Something Blue

Part 1

In the seven months Newt Scamander spends waiting for his manuscript's revisions (and then the revisions of his revisions) to clear with his publisher, he comes close. Newt comes close numerous times.

For every letter he's written Tina, there are a dozen more of them written and discarded - drafts full of crossed out, clumsy words, and late night ramblings that inspired shreds of bravery to attempt to turn his feelings into words, such as:

I must admit the thought of you crosses my mind more often than my creatures would like. Thoughts of you distract me while I'm preparing their feed, or compel me to daydream when I'm on a rigid schedule for a new experimental, medicinal treatment for the Murtlaps. I do not doubt my creatures sense a change in me – after all, their skills in observation far exceed those of humans, magical and Muggle alike. If they were able to gather themselves and start some sort of an intervention, I am certain it would have happened by now.

I don't like New York, not really. There are too many people, the smog in the air is too thick to be good for anyone to be inhaling on a daily basis, there are too many tall buildings to see a proper sunrise, and not nearly enough animals. But I'm afraid New York has folded itself into you - your smile, your clear-eyed logic, your adorably concerned brow, your goodness - to the point that separation is almost impossible. New York by itself is tolerable in small doses, at best. But New York with you, Tina Goldstein, is paradise.

The truth is, I'm not good with words – not with people. Most creatures can't read, and those that can have no interest in self-promotion, and so they are easily forgiving. I'm quite fluent in writing about the proper care and extraordinary abilities of animals, and most days, I'll be the first to admit that I prefer it over the labors of regular human conversation. I apologize if my effort here has proven itself ridiculous by nature, and my analogies heavy-handed or nonsensical. But the effort is worth it for you to know, and to not doubt, for one second, my feelings for you, that only grow stronger by the day.

I'm besotted with you, Porpentina Goldstein. I'm besotted with your pragmatism, your curiosity, your determination to abide by your moral code. I long to see you smile at me again the way you did at the dock. The memory of it tides me over, but it only makes me crave to stand in the presence of the real thing. You. Emphatically, indisputable you. Just you.

Newt rereads it, and, startling his creatures nearby, laughs aloud to himself. He is almost mad enough to send it – almost. Instead, he folds it up and tucks it away.

He starts a new letter.

Dear Tina.

He responds to her queries and tells her more about the creatures he's been able to rescue. He does not mention his thoughts of New York, nor does he write a word about how excruciating the wait has become for him to hear back from her again. It is this letter he sends off.

Newt comes close numerous times, but here, in real life, close doesn't count.

ooo

Nobody expects the success that follows his book's release, and thus it behooves absolutely nobody to warn Newt about the dangers of rapid, cataclysmic fame. It is this sudden fame that causes him to postpone his promised trip to New York in order to fulfill the demands of his publisher, Augustus Worme. The gravity of shameless self-promotion is made clear to him by a Howler sent to him at the courtesy of Obscurus books - after one such failure to show up at one of his own events - reminding him of the contract he had signed prior to the book's release, legally binding him to all promotional and publicity events – this, of course, he had signed thinking that there would be none.

His dignity begrudgingly in tow, they traipse him around the entire continent for the next six months for speaking engagements, book signings, lectures, appearances. They plaster his face on packages of animal feed and send him sponsorship requests for creature grooming products. All of this he barely tolerates – and only does so under the constant threat of legal action by his publisher – and finds himself longing for two places, simultaneously: his quiet sanctuary with his animals, and the bustling, asphalt-colored streets of New York.

It is spring now. He wonders what Central Park looks like in the spring. More importantly, he wonders what Tina looks like in the Spring. (This then leads him to wonder what Tina looks like in every season, and if he would ever be so lucky as to bear witness to each of them.)

He autographs the last of the books for tonight's signing with little enthusiasm and barely any eye contact. It has been a long night, and Newt wants nothing more than to escape into his traveling suitcase and lock himself there, close to his creatures, and very far away from the empty flattery and silent scrutiny of humans. But tonight, Newt looks up, and he freezes. He feels his blood drain from the vessels in his face. At first he thinks it's an apparition, but it can't be, because she saunters right up to the table and slides her copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in front of him, and she smiles.

He shivers.

It's a smile that mingles both wickedness and innocence, beauty and danger. It's a smile that defies natural law. A smile that shouldn't exist.

But it does, and now it's here.

"Hello again Newt," Leta says.

ooo

Fame, Newt now knows, brings with it relics from the past.

Leta Lestrange radiates with her own atmosphere, her own magnetic gravity – this Newt has always known. For years he had been scarred by its potency, its violent possession – and for a long time, he had misunderstood it. He was young. He thought the laws of nature and creature also applied to that of women – that proper care, warmth and affection, in time, could heal all. But if women were a different kind of creature, then Leta was a separate species all in herself. Newt reminds himself of this. He is cautious, even when blinded by her smile. But she wraps herself around him as if the time passed between them is just a matter of opinion, and she speaks to him with a familiarity that he realizes he is starved for.

"I am better now," Leta tells him. Her smile is big, nearly manic, but she is still beautiful, and there's a part of him that still aches in response. She sits across from him in a café, her arms out, as if to seize him. He stares at the cup of tea she had ordered and has not touched, not once. "I am. Let me prove it to you. Will you let me?"

It is at this moment that Newt longs for the simplicity of New York, where the only baggage he carried with him was literally what he lugged along in his hands. In New York, with its endless moving bodies, relentless drone of construction, and sprawling buildings, there had been no room for Leta. There, Newt could breathe without feeling suffocated.

But the past has claws like any other beast. Newt feels its grip around his chest, tightening.

He opens his mouth, his tongue feeling clumsy and disproportionate, the words foreign and refusing to settle. "All right," he says, and the words sink like stones to the bottom of his being.

ooo

When it happens, Newt does not expect it, nor does he notice it when it happens.

They are walking out of a restaurant when Leta reaches out and grasps his hand. The contact startles him, but he does not immediately let go. For a minute he lets his hand linger in hers, as if trying on a piece of clothing just to see how it fits. Everything about Leta had always seemed so natural to him – from her eccentricity to her wit to her ability to occupy any space in his mind, no matter how small or large. The thoughts regarding Leta were always about volume and never about substance. Parasitic, Newt thinks.

Neither of them sees a flash of light in the distance, or the shadow of a crouched body slinking away.

Newt, finished with his evaluation, eventually lets go, tucking his hand into his coat pocket. He and Leta do not meet eyes.

ooo

Newt's personal journey is a slow one, absent of any fantastic overnight transformations, and instead speckled with burgeoning, quiet epiphanies. He can sense where he is in his own story, even though he is at times unsure of his own footing. He feels the distance between him and Leta, and now it no longer makes him so sad, so grieved. This new lightness has grown in a space beyond his bones - deeper - and it feels remarkably like healing. Like finally picking up his feet, and swiveling his gaze from behind him towards the horizon.

He feels all of this when she visits him in his home one night and she unceremoniously presses her lips to his. Newt is tense, a block of untouched marble before it is even so much as grazed by a breath, and he immediately thinks this should change him. This act of intimacy, of willing vulnerability – from Leta, who proficiently wielded her own powers in pushing and pulling away, this was a victory he had long sought. To deserve her love. To win it. To triumph over his own shortcomings, and be somebody's hero. No, not just somebody's – hers. Just hers. That was enough. At least – it should have been.

Once upon a time, but not anymore.

Newt moves his face away from hers, still feeling her warm breaths against his cheek. He can sense Leta's eyes, dark and almost bottomless, searching him, scrutinizing him.

"Leta," he murmurs, swallowing hard. "I've changed. New York... what happened there - it's changed me."

After a second, a smile forces itself across Leta's face, flat and wiry. She rests back on her heel, and he feels the air around him turn back to normal. "I thought you'd say that."

Newt watches her carefully as she slowly walks around the room, her motions so eerily graceful to the point of inciting slight psychological discomfort. Her hands brush against the things on his desk, as if marking them - her fingertips grazing his quills, rolls of parchment, covers of his books, trinkets from his travels. She stops in front of something he had posted above his desk weeks ago, a clipping he had carefully cut out from the Daily Cauldron, an American magical newsletter.

Newly Reinstated Auror Stops Illegal Creature Smuggling Ring

Underneath the blurb is a snapshot of Tina, smiling shyly at the camera, dressed in a brown leather coat.

Newt watches the back of Leta's head as she stares at this, trying to read her thoughts. "I didn't think you liked the Auror kind," she finally says.

"I don't," he replies, quietly. "Not usually." Just that one, he thinks. And his brother, sometimes.

After an infinite minute, Leta hums thoughtfully to herself. She turns back around to face him, her face unreadable, but soft. For once, Newt is okay with this. He even thinks it is merciful. "I should go."

Newt follows her to the door, watching the hem of her white dress swish against the dark, dusty wood of his floor. She turns around in his doorway, giving him a sad smile. His heart knows this smile, he thinks to himself. It is exactly this smile that has eclipsed half of his life.

"Good luck with your Auror," she tells him, half a wish and half a goodbye, and then Leta goes the way she had come in the first place – so quickly, so abruptly that Newt is left wonder if she was ever even there at all.

ooo

When Newt is finally released from Leta's spell, he notes the passage of time through the letters stacked on his desk, all unopened and awaiting reply. They are mostly from Tina. Newt notices a shift in her tone, which he can only assume is from the increasing tensions between No-Majs and wizardkind in America. The Obscurus and Grindelwald's masquerade as Percival Graves was just the beginning of the struggle to keep secrecy and peace in New York. Tina does not divulge as much in her letters, as overseas owls can be susceptible to wandering or losing their way, but what details she does not let on, Newt reads in the papers or hears from his brother, Theseus.

By the time Newt can afford a small window for a visit to New York, it is spontaneous and sudden, and he leaps at the chance. His first stop in New York is the Goldstein sisters' apartment, but the apartment is empty, likely because both Queenie and Tina were still at MACUSA. He makes his way to MACUSA headquarters next, but not before stopping by Jacob's bakery and grabbing a bite to eat. Jacob greets him politely enough, but Newt is careful and leaves quickly before a twinkle of recognition can bloom in his eye.

He is barely through the doors at MACUSA when he finds Madame President Picquery waiting for him at the top of the stairs. He's filled with both dread and alarm, glancing down at his case. He'd fixed his closures, he was absolutely sure—

"Your case is fine, Mr. Scamander," Madame Picquery greets, with only a faintly reassuring smile.

"Then, may I ask – why the royal reception?" he says, nervously glancing around. "I've just come to visit a friend."

"We have eyes and ears all over New York. We got word exactly the moment you arrived." Her eyes flicker down to what he had in his coat pocket. "I am aware you have come to drop something off for Miss Goldstein. Let me escort you to her desk."

Madame Picquery begins to walk, her strides quick and determined. Newt rushes to catch up.

"Actually, I was hoping—" he starts.

"I'm afraid she's out following a lead on one of our cases. A few weeks ago, we received an anonymous tip that someone was experimentally breeding creatures here in New York and selling them on the black market. Tina was more than enthusiastic to take the lead."

Newt follows her into the elevator and then onto the eleventh floor, where the Aurors offices were gathered. Newt only spots a few Aurors, most of whom were working on paperwork, with the rest of the room occupied only by empty desks. Towards the center of the room, someone had conjured up a map of New York. Parts of the city were covered in blotches of green and red, with slowly moving dots labeled with the names of suspected creature smugglers moving along the main streets.

Madame Picquery gestures to Tina's desk. "I'll give you a few minutes to write her a note."

"That won't be necessary," he says, attempting coolness. "I can wait for her to return."

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Mr. Scamander."

Newt frowns at her, clutching his suitcase tighter. "And why exactly is that?"

"I've received an urgent owl from your brother, Theseus, at the Ministry. He is asking for your immediate return to England."

She has a look in her eye that Newt recognizes, one that tells him all attempts at argument would be futile. He also now senses her urgency. He knows that his brother would not owl him – here, no less – if it didn't require his immediate attention.

Newt nods, and then grabs a parchment and quill from Tina's desk. He does not notice the copy of his book already sitting there, hidden under a mound of case files. He tucks the note inside the book and leaves the book on the center of her desk, where she can most plainly see.

Sorry I missed you.

Newt picks up his case and follows Madame Picquery out with haste.

ooo

It is three weeks later when Newt returns to the Ministry to see his brother after trying to quell an erupting rebellion among the giants. He is fatigued, bruised, exhausted, and is convinced he would resort to sheer wickedness just for a nice, hot cup of tea.

Luckily, Theseus has appeared to read his mind, and has a cup for him waiting in his office when he arrives. Newt sips it too quickly and it scalds his tongue, but he is too exhausted to care.

"You're quite the hero, little brother," Theseus commends him. "Did I mention how happy I am to see you back in one piece? Those giants have a strange fetish for ripping men in half. A fact I do not recall reading in your book," he says with a smirk, tapping his finger on the cover. "Maybe for the next edition. Feel free to credit your dear old brother."

Newt can only manage to half-glare at him. "They only resort to such savage acts of violence when under extreme duress, which your men—"

Theseus waves his hand dismissively, his house ring catching light from his window, which only further irritates Newt. "That doesn't matter now. What matters now is that you've saved the Ministry from another catastrophic headache, and you're back home safe – a fact that you will surely write and emphasize to Mum, all right? If I get another Howler from her screaming at me why I sent you—"

"Why did you send me?"

"Because," Theseus sighs, "you're the creature whisperer. The Minister said he'd have nobody else there but you. The pitfalls of being a subject matter expert, dearest Newton, is that people will ask you for favors regarding that subject matter and expect you to acquiesce as a duty to your country." Theseus frowns at him. "So don't expect this to be your last and only mission."

Newt helps himself to another cup of tea as Theseus snaps his fingers. A bundle of letters zip over, just barely missing the tip of Newt's nose.

"I almost forgot," he says. "I've had your mail forwarded to my office in your absence." Newt quickly reaches over, untying the bundle. He searches through the letters, looking for one from New York, but there is none to be found. For a second, this stuns him, and he wonders if perhaps his brother had misplaced some of his mail.

"Is this all of it?" Newt asks.

"I think so," Theseus says. "I've been having Belinda collect them."

Newt sighs tightly to himself and gets up. He thinks he'll check in on his animals, go for a nice soak in the tub, and sleep for three weeks straight.

His brother calls him back even before he's out the door.

"I've been meaning to ask you about this. I didn't get a chance before because – well, urgent matters, and such. I don't expect you've seen this, because you despise most forms of human media." His brother hands him a magazine. Newt stares at the photograph on the cover with its garish headline, and his hand clenches at his side.

"I don't normally read that stuff. I was passing by and saw it in Belinda's rubbish bin. It's an old issue. A few months." Theseus's voice lowers into one of brotherly concern. "I may not know exactly what happened before, but I know that woman's not good for you, Newt. She wasn't good for you then, and I highly doubt she's good for you now."

Newt clenches his jaw and walks out of Theseus's office. He angrily tosses the magazine back in the rubbish bin, where it belongs. The headline taunts him as he walks away.

Bestselling Magizoologist Scamander Finds Lestrange Love!

ooo

Newt settles back into his old life comfortably enough. He agrees to a few more signings and speaking engagements here and there, but the demand is quickly whittling down, for which he is grateful.

Reinvigorated by solitude and the company of his creatures, he begins to plan a trip back to New York. He intends to spend a week, maybe more. He has all the time in the world now, and the thought both excites him and makes him nervous. He has not heard from Tina in some time now, though it is likely because he had also been away and unable to write.

He's in the middle of writing to his publisher to inform him of his upcoming absence when an owl arrives for him from New York. Newt's fingers fumble from trying to open it too quickly, and he curses as he cuts himself from the envelope flap. Finally, he is able to open it, and he pulls out not a letter, but an invitation.

All of the air in the room disappears.

ooo

Newt arrives in New York with the invitation burning a hole in his pocket, but he makes it there.

New York is different to him this time. The people seem angrier, the sky seems murkier, and the city has lost what little luster it held for him during his first visit. It feels teeming and suffocating, and every bit of noise hurts his ears. Newt is self-aware enough to know that his new consciousness of the city is likely a manifestation of his own tumultuous feelings – which he finds impossible to escape. Thus, by an act of emotional transference, the city of New York undoes him, just a little bit. Every bit of New York reminds him of Tina, even the parts that didn't used to, before. It feels like peeling back still-unhealed scabs.

To get past the sharp ears of one Mrs. Esposito, the Goldstein sisters had set up a hidden Portkey in the back alley of the building. Newt silently makes his way over, looking for a lone, old boot. A rat scurries by him, and he finally finds it. He crouches down before he hesitates. Perhaps he could go back. Nobody had to know he had ever come.

But the thought of seeing Tina pulls him in by the points of his ribs – or so it feels like – and he reaches out for the Portkey and his body lurches into nothingness.

ooo

When he arrives inside Apartment 104, his ears faintly ring from the loud chatter and laughter coming from the direction of the dining room, and he is yet again enveloped by his own uncertainty. He shuts his eyes tightly, and when he opens them, Queenie is there, smiling at him from the doorway.

She bounds across the room to pull him in for a welcome embrace. "Mr. Scamander, how lovely for you to join us. It's been too long!"

Queenie pulls back, her smile so convincingly beatific that Newt almost assumes she has stopped herself from reading his mind. He knows better, however. People are easiest to read when they're hurting, she'd once told him. He catches a flash of it in her eyes before she turns around and motions for him to follow.

She slides the door open to the dining room, revealing him to the people seated at the dining table. Newt's eyes instantly land on Tina, and for a moment, he feels as if he has been transported back in time. He tightens his grip on his case handle to subdue the sudden tremor in his hands.

"Newt! I'm so happy you came," Tina exclaims, immediately getting to her feet, her smile wide and her dark eyes dancing. Newt rests his weight back on his right heel, overwhelmed by the vibrato of his racing heart. A man stands up next to her, broad-shouldered and grinning.

"This is Charles," Tina gestures, and Newt feels his pulse staccato through his legs. "My fiancé."

Please review! This is part 1 of 2.