Those Days [Newtina]

Chapter 28: Crucio

When Tina smiled at Newt, he caught himself blushing, mumbled something about changing and going to sleep, and turned around again to head to his room, though he had no intentions of doing anything beyond collapsing onto his bed and attempting to record the whirlwind of events that had unfolded throughout the day.

Within minutes, he'd given up of exhaustion and instead thought about the conversation he and Tina just had. She was clearly working in Jacob and his room, and it was late...

He checked the clock hanging in the corridor. 11:11 pm.

No wonder.

Newt sighed softly. She was overworking herself. To stay up until 10:00 pm, working...

It made him feel sick.

At least she was asleep now. Then he remembered something else.

"It was just an accidental Confundus Charm. Did I say anything rash?"

"No."

Newt could tell something was amiss, even then. It wasn't hard to see. Tina may be bold and confident, but she was a terrible liar. He could see it in her eyes.

His mental cauldron conjured up swirling possibilities of horrific things he could have blurted out, each one making him want to curl up and hide more than the last. Newt couldn't think of anything he could have said that would come out sounding normal.

What if I said I hated her?

What if I said I hated my creatures?

What if I said I loved her?

What if I said I wished I'd never met any of them?

Then, Newt started thinking about what he could've done that made him look reckless and stupid.

Unbeknownst to him, he didn't do anything too eccentric (except maybe trying to drink soup with a fork), but poor Newt lost around three hours of sleep just thinking about the consequences.

At last he grew tired, and drifted himself to sleep with the thoughts of his friends' shocked faces when he told them that he wished Pickett was a Bowtruckle-shaped quill so he'd be useful for something.

Newt awoke with a jolt a while later.

He had no idea what time it was. Whether it was night or day. He'd had an abhorrent night of sleep, filled with more nightmares. Nightmares about his friends, nightmares about his creatures, nightmares about his family...

He even had a similar nightmare to Tina's, but from his point of view. It was awful. Tina had only described half of it.

The tornado of different emotions rushing through him was the other half.

To see her like that... so... deranged. It was torture.

When he did wake, he didn't move for several minutes. Newt lay in bed, breathing heavily and trying to recollect himself.

Lifting his head cautiously from the pillow, he spied a lock of curly golden hair whisked swiftly from the door, and knew that Queenie had been standing there, drinking the nightmare from his mind.

Newt groaned to himself and dropped back onto the pillow. It was going to be hard getting out of bed today.

When Queenie strode through the sisters' room and informed her that Newt had been having nightmares last night (though she didn't ask to hear anything), Tina realised she had a couple things to ask him. People definitely didn't get so many of the horrid dreams as much as he did.