Chapter Text
1932
His mother is taken into custody when he’s only a few months old. He’s a darling little thing, all wide eyes and dark hair and tiny smiles. His father is nowhere to be found; he has no family.
And he’s black.
MACUSA arranges for him to be taken to a foster care home. It’s a good establishment, with qualified caretakers and complete government approval. But it isn’t a home home. Their staff is stretched thin, and much as they may love the children, they simply can’t dedicate individual time. This is especially problematic because he will be the youngest there, and he has yet to develop a secure attachment with anybody.
More than that, even if he finds a home — which is incredibly doubtful, given the color of his skin — he will forever be a foster child. The assumption is that nobody is really going to want to adopt him, if not for lack of love, for self-preservation. Even within the fairly progressive wizarding community, there is prejudice and discrimination, and seeing as witches and wizards reside in a primarily No-Maj world… well, it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.
Tina finds out about this just as they’re getting him ready to transport. Something about it strikes her as so inherently not right that she’s momentarily flabbergasted. The ugly truth is that if he had been white, they would no doubt have spent more time trying to find his family, somebody to take him in. But he has been cast aside by his parents, by society, and now by the government.
And so, impulsively, Tina drops everything and races to the exit — races to him. Trying to catch her breath, she yells at the driver to stop. A MACUSA employee turns around, visibly perturbed.
“Is that the baby boy?” she asks, panting.
The employee glowers at her, then nods reluctantly.
“Where are you taking him?” she demands.
“The Manhattan Social Welfare Institute.”
She mouths the name: it sounds familiar. “Wasn’t there an investigation a few months ago?”
The employee looks shifty. “It was resolved.”
She clenches her jaw. “Can’t you take him anywhere else?”
“Nowhere else has room.”
“What about foster parents?”
“Mrs. Scamander, he’s…” The employee pauses uncomfortably.
Tina raises an eyebrow. “He’s what, exactly?”
“Well, have you seen him?”
“Yes, and he’s an innocent baby with no home.”
“He’s… well, he’s colored.”
Tina puts her hands on her hips and takes full advantage of her height and well-practiced steely, authoritarian, Auror glare. “So?”
“It’s different,” the employee struggles to explain.
“How so?”
“We’re running late!” the driver calls from the cab.
Tina’s mind is racing. She can see the bassinet in the back seat, not even strapped in properly. A tiny, perfect little fist reveals itself as he begins to cry. It’s cold, it’s dreary, it’s rainy, and this is not right.
The cab begins to move. Without thinking, Tina whips out her wand and stops the car, simultaneously swinging the door open, then Summons the bassinet to her.
“Mrs. Scamander!” the employee cries.
“I’ll take him,” Tina says firmly.
The employee’s eyes widen. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“He’s —”
“My son,” Tina affirms. She gives a curt nod and leaves. Before she opens the door, however, she swears she sees the cab driver wink at her.
Tina sends an instant owl to Sophia, because she doesn’t know who else to talk to about this possibly incredibly terrible idea of hers. Queenie has gone home early; the kids are sick, and Jacob is working double time. Shockingly, Tina’s first thought is to find out if there are spells she can put up around the baby to protect him, because he’s so young and tiny and she isn’t sure how safe it would be for him to be in the same vicinity as the Kowalski children.
“This better be important, I had to leave an important meeting for — oh hey, a baby!” Sophia exclaims as soon as she Apparates into Tina’s office.
“He’s your godson,” Tina announces.
Sophia frowns at her. “What?”
“He’s — I’m adopting him.” Tina explains the circumstances around her rash decision.
“Have you talked to Newt?”
There’s the caveat. “Um… no.”
Sophia raises her eyebrows. “You know you guys are married, right? Which — just to clarify the way family structure works — means that he’d be the father?”
“I know,” Tina says somewhat despairingly, “I know, I know, but I couldn’t leave him, and look at him, he’s so sweet…” She really didn’t think she’d be the motherly, gushing-over-babies type, but she can’t resist warming to him as he blinks up at her. He’s been surprisingly good so far; the crying stopped as soon as she brought him inside. Whether it was her presence or the reprieve from the dismal weather is unclear. She rather hopes it’s the former.
“Well,” Sophia says in a long-suffering yet satisfied tone of voice, “I needed a reminder anyway.”
“Reminder of what?”
“Why I often regret the day I met you.” Sophia grins and pecks Tina on the cheek. “Only you, Teen.”
Tina groans, the magnitude of what she’s just done hitting her like a cement block. “I’m…”
“Stupid, but also the coolest sister-in-law ever? I knew you’d go crazy one day, I knew it,” Sophia declares triumphantly. She claps Tina on the back. “Join the club, sis.”
“I don’t know,” Tina sighs. She buries her face in her hands.
“See, I thought my rule-breaking tendencies would rub off on you eventually,” Sophia says, looking genuinely thrilled.
“Hey,” Tina says, raising her head and pointing sternly at her sister-in-law, “I’m not stowing away on a ship to Territory of New Guinea. I just… adopted a colored baby boy in the 1930s on a whim, technically stealing him from the government, without speaking to my husband first.”
“Exactly. Listen, I gotta get back, but if you need me to talk to Newt for you, for old time’s sake…”
The offer is incredibly tempting. However, Sophia has allotted the couple exactly one intervention per year and Tina would rather reserve it for something else. She isn’t sure what could possibly top this, but she got them into this and she’s going to deal with the consequences.
“Good girl,” Sophia says, smiling. She leans over and pats Tina on the head, then gives a little wave and Disapparates.
Newt is making dinner when Tina comes home. Ally is happily playing at his feet, ginger pigtails sticking out of her head like antennas.
“Hello,” Newt says cheerfully when he hears the door open. He kicks open the fridge and balances a tureen carefully on his arm. Tina takes a moment to savor the sight of her husband being so domestic (and attractive) before steeling herself for his reaction. However, he doesn’t pay her any attention.
Ally, on the other hand, does, and when she sees the bundle in Mumma’s arms, her face lights up. “Baby!” she says happily, pointing.
“Mm?” her father says absentmindedly, placing the tureen on the counter and waving his wand at the cutting board.
“Mumma!”
“Mumma’s home,” he agrees idly, then addresses Tina with his back to the door, “If you wouldn’t mind running to the —” He finally turns around and freezes. “Tina?”
She gives a weak smile. “Um… so, I guess Ally has a brother?”
Ally claps. “Baby!” she repeats.
Several things cross Newt’s face at once. “What are you — what in the world is that —”
“Ally seems to know,” Tina says rather dryly.
“I’m sorry, what exactly — when did you —”
Tina motions for him to join her on the couch. The baby is sleeping now, pink lips pursed and eyelashes fanning his cheeks. “I know,” she says imploringly, “I know we never discussed adoption, or having another child after Ally. And we’re both busy with work, and now that Soph is engaged we’re down a babysitter, but he’s just so…” She shakes her head helplessly and pulls the boy closer to her chest. “They were going to send him away,” she says quietly. “His mom was taken into custody. He’s not going to be taken care of, he’s too little, and he’s…”
Newt finishes the sentence, uttering the word nobody wants to admit. “Colored.”
Tina bites her lip. “I know I should have talked to you, but they were driving away and I —”
Newt quirks the corner of his mouth in amusement. “Did my distinguished wife just kidnap a baby from the American government?”
She has to laugh a little at that. “Well… I did get us into a lot of trouble back in ‘26. I guess this was a long time coming.”
Newt kisses her temple — at least he’s not angry — then sighs and looks down at the baby. “We will need another crib,” he says after a moment of thought. An implicit yes.
Tears well up in Tina’s eyes. This wonderful man. “Really?” she asks breathlessly.
Newt nods slowly, resignedly — they have a long road ahead of them, with an extremely unplanned newborn of color — but with a warm, loving smile nonetheless. “Really.”
“Newt!” she cries joyously, and leans over to kiss him.
Ally toddles over then. “Come on, Ally Albatross,” Newt says (it’s a ridiculous pet name, but he insists on it), and boosts her up to kneel between him and his wife on the couch. “You have a new brother.”
She reaches for the bundle; both Newt and Tina move instinctively to stop her before she pokes the baby’s eye out, but she’s incredibly, perhaps instinctively delicate as she cups his cheek in her own little hand. “Gentle,” Tina murmurs, although her daughter clearly needs no warning.
The expression on her husband’s face as he gazes down at his new son nearly takes her breath away. He watches the baby with the same intensity and love as he does every occamy that hatches, every graphorn that’s born, every single new life that he welcomes into the world — only tenfold, because this is his son.
“Do you have a name in mind?” he asks when he finally meets her gaze.
She has never been more certain about anything in her life. “Graham,” Tina says. “His name is Graham.”