Chapter One: The Hideout

It was half-past nine on a Wednesday night and the cobbled streets of The Village were expectedly deserted. Everyone had retreated back into their homes as usual, tucked away safely in the warmth of their residences against the chilly evening, which left the streets with a cold air of desolation.

The Village was a small and culturally insignificant settlement in rural Venezuela – a one-night-town so to speak – that sat at the base of an equally dwarved and geographically unimportant volcano. Not many people knew of the place. But then, not even the folks living there knew where they were, for the community had no known name.

The only thing remotely remarkable about such a sad and disregarded place was the fact that nobody – not a single person in their entire population of seventy-seven – ventured anywhere outside their homes come nine every night, and would they resolutely stay in up until the first rays of the rising sun. The only ones to do otherwise were either criminals, insane or the criminally insane, three things that none of the townsfolk were fond of.

Of course, there was a certain group of people who ignored that unofficial curfew almost implicitly. They were the ones who created it after all.

These people wore strange clothes – hats encrusted with jewels and gems of all shapes and sizes, billowing cloaks made of peculiar fabrics that flashed a different colour every hour and shoes that allowed them to jump from the peak of a mountain to the ground below without breaking a single bone. They spoke of odd happenings that no one but their kind would understand, and held seemingly useless wooden sticks of various genus, lengths and colours in their hands that they often waved about while murmuring stranger words under their breath.

These people were what the ordinary human beings would call wizardkind, if they knew they existed in the first place.

Unbeknownst to the general public (achieved not without effort and the creations of several international statutes of secrecy), there was a whole other world that existed outside of their own; a society where humans could perform the most astonishing feats with a mere wave of their hands. They existed alongside the ordinary people, integrated in their everyday lives without knowledge of their existence, as they had been doing since the start of time.

While The Village was a wholly non-magical town, there was a certain place in its domain that was frequented by witches and wizards and other magical beings. They often convened in a hovel situated in the center of a wooded clearing that was like the rest of the place, rundown and desolated and overcame with mould and pests of every kind known to man.

The Hideout (nobody was particularly creative when it came to naming things), like the rest of The Village was nothing special. But for some magical folks however, this was the hidden underbelly of the wizarding world, infamous amongst the unlawful for being the place where the illegal and oftentimes cruel trafficking of magical creatures took place.

It was also the reason for a young wizard's visit to The Village.

The man had appeared seemingly out of thin air, clutching a long, pointed stick in one hand and an old, battered suitcase in the other. He was tall, thin and well dressed, possessing the overall countenance of a bookish string of noodle. With his pressed but slightly ill fitting suit and a well-worn overcoat, he would not look otherwise out of place in a library or a university's study hall. But here in The Village, he stood out as much as someone would if they had been running around stark naked and singing Christmas carols at the top of their lungs.

Newt Scamander looked at his surroundings and murmured a quiet 'lumos' under his breath that caused the tip of his wand to light up with a ghostly blue-white light. He waved the light around the area quickly and realized with a frown that he had apparated to what was an old-time town-square instead of the forest where his intended destination had been.

"Well, this is cheery," he said sarcastically, gaze landing on a crumbling wagon missing its back wheels.

A series of high-pitched trills echoed in the air around him, replying to his comment before he quickly shushed the owner of the noise and glanced around surreptitiously to see if anyone had heard it.

A second later, a couple of leaves peeked out from the breast pocket of his coat, followed slowly by two beady, black eyes. A thin, green, branch-like creature then began to climb out of it. Seeing this, Newt pushed the creature back where it had been hiding and gave it a gentle pat as he began the short trudge to The Hideout.

"You have to stay out of sight," urged Newt down at his coat. When the bowtruckle made a squeak of dissent, he stopped walking and opened up the lip of the pocket to send a stern look at it. "And sound. I mean it, Pickett. This is a dangerous situation we're walking into and we don't want todraw any unwanted attention to ourselves."

Pickett squeaked once more, indignantly this time, and Newt rolled his eyes.

"Do you remember that time when you got out while we were in a restaurant and scared the daylights out of the serving staff? Remember that?"

When it made no verbal reply except to poke him in the chest with one of its spindly fingers, Newt snorted before resuming his walk. He had to stop every few steps to wave his lit wand around – one can't be too careful, and he wouldn't put it pass the owners of The Hideout not to put up any booby-traps in order to keep away wandering muggles – but it wasn't long until he came to a wide open clearing a few yards from the square.

The cabin stood in the middle of the land like a weathered pile of old wood that looked as if it had been left to rot since its inception. There was a small rusty mailbox planted right on the edge of the property, and assuming that it was the same mailbox he was told about, Newt walked up to it and ran the tip of his wand down the length of its housing.

In the next second after doing so, the mailbox shook and shuddered and rattled in its place. Then, everything seemed to fall apart all at once.

The concealment charm fell away easily enough, and the desolated cabin was soon stripped away to metamorphose into a handsome granite hut right before Newt's eyes. Bright, warm lights through gleaming windows and he could make out a wooden signboard hanging over the porch that read 'The Hideout' in ornate, curling letters. Beats of smooth jazz pulsed aloud, interpolated by the indiscernible chattering of its patrons and the smell of smoke and alcohol permeating the otherwise clean air.

Newt had been enjoying the fresh forest air during his short trek, which was proving helpful in clearing the stuffed nose he was still nursing from his allergic reaction a week ago. Feeling rather disgruntled to know that he would have to spend the rest of the evening with it stuffed to high heavens again, he gave his nose a few good rubs before distinguishing the light on his wand and tucking it into the safety of his coat. Then, he took slow, careful steps towards the tavern.

Nobody was out in the yard, save for him, Pickett and his suitcase, which gave him some time to gather his wits about him before he went charging headfirst into the chimaera's den, as it were.

"It's simple really," he murmured, going over the half-baked plan he had only just cooked up that afternoon. "You just have to get in, get out. That's it."

Pickett let out a couple of muffled trills in what he assumed to be the bowtruckle's form of moral encouragement and smiled gratefully down at his coat.

"Thank you. You're right. It'll be easy, if nothing goes wrong," he rambled, hands flexing nervously by his side. "I'll distract the man, you pick the lock then I'll grab both you and the –"

"Scusami?"

So stuck in his mounting anxiety he was that Newt failed to notice the crack indicating the arrival of another wizard.

So, when the newcomer spoke up from behind him, Newt promptly dropped his suitcase, jumped and turned around all at once, which proved to be his undoing when his foot missed a step and he tottered dangerously. He would have fallen flat on his face and gotten a mouthful of dirt and grass for supper if it weren't for the hands that darted out and grabbed onto his shoulders firmly.

"Careful!" The owner of the hands called out, laughing. It was high-pitched and distinctly feminine and it had Newt righting himself and pulling away instantly.

He stuttered out a brisk apology towards the young woman, and felt the usual heat of embarrassment crawling up his neck. Newt had enough experience to know from the burning in his ears and the warmth of his cheeks that his face was surely lighting up in a bright, angry red, an unfortunate trait he had inherited along with his pale and freckled complexion. He inhaled sharply in an attempt to calm his discomfiture, but doing so only caused him to irritate his nose and consequently let loose a giant of a sneeze that echoed in the night.

"Sorry!" He peeked up at her through unruly curls, only to look away again when he met the piercing gaze of her dark eyes. "I'm – excuse me."

The woman carefully eyed him, brows raised. "Are you all right, Signor?"

Italian, thought Newt immediately.

Her accent was strong, and the deep intonation rolled and curled about her words, but she spoke with a sharp clarity that came from years of practice. She looked young, most likely around his age or younger, with a heart shaped face offset by high cheekbones that would have looked severe were it not for her markedly delicate features. While Newt was light in colouring as was typical of his English heritage, the woman on the other hand had the traditional Italian physiognomy, with thick chocolate curls, deep set dark eyes and an olive complexion that glowed almost golden in The Hideout's lights.

"Hello?"

Newt blinked, snapping out of his reverie. He did not realize he had been staring, until a hand appeared right in front of his face and started waving about impatiently. The woman was giving him a knowing look and he reckoned she must have caught him giving her the once-over and thought him to be some kind of perverted deviant. Bugger.

"Are you all right?" she asked again.

"Yes, I'm – I'm fine, thank you," stammered Newt. He bent to retrieve his fallen case, but the witch was quicker as she picked it up off the ground and gave it a quick dusting on the soiled patches (although it made no difference, for the suitcase was already old and grimy to start with) and handed it back to him. "Are you?"

She tilted her head slightly at his question, looking faintly amused.

"I am not the one who nearly broke my neck," she mused. Then, with a contrite tone to her words, she added, "I am sorry, I did not mean to scare you earlier, but you were standing in front of the door and..."

She pointed at herself and then used her fingers to mime walking, which he took to mean that she wished to enter the tavern.

It took another second for him to realize why she had to tell him that instead of entering on her own.

"Oh!" He cried, jumping aside quickly after registering that it was because of his dawdling at the door that she couldn't pass. Ashamed at his lack of manners and hoping to make up for his mistake, he moved to open the door for her. But instead of pushing it open gently as one would, he gave the door a hard shove in his haste, which caused it to slam into the wall beside it with a bang, and inadvertently made the woman jump in wide-eyed surprise. Newt cursed under his breath. "Sorry! I – well – terribly sorry – misjudged my strength... Right. Um, here you go."

A quick flash of a broader smile and a chuckle was her only thanks before she passed him by and slipped through the entrance, leaving behind a soft scent of something sweet lingering in her wake. Newt stared down at his feet all the while, mortified and frustrated at his blundering awkwardness and decided that this night was not off to a good start at all.

Through the fabric of his coat, he could hear Pickett wheeze in what was a squeaky laugh and he frowned down at where the bowtruckle was hiding.

"Nice to know I amuse you," he shot back sardonically, rolling his eyes.

"Pardon?"

Newt's head snapped up in surprise, not realizing the woman was still standing in the entranceway with him.

Now, lit in the warm lights of the tavern, her eyes, he realize, were not a dark brown as he so assumed. Instead, they were two differing colours – one a soft shade of hazel and the other a deep blue-green that made her gaze all the more unnerving.

She was looking at him curiously, but he thought it rather felt like she was studying him with eyes that took in every minute detail of his person. He felt a sudden wave of self-consciousness, standing there in his two sizes too short pants, muddy scuffed-up boots and (if she could see through his shoes, which he felt she could), the gaping hole in the heel of his left sock.

Newt briefly wondered if this were what the creatures he met felt when he was studying them, and that if it were, he definitely would not blame some of them for getting defensive.

"I – I thought you were going in," he said instead, meeting her keen gaze for a brief second before looking away again. He could see her through the curtain of curls hanging in his face and flushed at the way she appraised him.

"You are coming too, yes?" she asked.

Surprised by her unexpected question, all Newt could do was nod.

An impish look played on her powdered face then, and her crimson pout stretched into a full grin.

"Good," she beamed. Newt was baffled by the hardness in her stare, despite her levity. "You should. It is going to be an interessante night."

With that, she turned and sashayed off, leaving him behind for good this time, and made her way towards the bar that sat on the left of the premise. She slid into an empty stool with well-practiced grace and then waved a dainty hand at the barkeep with a beguiling smile that had the troll-like man rushing towards her instantly.

Steeling himself, Newt followed after her, clutching his suitcase tightly in one hand and gripping his pocketed wand in another. His eyes were rooted firmly to the floor; save for the quick glances he casted around to study the room.

The Hideout was a mixed bag of magical creatures, from witches and wizards of different ethnicities to goblins and he could even spy a couple of dwarves sharing and puffing away at a big pipe in the corner. He found that most, if not all of the patrons' attention had zeroed in on the Italian witch upon her entrance – some in clear appreciation, others in wary distrust and the rest in a little bit of both. Nobody was paying him much attention, if at all, and he was very glad about that. It gave him the chance to slink towards an empty table in the corner, unnoticed.

"Here we go," he murmured, inhaling deeply. With his suitcase planted safely in his lap – he did not trust anyone in this place not to steal from him – and the anxiety he felt fading gradually, Newt began his search for the face of the man he had been following since this afternoon.

Apart from being a wizard, Newt was also a magizoologist. Like a muggle zoologist, he studied creatures for a living, the only difference being that the beasts he researched were of the magical and far more dangerous breeds.

He had been commissioned to pen the wizarding world's first comprehensive encyclopedia on magical creatures, and had spent the holidays of his last few years working on it tirelessly – journeying from one continent to another and crossing vast oceans to reach unexplored land for little known or undiscovered beasts.

The book was now in its last leg before completion, and having delayed it in lieu of his real life responsibilities, Newt had decided to take an entire year off his job at the British Ministry of Magic to fully concentrate on and finish it as soon as possible.

For the last three months, he had been touring the South American continent and had just ended a two-week stint in Ecuador's Podocarpus Forest this afternoon. The trip was a verifiable success, judging from the pages in his journal that had been filled from the first line to the last with sightings of magical creatures – both known and new.

Having wrapped up the Ecuadorian session of his South American expedition, his local guide, Fernando, had offered to take Newt to his favourite restaurant in the nearby village of Vilcabamba – one of the known wizarding communities and also Fernando's hometown – to celebrate. While Newt would usually decline a lunch offer from someone whom he did not know for long – he declined offers from people he knew for years too, but that was beside the point – he found that he quite enjoyed Fernando's company despite the Ecuadorian's boisterous nature and crude humour and attributed it to the love of nature they both shared.

It was there in the quaint, rustic eating-house, while sharing a plate of sweet corn mash with his new friend that he was introduced to the person he was seeking, although Newt had to admit it was more of what he possessed that he was after.

Pickett let out a soft squeak from his coat and Newt looked down, an admonishment sitting on the tip of his tongue. The words died on his lips, however, when he saw how distraught the bowtruckle looked, with one branch-like arm holding tight over his mouth and the other pointing straight towards the wall on his far right.

Curious, he followed Pickett's arm and turned but saw nothing other than a shadowed corner. That was, until a sudden burst of flame illuminated the space in a brief but bright orange light.

"Bloody hell."

There, lined up against the wall and cloaked in shadows, were half a dozen or so metal cages and a tank, all filled chockfull of magical creatures of different breeds. It was clear, even from Newt's spot on the other side of the room, that the conditions in which they were kept were appallingly poor, and that these creatures had not seen even the most basic of treatments from their captors.

Enraged, Newt abandoned his safe place and headed straight for the cages with his suitcase clutched even more protectively against his chest now. His heart hammered in time with the anger that pulsed through him, and he was so very tempted to whip his wand out and cast a spell to release them immediately.

But as it were, he was currently in a place filled with armed witches and wizards who trafficked these creatures for a living, and skilled as he may be when it came to defensive charms, he was only one scrawny lad against all the other patrons and the barkeep who was obviously half-troll, judging from his sheer size and the overwhelming stench even he could smell from this far away. So, he settled back onto his original plan instead, though he still threw disgusted glances at the patrons who were chatting away, either oblivious to or purposefully ignoring the creatures' plight.

Cautiously, Newt approached the cages, making sure to hunch over even more that usual in order to look smaller and less threatening. There was no need to terrify the creatures more than they already were, and he had to find a way for them to let him get close enough to help. He stopped a few paces away when a particularly skittish nogtail let out a snarl of warning and decided then that that was as close as he could get without getting blasted in the face by the fire crab's behind.

With slow, careful movements, Newt placed his suitcase close by his feet, and gave one reassuring pat on Pickett's pocket before kneeling down, all the while keeping eye contact with the nogtail. He pulled the small flashlight from his pocket – a gift from a muggle farmer when Newt helped to remove the flesh-eating slugs from his crops – and glanced over the other cages quickly.

Apart from the demon-like pig and the fire crab, there was also a small birdcage where three or four golden snidgets were zooming about and chirping maniacally, along with the large glass tank filled with numerous multi-coloured streelers. There was also a fifth cage, but it was strangely unoccupied, or so Newt thought until he caught sight of the clump of glistening silver hairs on the floor of the enclosure.

A grunt sounded from the empty air when Newt approached it, which made him paused immediately.

"It's all right," he murmured lowly, staring into the space of the cage. It was the one that was familiar to him and which had been, until now, the sole purpose of his visit to The Hideout. "I'm here to help you. It's all right."

There was a responding grunt and the cage shook a little, but it soon stopped and fell silent altogether.

Desperate now to release the trapped beasts, he picked up the large, ornate padlock that hung on the thick metal chain binding the door together. The other cages were bounded together by identical locks, and all of them had runes etched on the face of it. Newt was pretty sure they were there to repel all manners of unlocking charms, so magic was clearly out of the question.

He dropped the lock then and opened up the lip of his pocket.

"Looks like you're our only hope now, Pickett," he muttered, peering at the bowtruckle who had stuck its head out of its pocket as it clicked in reply.

But as Newt moved to pluck Pickett out of his coat, the nogtail began to snarl anew, more desperately now, while flames jetted from the fire crab in continuous intervals. The supposedly empty cage shuddered, and the sudden spike of fear in these creatures could only mean one thing.

Newt had just enough time to push Pickett back into his coat before a shadow loomed over him.

The Podocarpus Forest was only established in 1982, which obviously didn't fit the timeline of this story, but I am absolutely RUBBISH at maps and locations and so, I have decide to take a lot of liberties in that aspect. For anyone who's a big geology/location person, I am sorry and please pardon that.

Updates will be pretty sporadic, but I will get every chapter up by Friday of each week at least :)

Remember, feedback is always welcomed! They fuel my writing!

EDIT: The FBWTFT category is here!