SHIPWRECK. ❪ Newt Scamander ❫ ✓

nineteen

Leta slowly walked, heels clicking, into the Lestrange mausoleum lined with sleeping statues of dead Lestranges. Jacob was backed against the wall next to Nagini in snake form, who was repeatedly lashing out at Kama, who was trying to kill Credence.

"Move back! Move! Out of the way! If I must kill you as well as Corvus, I shall!" Kama shouted to Nagini.

Leta raises her wand at Kama, who swung around to see her. "Stop," she commanded.

She walked forward. Kama was mesmerized. She resembled his mother so well. He moved toward Leta, studied her face in the darkness, transfixed and moved by the sight of her.

"Yusuf?" Leta questioned.

"Is that really you? My little sister...?"

Newt, Trinity, and Tina walked in and exchanged confused glances with each other. Trinity had an inkling that they were all connected to each other somehow. It felt like a trap. She wondered, why would there be so many people in one place in the middle of the night while the wizarding world was in chaos?

"So he's your brother? Who am I?" Credence asked.

"I don't know," Leta answered, gulping.

Credence faced Kama unprotected, no longer fearing for his own life. Instead, he wanted to know more about his life. "I'm tired of living with no name and no history. Just tell me my story - then you can end it."

Kama sighed. "Your story is our story." He gestured to Leta.

"No, Yusuf - "

Kama ignored Leta's plea. "My father was Mustafa
Kama, a pureblood of Sénégalese descent and most accomplished. My mother, Laurena, was equally high-bred - a noted beauty. They were deeply in love. They knew a man of great influence from a famous French pureblood family - Corvus Lestrange. He desired her. Lestrange used the Imperius Curse to seduce and abduct her. When I was twelve, I tried to pull my mother back, but she kept walking to him. He blast me away with a spell, then took my mother. That was the last time I ever saw her. She died, giving birth to a little girl." He stared straight at Leta. "You."

Leta was crying, her lips trembling as she looked at Kama.

Trinity was soaking up all the information she was learning about Leta. She still didn't know what her relationship to Newt was. Newt had never mentioned her before.

"The news of her death drove my father insane. With his dying breath, my father charged me to seek revenge. Kill the person Lestrange loves best in the world... I thought at first it would be easy... He only had one close relative - you. But - "

"Say it," Leta commanded, voice trembling.

"He never loved you. He remarried not three
months after her death. He loved her no more than he had loved you... But then his son, Corvus, was born at last. And that man who had never known love was filled with it."

Credence looked on, rapt. He was hungry to know more.

"All he cared about was little Corvus," Kama stated.

"So...this is the truth? I am Corvus Lestrange?" Credence asked hopefully.

"Yes," Kama answered.

"No," Leta answered.

Credence stared between the two. He was waiting for an explanation. They were going back and forth, never talking about who he really was.

Kama turned to look at Leta. "Realizing that Mustafa Kama's son had sworn revenge, your father sought to hide you where I couldn't find you. So he confided you to his servant, who boarded a ship for America," Kama said.

"He did send Corvus to America, but - "

Kama cut Leta off. "His servant, Irma Dugard, was a half-elf. Her magic was weak and therefore left no trace I could follow. I had only just discovered how you had escaped when I received news I never expected..." He turned to Credence. "The ship had gone down at sea... But you survived, didn't you? Somehow, someone had pulled you from the water! A son cruelly banished, despair of the daughter's return, great avenger with wings from the water. There - " he pointed at Leta " - stands the despairing daughter. You are the winged raven returned from the sea, but I - I am the avenger of my family's ruin." Kama raised his wand. "I pity you, Corvus, but you must die."

"Corvus Lestrange is aleady dead! I killed him!" Leta shouted, raising her wand. "Accio!"

A heavy box, hidden in the corner of the mausoleum, flew to her through the dust. The locks moved around like a puzzle, clicking. Then, it fell apart.

Leta touched the book, fingers gliding across the pages. "My father owned a very strange family tree. It only recorded the men... The women in my family were recorded as flowers - beautiful, separate. My father sent me to America, along with Corvus. Irma was to pose as a grandmother with two grandchildren. Corvus never stopped crying. I never wanted to hurt him. I only wanted to be free of him, so I switched the babies. Just for a moment. Just a single moment. The ship was sinking. Irma took the wrong baby. The real Corvus died that night - by drowning," Leta explained.

"You didn't mean to do it, Leta. So it wasn't your fault," Newt reassured.

"Oh, Newt. You never met a monster you couldn't love."

They both looked at each other, almost lovingly. Now, Trinity knew. The two shared something. It was definitely from the past - a time when she didn't know Newt. Leta got to witness Newt grow up into the man he was. She knew more about him than Trinity did. Trinity clenched her fists. Tina noticed her action, glancing worriedly at her fists. Tina cupped her fist with her hand and nodded.

"Leta, do you know who Credence really is? Did you know when you swapped them?" Tina asked.

"No," she answered.

An opening suddenly appeared in the wall of the mausoleum. Credence and Nagini were huddled together as they ran away. There was a gigantic crowd of people, cheering. Jacob immediately found Queenie and ran after her before anyone could stop him. Everyone eventually split up. Leta was on the other side of the amphitheater. Newt, Trinity, and Tina were together, while Kama followed after Leta.