Return to New York

Spellbound

Tina was excited. Newt's book signing had been the day before and she was expecting a letter from Newt, telling her when he'd be arriving. She ate her breakfast quickly. Queenie laughed at her.

"You're really very excited, aren't you?" she laughed.

"I--"

"Miss Newt. I know. You're literally thinking about him every single second of the day." Queenie frowned playfully. "It's a bit annoying actually."

Tina playfully slapped her sister's arm. The younger woman got to her feet to get the mail. As she came back to the table, there was a tap on the window. Tina rushed over and pushed it open, letting the own flutter in. She took the letter from its beak and gave it a treat. Before she could open it, however, her sister let out an excited squeal.

"Look, Teenie," she called. "Newt's on the cover of Spellbound!"

Tina started. "Really?" She hurried over to join her sister, dropping the letter on the table as she passed it. She glanced at the magazine in Newt's hand. The cover was green and had two pictures of Newt. A banner across the cover read, "Newt Scamander: The Wizard Who Caught Grindelwald". Tina quickly grabbed the magazine from Queenie's hands and flipped it to pages four and five. Her heart sunk.

There was a picture of Newt standing behind a desk. With him were two women and a man. She recognized one of the women from the picture in Newt's case. Leta Lestrange. She had her hand on Newt's shoulder and an engagement ring sparkled on her finger. She was taking turns smiling up at Newt and at the camera. Eventually, Newt turned to her and offered her a tiny smile. But that wasn't what had caught Tina's eye. Across the top of the pages was the heading "Beast Tamer Newt to Wed". 

Tina's breath caught. There was a caption above the picture so she read it quickly. 

Newt Scamander with fiancée Leta Lestrange, brother Theseus, and unknown woman at Flourish and Blotts' "Fantastic Beasts" book launch.

Tina felt the magazine slip from her fingers, landing open on the table.

"Tina, I'm sure this is a mistake," Queenie started. "Maybe they heard he was engaged and saw the ring on Leta's finger and just assumed that she was engaged to him. Maybe she's engaged to someone else. Or maybe the person who wrote this article just saw this picture and wanted to come up with a sensational story. You know how these magazines are. You know they aren't known for being accurate."

But Tina wasn't listening. She had picked up the magazine again and was reading the article.

Newt Scamander off the market, Ladies? Can it really be true? Dashing & young magizoologist (I had to make a very long arm for my trusty dictionary for that tongue-twister!) Newt Scamander has been spied amongst the London literati, tête à tête with a demure young slip of a gal with the memorable moniker: Leta Lestrange, his fiancée no less, at the launch of Mister Scamander's much bruited new tome 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' at Flourish & Blotts in Diagon Alley. Little is known of Ms Lestrange, who has yet to be launched into 'Society', other than that she has recently started work alongside Newt's brother Theseus at the Ministry of Magic... A little bird (An owl in fact) told me that Ms Lestrange and Mr Newt Scamander were contemporaries at Hogwarts as youngsters! Can it be that the delectably handsome Mr Scamander pitched a woo to the starry-eyed young slip of a girl over a Charms class? Mr Scamander was obviously an A student! Ms Lestrange's fiancé is currently the talk of the town with his book on outré magicanimals being touted as the next non-fiction cross over hit of the year. Rumour has it that Mr Scamander is currently pondering a very generous three book deal from Obscurus Books that a literary insider described as having "...more zeros than a noughts and crosses game!"