Fantastic Beasts 3

Fire

INSIDE THE BASEMENT, A DAY AFTER LEAVING HOGWARTS

The cage door of the nifflers swung open and the four poured out, scavenging whatever shiny items they could find and stuffing them into their pouches.

One niffler spotted the shiny padlock on the firedrake cage. It scratched at the lock, trying to remove it, and succeeded. As it sat there and admired the lock, a firedrake flew out and set fire to a bit of cloth.

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TEN MINUTES LATER

Newt stopped playing with the zouwu as soon as he smelt the smoke. He turned around to see thick black clouds from afar and hurried to the shed to find his whole world literally falling apart.

The basement was on fire. Flames engulfed the walls of his shed and the wooden floorboards, so high he couldn't see past them. He couldn't see the exit as the smoke obscured it from his vision.

Immediately, he withdrew his wand and cast a bubble-head charm on himself. A large bubble surrounded his face and mouth and he went off in search of his suitcase. He could barely see through the smoke, so he had to feel his way through and had to be cautious to not run into anything, as the bubble-head charm could burst. 

He came to the desk which he had set his case on. Avoiding growing flames on one side of the floor, he grabbed the case, flicked the latches shut and went off to find his creatures.

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MEANWHILE, UPSTAIRS

"Where's Newt?" Tina asked as she bit into her toast for breakfast.

"I don't know, last time I saw him, he went down to the basement," Jacob replied.

"Hasn't he been down there for a while?"

"He'll be fine," Queenie insisted, but Tina stood up and said, "I'll go check on him."

She stood up, walked down the corridor and opened the door to the basement. Smoke filled her lungs and stung her eyes. She shut it immediately, coughing. She took out her wand and cast a bubble-head charm on herself before entering again.

She could barely see the stairs below her through the thick smoke. Knowing yelling would be no use to find him due to the charm around her head, she withdrew her wand and cast the periculum charm. Red sparks shot out of her wand.

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A flash of red through the smoke caught Newt's attention as he set the first of his nifflers into his case. He recognised it as the periculum charm and hurried off to find who was there.

When he got to the foot of the stairs, he could just make out a figure standing at the top. Tina hurried down to meet him.

"Newt! What happened?" Her voice sounded strangely muffled through the bubble surrounding her face.

"I don't know," He replied, "we need to get the creatures and get out of here. The fire's too big to fight."

"Can't we contact the Ministry?"

"And you think they'd approve of me having a basement like this with hundreds of creatures in it? I don't think so."

"Right."

"You need to go find as many creatures as you can. When you do, use the periculum charm and I'll come and put them in my case."

He hurried off with the case in hand and Tina went off in the opposite direction. In the first room she checked in, a firedrake had set fire to a stack of paperwork. She looked past the papers to see a cage with three small kitten-like creatures inside. Kneazles.