking him over. “You okay?”
“…Not really.” Newt looks at him. “Thank you.”
“Hey, no worries. Lot of guys in my division would get panic attacks. Real young kids, you know. Like sixteen sometimes. You guys don’t…”
“No,” Newt says quickly. “Hogwarts is very safe. The other schools as well.”
Tina worries her bottom lip. “Maybe you should rest.”
“No, I’m alright. I…chocolate,” he says again. “I would very much like a piece of chocolate.”
“Oh sure,” Queenie says, and opens a little cabinet, rummaging around and pulling out a little bar. She snaps off a piece and hands it to Newt.
He chews in silence, watching Jacob bid the girls goodbye as he heads out to the bakery. He gives Newt a hearty pat on the shoulder before he goes, carefully making his way down the stairs.
Queenie brings him a cup of hot chocolate proper and Newt takes it eagerly. “Thank you.”
“Mhm.” She settles on the couch next to him. “You just buried your brother.”
“Queenie.”
“No,” Newt says. “It’s…it’s alright. I’ve put it all off for long enough.”
“Is your mother alright?”
“She’s going to be. My father is the one I worry about. But I think they’ll…I think they’ll both be alright.” He sniffs. “I’m sorry you…I’m sorry that I—”
“I’m sorry I pushed.”
“How could I have kept it from you?” Newt murmurs, almost laughing.
“True.”
Tina’s hands are on his knees, rubbing small circles over his slacks. Newt covers one of her hands with his own. “Newt…” She drops her gaze.
He realizes that she has not been told. That the story is only his and Queenie’s. Queenie suddenly stands, busying herself in the kitchen.
“You don’t…you don’t have to tell me—”
“Theseus is dead,” Newt says. It sounds different than it has before. The way he said it to his mother and father, to a few people who had asked. When he says it to Tina, it sounds…gentler. Easier, now that time has passed. “I killed the man who did it. There, in the woods.”
“I see.”
“After I carried him out of the woods, and then I brought him home. We buried him three days ago. The Ministry asked me to take a leave of absence.” He looks at her. “I…made a scene.”
“You?”
Newt nods. “Yes. After the funeral. I…I was not at my best. I may have overturned a table. The Minister may have been there.”
“Newt.”
“I overturned a table,” he repeats. “Onto the Minister of Magic.”
“Better.”
“He wasn’t angry with me,” Newt says quickly. “He was the one who suggested I take a short rest. I told them I…wanted to come here.” He swallows. “I wanted to see you.”
“You told them that?”
“Well, no. I told them I wanted to go to New York and they didn’t ask why. The Minister had ordered it, so it wasn’t a problem.” He breathes, trembling now. “I need to lie down.”
“Sure.”
“I…”
Tina stands, taking his hands in hers. “Would you…I mean would it be alright if I—”
“Yes,” he breathes, and lets her take him to her room.
After, that’s where Newt stays. They sleep arranged like lonely parenthesis, enclosing a question they haven’t quite given voice to. Tina strokes his face, brushing the hair from his eyes and tracing the curve of his cheekbone. Newt watches her eyes open and close, and tries to count her lashes.
When she goes, or when Queenie goes with Jacob to the bakery and Newt is alone, he writes.
The first thing he writes is a letter to his mother telling her he is well. Or as well as he can be. He recommends she and father take a trip of their own, to get away from the hamlet and the estate, and perhaps go to the house on the coast. You remember how it was in the fall? Gray and gloomy some days, but when the sun shines on the beach that time of year…you always said it was your favorite feeling. Autumn and winter by the coast.
The second thing he writes is a letter to Dumbledore, who has discovered where he is already, he suspects. Dumbledore was at Theseus’s funeral, but Newt had been incapable of speech beyond the one he’d prepared. And even that – I will miss him, as much as I would miss my left lung were it ripped from my body – well.
The last is a letter to Theseus and it’s – where in the spaces of me will you live now, and how will I tell people your name, or tell them about you, is it alright to call myself a brother when my own is dead and gone, does this part of me die with you, did you think we’d both make it out alive, did you always know this would happen, why would you leave me this way, why why why –
The tip of the quill cracks, and Newt throws the lot of it – paper, quill, envelope – into the fire.
Dear Theseus curls up in the flames and burns away.
He is eleven days into his twenty-one day prescribed leave. Newt checks in with Finneas Scrawler, lets him know he hasn’t left the country, and is doing quite well. Finneas, to his credit, doesn’t comment that Newt hasn’t spent a single night at the Pegasus. He only signs a few things and gives him a smile.
“Good to see you in better spirits, Mr. Scamander.”
That night, Queenie and Jacob go out for a movie date, leaving Tina and Newt in charge of feeding themselves. They wind up making breakfast, the only kind of food either of them can seem to cook, before Tina pulls him to the sofa and they lounge by the fire.
“Newt?”
“Hmm?” He’s tucked against her lap, relishing in the calming feel of her nails scraping gently along his scalp.
“Thank you for coming here. I know you could have gone anywhere—”
“I didn’t want to go anywhere.” He opens his eyes and looks at her. “I wanted to be here. With you.”
Tina nods. “I know. And that…” She signs, seemingly dissatisfied with her words before she leans down and kisses him, catching Newt a bit by surprise, but…not really.
He has been dreaming lately of her lips, and it is a reprieve from dreamless nights or waking nightmares.
The kiss becomes more heated after, and Newt pushes himself up, taking her in his arms to kiss her properly.
Tina pulls back with a gasp, panting against his mouth. “Newt…”
“I came here because I cannot seem to untie myself from you.” He tips his forehead against her own. “And I do not want to.”
On the fourteenth day of his twenty-one day leave, Tina takes him to bed, and Newt finds himself astounded.
His body is cursed and wretched, but Tina moves her hands over it in some kind of worship, stroking bone and sinew with words and hands, fingers flitting over skin like lines in a prayer book, reading aloud the history of his short life scribbled down across his arms and torso, legs and back.
Above him, she is a benediction. Her mouth alights with words and sighs, his name and the names of things he doesn’t quite know yet. Pleading noises and the names of stars, maybe. Stars in their own sky, the one they live and make love under.
(Newt is struck with a great urge to take her outside, to lie with her under the moon, and watch it ripple across her breasts and body, to chase it with his tongue and entire self, to make her cry out as the sun rises.)
People, he realizes, live out entire swaths of their lives without knowing this kind of peace or power. Without holding a woman or man in their arms and without knowing them the way he is coming to know Tina. The way she is coming to know him. The way they will always know one another, even if this love is a short one, a briefly lit fuse among the darkness.
Every night after the first, they make love. Sometimes she opens the window, letting in the cool city air until they are shivering, laughing and listening to the city come alive underneath them. Sometimes she reads to him, or he reads to her. Always, they kiss. Always, he undresses her, carefully. Always she counts his buttons and marvels at the abalone shells on the cuffs, the patches here and there done by his unsteady hand.
Always, she throws her head back and breathes and Newt is reminded that the world is full of people who live and die, and this here is a pure and untouchable place outside of the two of them where they are both honestly and truly alive.
“Do you love me?” he asks her suddenly, and Tina stops rocking against him, stops stroking his hair to say, happily, “Of course I love you. Of course.”
On the last day of his leave, they walk through the park and Newt tells her about his wayward little fantasy. Tina laughs, leaning closer as his mouth presses against her ear.
“Newt.”
“I can’t help it.”
She smiles, cupping his cheek. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“I am,” he admits. “Not perfect, but…”
“You don’t have to feel perfect,” Tina murmurs. “And you don’t even have to be happy.”
“I am though,” he admits. “To a certain extent.”
Tina ducks her head. “Yeah?”
Newt lifts her chin. “Yes,” he says. “Here. With you.”
Tina sighs, and kisses him on the park bench, under the trembling fall leaves.
He isn’t himself quite yet, not the way the Ministry or his mother or anyone would really like him to be, but he is getting there, he realizes. That he has eaten too much pie and not made enough love to the woman he will come back to again and again – for there cannot be enough love, when it comes to the two of them. It is a sort of infinite thing he’s chasing, and he’s alright with that. He doesn’t get tired from the run.
Tina pulls back and their noses touch and Newt takes her hands in his.
“My constant Porpentina,” he murmurs.
She laughs. “I love you, Newt.”
“And I, you.”
And though he knows where he will be in just another day, he isn’t afraid, and he isn’t as weary as he was.
His spirit has begun to heal.
(but i won't break, even when the earth around me shakes)