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Nocturnes

As a general rule, Leta LeStrange doesn’t sleep.

This has been true for the entirety of her adult life, and a fair proportion of her teenage years besides. She hasn’t slept properly since Newt Scamander was expelled from Hogwarts, seven years ago, although this is not something that anyone around her knows.

She’s very good at appearing implacable, unreadable – if she puts her mind to it (and she always does) she can look well rested even without the aid of magic, these days. But the fact remains that she never snatches more than three or four hours of sleep a night, and she’s simply learned to function around her fatigue.

She thinks perhaps it’s the dark that bothers her, since she doesn’t have much trouble dosing off during the day if she can find a private moment to do so. But simply illuminating the room when she lies down for the night has never helped.

Her brain simply rejects the notion of unconsciousness. What sleep she gets is always shallow, thick with dreams – not nightmares, persey, but unsettling visions none-the-less. Nothing that ever lets her feel fully rested. Nothing ever especially pleasant.

By her mid-twenties she’s as used to being wide awake in the small hours of morning as most people are in the middle of the day. She’s even begun to enjoy it, a little. There’s a stillness to be found in the world at 3AM that doesn’t exist anywhere else. She can read or write letters or catch up on her paperwork without a single soul to disturb her. She likes to cook, make herself a very late supper or an early breakfast. Sometimes she listens to the wireless. She’s even been known to go for walks, or take her broom out into the dark, open air, most usually still in her nightgown. It’s freeing, to exist where no one else can see you, judge you, shun you.

In the quiet of the middle of the night, no one cares who her father is, or what prophecies linger about her name. She can do as she pleases without the prying eyes of the wizarding world following her across a room or a street or a city. It’s a relief of the sort she once experienced in the company of Newt Scamander, though of course she hasn’t really heard from him in years now.

Her irregular sleeping patterns are more of a problem when she’s away from home, especially if she’s away from home on Ministry business.

She’s been brought along to assist a number of Ministry officials  in a conference with the Ministère des Affaires Magiques. She’s acting as a glorified secretary, really, and not being paid early enough to put up with so many fussy, boring Ministry men at one time – but she doesn’t mind the trip to Paris.

What she does mind is that she’s expected to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the Ministry’s representatives, expected to rise with them, dine with them, attend meetings with them in the mornings, when she pays the highest price for her insomnia.

She would really rather her odd waking hours not come out to her employers. There are rumours enough about her as it is – if someone spotted her prowling the hotel or flying above it at four in the morning, she can only imagine the looks she’d get over breakfast.

So she’s stuck in her hotel room, and the unfamiliar environment is making even dropping off to begin with difficult, let alone staying asleep for any reasonable period.

The first night, she gives up at around 2AM and takes herself out onto her balcony, where at least she might enjoy the view.

She stays there until five that morning, when she at last begins to feel tired – but has to get up for breakfast at seven, of course, so spends the day quietly casting wakening charms on herself and drinking as much tea as she can get her hands on without looking conspicuous.

However tired she is that day, by the time she gets to bed that night she is once again wide awake.

Which is how it is that she comes to hear Theseus Scamander screaming.

+++

As a general rule, Theseus Scamander doesn’t sleep.

Oddly enough, the nightmares didn’t start until a good month or so after he’d returned home. He didn’t sleep well in his barracks, in the trenches, on the front – not exactly – but he didn’t dream too much. Something about having a mission, a focus, had kept his mind from wondering even in unconsciousness. He had men to keep alive, orders to execute, bombs to survive. He’d learned not to think of anything much beyond what was immediately in front of him. It had kept him sane.

Then he had come home and… he had to start thinking about the future again. And the past.

And something had unravelled in his head.

During the day, he’s exactly who his parents, his brother, his colleagues expect him to be – he has a job to do, still, a purpose. He’s a war hero and, more importantly, a representative of the Ministry of Magic. He can do his part to ensure a war like the one he so narrowly survived will never re-occur by pulling the Ministry up from the inside, upholding the law where it’s just and reforming it where it isn’t, protecting muggles and wizards alike.

He knows who he is, during the day.

At night is another story. At night he’s so unmoored he sometimes wakes up without even the memory of his own name let alone his purpose.

When it had become clear, after the first few weeks, that the nightmares were to be a regular occurrence, he had quietly sought out a healer he’d known on the front. He didn’t want to go through the Ministry – something about the possibility of his colleagues catching wind of what he wanted left him feeling uneasy. So he’d gone to an old comrade, who had eyed him knowingly, and provided him with a sleeping draught without asking any questions.

The draught works perfectly – a single drop under his tongue knocks him into a deep, dreamless black for a solid eight hours and he’s well-rested for the first time in a month and it’s a blessed relief. He visits the healer once a month to receive his supply – a grey-ish liquid that billows with dark clouds in it’s glass vial – and he no longer spends his nights trudging through the bodies of his friends, being gnawed at by rats, choking on gas, screaming through gun fire.

But. The draught has a cumulative effect on his body, over the next six months or so. For his third year potions class at school he’d once written a three page essay detailing the dangers of the use of sleeping potions over long periods. He recalls with dark amusement how abstract the whole exercise had been back then – who would ever need to use such things more than once in a while?

The headaches were to be expected, as was the occasional bout of nausea first thing after waking. The increased sensitivity to heat that leaves him prone to sweating profusely is inconvenient – but the drowsy, deepening fog left behind in his bones when he wakes, that lingers longer and longer into the day, is becoming downright dangerous. It leaves him disorientated, dizzy, forgetful. He doesn’t trust himself on a broom until well after midday. He begins to keep obsessive to-do lists to make certain he won’t let anything slip.

He knows it’s going to become noticeable, if he isn’t careful.

So on days when there’s especially important tasks to accomplish, he stops taking the potion for a night or two – just to be certain he won’t be distracted. The nightmares come rushing back like a tide coming in, awful as ever, but he can tolerate them if he absolutely must. Lots of people have nightmares, don’t they?

And when he’s in Paris on Ministry business, in a hotel with his colleagues – many of them his seniors – he has little choice. He can’t be losing his wits, in front of his employers and the French Wizarding consulate.

So he leaves the sleeping draught behind at home, and waits for the nightmares to come.

He’s not sure how many he has, that first night. They’re faded, somehow, still half-strangled by the draught. The second night, though… they come one on top of another, thick as mud, he comes awake still tasting blood, still feeling entrails under his fingernails, still screaming – screaming – screaming –

He fights off the duvet, staggers upright off the bed, needing solid ground beneath his feet, struggles to find his wand, then a lamp, then anything – any sort of light because the shadows in his room might still be full of the dead –

He finds the bedside lamp. There are no corpses in the corners of his room. No mud, either. No distant shell fire. No screams but his own.

Theseus isn’t sure if the dreams are worse than they used to be. Perhaps he’s let the sleeping potion lull him for too long. Perhaps being back in France – however far Paris feels from the trenches – is churning loose rotting memories.

It’s a little after three in the morning. The night is at its heaviest. His pyjama shirt is soaked through with sweat, so he peels it off, letting cold air hit his skin – it wakens him a little more. That’s good. That’s better. He needs air.

His balcony looks out onto a little Parisian street, cobbled and quaint, the Eiffle tower a distant set of lights on the skyline over the rooftops, the city quiet. It’s a clear night, the moon a sickle, the stars scatter-shot overhead as oblivious as they were all those nights he spent on the Somme. It’s all so picturesque it feels almost a pastiche of itself – almost a mockery of him, a shaking, sickly soldier standing alone in the night, drowning in ghosts.

Theseus places his trembling hands on the balcony railing and inhales, deeply, willing the night air to settle his stomach, clear his head.

And then he realises he has an audience.

“Theseus?”

Leta LeStrange is standing on the balcony next to his, blinking at him owlishly. She’s wearing nothing but a nightgown and a pair of beaded slippers, a shawl draped over her shoulders, her hair up in a silk scarf.

She looks beautiful. Ethereal. And horrified.

Merlin. She’s heard him screaming. And then he’s come charging out onto his balcony, shirtless and shaking like a madman.

Theseus has no idea what to say to her.

That’s not unusual, of course. She’s his little brother’s closest friend – or at least, she once was – and he remembers her primarily as a shy, bookish twelve year old, helping Newt categorise his favourite sorts of beetles. She, like Newt, tended not to make eye contact with anyone, let alone him, and he’d never gotten much more than a word or two out of her at a time so he’d stopped trying and there hadn’t been much cause to attempt a conversation since.

Of course as he’d grown up he’d heard the rumours about her – about all the LeStranges – and about some sort of prophecy (if you believe in that sort of thing, which Theseus tends not to). But he has no more cause to get to know one of the junior assistants in his department than he did to get to know a stubbornly silent teenager using a shoe to heard ladybirds into jam jars in his mother’s kitchen. They have, for the most part, avoided each other since she began to work at the Ministry and Theseus finds that a perfectly agreeable state of affairs.

Now he really must find something, anything, to say, so that she’ll stop looking at him like that.

“Miss – ,” his voice comes out a hoarse croak – he has to cough, clear his throat, start again, “Miss LeStrange, I must have woken you, I’m terribly sorry.”

Her gaze goes to his hands, which are still shaking, in spite of his best efforts.

“No,” she replies, quietly, “I was reading.”

She holds up a book.

“Oh.”

Theseus swallows.

“Well. Good night.”

He swings on his heel and nearly flees back into his hotel room when –

“They probably won’t have heard you,” Leta’s voice stops him in his tracks. “The others on our corridor. But – perhaps you ought to think about sound proofing your room? I know a way to charm the walls that might work, if you’d like me to look it out for you.”

Theseus glances back at her ruefully. “Thank you, Miss LeStrange.”

He doesn’t dare make eye contact with her the next day. He hasn’t slept at all, so he blindly swallows the strongest tea he can find and tries to appear presentable.

He barely remembers her offer until she brings him a fresh mug of tea and slips a scrap of paper under it when she places it on the table in front of him.

It’s a hand-written charm for soundproofing the walls of his room, in neat, careful cursive that reminds him a little of Newt. When did she have time to look this up? Let alone add what he’s sure must be modifications of her own invention?

He casts her a careful look over his mug and catches the edge of her smile – small, conspiratorial, a flicker and gone so that it might never have been there at all.

Theseus tucks the note into a pocket for later. Leta LeStrange is wasted on getting old men their tea, that much is clear.

+++

Leta has dragged an arm chair out onto her balcony so that she can read by the light of her wand. She’s managed a few hours of sleep but is now about as thoroughly awake as she ever is in the middle of the night, and she has some French magazines to look through – for the novelty of them – so she settles down, propping her feet up on the balcony railing.

Leta reads French better than she speaks it – though she speaks it relatively well, it’s why she’s been brought along where most of other lowly assistants have been left behind in London – so the magazines are absorbing enough. Two detail the latest trends in high fashion for young Parisian witches, another is full of theatre and book reviews – she leafs through them contentedly, picking out a pretend life for herself. This dress, those shoes, that hat and gloves, to wear to this opera or that book launch with this or that handsome man on her arm.

 Of course if she wants a new dress she only has to ask her father, but she prefers to use her own money (it’s why she has a job, after all – she’s never had much interest in sitting at home, living off the LeStrange fortune – she’d be dead of boredom within a month). So for the moment most of the outfits in her magazines are mere fantasy fodder, but some careful saving might afford her something nice. She fixates for a moment on a particular pair of lace gloves, silver moths beating their wings about the wrists, glittering, bright as moons. They cost about the same as what she makes in a month. Maybe if she saves for six…?

Her line of thought is interrupted, however, by Theseus crashing out of his room and onto the balcony next to hers.

He’s shirtless again. Sweating again. Gasping for breath and shaking, again.

But she hasn’t heard him screaming, so the soundproofing charm must have worked.

She tries not to look at his bare, heaving chest. He hasn’t noticed her yet, though, so there’s time to look – there’s time to look at all of him: the deep purple scar under his left pectoral muscle, and another just beneath his right collar bone; the sweat on his skin, sticking his hair to his forehead. His broad shoulders and strong hands trembling.

It’s a terrible thing, to see such a man struggle so. She shouldn’t be looking, she knows. He deserves his dignity. But there’s such beauty to him, too – the same beauty there is in Newt, she knows, if she’s honest – such gentility, such vulnerability.

Leta catches her lower lip between her teeth and forces herself to avert her gaze. She won’t think of Theseus Scamander like that. She can’t let herself.

He has put his head in his hands – she can practically feel the effort he’s putting into breathing normally – and he still hasn’t noticed her.

So she clears her throat, quietly.

He startles upright, which breaks her heart a little. She’d reach out for him if she could, but she doesn’t know him well enough for that, and she’s not sure he’d accept such comfort from her – from anyone.

“Good evening,” she offers, as he stares at her like he doesn’t quite recognise her.

“I – good evening,” he manages back, stiff and slow, clearly struggling to find the words. “Miss LeStrange.”

“You used the charm, then?”

He blinks at her, not understanding.

“I didn’t hear you tonight.”

“Ah,” he nods, “yes, I suppose it must have worked, then. Thank you.”

He straightens, slowly, crushing one hand to his eyes, like he’s trying to brush away the last of whatever haunts him so. Then he turns, making his way back to his room.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

She watches him go, and wishes, not for the first time, that Newt were here to talk to. Not that he’d have any more of an idea than she does of what to do with his older brother in that state. But at least she wouldn’t feel so alone in her helplessness.

But Theseus doesn’t go back into his room. He stops in the entrance to the balcony, and stays there, paralysed.

“Would you like something to read?” Leta asks, holding up one of her magazines. “I’m finished with this one – I’m afraid it’s in French, but the pictures are nice.”

She’s not sure what she’s expecting of him, but Theseus opens and closes his mouth once before nodding, and reaching across to take it from her.

“Thank you.”

“We all need our distractions, don’t we?”

“Certainly at this time of night we do,” Theseus sinks down to sit on the balcony floor.

Leta watches him, curiously – his long legs bent at the knees, ungainly looking, even as he sweeps his fringe out of his eyes. She hadn’t truly thought he’d want to stay out here with her – the impulse to speak had come out of pity, since he was so clearly looking for a reason not to return to the terrors of sleep quite yet.

He leafs through the magazine for some minutes in silence – it’s about Parisian dress design, not, as these things go, something a man like Theseus might ordinarily be interested in, but he’s studying the pictures with almost comical sincerity.

“Do witches here really dress like this?” He asks, after a moment, frowning, as he holds up one page in particular – an evening gown, covered in live pink and blue butterflies.

“At night, if they have the money, I suppose,” Leta shrugs. “That’s a little frilly for my tastes – it would be an almighty fuss to keep it clean. Clothes shouldn’t be that stressful.”

“It can’t be pleasant for the butterflies, either,” Theseus suddenly sounds so much like Newt that Leta has to stifle her laughter.

He must catch some of it in the look she casts him, though, because his mouth quirks – he leans back against the balcony railing, looking heavenward, then back toward his room.

“Do you have the time?”

Leta checks her watch – it’s fifteen minutes past four in the morning. “You don’t want to know.”

Theseus groans, low in his chest. “I’m sorry if I’m – keeping you awake – don’t feel obligated to stay if you’d rather – ”

“I’m always awake at this sort of time,” Leta shrugs, delicately.

He eyes her, curiously, clearly considering whether or not to ask why – but he doesn’t.

“I – really must –“ he gets up, offering her the magazine back, “I should try to get back to bed.”

She takes the magazine from him, ignoring the graze of her fingers over his knuckles as she does so.

He doesn’t move, though – doesn’t try to go back inside – remains on his balcony looking lost in a way that makes Leta feel terribly sad for him. He’s older than her by some years, of course, and his being Newt’s big brother has always made him seem entirely more grown up and sophisticated than she could ever hope to be. But it occurs to her that in reality, he is still very young, and he certainly looks it at the moment – and that he was even younger during the war, and that a part of him still remains there, at that age, trapped and alone.

“You don’t have to go back to sleep if you don’t want to,” Leta remarks, softly, and Theseus only shakes his head, his smile worn thin with exhaustion.

“Yes, I do.” He presses a thumb and forefinger to his eyes for a moment, sighing heavily. “What sort of a man is afraid to go to sleep?”

“The sort who has seen things no one should have to witness,” Leta replies, and that gets her a look she can’t read – Theseus’ eyes are wide and penetrating in the dark, and Leta abruptly feels self-conscious. Perhaps she’s presuming too much. She barely knows him, after all.

Then he only shrugs, attempting a frail sort of levity. “Everyone has nightmares, don’t they?”

“Not quite like yours, I don’t think.”

His mouth twitches again. Half a smile, half something far, far sadder. “Good night, Miss LeStrange.”

“Good night.”

+++

By the blazing light of day, Theseus feels the deep embarrassment of his admission to Leta LeStrange in a cloud of excruciating shame that follows him all morning. What in Merlin’s name could have possessed him to tell her that he was frightened to sleep, like a ruddy five year old? What could she possibly think of him?

He had some confidence, at least, that she wouldn’t tell anyone else. If she was given to gossip of any sort, news that he had woken up screaming two nights ago would already have spread throughout the British’ Ministry’s delegation and probably beyond – but it hadn’t, so it seemed likely that he was safe.

Still, it felt dishonourable to burden Leta, a girl he barely knew and who owed him no kindness at all, with news of his own dysfunction. She had already handed him a sound proofing charm, and a magazine, and kept him company without being asked to.

He feels duty bound to find some way to repay her.

And he’s lucky, in some ways, because Torquil Travers decides to send Theseus to meet with one of the French Ministry’s representatives over something Travers himself cannot be bothered with at all (there’s some strife over an obscure element of French law that heavily taxes magical items entering the country from the United Kingdom, and British wizards are, of course, finding creative ways to avoid paying up).

“Can I borrow Miss LeStrange, then?” He asks, seeing Leta’s head come up from across the room at the sound of her own name. “She speaks much better French than I do, and I’ll need someone to take dictation.”

Travers shrugs, his mind already on others things – most likely lunch. “Yes, yes, perfectly fine – Leta! Go with Mr Scamander, bring a decent set of quills.”

“Yes, Mr Travers,” Leta is already gathering up her things, as if she’s afraid her employer will change his mind.

She’s been trapped in this meeting room for three hours, doing nothing but make tea and fetch biscuits and looking about ready to faint from boredom – she catches her foot on her chair and nearly falls flat on her face in her haste to leave.

Theseus grasps her elbow to steady her and swiftly escorts her out, masking his amusement.

“Oh it’s a hazard,” Leta groans, the minute they reach the street, thoroughly out of earshot of the rest of the Ministry, “it’s these shoes – I nearly break my neck twice a day.”

“Why wear them, then?” Theseus asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Because they’re the only ones that make me look tall enough to belong in a room amongst grown ups!” Leta waves a hand, “you have no idea what a burden it is to be short, you Scamanders.”

Theseus snorts. “You aren’t that short.”

“You’ve never seen me barefoot.”

“Yes I have.”

It’s the first time he’s referenced their night time association, and it gets him the same edge of that small, conspiratorial smile that came with the sound proofing charm the other day – Theseus rather likes it on her.

“I was wearing slippers.”

“Still.”

Her smile widens.

“Come along then,” he offers her his arm, “if we hurry and get this meeting over with, there will be time for me to buy you lunch.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Leta looks at the proffered arm as if he’s offering her something rather dangerous.

“Yes I do,” Theseus replies, although it suddenly occurs to him that she might think he’s propositioning her in some way, and feels the blood rush up his neck, “it’s simply that – you’ve been kind. And I feel I ought to – ”

“You Scamanders and your sense of honour,” Leta sighs, but she has visibly relaxed again. “Alright. But nothing too expensive.”

“I promise.”

She slips her hand into the crook of his elbow, where it fits rather well, small and warm, bunching the fabric of his coat between her delicate fingers.

+++

The Seine is broad and slow, not unlike the Thames, Leta thinks, as she peers over a guard rail into its swirling depths.

She and Theseus are meandering along its length. Their meeting was over blessidly swiftly – broadly because Theseus Scamander is exceptionally charming when he wants to be, and the French Minister they met with was a middle aged little French witch who had taken one look into Theseus’ big, earnest blue eyes and abruptly become entirely more agreeable than she had been with Travers the day before.

Now they are free for at least another hour before they’re expected back, and Leta is enjoying the fresh air and the late summer sunlight. There’s the faintest possibility of Autumn on the breeze – a chill beginning to rattle the first leaves from their branches, almost enough to make her wish she’d brought a coat if she stands too long in the shade. She’s wearing a simple, dark blue drop-waisted dress and the cardigan and felt cloche on top aren’t quite enough to keep her from having to brace against that air. But Theseus is a steady source of warmth at her side, so she stays tucked in close by his elbow.

“Would you like to find somewhere to sit?” Theseus asks – he looks reassuringly like himself by daylight – broad-shouldered, self-assured, handsome, exactly as he should. If he were anyone other than Newt’s brother, Leta would be rather pleased to find herself alone in his company – might even be wishing she’d worn something prettier, might let herself be thrilled by the way he keeps looking at her when he thinks she won’t notice. (She won’t – she won’t – she won’t).

“There’s a café over there, isn’t there?” Leta looks over to the little place with pretty cakes in its window, “do you have any French muggle money?”

“Enough for a couple of sandwiches, yes,” Theseus produces a wallet and flicks through it, “alright then, lady’s choice it is.”

They sit in the café window, eating sandwiches and drinking tea, and watching the world drift by outside. Leta is enjoying, at least a little, that so few of her family would be caught dead in a place like this – muggles everywhere, the food made with bare hands and not magic – she rather enjoys the novelty of it. She watches the process of boiling a kettle using a stove behind the counter with interest – not to mention the way she can see the bread being made.

“It must take an awful lot of patience,” she tells Theseus, “they have to wait for it to rise on its own – have you noticed?”

“They use yeast,” Theseus replies, “it makes some sort of chemical reaction.”

“How clever.”

“Yes, they have to be rather bright to survive, I think.”

“Are you calling wizards dull?”

“Well, not all of us,” Theseus smiles sardonically.

“Perhaps only our immediate Ministry superiors.”

That gets a laugh from him, low and short.

“Well, spending all day sat in doors doing paperwork and talking about tax law, when we’re in this sort of city, on a day as nice as this one, is many things – but I hesitate to call it clever.”

She giggles over her tea.

Theseus is gentle and charming all afternoon, though. He offers the ham from his sandwich to the cat prowling between the little café tables, and makes a baby on its mother’s shoulder smile by pulling faces at it, then distractedly folds a napkin into a flower (something Newt also used to do – did he learn it from Theseus? He must have). And Leta tries, she truly does, not to notice any of those things about him.

He’s being kind because he’s a kind man – because Scamanders are kind men, too kind for their own good – not because he’s being kind specifically to her.

People tend not to be kind to her. And when they are, it rarely ends well for them.

They take a rather longer route back to the hotel than they need to, Leta’s hand tucked into Theseus’ elbow again – holding gently, as if he’s afraid to hurt her. They’re going to be late. Leta doesn’t care.

“Oh,” she gasps, spotting something familiar in a shop window. They’ve passed back into the wizarding part of the city – and there, in a shop window, are the lace gloves she had so admired in her magazine last night.

“What?” Theseus follows her to the window, which she presses her hands to like a child, unable to help herself. Those gloves really are lovely – she hasn’t owned a proper pair of lace gloves since her teens, and she had refused to wear them back then because she’d been so worried she’d stain them and earn her father’s violent wrath. She’d be worried about staining these, too, but they’d still be rather wonderful just to own –

“It’s silly,” Leta sighs, “and I’ve nowhere to wear them, but…”

“Those?” Theseus peers through the glass at them, “yes, they’re quite unusual, aren’t they?”

“Mm,” Leta bites her lip. “Oh they’re more than unusual – they’re handmade, by the only witch in Paris who still makes that sort of lace, and she’s only making two hundred pairs and every one of them will be unique – and they’re going to cost more than I make in a month so by the time I’ve saved up I’m sure they’ll all be sold but – ”

“For a pair of gloves?” Theseus looks incredulous.

“I told you it’s silly,” Leta rolls her eyes. “I know it’s a trivial thing to spend so much on, but I’d die, I really would.”

“I hope you wouldn’t,” Theseus shakes his head.

Leta glances up at him – that square jaw, his mouth turned up at the corners, his gaze soft with amusement. Gosh she shouldn’t like him so much, should she?

“Come,” she strides away, “before I lose my mind and sell my great aunt’s jewellery for glove money.”

He laughs but follows her away.

+++

It’s almost one in the morning, when Leta hears a crash from Theseus’ room.

The soundproofing must not have worked perfectly, then, although Leta had modified the charm a little to work specifically on screaming. If it blocked everything, someone might notice the strange deadness of the room and work out what Theseus had done, and since discretion seemed to be his primary concern, she had done her best to make the spell less obtrusive.

Whatever the reason, she hears the crash – and then Theseus swearing – and then he’s staggering out onto his balcony, clutching one of his hands to his chest. It takes her a moment to realise that he’s bleeding.

Leta drops the book she’s been reading – it’s French poetry tonight – hitches up her nightgown and scrambles over the half-foot gap between their balconies.

“Theseus!”

When he looks up, she recognises that odd, glassy expression in his eyes – as if he isn’t sure who she is, what she’s doing there. His hands are shaking. He’s dripping blood everywhere, staining the front of his pyjama shirt.

She steps closer and he steps back, shaking his head.

“I’m – I’m alright,” he manages, “I – thought there was someone – but there wasn’t – and then I – ”

Leta holds out her hands, speaking as gently as she can manage. “Let me see.”

He hesitates a moment, then meekly proffers his wounded arm, like a little boy showing something he’s ashamed of.

There’s a deep cut running from the heel of his palm round to the side of his wrist. Leta holds up her wand to get a better look – there’s a piece of glass still embedded in the gash. He must have smashed some ornament or other in his haste to fight off whatever monster had crawled out of his dreams.

“Oh, Theseus,” she murmurs, then carefully summons the glass out of the cut – he flinches, but doesn’t pull his hand away. Leta tugs off the silk scarf she keeps her hair wrapped in when she sleeps (…when she tries to sleep), and presses it to the cut. “Come along. Let’s take care of this.”

She leads him back toward his room – he follows, quiet as a lamb.

+++

In his defence, Theseus was only trying to turn on the bloody lamp.

Except that he was also still half in a trench, half fighting the animated corpses of his friends, and he’d swung out a fist just to get the duvet off him and – the lamp had shattered across his hand.

Now he’s sitting on the edge of his bed while Leta cleans up his injury the way his mother used to clean up his scrapes and grazes when he was a boy. If Newt could see him now he wouldn’t recognise him.

He’s going to absolutely ruin Leta’s scarf.

“There, now, this will sting a little,” Leta murmurs, and Theseus has been too busy watching her eyelashes to notice that she’s laying his hand in a bowl of warm water – it does sting, but it’s a sort of clean, safe hurt. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he replies, because it is, really – Leta is being so gentle, her presence is so soothing, she could be sticking needles in his palm and he wouldn’t care.

Leta carefully manipulates his thumb, turning his hand, examining the split in his flesh as the water carries the blood away from it, her brow furrowed as she concentrates on her task – there’s something profoundly reassuring in her touch. He hasn’t touched anyone in a long, long time. The last man to hold his hand had died doing so.

“It’s not so deep to need a proper healer to seal it up,” she decides, “it just looks dramatic from the blood. Hand injuries tend to.”

“Yes,” Theseus has seen a man’s hand blown clean off. “Head injuries are worse, though.” 

“I suppose you would know all about that,” Leta nods, avoiding his gaze, “I suppose you’ve seen far worse.”

Theseus only keeps his head down – he can smell her hair, without her scarf – it’s fallen down to her shoulders in loose ringlets, a glossy burnt caramel colour, and it smells like her soap and he’s sure if he can only keep breathing her in, his heart rate will slow soon.

“I’ll wrap it up for you,” she tells him, “and I’ve got some ointment somewhere that will close it in a few hours. I’ll go and get it.”

She stands, making for the balcony again – Theseus is immediately on his feet behind her. “Wait.”

She glances back, curiously, and Theseus has no idea how to say don’t leave me alone so he only stands by his bed feeling like a cretin, clutching his injured hand to his chest again, staring at her.

She must sense what he needs, somehow, though, because she only reaches back, takes his good arm, and guides him after her. “Come along, then.”

He follows her back across the balconies, back to her room, where he stays in the balcony entrance, feeling ridiculous – but he’s returned to himself enough to feel it’s somewhat over the line to enter a lady’s bedroom alone at this time of night, no matter the circumstances.

Leta is upending a purse onto her bedspread, picking through what looks like all manner of things – wand polish and lipstick and every flavoured beans and a crumpled magazine – until she comes up with a little glass jar of something pale blue and waxy.

“I never leave home without this,” she remarks, triumphantly, “ever so useful, from my nursing days.”

Theseus blinks, still lingering in her doorway. “You – were a nurse? In the war?”

“Well, I trained for it,” Leta shrugs, “I was never anywhere near the front. I was kept back in the auxiliary stations at Dover. I’ve a suspicion my father had something to do with that.”

“I’m glad he did,” Theseus glances down, self-consciously rubbing one of the scars on his chest.

“Why, because the front was no place for a woman?”

“Because the front was no place for anyone.”

The look he gets for that is penetrating – Leta has such big, dark eyes Theseus is surprised more people don’t fall into them. Were they always so sad, or is he simply projecting?

“Come here,” Leta beckons him, patting the bed next to her.

“I…” Theseus hesitates again – glancing back over his shoulder as if they might be being observed. His mother would be horrified by him encroaching on a woman’s personal space like this, especially when they’re both so undressed.

Leta arches an eyebrow at him, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Scamander honour. You know you haven’t changed a bit since you were eighteen? You wouldn’t let Newt take me up to his bedroom back then, either. As if Newt was in any way capable of lecherous intent.”

Theseus manages a laugh at the faint memory – his twelve year old brother’s confusion, Leta’s consternation, both of them with armfuls of specimen jars full of insects. But where are we meant to catalogue them? Newt had asked.

In the kitchen, where mother or I can see you!

But why –

So you don’t try to kiss me, Leta had told him, bluntly, and Newt had gone so red that Theseus had thought his head would explode.

“Maybe I was worried it was you who had lecherous intent,” Theseus tells her now, taking a step into the room. “My little brother was very vulnerable, you know.”

“He still is,” Leta twists slightly, pushing the debris of her purse out of the way to make room for him. “But we were only children, Theseus, really.” She pats the bedspread again. “If I promise not to try to kiss you, will you sit down?”

Now Theseus thinks he might be the one blushing – he’s very glad of the dim light in the room all of a sudden.

He sits.

She takes his hand in hers, turning his wrist with her delicate little fingers and beginning to rub the ointment into the cut – it feels cool and smells faintly like peppermint, the pain from the wound dimming immediately. He’s so close by he can see the freckles on Leta’s nose.

“You’ve brought chocolate frogs over from England?” He glances over at the scattering of items on Leta’s bed, searching for something to say – to distract himself.

“I like them,” Leta shrugs, “don’t you?”

“Did you pay the import tax?” Theseus raises an eyebrow – Leta only smiles, innocently.

“Of course, Mr Scamander. Not doing so would be a gross misuse of Ministry time and an insult to our French counterparts.”

Theseus shakes his head at her. She’s still holding his hand, her expression bright with amusement.

He’s soaked through her silk scarf with blood by now, so she tears up a hotel room towel and wraps his palm and wrist in the strips, her movements quick and confident – she would have made an excellent nurse, Theseus reflects, as he watches her. Moreso because when she’s finished, she offers him a chocolate frog.

“You need the sugar,” she pats his arm. “Though if you get a special edition Nicolas Flamel, I’ll want the card, he’s the only one I need to finish my set.”

Theseus snorts. “Yes, nurse.”

She picks up the other chocolate frog and draws her knees up beneath her contentedly. Her nightgown has been spotted with his blood too now, he realises, belatedly.

“I’m sorry,” he manages, glancing round – from her scarf to her nightgown, “about – all of this.”

“Eat your frog, Mr Scamander.”

He does. The silence between them is comfortable, somehow. The pain from his hand has dulled significantly, and his nightmares have retreated once more to the back corners of his mind. He is eating chocolate, alone in a hotel room with a kind, gentle and very beautiful witch and he is, in spite of himself, enjoying her company.

“I didn’t know you collected…” he waves a hand vaguely at the chocolate frog card she’s peeled out of the cardboard packaging.

“Well, Newt used to,” Leta shrugs, “he gave me his collection when he was – after he left Hogwarts. I developed a bit of a compulsion to complete it.”

“Ah,” Theseus nods – yes, that makes sense. He remembers Newt’s collection well. He’d never thought to ask what had become of it.

Leta is biting her lip, self-consciously. “I missed him. It helped a little.”

“I think I know what you mean.” Theseus flips over his frog card – a Merlin, as it happens – idly turning it over his knuckles the way he once taught Newt to. “When I first went away to Hogwarts, Newt was still very young, but he brought me a shell from the beach where we’d been on holiday that summer, in Dorset. He said I had to keep it with me so I’d remember to send him postcards. So I did. And I kept it with me when I – later, during the war. I kept it in my breast coat pocket. Silly really, but…”

“That’s not silly at all,” Leta shakes her head, her voice soft. “It helps. To remember someone cares for us.”

“Strange that for both of us, that was Newt.”

“Not so strange, when you consider the sort of person he is.”

But Theseus had also had his parents – his mother had sent him socks, his father had sent him sweets, there had been the family photo of all of them (on holiday on that same Dorset beach, as it happened) that Theseus had pinned over his bunk in his units’ barracks. Old school friends had written to him, if they weren’t there, dying at his side. There had been trips home during leave where he could sleep with his head in his mother’s lap again, or go drinking with his comrades in London, and forget, however briefly.

Who would Leta have looked to during her worst moments, when she was alone? Theseus knows that her mother’s been dead a very long time – something Newt had mentioned once – and he has never met Corvus LeStrange, but by reputation alone he can’t imagine him to be the most nurturing parent. She has no siblings that he knows of. Newt was her only friend at school, and she’d lost him.

Leta has been alone for a very great deal of her life. It strikes him as a terrible thing, for someone so kind to be so isolated.

“Do you miss him?” He asks, quietly, and sees Leta exhale a breath she seems to have been holding for days.

“Desperately.”

If someone were to ask him, Theseus wouldn’t have been able to say why that is the exact moment when he has to kiss her. But it is, and he does, and there’s no taking it back after he’s done it. His whole heart flips over in his chest, the way her eyes grow so sad, he can’t bear it – so he takes her hand, and kisses her, until she doesn’t look so sad any more.

+++

“I’m not sure that that was a good idea,” Leta manages, after a moment, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Theseus takes a breath, “seems rather a sound one to me.”

Leta gasps, a bubble of laughter tasting strange on her tongue. “Didn’t you promise not to try and kiss me?”

“That was you – I made no such offer. Don’t tell my mother. She’ll box my ears.” Theseus’ eyes are bright, his smile so warm and gentle that she aches – she wants him so badly, far more so than she’s let herself feel before now.

“Theseus,” she shakes her head, slowly, “I can’t – ”

“Why not?” He asks, and that would be an easier question to answer if his hand wasn’t still clasped in both of hers, if she weren’t sat so close to him that their noses are all but touching. If she tried she could count his eyelashes (she’s not going to try. Absolutely not).

And then Theseus lifts her chin with a finger, until she has to meet his gaze.

“Tell me that all you wish from me is friendship, and I’ll never raise the subject again,” he promises, gently enough that she believes him – Theseus, like Newt, is not quite like other men. He doesn’t layer his kindness with unkind expectations, doesn’t use it as a lever to prize his desires out of her flesh. He’s kind because he’s a kind person. He offers friendship because he enjoys her company.

Leta kisses him because she wants to.

He kisses her back, with a fervent passion she wouldn’t have thought Theseus Scamander capable of a few days ago – lays his hand against her cheek, pulls her close with his wounded arm. She wraps her arms around his neck, wanting to feel his solidity, his reality, his warm skin and steady heart and gentle fingers. She touches the tip of his tongue to the seam of his lips and feels him gasp, hears the soft sound he makes in the back of his throat and wonders if that was a mistake before he promptly pulls her into his lap.

It’s an intoxicating, dizzy sort of a thing, to rake her hands through his hair and down his chest.  To feel his grip on her tighten appreciatively, to part from him gasping for air and see that he’s blushing.

“Merlin’s beard,” he mutters, and then he smiles so radiantly she almost feels worthy of it. “You truly are a marvel, Leta.”

“You aren’t turning out too terribly yourself,” she replies, smoothing his hair where she’s ruffled it, and earns a laugh from him that’s almost self-conscious.

“Am I to take it that you do wish more than friendship with me, then?” He’s stroking her back in a way that feels absurdly good. She could melt into that sensation for days. Goodness, how long is it since anyone has touched her at all? To go from such an utter famine of touch to the arms of a gentle, loving man in a heartbeat is overwhelming – she feels a little unsteady.

But she manages a small smile, almost keeps it from trembling. “Are all Scamanders so terrible at taking hints, or is it simply yourself and your brother?”

Theseus really does laugh, then, and plants a kiss on her nose, which, for some bizarre reason, makes her feel far more self-conscious than properly kissing him did.

“May I stay?” He asks, after moment, glancing around her room, “only to sleep, I mean – not to – I wouldn’t expect – ”

“Yes, I know,” Leta catches her bottom lip between her teeth – as if she’d expect anything dishonourable of Theseus Scamander. “Stay a while. I don’t mind.”

That’s how Theseus Scamander comes to be in her bed, in a hotel in Paris, and how she does nothing more scandalous than nestle against his chest and work her fingers between the buttons of his pyjama shirt, while he holds her and plays with her hair, their legs tangled together beneath the duvet, her toes brushing his calves. It’s almost alarming, how natural it feels, the moment she presses herself to him and he lays his temple against the crown of her head and his breath evens with hers and she finds his heartbeat beneath her palm – social protocol abandoned in a trice for the blessed relief of such tender intimacy.

Humans are not meant to live entirely alone, she thinks – perhaps some primordial instinct to huddle close against the dangers of the night has kicked in, awoken the moment he touched her for the first time. It’s the most wonderfully soothing thing, and she knows with utmost certainty that she wants to keep this, whatever it is between them, for as long as she can possibly cling to it.

“Do you know,” Theseus remarks, his words soft against her ear, “you’re the only good thing to have ever happened to me in this country.”

Leta touches where she knows one of his scars is, beneath his pyjamas shirt – she can faintly feel the tightness of healed tissue, the ghost of the wound still intact. “I don’t know. Those sandwiches today were rather nice, too.”

She can feel his chuckle reverberating through his ribs – and she presses her face to his shoulder, steels herself for what she really wants to say.

“It’s frightening, you know,” she admits, into the dark, “to feel – for you.”

“There’s nothing to be frightened of,” he replies, pressing his lips to her forehead, “I’ll keep you safe as long as you wish me to.”

And good God Leta would give her very soul for that to be true.

+++

When they return to England, Leta half expects the perfect, precious bubble of herself and Theseus to evaporate.

They have spent every night of the rest of the trip in each other’s rooms. She has slept better in the protective circle of his arms than she has in months. He doesn’t have a single nightmare while she’s at his side. They kiss each other goodnight and good morning, and he never once pushes for anything more, though by the end Leta wouldn’t have objected at all if he had.

They spend the small hours talking about their childhoods, about Newt, about school and work and family and how Leta wants to see more of the world and Theseus wants to save it. They spend their days exchanging secretive glances and conspiratorial smiles and something in Leta begins to glow, steady and warm and promising.

But England is the real world – the place where her name carries a very specific significance, and where Theseus Scamander can’t just take an afternoon off to treat her to lunch, or hold her hand under the table at dinner, or slip into her room at night to cradle her to his chest and say sweet things to her until she falls asleep.

They don’t talk about what will happen when they return home – both carefully avoiding the subject, Leta determined not to cling to him, not to seem whiny and needy, though her body is starting to sing with need in his presence in a way that is startling, unfamiliar.

And when she returns to the LeStrange household, nothing has changed, in spite of everything inside her feeling changed utterly. Her ancestral home is exactly its normal, dark, damp self and her bedroom seems to have chilled in her absence. That first night she has to add an extra blanket to her bedclothes, burrows deep beneath her duvet and still can’t shake the cold from her bones. She misses Theseus so desperately that she wants to cry.

At the Ministry the next morning, aching and sickly from lack of sleep, she tries to resign herself to the world as it used to be – before she knew that Theseus could kiss her quite like that, before she’d seen his scars or felt his heart beating under her fingertips. And then Theseus himself makes that impossible by sweeping her up the moment he can do so unobserved, and kissing her thoroughly against a corridor wall.

The cold leaves Leta in a second – suddenly she is warm, warm, warm all over and utterly awake again.

“I missed you,” Theseus says, still holding her close, gazing down at her with a foolish, lop-sided grin. “Rather desperately, I’m afraid.”

Leta swallows, feeling her heart stutter-stop with the way he’s looking at her. “I missed you, too.”

 “When can I see you again? Properly?”

He’s eager as a puppy and Leta breathes out  her relief, immediately wants to tell him whenever you want, but she can’t – not when her father’s at home. “Soon,” she promises, putting her hands to his jaw.

He nods, kisses her again, and she could melt straight into him, really she could – there are footsteps in the corridor already, though, and they have to jump apart like naughty school children.

They agree to be – subtle, in his words. It will prove impossible to keep their colleagues from discovering that they’re seeing each other eventually – the Ministry is a village and gossip will travel the minute they are seen so much as glancing at each other fondly. And it’s not as if they’re doing anything they need, necessarily, to hide – nocturnal visits to Paris hotel rooms notwithstanding – a nice young man like Theseus Scamander might step out with a lady friend of an evening without that being considered remarkable; an eligible witch from an ancient wizarding family would be expected to be accepting courtiers.

But while they are still nursing the early bloom of their relationship (it is a relationship, Leta decides – it must be), it seems foolish to thrust it into the cold light of day before they’re both certain it can bare the scrutiny.

She’s an assistant, he’s a junior minister swiftly ascending through the ranks of the department for magical law enforcement. She doesn’t want even the appearance of impropriety between them and Theseus is practical and gentlemanly enough to agree that neither of them should compromise their professionalism in the office.

(In the Ministry supply cupboards, however, is another matter entirely).

+++

Two weeks after they return to London, Theseus has a stupid idea.

He’s not a man given to stupid ideas, as a general rule, but the fact is that he’s feeling rather stupid lately. Giddy. Dizzy. Besides himself. Most likely because he can see Leta LeStrange at her desk from his office at work and it’s driving him utterly batty. He wants to kiss her all the time.

He has to physically stop himself just going over there to do it several times a day. Because he wants to – because kissing her is an utterly lovely way to pass the time – and because she looks sad, too. She looks sad a very great deal of the time, and he wants her to be happy more desperately than he can ever remembering wanting anything before.

But he can’t go about kissing her whenever he wants. For one thing, she’d kick him in the shins for being inappropriate in front of the other assistants – the gossip about her around the office is difficult enough. So he simply has to find some way to redirect the enormous amount of romantic energy he’s now generating around her every day.

Which is where his stupid idea comes from.

It only takes a few tries to find the right shop in Paris, looking through a directory left over from his trip, sending a missive out via owl, and then arranging the transfer of funds through Gringots. Really the whole endeavor is only a morning’s worth of work. More than worth the bother for the moment, some days later, when he gets to watch an owl drop a neat little carboard box, bound with ribbon and addressed to Leta, on her desk.

She picks it up with a look of vague puzzlement, turning it over to examine the return address. Theseus watches her brow furrow and feels an impatient warmth fill his chest. Any moment now – any moment –

Leta tugs the ribbon loose, runs her thumbnail under the box’s seal and lifts off the top – it comes up with a puff of pale, glittering smoke, coagulating into an ethereal silver moth which drifts toward the ceiling before disintegrating. Half the rest of the office assistants are staring now, wide-eyed.

Inside, the box’s content is folded between squares of silk, fine as tissue paper. Leta peels back two layers of wrapping before her eyes widen and she drops the box with a yelp that Theseus can hear even inside his office.

Three other assistants have already scurried over to peer over her shoulder at what she has, and any that weren’t paying attention before are definitely interested now.

“Oh Merlin!” Theseus hears someone gasp.

“Leta, who sent you those?”

“She has a gentleman friend – ”

“A rich one – ”

Leta stands so abruptly that her chair goes over backward with a clatter, scattering the other assistants behind her. Then she snatches up the box and marches toward Theseus’ office, moving so quickly that he barely has time to jump back from his office window and pretend he hasn’t been watching the entire sequence of events before she stamps through his door and slams it behind her.

For a moment, Theseus isn’t sure whether she’s going to kiss him or attempt some sort of violent assault.

“Good afternoon…?” he offers, uncertainly – and Leta holds up the box very much as if she’s about to throw it at his head.

“What is this?”

“That? I think you’ll find that it’s a box.”

“Theseus.”

“A very nice cardboard box – ”

“Theseus.”

And Theseus sighs, and smiles just a little sheepishly, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets and shrugging, not quite able to keep from feeling smug. “You know what it is.”

Leta scoops the lace gloves he’s bought her out of their wrappings and holds them out, between thumb and forefinger – the silver moths at the wrists flutter in protest. “I can’t possibly accept these.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know how much they cost you!” Leta glares at him, “it’s too much, Theseus, really – ”

“Surely I should be the judge of that?”

“I simply can’t – ” Leta groans, and puts the gloves in their box on his desk, so that she can spread her hands and fix him with a long, disapproving stare. “I thought we had agreed to be discreet.”

“I believe the word I used was subtle – ”

“Yes, because this was an entirely subtle gesture – ”

“-not secret.”

Leta sighs.

Theseus watches her for a moment. She’s not truly cross with him, he thinks. He’d known the audacity of such a gift was something of a risk but – no. She’s not cross. She’s anxious. And sad. Again.

“Dearest,” he begins, more gently now, approaching her from across the room, coming close enough to touch his hands to her elbows. “If they make you happy, I want you to have them. That’s all.”

She glances up at him. “You make me happy.”

Well that just makes him feel as if his chest is full of shooting stars, doesn’t it?

 “But– ” she stops herself, biting her lip. “You’re being so kind, Theseus. And people who are kind to me don’t – historically speaking – fair well from it. Do you understand?”

She’s thinking about Newt. He knows she’s thinking about Newt. And about the way the LeStrange family moves through the wizarding world – like shadows, cold and deep and seeping life from everything they touch – and about rumour, and prophecy.

Theseus has never been much of a believer in prophecy.

He smoothes a lock of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear for her, feeling the reality of her – the privilege of being able to touch her so intimately, be so near to her. “If I cared about any of the nonsense that gets whispered about your name around the Ministry, I’d be an utter fool. I don’t care one jot, Leta, I only want to be with you.”

He touches her chin – momentarily – and gets a long, inquisitive look back from her.

“You, your happiness, whatever you want from me.” He insists, “whatever makes you happy. That’s all.”

He cares about her – about Leta, the real flesh and blood woman stood before him, with her big, sad eyes and her delicate smiles and her gentle sense of humour and the way she can peel the nightmares out of his head as easily as if she were plucking hairs. Everything else can go hang.

Leta takes a breath, slow and careful. “Paris made me happy. You and I together – makes me happy. I don’t need… anything else.”

“But I’d like to give you everything else,” he promises, earnestly, “what happened in Paris was – ”

“Perfect,” Leta meets his gaze, her expression softening.

“Yes,” Theseus inhales, shooting stars be damned. “Yes, it was lovely. And I’d very much like it to continue, if I hadn’t already made that perfectly clear.”

There has been rather a lot of kissing since they got back to England. But not very much talking. Perhaps that’s overdue.

“Well,” Leta smiles, sardonic now. “Consider your intentions clearly stated, Mr Scamander.”

“Still – you’re charming and clever and very, very beautiful. You must have half a dozen suitors trailing around after you at any given moment. How am I meant to keep your attention?”

Her mouth quirks. “Spending a month’s salary on gloves strikes me as a little overcompensatory.”

“Not a bit of it,” Theseus shakes his head, keeping a gentle hold on her arm – sliding his palm down to her wrist – her hand. He’s still delighted by the way her fingers seem to fit so naturally with his. He’s delighted by all of her, if he’s perfectly honest.

“Well, if you want my attention, might I suggest dinner, then?” Leta asks, her gaze on their twined fingers. “On Tuesdays. My father travels on Tuesdays, so he won’t notice that I’m not at home.”

Unspoken between them is the understanding that Corvus LeStrange is a hurdle they don’t intend to cross until whatever is between them is steady and solidified. The office gossip is one thing. The LeStrange patriarch is quite another.

“Tuesdays,” he agrees, softly. “Where would you like to go?”

“I really don’t care. As long as you’re escorting me.”

“I promise.” Theseus squeezes her hand. “As long as you wear the gloves.”

She laughs – properly – and Theseus thinks he might just about have made her happy again – that transitory sweetness in her eyes when she looks at him is enough to steal his breath away. It’s all he wants – it might be all he ever wants, for the rest of his life. He’s not sure yet, though he’s growing more so by the day.

“Alright,” Leta sighs, “I ought to return to my desk, before Travers notices we’re…”

She waves a hand at the scant space between them.

“If you haven’t already given the game away by marching in here as if your hair were on fire.”

“And whose fault is that?” Leta pinches him, then pops up onto her tip toes to kiss his cheek. “Good afternoon, Mr Scamander.”

“Good afternoon, Miss LeStrange.”

She picks up her gloves before she leaves. Theseus watches her go, full of wonder.

That night he doesn’t dream of anything but her.