Fantastic Beasts Stories

Newt, Tina, & Jacob: "Mr. Scamander!"

"Mr. Scamander!"

Newt quickly checked the No-Maj's neck bite before taking out his wand and repairing the damage his beasts had done to the flat. He could just barely hear Miss Goldstein's footsteps as she clomped up the stairs over the sound of the bricks coming back together and metal screeching back into place.

As soon as he was done the Magizoologist plonked himself on the bed and grabbed his case, snapping the latches shut just as Miss Goldstein appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.

A look of shock quickly took over her face. "It was open?" she asked intensely, gripping the No-Maj's case tightly in her hand.

"Just a smidge," Newt replied, trying to smile but grimacing instead as he nodded.

The woman tilted her head worriedly as she asked, "That crazy Niffler thing's on the loose again?"

"Er, might be," he answered awkwardly.

"Well, look for it!" the witch implored, setting down the case and moving towards the No-Maj. "Look!"

Instead, Newt chose to watch her check the No-Maj's injury, knowing that he had to check which beasts were missing before he went looking for them.

"His neck's bleeding," Miss Goldstein informed him, looking back at him worriedly before peering back at the murtlap bite. "He's hurt! Oh... Wake up, Mr. No-Maj—"

Suddenly she screamed and backed away, a small pink beast with sea-anemone-like tentacles on its back hanging on to her coat sleeve. It fell to the ground as Newt swiftly dove down, and the wizard quickly grabbed the murtlap by the tail ("Mercy Lewis, what is that!?" the witch asked, mortified), opened his case ("Nothing to worry about," he replied hurriedly), shoved it inside, and closed the lid, locking it. The No-Maj sat up slowly, rubbing his head.

Miss Goldstein looked at Newt's case with fear, back pressed up against the wall.

"That is," the Magizoologist took a breath, grimacing, "a murtlap."

Miss Goldstein eyed the case suspiciously. "What else have you got in there?"

Before Newt could answer, the No-Maj from the bank looked at him, and, upon recognizing the wizard, said, "You!"

"Hello," the man answered with a misplaced smile, hands protectively placed on the latches of the case.

Miss Goldstein quickly moved over to the non-magical person in the room and placed her hand on his arm to steady him.

"Easy there, mister, uh—"

"Kowalski," the No-Maj replied, sounding like he was drunk. "Jacob."

The witch moved her hand into his in an irrelevant attempt to shake hands but Newt quickly took out his wand and pointed it at the aspiring baker. In response, she suddenly dove down in front of him, looking up at the Brit as if he was attempting to kill the No-Maj.

"You can't obliviate him! We need him as a witness!"

"Miss, I'm sorry, but you just yelled at me the length of New York for not doing it in the first place," Newt commented confusedly, a small smile playing on his lips as if to punctuate how bizarre this situation seemed.

"He's hurt! He looks ill!" she said, her voice rising in pitch as she looked at him as if he was crazy.

"He'll be fine," Newt scoffed as he tucked his wand away. "Murtlap bites aren't that serious."

Just then the No-Maj groaned pitifully and Miss Goldstein put her hand on his back, looking towards the baker sympathetically and then back to Newt with a stony expression on her face.

"I'll admit, that's a more severe reaction than I've seen. But if it was really serious he'd have—"

He cut himself off, unwilling to continue his sentence.

Miss Goldstein stood up, an annoyed, "What?" falling from her lips.

Newt avoided making eye contact with the tenacious woman, not wishing for her fiery eyes to strike his heart with guilt. The two ignored Mr. Kowalski, who was trying to use the wall to stand up.

"Well, the first symptom would be flames out of his anus—"

"Oh, this is all balled up!" she exclaimed, shifting her weight between her feet as she gestured with her hands, her words drowning out Newt's.

"It'll last forty-eight hours at the most," he told her, and Jacob looked back at the two as they argued like a married couple.

"I can keep him if you want, but—"

"Oh, keep him?!" The witch gestured with her arms emphatically. "We don't keep them."

She looked towards Mr. Kowalski and then back to Newt.

"Mr. Scamander," she started, rubbing her nose with a finger and looking at at the floor before putting her hands on her hips in a don't cross me kind of way and meeting his eyes with an intense look in her own, "do you know anything about the wizarding community in America?"

Miss Goldstein prodded Newt with the question incredulously, obviously convinced that he contained utterly nothing in his brain on the subject of magical America, and for a split second the Magizoologist thought she was right. But then some simple laws came flooding to him, and he answered her possible rhetorical question with haste.

"I do know a few things, actually," he started, and Miss Goldstein shifted some of her weight onto her left leg, her jaw working as her slightly-squinted eyes scrutinized him. His eyes flitted about the floor, occasionally meeting her gaze. "I know that you have rather backwards laws about relations with non-magic peoples." The woman bristled at that and Newt paused. "That you're not allowed to befriend them; that you can't marry them, which seems mildly absurd to me—"

"Who's gonna marry him?" Miss Goldstein hissed, gesturing to the groaning No-Maj man collapsed on the floor.

The two magical people stared at each other for a second or two before Miss Goldstein started.

"You're both coming with me," she told Newt, reaching down to Mr. Kowalski to help him up as he answered.

"I don't understand why I need to come with you."

The witch stumbled under the No-Maj's weight and looked pleadingly up at Newt.

"I'm dreamin', right?" Mr. Kowalski mumbled.

"Help me," she asked, stumbling more. "Please."

"I'm tired. I never went to the bank," the baker continued as Miss Goldstein managed to tug him onto his feet, hooking his right arm over her shoulders.

After a few moments of indecision, Newt switched his case to his other hand and ducked down to grab the baker's opposite arm and looped it with his own.

"This is all just some big nightmare, right?" the No-Maj asked deliriously.

"For the both of us, Mr. Kowalski," Miss Goldstein replied sarcastically, Apparating the trio away.