A Sentimental Journey

Your Father Loves You So Much (I Hope You Know That)

The sound of her newborn wailing woke Tina in the early hours of the morning, and she shifted inside her cocoon of blankets on the carpeted floor of her son’s nursery. She’d taken to sleeping there so she could handle the situations more easily when they arose. At least, that’s what she told herself.

(She really slept on the floor of the nursery out of paranoia, fear that something would happen to her precious angel. Tina had no doubt that her paranoia was fueled by her PTSD from the war, but she had no time to deal with her own emotions, not with a newborn to take care of.)

“Shhhh…” she murmured, sitting up and disentangling herself from the blankets. Tina stumbled to her feet and over to the crib, lowering the side and delicately picking up her son. “Shhhhh, it’s okay, Mommy’s here for you.”

Tina sat down in a rocking chair in the corner of the room to feed the infant, fondly swirling his tiny tufts of auburn hair around his head. She still had no idea what to name him. She couldn’t decide if Newt should be his first name or middle name and if her father’s name should be first or middle either.

The retired Auror’s jaw cracked as she let out a big yawn, adjusting her hold on the infant. Once he was done, she pressed a kiss on the child’s head and burped him, patting his back gently. Adjusting the infant so she was cradling him in her arms, he smiled at her, letting out a laugh. Tina smiled back, pressing another kiss to his head. She stood up, walking in circles around the room, singing him a lullaby for what felt like an hour until he fell asleep in her arms. Walking over to the crib, she set him down, pulling up the side and laying back down in her makeshift bed on the floor.

*

A few days later Theseus came to visit, bringing with him the last bag of Newt’s old things; some of his drawings, a box of pictures of him, and a few knickknacks. After a small lunch with his sister-in-law and some quality time with his nephew, Thee left Tina to go through the items on her own.

(Even though she and Newt never married, all the Scamanders thought of them as family, seeing as the two had been engaged before the Magizoologist’s untimely death).

Tina picked up a picture of Newt smiling into the camera, his eyes crinkled as baby nifflers crawled over him. Picture-Newt smiled at Tina as tears gathered in her eyes. She looked down at her son (Hugo, she’d settled with, her father’s name; Hugo Newton Scamander), who was sitting on the carpeted floor, giggling as he played with magic bubbles Tina’d created.

She lifted him up, brushing a kiss on his plentiful waves of auburn hair, and set him on her lap, holding the photo of Newt out in front of them.

“This is your father, Newt. You have his hair but my eyes.” She smiled a bit. “I think you might get your Aunt Queenie’s smile, though. Who knows?” She shifted the child a bit. “Your papa liked to travel the world and write about all the creatures he met; he even gave some of them names!”

Hugo started grabbing at the picture and she handed it to him.

“I named you after your saba, your grandfather and my father, Hugo. Your middle name is Newton, which is what papa’s parents named him when he was a little boy like you. I wish you could have met him… he would have loved you as much as I do.”