Fantastic Feats and Who May Hide Them - Fantastic Beasts fanfiction

Creatures One and Two

           

He rattled up the steps and she followed, and he locked his case behind them. Celia donned her coat, gloves, hat and scarf, and looked dubiously over his shoulder while he stuck his head out the window.

"We're on the second floor," she pointed out, putting her quilt on the ground before the hearth, and the chicken on the quilt.

"Indeed we are," he agreed, inspecting the makings of her skirt, shoes and hose. He then looked in her eyes again. "Remember how we traveled at the bank?"

"Instantly? Yes."

He smiled and extended a hand.

Celia groaned, then laid hers in his. His grip tightened, and in a moment they stood on the ground beneath the window.

"Why can't we do that all the way to the park?" she wanted to know.

"Because I don't know where the park is. Lead on."

She turned him in the other direction and stuffed her gloved hands in her pockets. "Two blocks this way to start."

"People like you, don't they, Miss Green?" he asked one and a half blocks later.

"I don't think you should take Queenie's opinion as the popular vote. Don't they like you?"

"Not really, no. I annoy people."

"Not me."

He gave her a small smile, as though he appreciated her sentiment. "I tend to talk too much about things most people don't tend to care about."

"I don't ask questions about things I don't care about."

"You don't ask many questions at all, actually. I'd think most Muggles would, after seeing what you've seen today."

"Muggles?"

"Non-magical people. We're Wizards, you're Muggles. More or less."

"Ah. Well." She rubbed at her left side. Yes, still hurt, wound still there. "As I said, it's been a bad month."

"Well I hope it turns up soon."

She gave him a glance that was borderline fond. "You been spending time with the wrong people, Newt, if they find you annoying."

He only shook his head toward his shoes, still sideways smiling.

Celia harrumphed. "Just like a white man, not to take good advice when it's offered for free."

"My brother says nothing good comes without a cost."

"Then he misunderstands the cost."

"Oh really? What would your price be, then?"

"When you come to like people, you risk hurting if you lose them."

He bobbed his head, absentminded again. "That's definitely true." His head tilted further over to the right side as he thought. "Why did you decide to become a baker?"

"I'm a secretary now, been one for years. I thought I'd like it more, giving people things. My momma always said I wasn't happy till I was needed. I moved out soon as I was eighteen, got a job so she and my Papa wouldn't have to keep paying for me, though they never asked me to. I thought, secretaries keep notes for people, keep them on track, keep they coffee hot, run a few errands. People appreciate the people who do things for them." She shook her head. "They don't though. Not the people I work with anyway. To them, all those white people up in that big tall building, I'm just a shadow running from one pair of shiny feet to another, doing all the little things they need to be happy and do they work but something they think is beneath them all the same. I'm at the bottom of the food chain, here. You white men are at the top, we colored women at the bottom. Hard enough being one, and I'm both.