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Tina was haunted. Silence reverberated in her apartment, devoid of Queenie’s laughter, and Newt’s dead eyes followed her as she moved.
Would Queenie have joined Grindelwald if she knew what he’d do to Newt? Tina wanted to believe she wouldn’t have, but it didn’t matter. The sister she loved was reduced to another name on an ever-growing list of people Tina hadn’t saved.
Jacob had advised her to throw away Queenie’s things, but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of them, of her. Newt’s case, she gave to Theseus, and he promised to find a new caretaker for the creatures. She’d sewed a little stuffed niffler for Newt, but he only stared, not reacting when she placed his bony hands on its fur.
After the first few weeks, she began talking to Newt, telling him about the beasts he used to study. She hoped that somewhere, deep in his broken mind, the man she loved heard and understood her. Sometimes, she wiped the drool from his chin, held his mouth closed, helped him sit up straight, and pretended he was her Newt again.
There were only four names on the list, but Tina knew it would grow with Grindelwald’s rise to power. Every night, she thought of them, of how she knew them and how she let them down.
Percival Graves, her supervisor, a strict man, but fair, a man who had earnestly wanted to help people. She’d seen his body, emaciated and half rotted by the time they found him, chained to a pipe in his basement.
Queenie Goldstein, her baby sister, her sweet, trusting, loving baby sister. Her naive sister, running through the flames to Grindelwald, thinking he could change the world. Thinking he could help her.
Credence Barebone, the boy she lost her Auror license for. She remembered him trembling, too weak-willed to stand up to his mother, too scared to reach out for help. He had gentle, frightened eyes, eyes that had been so earnest when he walked to Grindelwald’s side.
And Newt Scamander, her close friend, her almost lover. Passionate, shy, sweet, protective. She had watched him scream and writhe, trapped by blue flames and unable to reach him in time. Tina had stroked his hair, kissed the tip of his nose, showed him pictures and told him stories of magical creatures, done everything she could to bring him back, but the healers insisted it was pointless.
At night, the ghosts came to life. Every creaking floorboard was Queenie sneaking to the kitchen for a midnight snack, every shadow was Credence’s Obscurus. Newt, nearly motionless in the bed across from hers, would wake up and babble excitedly about the dreams he’d had, which doubtless involved dragons or nundus or pixies. An owl would knock on the window any minute, carrying an urgent message from Director Graves. During the day, she knew, they would hover in the corners of her eyes, always just out of reach, intangible. Tina wasn’t sure which was worse