A/N Nothing from the world of Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts belongs to me.

I saw FBAWTFT at the cinema yesterday and had to start writing something Newt related straight away because I needed more! All the chapters will be quite short and this story will be between seven and ten chapters long. I will attempt to update daily until it's done.

This had not had a beta reader so I will not be offended if you point out typos

Leta Lestrange should have been popular. With her glossy dark hair, falling almost to her waist, her clear skin and dark eyes, not to mention the air of guile that she exuded in every deed; the way her gaze would skitter around the room before she spoke, she should have been highly vaulted within her own house at least. If nothing else, her family name should have carried some credit. The Lestranges were a good, pureblooded family - rich too - her parents had remarked to each other in confusion when at social events, they did not see their daughter surrounded by crowds of admirers. And yet, there was something about the way she hung back at the end of lessons, dawdling over packing her books away so the rest of the class had filtered away before she made to leave, the way she would sit in the quietest corner of the common room, book raised in front of her eyes in the evenings, or how she chose to sit away from others at meals; something other that made even her peers avoid her when avoidance was possible. She didn't seem to mind. The lukewarm feelings that her housemates had for her were definitely reciprocated.

When it came to Newt Scamander, on the other hand, it was very easy to see why he wasn't overwhelmed with invitations for the holidays. The sorting hat had placed him in Hufflepuff, not only because of the anxious eleven year old's caring nature but because that was the house who would be most patient with him. However, even the Hufflepuffs tired of the endless questions he asked in class, even after the bell had rung, leaving the rest of the class shifting impatiently in their seats while he drilled the teachers for seemingly useless information in his mumbling, stuttering tone. In most subjects he was painfully slow at learning, frequently losing points for his house, although not for lack of effort. He knew he annoyed the other students and did his best not to, but somehow his nervous attempts to ingratiate himself, only made him all the more annoying. The exception was Care of Magical Creatures, which he excelled at. During those hours, his scrawny, gawky frame was transformed from awkwardness to surety as he handled the beasts with a competence that rivalled that of Professor Kettleburn.

It was during one of these lessons, in the fourth year, when the Hufflepuffs shared a lesson with the Slytherins, that Leta Lestrange first noticed him. She had seen him, of course. Her dark watchful eyes saw everything. But the first time she really saw him for what he was, or perhaps what he could be, when he finally grew into those gangly limbs and ridiculous hair.

Still she didn't approach him straight away, not for almost six months, until she happened across him in the Owlery.

"Hullo," he mumbled, waving stiffly across the room to her. She just smiled in response and went about attaching a parchment to the leg of a large eagle owl. She had heard rumblings of a dark rising in Europe, seen in the Prophet that the Knights of Walpurgis had pledged to stand with the new dark wizard – Grindelwald. She had heard of the Knights before, heard them being alluded to in low voices from her father's study, the words carried out on clouds of pipe smoke. Some of her house mates had even started saying how much they admired him – quoting the things he said and inking the symbol of the Hallows on themselves. It wasn't that she was shocked or disapproving – she had long since known that her family affiliated itself with the darker side of magic, and some of what Grindelwald said made sense – she just wanted to get more information from her father instead of gossip in the newspaper or the posturing of schoolboys. Hence the owl home.

"Having trouble deciding?" she asked, inclining her head towards the owls.

"Eh?" She could see his blush from across the room, even under his wavy thatch of hair.

"Which one to send?" She spoke slowly and clearly, pointing to the row of patiently waiting owls, wondering if the spiteful comments that the boy was simple were true.

"Oh…er…no. I was just talking to Albert." He said it as though it settled the matter, turning away from her in readiness for her leaving him alone. However his comment only drew her nearer, just a couple of steps closer across the dropping encrusted floor:

"Albert?" she wondered if they were perhaps speaking different languages. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder and make sure there wasn't someone behind her who was carrying on an entirely different conversation with him that would explain why she couldn't make head nor tail of what he was saying.

Newt reached up and stroked the feathers of a tiny yellow owl.

"Albert's…an owl?" Her eyebrows were almost in her hair.

"Not a true owl," his voice was gentle and his stutter was non-existent now, "Half Snidget. Looks like his mum was quite broad minded about who she shared her nest with."

"And what? You can talk to animals?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Some magical creatures, such as Snidget have the ability to communicate with humans. That's why Quidditch players used to use them before they had snitches – if there was a disagreement about who touched it first, the Snidget could tell them. But I'm not having much luck with Albert here, his accent's terrible, probably because he's half owl," he looked round and looked at her and started, as though he had almost forgotten he was talking to someone else at all. She took a quick look out the window to ensure that her owl had departed, as though it could somehow report to her parents that she was spending time, unchaperoned with this odd boy who they would certainly not have approved of despite his purebloodedness, before taking the last step across the floor to stand next to him.

"Show me how to do it," she demanded.

And that had been that. Scamander and Lestrange became friends. It wasn't an 'us against the world' camaraderie – both were too used to their solitude for that – but an easy, symbiotic relationship that suited them both. She spent hours in the library with him, explaining charms and potions in a way that he could understand, much to the relief of his teachers and classmates. And in return, he took her to visit the unicorns in the forbidden forest, showed her how to feed fish stolen from the kitchen to the giant squid and even on one memorable occasion, snuck into the transfiguration Professor's office to see his phoenix Fawkes explode into flame and emerge from the ashes. And if Leta noticed how sometimes he gazed at her for just a beat too long, his eyes full of longing, biting his lip as though buttoning words inside his mouth, she never mentioned it. Just like he never said anything when the name Lestrange was mentioned in the Prophet, linked to rebellions against the Ministry of Magic, or sizeable donations to shadowy organisations in Europe. Neither of them said anything but deep in their cores they both knew that for these reasons, and a hundred more, change was coming.