Could - Crewt

Chapter 3

Hello! I return. You'd think summer I have a lot of time, but summer is absolutely kicking my butt.  It's very good I have these chapters pre-written, lol.

December 18, 1926

There is something so new about the day.

Something so special.

It is not, necessarily, the feeling of a body, of limbs and walking and breathing and blinking again, all the automatic things that one never thinks of until they can no longer do them.

Nor is it the idea, really, of wearing Mr. Scamander's clothing. Trousers, suspenders, a button-down. The tie. Whether or not the feeling of wearing them is actually new, the idea has been gone over so many times, mentally, that the experience is one of near-normalcy.

And yes, a moment in the mirror, the second when the tie needs tightening, the thought or two about the suspenders, about how other people can see the suspenders and the trousers and the tie—yes. It is at the same time a wild, rushing happiness. It is bliss. That is new. It is not the clothes, but the feeling of knowing they're on.

And what a happiness it is—never before. Never in real life. But it is a wild, glorious spark with nothing to light on, and it hits the cold stone, sputtering out.

The wild, rushing happiness only lasts the space of a moment. It is new—and now it is on. And now it is a memory that it would have been Tina's clothes. If not for the shattered room, it would still be Tina's clothes.

It is still a world of zero people who know and understand, regardless of what the clothes are.

Now it is remembering that nothing has changed but the clothes.

Everything is the same, but for the clothes... almost.

But the new feeling is really Mr. Scamander.

Mr. Scamander, smiling and awkward, hair askew in the morning and not much better afterward, a smile that flickers on and off like a faulty lightbulb, but that never leaves his eyes.

Mr. Scamander cannot be real.

Because Mr. Scamander does not do what a man does to a woman.

Standing, two pairs of hands on a wand, wonderful warmth blooming and trickling through a regained body as if the heart has restarted, the touch of magic waking a brighter, better side of magic than the Obscurus and sending the senses alight.

Mr. Scamander's eyes stay up the whole time, stay clear and steady, a bright and brilliant blue. They do not flicker downwards for a moment, even though Mr. Scamander's hatred for eye contact is no secret.

When it is over, when the tingling has faded and the magic stops calling out and every limb feels human again, if not exactly right, Mr. Scamander simply returns to his side of the room.

And he stays there.

And he does not touch, he does not even look, he does not force anything.

Mr. Scamander cannot be real.

Because Mr. Scamander is the first person who asks are you a man?

Mr. Scamander is the first person who decides that it is not the sex of the person that decides who gets the tie, but the amount which the person wants the tie.

Mr. Scamander is the first one who asks questions and does not demand answers to them, to say nothing for the people who do not bother to ask any questions at all.