Chasing Grindelwald

13: Story

JACOB

That night was unbelievably cold. He'd been in European winters before, but being twelve stories up in a stone tower seemed to be almost as chilly as the streets of Vienna on New Year's Eve. The bricks of the walls and the floor seemed to sap all the heat from the room.

"Here," Queenie said, throwing a log into the fire. "That should help with the cold."
She was dressed in a pair of worn, solid brown flannel pajamas, which didn't seem exactly like her style. But Jacob thought that somehow plain clothes suited her even better. They contrasted her face and hair, which had changed over the past few weeks. Queenie's hair had grown an inch and had lost its curl, so it was now soft, glossy, and straight, and she looked worried behind her smile. Jacob knew it would all blow over, though, and she would be back to her usual cheerful self in no time.

"Hey, can I ask what-" he began, but she knew what he was going to say.

"Potions are kind of like spells," she said thoughtfully, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire as a rug wove itself into existence beneath her. When the rug was finished, she held her wand up to look at it. "It's like a recipe, kinda. We cook the ingredients in the couldron in the order it says to in the recipe book. Then, we season with spells as we go. Make sense?"

"Yeah, actually," Jacob smiled. "Can you make a cooking metaphor for everything that I don't understand?"

Queenie laughed, reaching her hand toward him and pulling him down next to her.

"I would if I could," she said. "And I will, when I can."

"Thanks," he said, looking into the fire, thinking how lucky he was to have people who were patient with him and didn't treat him like he was stupid.

"I never thought you were stupid, Jacob, and neither did the others," Queenie said softly. "But... I don't know what'll happen next. We may know more about magic than you do, but we're still in the dark about a lot of this."

"We'll all do our best, then," Jacob said. "That's all we can do, so. . . That's what we will do."

Queenie's clear blue eyes met his, but they were so full of emotions they were hard to read. So, instead of trying to read them, he took her hands and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Tell me a story?" Queenie asked, leaning into him.

"Hm," Jacob said, looking over at Newt's case, which was lying motionless on a bed. No doubt Newt and Tina were having fun feeding the animals. "Isn't telling you a story kind of pointless, since you can get all the stories you want from my mind?"

Queenie smiled a bit. "That's not exactly how it works. Besides, sometimes it's nice just to hear the way a person tells their own stories."

"Huh, okay. . . Oh! This one's pretty good." he began. "When I was a teenager, my grandma and I travelled to Europe to see some relatives in Poland. It was 1912, and for our way back home, we got a couple of tickets on a brand new ship, the Titanic. The third class prices weren't bad, and I was excited to take a ride on the 'unsinkable ship.' It was insanely big, like, eight stories long, or something. We walked up the gangplank, and the doctors gave us the once-over and sent us in. But, we were barely inside when Grandma started coughing. Hard. The doctors came back, and it turned out she had whooping cough. They kicked us off, and we heard about the shipwreck a few days later. We went home on the Mauritania after Grandma got some medicine."

"Wow. . ." Queenie breathed. "You stepped foot on the Titanic."

"A few days before it sank, yeah," Jacob said thoughtfully. " 'Course, at the time, we thought we had it rough. But Grandma said she was glad she got sick, when we heard about it."

He and Queenie kept talking about the Titantic. When they finished talking about that, they started another conversation. Then another. Jacob had never met a woman who was easier to talk to. Finally, the suitcase on Newt's bed flung open, and the magizoologist and the Auror climbed out. Newt looked slightly shaken, and Tina a bit weak, but they were both smiling, which was a little contradictory.

"What the hell?" Queenie shot up. Then she blushed. "I mean. . . Sorry, didn't mean to curse. But what happened?"

"Fwooper's charm broke, and some doxies attacked, but I'm fine, really," Tina said hastily.

"The doxies attacked and the Fwooper panicked. It was a bit of a mess," Newt muttered. "But we. . . sorted it out."

"If you can't keep yourselves out of trouble-" Queenie said hotly, rounding on Tina, but she was cut off by a knock on the door. It creaked open, and they all watched silently as a short little house elf marched in, holding a tray of mugs in its bony arms.

"I brought tea for our guests!" It squeaked. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to bring chamomile. Sugar? Cream?"

"Oh, thank you," Newt said, taking the tray and patting the elf's head like it was a little kid. "You can head back down to the kitchens, if you'd like."

"If. . . I'd like?" The elf said the words af if they didn't compute, and Jacob suddenly felt sorry for it.

"Yeah, just go back and get comfortable," he said. The elf looked confused.

"This one talks funny," it said finally. Then it left.

"Uh. . . It meant my American accent, right?" Jacob asked Newt, who looked like he was trying not to smile.

"Yes, I think. Good night, everyone," he promptly downed the tea, slipped into bed, and passed out, and the others followed suit.