Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognise.
Newt Scamander sat on the deck or the ship that was arriving in New York city. His 8-year old daughter Marion was sitting next to him, her head on his shoulder. They just came back from their very first trip together, visiting Newt's brother Theseus and his pregnant wife Leta. It had been nice, but they couldn't wait to get home. However, something was wrong, even if Newt had managed to hide it from his daughter.
His husband and Marion's other father, Percival Graves, usually wrote them once a week no matter how busy he was. But in the last three weeks, he hadn't written a single letter and while normal people didn't panic over this, Newt had never been normal. He just wanted to see if his husband was alright. He picked his suitcase up, just as one of the clasps came loose.
He pulled it onto his lap. "Dougal. Settle down now, please. We won't be long." He softly told his demiguise in the case. There was the sound of Dougal going back down, before silence fell. Newt looked down at his daughter and smiled. "We're nearly home, sweetheart." He whispered. Marion smiled back. "I can't wait to see daddy." She replied. Newt chuckled, before kissing her forehead and pulling her closer. 'Please be there, Percival.' He thought as the ship docked.
They went through luggage checks and would've gotten into trouble if the case didn't have a "muggle-worthy" feature that showed nothing out of the ordinary. They walked through the city at a leisure pace, wanting to see if anything had changed while they had been gone. Newt kept a tight hold on his daughter's hand, so that they wouldn't get separated. They stopped in front of the bank where a woman was giving a loud speech about how something was wreaking destruction in the city, before disappearing.
Marion huddled closer to her father, slightly intimidated by the woman. Newt simply stroked her hair to calm her down, just as a stocky built Muggle tripped over his case. "So sorry. It's my case." Newt apologised, quickly picking the case back up again. "No harm done." The man replied, before going towards the entrance of the bank. Unfortunately for Marion, the small incident had pulled the attention of the woman, who started to ask them what they were doing at the meeting.
"Witches live amongst us." The woman warned seriously, causing chuckles around the crowd and causing Newt and Marion to share a look. Suddenly, Marion grabbed her father's wrist. "Papa, the niffler has escaped again." She whispered, looking at where the small creature was taking a beggar's money. Newt immediately grabbed her hand and ran up the stairs, apologising to the woman along the way. In the crowd, another woman started to follow them.
In the bank, it was a wild game of cat and mouse as the niffler stole more gold and jewels. It finally managed to get on a cart that was going to the vaults, just as the muggle from before called out to them. Apparently, he had found the occamy egg that Newt had been carrying. Father and daughter shared a quick look, before Marion grabbed her father's wrist and Newt pulled his wand.
He quickly summoned the egg, the man still attached to it and apparated the three of them to the cellar, where the vault was. The occamy hatched with Newt being the first person that it saw, therefore its mother. Marion giggled at this. She always loved it when their family grew even more. They went down the stairs and put the new baby in the case, just as Marion noticed the niffler disappearing into the vault and pointed it out to her father.
Newt opened the vault door with magic just as one of the employees discovered them and rang the alarm, causing Newt to stun him with a spell. Marion sighed at that. Her daddy was not going to be happy about this when he found out. Newt caught the niffler and made it lose everything that it had stolen by holding it upside down and tickling its belly. Seeing guards arrive, Marion grabbed her father's wrist.
Newt grabbed his case and the muggle and apparated them to an alley next to the bank. After putting the niffler in the case, Newt attempted to obliviate the muggle, only for the man to hit him with his own case and run away, apologising the whole time. "Papa! Are you okay?" Marion asked. Newt put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "I'm fine, sweetheart. Bugger about that, though. Your father is not going to be happy about this." He muttered.
Marion gave him an unimpressed look. "You used magic in the presence of at least five muggles. Of course, he's not going to be happy about it." She said, sounding so much like her other father that it made Newt chuckle. "We'll figure something out, I promise." He replied, before grabbing the case and his daughter's hand and walking out of the alley, just as the woman from the crowd walked towards them. Just as they crossed each other, the woman grabbed Newt and indirectly Marion, before apparating them away.
Newt immediately put Marion behind him as they landed in another alley. The woman asked several questions about who they were and about the niffler, before revealing that she worked for MACUSA. Marion swallowed at that. Yes, they were definitely in trouble. Once the woman, Tina, realised that they hadn't managed to obliviate the muggle, she took them in the direction of the Woolworth building.
Arriving there, Marion felt a growing excitement inside her, despite the fact that they were in pretty big trouble. She honestly couldn't wait to see her daddy. She had missed him so much. Her excitement immediately plummeted the minute that they arrived at the Major Investigation Department. She stepped closer to her papa as the man walked towards them. That man wasn't her daddy!
Newt had the exact same feeling about the situation as his daughter, although he didn't realise how bad the situation was until he saw Marion's unspoken reaction to the man. If even Marion realised that something was wrong, then that couldn't mean anything good. The president sent quickly them out of the room and Newt gave her a disbelieving look. The woman had been friends with Percival for years and she didn't notice that anything was wrong, while an eight-year old child realised it in just a few seconds?
While they were taking the elevator, Marion gave her papa a scared look, tears in her eyes. Something was wrong with her daddy and she didn't know what to do. Newt squeezed her hand in an attempt to calm her down. He would figure something out, he just knew it. At times like this, he wished that their marriage wasn't secret. He sighed deeply, before following Tina into her tiny "office."
Tina asked him several questions about his wand permit and about his travels. "Does your daughter often go with you or does she stay with your wife?" She asked, making Newt stumble. "I- I don't have a wife." He stuttered, sending a mock glare at his giggling daughter. After that, a rather pompous man named Abernathy joined them, followed by "Percival." The appearance of the man, made Marion hide behind her papa once more.
Tina told the man about Newt's creatures and he acted like he didn't know anything about it and looked at Newt and Marion like they were strangers. Newt almost smirked. Whoever was wearing his husband's face clearly hadn't done their homework very well, otherwise they would've greeted him and Marion differently. He still would've figured it out, but it wouldn't have been so obvious.
While he had been thinking, Tina had quickly grabbed the case and opened it on a nearby table and under the eyes of Abernathy and the imposter, revealing.... pastries. Sharing a look, Newt and Tina immediately knew where the real case was. It was with the muggle from the bank that Newt had failed to obliviate. Once the other men were gone, Marion looked into the case and said one word that fitted the situation very well: "uh-oh."
They quickly walked outside, trying to find out where that man lived. They found a building with a lot of people standing outside, saying something about a gas explosion. Marion and Newt snuck past the crowd and out of Tina's sight, quickly running inside to find their case wide open and the man unconscious on the ground. Newt quickly repaired the building and Marion closed the case, just as Tina joined them again.
"It was open?" She asked in slight panic. "Just a smidge." Newt answered, making his daughter snort. Tina shook her head, before trying to wake up the muggle or No-Maj as they called non magical people in America. She jumped back as a small, pink creature jumped out from underneath him. Newt quickly caught it and put it in the case. "That's one." Marion muttered and her father nodded in agreement.
Newt explained to Tina that it was a murtlap just as the muggle woke up and introduced himself as Jacob Kowalski. Tina asked Newt if he and Marion knew anything about the laws in magical America. "We do know a few things. We know that you have rather backwards laws about not being allowed to talk, befriend or even marry muggles, which seems rather absurd." Newt muttered, holding his daughter's hand tightly.
One member of his family was missing and he didn't want to lose the other member. "Who's gonna marry him?" Tina asked in a sarcastic tone before trying to lift Jacob up, asking Newt's help. Marion grabbed her father's wrist once again as the man helped Jacob up from the ground and the group disappeared to yet another location. Just after they disappeared, a picture fell to the ground, revealing the niffler who was ready to explore and get as many shiny things as possible