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Tom stared at their little apothecary, peering through the window. It was currently empty and would remain so until Abraxas found some employee to take over the till. The Rose of B612 would not see it for a very long time and the Prince had promised him adventures.
“What are you doing?” asked a woman.
Startled, Tom bashed his nose into the window and turned around, eyes watering. The woman chuckled and reached inside a pocket to bring out a paste that she spread on his nose. Devoid of his paranoia, which had been stolen by his Rose, Tom allowed her to gently pat her concoction into his skin. The relief was instantaneous.
“Thank you,” said Tom, holding out a hand covered in paint and drawings. She grasped it with a hand covered in brown-green leaf-coloured scales. Tom stared curiously.
“Nagini,” said the woman.
“Malediction!” exclaimed Tom, with a large smile.
“Maledictus,” corrected Nagini, seeming suspicious. To be perfectly clear, Tom had not indeed made a mistake. He knew quite well that she was a maledictus. Simply, Tom fancied the word ‘malediction’ very much and Harry had done absolutely nothing to dissuade him of the fondness, going so far as to actively encourage it.
“What do you turn into?” asked Tom. He was genuinely curious, I must tell you. While most people would have thought to profit off of Nagini -and that is indeed what the poor woman had experienced overtime- Tom was most curious about the workings of the malediction. He’d always been a scholar, first and foremost, despite his lofty goals.
“A snake,” answered Nagini, proudly and, perhaps, a little menacingly. Tom beamed at her, positively delighted at this turn of events. Could it be that Harry had bent the stars as he left, so that Tom would find a proper companion for his adventures?
“Smashing,” said Tom. “I’m a parselmouth. You should come with me.”
~~~
“Excuse me?” asked Nagini. Now, while you and I are perfectly accustomed to Tom and his Rose’s line of thinking, we should all admit that, to the regular person, Tom speaks nonsense half of the time, and threats the other half. Needless to say, Nagini was terribly confused as to how the conversation had gone from her being a maledictus to her being dragged off by a random parselmouth who had been peering into an apothecary, as if planning the best way to rob it clean.
Somehow, over the boat trip to Brazil, Nagini managed to develop a semblance of understanding for Tom’s reasoning. It was still nebulous at best, but she did as well as she possibly could. On the second day of their meeting, Tom had given her a Tiny Snake, coloured gold like fine sand. It was hardly bigger than a hair and barely long enough to wrap twice around her pinky. Tom informed her that this Tiny Snake was, in fact, none other than the Minister of Kindness and Transportation. He explained that the Tiny Snake had, once, been only Minister of Kindness but had been promoted to Transportation as well for it did an astonishingly good job of Transporting erasers and brushes and paints from one place to another. Tom expected that Nagini, too, was good at Transportation.
“Where are we going?” asked Nagini, one day as Tom forged through the dense underbrush of the Amazonian rainforest.
“We’re having adventures,” Tom replied. “I promised a Rose. We need to find sights that I can paint as proof that I did as told.” Nagini, used to Tom making about as much sense as a monkey wearing a suit, grunted as she followed him.
“A monkey wearing a suit is doing monkey business, of course,” said Tom. “What’s not to understand?” Nagini hadn’t realised she’d said that out loud. Therefore, she began blushing. Then, she realised what he had said and pinned him with a rather intense glare. He’d used similar jokes several times over the course of their travels.
“Do you even know where we are?” asked Nagini as Tom stared, yet again, at his compass.
“Somewhere in Ecuador,” said Tom.
“Ecua- what?” asked Nagini. “Weren’t we in Brazil just yesterday? Isn’t Ecuador on the other side of the continent?”
“It is,” beamed Tom. He seemed proud of her and Nagini could not fathom why. Still, it made a warm feeling bloom in her stomach. How this young one managed to bring out her long-dead feelings was beyond her.“Most people don’t bother learning anything beyond their own countries. How nice that you should know Ecuador even exists.”
“I had a good teacher,” said Nagini thinking of a certain magizoologist whom she had known once upon a time. “But that doesn’t answer my question. How did we get here, Tom?”
“Oh, I apparated us while you slept,” said Tom. Nagini blinked at him. Once. Twice. Then she sighed. This was Tom. He didn’t seem to understand common sense. It was her own fault for expecting any from him. There were sounds of falling water in the distance.
“We’re close,” said Tom.
“Close to what?” asked Nagini.
“San Rafael.”
The San Rafael falls were equal parts boring and impressive. Boring because Tom had, only yesterday, detoured to the south of Brazil to see the Iguazu falls. Impressive because… well… It remained a waterfall and waterfalls were impressive by virtue of their very existence.
They did not have much time to admire the falls, however, for, as soon as they arrived, Tom yelled “Harry!” and ran into the water. Nagini followed his line of sight and her heart pumped painfully behind her ribcage.
“Credence.”
~~~
Something long and powerful wrapped around Tom’s ankle and pulled him out of the water. He struggled and tried to free himself. His Rose awaited. Could this monster not see?
:Stop, you idiot: hissed the giant snake that had wrapped around his torso. :It is not him. That is a beast, luring you to your demise.: Still, Tom struggled another few moments before finally giving in. He took a long hard stare at the figure in the water.
“That’s Harry,” insisted Tom.
“My Prince,” called Harry.
“My Rose,” called Tom.
“Do you love me, still?” asked Harry.
“I will cease only when all the stars are plucked from the sky,” vowed Tom. “Perhaps not even then.”
“Then come to me,” plead Harry. He had tears in his eyes and that was not right.
“I can hear you,” said Tom, fighting Nagini’s coils. “There you are.”
“Yes, here I am,” said Harry, extending a hand. “So, please, come to me.” But something seemed off.
“I cannot smell you,” said Tom, feeling cold in his belly. “Are you there?”
“If you came but a little closer,” said Harry, reaching out, further.
“I cannot touch you,” said Tom as the cold spread to his fingertips. “Are you there?”
“Closer, my Prince,” begged Harry. “Please.”
Nagini’s coils tightened around Tom in warning. There was something terribly wrong with Harry. Something cold and… and… Not Harry. A little wriggling in his sleeve saw the Tiny Boy springing free from the fabric. He came bearing, not smiles and stars, but swords and a promise for battle. It dawned on Tom, then, that this could not possibly be the Rose of B612. For, you see, the Tiny Boy had only love for Tom’s Harry. Yet, here he was, snarling and waving his tiny toothpick of a wand at the Harry that stood in the water.
“Georgina, that’s enough!” said a male voice. Nagini’s coils loosened around Tom as she turned back into a middle-aged woman. The Not-Harry looked up, displeased and chastised. He pouted in a way that seemed very un-Harry-like.
“Newt,” breathed Nagini. Tom turned around to see a middle-aged man with brown hair that was peppered with white, here and there. He opened a battered suitcase and the Not-Harry marched unhappily into it, disappearing with a pop of the suitcase’s latch.
“Sorry about that,” said Newt. “She wanted to hunt and I thought there would be no humans around, this early.”
“What was that?” asked Tom.
“That was Georgina,” said Newt, smiling kindly. He extended a hand towards Tom and heaved him up. “She’s a locumart. They’re a cousin of the boggart except they mimic the person you wish to see the most and lure you in, so they may eat you. But Georgina doesn’t seem to feed exclusively on humans, you see. So, she’s generally quite safe.”
“Oh,” said Tom.
“I saw Credence,” said Nagini. Newt gave her a very sorry smile.
“I saw my dead husband,” said Tom.
“Oh, dear,” said Newt. “I’m truly very sorry.”
“Oh no,” beamed Tom. “Don’t be. It was quite nice to see his face, one more time. I daresay, I quite thought that wouldn’t happen until years from now. Do tell Georgina I said ‘Thank you’.” It had been quite the nice surprise. Tom got up, attempted to brush the dirt off his soggy trousers, and pulled an easel and a canvas from his own suitcase. He also pulled out a gramophone which he set to float behind his head. Then, he set to work, to the tune of Georgel’s Sous les ponts de Paris.
~~~
Nagini could sense Newt’s bafflement from where she stood, five paces from him. And it was saying quite something, for Newt, himself, was quite the eccentric. Tom, however, beat him by miles and leagues as he hummed along to his gramophone and painted San Rafael, not caring where the paint landed. As a result, it landed as often on the canvas as it did on Tom’s clothes and arms and face.
“Why are you playing that song in Ecuador?” asked Newt.
Nagini rolled her eyes because, of course, that was what he cared about.