The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

T- Terrible - Terrible News

"Just a - a t-tad m-more - more of the boswellia, T-Teeny. M-Maybe a - a tiny m-m-more of the g-ginger?" Newt Scamander sat on a stool in the potions room at Fallengunder castle, his knees bent so his feet hung over the top rungs of the stools, rubbing one hand with the other, massaging the muscles of the fingers, which were gnarled and tight.

Tina Scamander looked up, "Mr. Scamander, my dear, how many times have I mixed this very potion for you?"

"C-count-countless," Newt replied. He paused, hit overly large teeth resting on his lower lip as he watched anxiously. She cut the ginger into small slices carefully. "N-n-not too big..."

Tina looked up. "Do you want to do it yourself, Mr. Scamander?"

Newt shook his head and the clump of grey curl at his forehead bobbed with the motion.

Tina fumed quietly, finished cutting the ginger and chucked it into the cauldron she was stirring.

Newt stared down at his knees as she worked. He looked up, about to say something, then paused, returned to kneading his fingers. They were tight with arthritis. "I - I do appre-appreciate y-you d-doing this, Tina." He struggled but he managed to hold her gaze for several long moments before looking back down at his hands.

She sighed, "When did we get to be so old, Mr. Scamander?" she murmured.

"It's - it's been a - a - a bit of time," he answered, nodding. "Eigh-eighty one years isn't s-something to shake a quill at."

"It certainly isn't," Tina replied. "Goodness me, I can't believe..." She shook her head, then smiled and added, "You're just as handsome as you were that first time I saw you." She was putting some of the potion she'd just made and rubbing it on her fingers in goopy orange ooze that looked like some kind of marmalade.

He looked up at her. "You - you had - mustard - on your -your face, I remember. Just there." He reached up and touched her upper lip with his fingertip, then winced at how it hurt his fingers.

Tina took his hand and rubbed the knuckles, rubbing the potion into the skin. "Yes, and I thank you for remembering the mustard." She rolled her eyes.

"It was caught - caught on the - the lovely d-downy hair of your upper - upper lip --"

"Mr. Scamander!" she hissed. She touched her upper lip a moment, halfway between scandalized and complimented and shook her head, "You really know how to make a girl feel beautiful." She rolled her eyes.

"Y-you don't feel beautiful?"

"Not when you're calling my upper lip hairy!"

"It's like - like the fuzz of a - a peach. Your - your cheek, too... Just downy. Not - not like a mustache or - or anything!"

"Mr. Scamander," Tina said, shaking her head.

"I l-love you Teeny," he said, still staring at his hands as she returned to massaging the knuckles carefully, her thumbs pressing against the palms. "V-very much. That's a-all I'm t-trying to say."

Tina smiled at the top of his head, at the grey flecked by some of those auburn streaks that once covered his entire head, and she leaned closer. "I know, Newt." She kissed his forehead and he smiled down at his hand. "I love you too... very, very much."

There was a knock on the door frame of the potions room and they both looked up to see who it was. James Potter looked 'round the frame of the door. "Hullo?"

Tina released Newt's fingers and wiped her hands on a cloth, getting the goop off of her own fingers. She could feel it tingling and burning even what little bit she had left on her hand and she wondered how Newt was managing at keeping calm. She would've been climbing the walls if that stuff was all over her hands like it was on his. "Hi James," she called, "Come in."