Epilogue

June 1940

It had become a little routine of theirs; they would eat breakfast together and read the Prophet and The Daily Ghost together, discussing point of interest and noting how their respective countries handled different news stories. Both homebodies, and fans of stability and security, despite the adventures they had been on together, perhaps even because of them, they clung onto their routines and rituals.

Newt had just spread marmalade on a piece of toast when the overloud clatter of Tina's cup in the saucer made his gaze flash up from the advertisement for the newly opened restaurant in the torch of the statue of liberty in the Ghost.

Tina's eyes were wide, her fingers pressing against her lips sorrowfully. She handed over the Prophet to him without a word. The way the paper trembled in her hand made his stomach drop over a precipice of dread.

He saw Leta's picture before the words came into focus and he wanted to fling the paper away like it had burned him

Society Heiress dies. Tragic accident or something more sinister? Aurors are investigating possibility of foul play.

They hadn't spoken in years – decades even – he had never replied to her letter and she had never written again. Most people that knew him now, didn't know him then and her parents who had despised him anyway were long dead. But still, it was a shock that he had to find out through the Prophet of all places, that no one had thought to warn him before he saw it there in stark black and white.

He tried to read the words, about Abraxas Malfoy being taken away inconsolable. About the possibility that she had tripped on the hem of her overlong gown. About how some were saying it was suicide and an opposing number were saying it was murder. He bit back the bile that rose in his throat when he saw she had been pregnant. However, try as he might to read the words, they skittered and crawled off the page like fire ants and refused to stay in a line for him to understand.

Tina didn't say anything about it, trusting that if he wanted to talk about it, he would. He never knew what Queenie had told her about what she had seen in his head and she never found out if Leta Lestrange loved to read. But it felt, when she died, like a tiny black spot on the snowy white page of their love, like the quill writing their story had spilled a misplaced drop of ink, was erased. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to talk about it in those numb yet raw days after he found out. By the time he felt able to, he no longer felt that he needed to. Even the thought of speaking her name aloud, for the first time in so long, felt indecent.

As a decent amount of time passed, Newt read that Abraxas had remarried, then after that, saw pictures of his blonde haired baby – a boy named Lucius – in the society pages of the Prophet. He didn't feel those pieces of news like the body blow that the news of her death had been. Instead he found himself recalling the way that rather than mourning the death of their loved ones, Ancient Greeks asked only one question about the deceased - 'did they have passion?' and truly, Leta Lestrange had had more passion than anyone he had encountered before or since.