Chapter Text
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Newt is born with a name too long for his small, stubbly stature.
He is also born with a hunger too wild for his enclosed, carpeted estate.
The second Scamander child is a quiet baby, though, so no one really notices. They coddle and coo at him, as is custom, and Newt is overwhelmed. He grows quieter against the echoing walls, wanting nothing more than to be in that wild, free space outside his nursery window. He’s not quite tall enough, so he props some children’s books and stands on his tiptoes, watching the feathery, furry things with beaks, outside in the enclosure, playing with Mum.
His hunger is insatiable.
But there are spaces children are not allowed to explore. He’s deemed too young to venture into the grounds, on his own. The visits his mum allows him are not enough.
“Thes—Theseus,” Newt says one day, with great difficulty, stretching his arms up at his enormous, sturdy elder brother.
Newt has observed baby birds on the rafters do this with their family members, getting food in their mouths in reward for their efforts. Possibly, it works the same way here.
“Bugger off, Newt,” Theseus says, too old and too sophisticated to do much else but practice flying on his new quidditch broom.
Newt looks solemn, says nothing.
He learns. Nothing works the same way with humans. And no matter how high Theseus can soar on that broom, his brother is a human, not a bird.
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There are ecosystems in which only certain species can dwell.
Newt learns quickly that, just as he can’t bring toads and flobberworms into his nursery (his governess shrieks, so he makes do with horklumps), certain humans cannot dwell in the community Newt is trapped inside—oh, excuse him, he’s blessed to be born into.
His mum is unconcerned. His dad, very much so.
“You’re an odd one, Newt,” mum smiles after Newt brings a pet fire crab (say hi, Frederick) to the dining table. “Theseus, how’s quidditch practice going, son?” his father booms as Frederick is unceremoniously carried out.
Newt decides he is a bit odd—human-but-not-quite. He’s terrified, because he’s not quite sure where he can inhabit, neither one nor the other.
Eventually, Newt meets another human-but-not-quite in the most unlikely of spaces.
He’s dressed to the nines for the party, except for the voluminous mane of tangly, reddish brown hair the maid thought sweet and his mum didn’t have enough time to tease down, after she fed the hippogriffs.
Then The Girl floats by in a cloud of spring green organza. When her mother introduces her to his mother, Newt is astounded by her intelligent, soulful eyes—they are like hippogriff eyes, not like dull, glazed, bored human ones. They stare at him and Newt feels seen.
Her voice has the shadow of a lisp. Still, she’s very good at hiding it, with her upturned chin and her imperious smile. Yet, neither of these genteel affects can hide the wildness in her eyes.
So Newt tries again, with great difficulty.
“I’m Newt,” he says softly.
He can’t quite take his eyes off her, but he’s too painfully hot (blood rushing to his red, red face) to stare unswervingly. But he can’t stop staring. A rapid succession of blinks is the compromise his body makes with him.
And Leta Lestrange laughs—loud, wild, and free.
Then she pushes a hand in front of her mouth, eyes glinting, as if she’s done something very wicked.
“You’re like my puffskein,” she admits, face no longer imperious, but still so, so full of life.
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School is a space where a particular breed of human excels.
Newt’s old enough to understand that, alas, he’s not a creature, and old enough to appreciate that just fine. After all, Newt’s smitten. With a human.
It’s not a school house thing, between them. Those divisions are wholly human and arbitrary, to Newt’s mind. Him and Leta, they take on the world—although it’s mostly just them exploring shifting corridors, school grounds, and collecting the more portable magical creatures.
They try to avoid crowds, when they can. The popular breed at Hogwarts is not kind to Newt—they’re imposing and noisy and full of veiled ill-wishes. Newt has mixed feelings when he realizes that the Slytherins treat Leta the same way that the whole school treats him.
Maybe it’s a defense mechanism thing, like when fire crabs shoot flames out of their… you know. While Newt gets quieter and more fidgety, Leta’s imperiousness grows.
Her soulful, wild eyes are now more wild than anything else. Beneath the wildness, Newt still sees peeks of the fear that his friend tries to hide—as if she’s done something wicked, by being the way she is.
“Newt, just know that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’,” Leta says loftily, tying an exploding snap to a wild cat and sending it off to the Slytherin Prefect’s room. “You won’t ever scorn me, will you?”
“Never,” he swears.
The incident lands her in detention, but detention for a Lestrange is a very discreet thing.
No one mentions it, not even faculty. Later that night, though, Leta raps on the Hufflepuff porthole looking into Newt’s room, and sobs angry tears into the night as he holds her shoulder under the starlight.
“How dare they,” she sobs. “No one understands.”
“I do,” Newt says, and amends, because he does not want to be untruthful like everyone else in this place. “I try.”
She tucks her slender arm into his, and her watery smile is ethereal. Her eyes, behind the tears, are wild and soulful. Soulful and wild.
“Newt, it’s us against the world. Don’t you dare abandon me, ever.”
He couldn’t. Ever.
It’s as she says.
It’s them against the world.
There’s no space Newt can imagine dwelling in, other than one that houses both of them, together.
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Halfway through his final year, Theseus does a very un-Theseus thing.
His brother has all the reason in the world to continue ignoring them both. He’s long ago decided that being Prefect and Head Boy is the space that he desires to inhabit. As such, he’s retired his quidditch robes in favor of things he excels at—meaning Number One, of course, not Two or Three. And among the things that are second-best, and increasingly getting worse, is his little brother.
Theseus corners him one day, in the corridor.
Associations like last names in a school where Professors use last names are hard to bury.
“Newt,” he chides. “Must you fool around with that Lestrange girl? Her family isn’t bad, but you should see the rumors hanging off of that girl. She’ll kill your prospects, Newt. I can get you some better girls, you know. If you’re really dedicated, you should try out for the dueling club and quit that herbology stuff. Make Hogwarts worth your while.”
Newt is aghast. He’s never truly hated Theseus until now.
He’s sure the space that is Hogwarts would not be worth it, without Care of Magical Creatures, or without Leta.
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Ironically, it turns out that everything that made Hogwarts worth it is stripped away from him along with his diploma.
There are certain lines Newt will never cross, with his creatures, with humans. But Leta is braver, wilder, angrier.
Everyone is very discreet about the Incident, just like with Leta’s detention. Newt himself isn’t quite sure what is truly happening, just that she’s all he has, and he’s all she has.
So he volunteers for her.
It’s them against the world, the world inhabiting a space they can’t inhabit.
He can’t inhabit.
Any longer.
Newt pens her a letter when he leaves Hogwarts.
‘Take care, Let. I’ll write you. See you at hols.'
Leta doesn’t write him.
(People change.)
And Newt doesn’t (can’t) go home for the next holiday. And the next.
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The Ministry can’t enclose him. The world is a big place. Newt finds lots of open spaces to observe, help its creatures, and move on from. He doesn’t need to dwell in any, because the world is a too-big place to sit still.
His hunger is still insatiable, but now it’s raw. The hole from his once-best-friend is too strangely-shaped for any magical creature to fill.
It’s a human-shaped hole.
After all, certain species belong in certain spaces.
Newt doesn’t dwell too much on the emptiness he feels, because the world is a big place where you can run away from yourself, if you want. He’s being shuffled to bigger and wider spaces. Austria, Germany, France, South Africa, Sudan, Egypt—
He’s about to move on down under to Australia when he realizes (staring at the black, twisting shape that couldn’t fill the hole in the Sudanese girl)—you can’t wander selfishly forever.
Certain species belong in certain spaces.
So Newt books a ticket to New York. For Frank.
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It’s not Tina, but the sight of Queenie that first truly upsets him. Newt is struck by how Leta-like she is, at first glance. Leta is caramel brulée while Queenie is lemon meringue, but they’re both incredibly shiny to behold. Newt is desperate to leave the brownstone apartment for a number of reasons.
However, he learns later that while Queenie can see through him, she cannot see him, like Leta can (could, once).
It’s Tina, instead—Tina, with her determined face and her straight brown locks. Tina, the nosy ex-Auror who won’t take a hint. When Tina stands next to her sister, it rather feels like he’s seeing himself, just a bit, when he stands next to Leta—beautiful, soulful, wild Leta.
Except that Tina turns out to be much, much stronger than him, so he let’s that analogy drop.
Tina sees.
She sees him in all of the spaces that Newt desperately tries to flit through. She doesn’t let him off in her investigation, her gaze is so focused on following him, even though he’s a wisp of a man, just a shadow passing through spaces he cannot inhabit.
This makes Newt uncomfortable.
But he’s sure that Tina is someone who sees and cares for all species as they are, and this makes him comfortable enough to leave his creatures with her, in case he leaves forever, as he apparates into the night sky.
But there are ecosystems in which only certain species can dwell. Newt cannot, in New York. It’s too crowded, with too many people and too little tea (or was that Boston?).
Though it doesn’t hurt to visit, again.
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He writes his book like he’s writing letters to his creatures, infusing them with love in the spaces (on the pages) that they now inhabit in ink and daguerreotype.
In between, he writes actual letters, responding to family inquiring about his latest exploits (oddities). His mum writes fond things. His dad inquires less frequently.
“Newt,” writes Theseus, though his Ministry desk and Newt’s Ministry desk are not quite so far away.
“I hear you’ve been making great progress from Mr. Worme of Obscurus Books. I met him while doing field investigations at his Diagon Alley shop the other day, and I found some rather good scones on the other end of the street. Perhaps you’d care to join me, next time.”
Newt’s learning. There are certain holes, spaces, that cannot be filled by his wonderful creatures. There may be a Theseus-shaped one in there, somewhere.
He receives other, more welcome letters, too.
“Mr. Scamander,
Hopefully you have reached home and are doing well. I’m enclosing some of New York’s finest coffee beans in case you need help writing late into the night.
I’m looking forward to reading your book.
Yours” (And this has been carefully crossed out, many times. But Newt has access to Ministry decoders.)
“My best,
Tina.”
He smiles, and is already thinking of his response, as he takes the letter opener and rips into the final piece of mail.
“Dear Sir,
This is to inform you of the disappearance of one Leta Lestrange, from custody at an undisclosed location southeast of London. You have been noted as a potential witness, and your testimony at our investigative office is requested. Please verify your status and permanent postal address, and we will be in touch shortly.
Yours sincerely,
Department of Enforced Magical Disappearances
Ministry of Magic”
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There are some spaces he cannot dwell in, no matter how temporarily comfortable.
Like an odd, embarrassingly fragile kind of creature, Newt cannot breathe here, any longer.
He dons his crisp new uniform, hair voluminous and ruddy, and leaves.
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It’s them against the world, the world inhabiting a space they can’t inhabit.
“It’s us against this Muggle world, don’t you see, Newt,” Leta shouts, and she’s unrecognizable from the child in spring green organza. Her eyes are wild, frightened, angry. Her voice booms with magical authority over the green pitch, where the trenches have been emptied of life, and it’s just them, left.
She’s spared him, for some reason. Newt wishes she hasn’t. He doesn’t want to see her, this way. He doesn’t want her to see him, this way.
“It’s always been like this, Newt, them oppressing us, telling us we’re different.”
Leta’s on dragon-back, and she’s a vision, truly (Newt’s heart clenches, hot and painful). Leta Lestrange is beautiful as no other girl is, ever. He’s scared of her, of the imperious woman she’s become, but he’s more terrified for the imperio’d Ridgeback she’s controlling.
As always, he talks with great difficulty.
“Don’t do this, Let. It’s me, Newt. I can’t hurt you. I can’t ever abandon you, you know that. Let’s fight, together. I-I understand.”
“Don’t lie,” Leta spits, her heartbreakingly beautiful face truly imperious, her eyes unseeing in the haze of war. “We’re like night and day now. Look what I’ve taught our creatures to become. The heights I’ve achieved. You can’t ever understand me, Newt.”
“I try,” Newt says. “I tried,” because he wants to be honest.
There are certain lines Newt will never cross, with his creatures, with humans. It seems Leta’s crossed them. Maybe this is what they call war.
Another girl’s voice floats into his ear, soothing him, reminding him of a promise to visit somewhere away from this place. Newt can’t join Leta, not now. They’ve both changed.
Leta tucks her slender arm into his, and her watery smile is ethereal. Her eyes, behind the tears, are wild and soulful. Soulful and wild.
Leta laughs—loud, wild, and free.
Newt frees the only thing he's still capable of freeing. His wand aims true.
The Ridgeback roars. Its scaled spines pierce the sky.
“Please, stop,” Newt roars back, his hand reaching out to her, even as Leta’s spell brands him, tugs him forward, toward her.
The Ridgeback takes to the violent, gray heavens.
Newt hits a rock, his leg breaking with the force of impact. The physical pain is an afterthought. He’s grounded, immediately.
There’s no longer any space Newt can imagine himself and Leta in, together.
Even gravity, even the laws of physics agree with him.
Newt is broken.
And Leta—beautiful, wild, soulful Leta—is tossed into the sky, her body finally free as the Dragonfire scatters her ashes to the wind.
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Under the quiet, soft gray of the Normandy skies, an empty man with a too-long name is crumpled to the ground, dressed like a war officer.
She is dressed like an English nurse. It’s all very wrong.
Regardless, he and Tina crash together. Their shaking hands touch, making sure of one another.
Tina is like that rock, her stark, worried face breaking Newt further but grounding him as well, so substantial and firm, she is. She stares right at him, sees him.
“Did you meet Leta?”
It takes all of his energy to tell the truth, sometimes. “Yes, yeah.”
Newt crumples, and he cannot help but feel deserted, as if the one that he once loved (still loves) has moved to a space he cannot inhabit.
He feels Tina hug him, as if she’s holding him together, holding him to the earth, lest he float like a ghost away from this wretched place.
“Where is she? Can we help her?” Tina whispers into Newt’s ear.
There’s no space Newt can imagine dwelling in, other than one that houses both of them, together.
“Leta’s dead.”
“Newt, it’s us against the world. Don’t you dare abandon me, ever.”
He wants to say he didn’t, but Newt cannot lie.
He left.
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End Part I