Stories of Our Life [Volume 1]

32: In The Rain

A/N: (Written when I first thought of this one shot) Funny question my brain suddenly came up today: What if Newt managed to go to New York the day Tina saw the article?

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July 1927

"Queenie!" Tina called to her sister as she entered their apartment. She closed the door behind her and shrugged off her coat. She hung her coat on one the hooks by the door along with her hat and walked to the kitchen for a cup of hot cocoa. It was a cold summer afternoon.

She had only half a day at work yet it was still exhausting. Who knew sitting behind a desk, revising and checking paperwork for at least five hours can drain so much from you?

Ever since the 'Incident', as it was now called, last December, the capture of Grindelwald has caused quite an effect on the criminal activity in the Wizarding community in New York. It has decreased significantly and most of the Aurors in the Investigative Team had been given paperwork instead. Tina had received a lot more than her peers, she was sure of that.

Sitting at the small dining table, Tina found her younger sister, her blonde head bent over a magazine of some sort with a hot mug of cocoa beside it. Tina usually didn't care for any of the magazines Queenie had lying around the apartment. They were usually about gossips and fashion—two things Tina didn't want to get involved in.

"Oh, hi Teenie!" her sister chirped, looking from her magazine. "I didn't notice you were home.."

That's weird, Tina thought. Usually, whenever Tina comes home from work, Queenie immediately picks up her thoughts and greets her eagerly as soon as the door closed behind her. But this time, that expected seemed a bit late. Was something wrong?

"Oh, Teenie," Queenie smiled, having heard her thoughts, "Nothing's wrong. I was just intrigued by my magazine, is all."

Tina eyes her sister warily before nodding. She rounded the table to the kitchen counter to prepare some hot cocoa. She took her mug from the cabinet and waved her wand wordlessly for the drink to make itself.

While waiting, she sat down across her sister who was back to reading the magazine again. She observed.

Queenie was...rather quiet as she read, and she seemed to be so focused on whatever she was reading. Normally, Queenie would be a giggling and smiling mess as she read her magazines. She would talk about the article that interested her for hours on end to Tina and would even sometimes show her the magazine itself. But this time, she was silent and focused. Tina noticed her sister bite her lower lip from time to time and her fingers tap on the wood of the table in a way the showed...nervousness? And she hadn't touched her cocoa either.

"Queenie? Is everything really alright?" Tina asked, worried.

It took a moment for Queenie to reply. "Huh? Oh, no! Nothing's wrong, Teenie. Really. " She gave her a smile but Tina wasn't convinced. That smile wasn't like her real one: warm, comforting.

This one seemed forced.

Growing frustrated at her sister's denial, Tina reached over to nab the magazine from her sister. Queenie gasped as tried to get the magazine away from her. "No!" she cried, eyes wide.

Tina raised a brow at that. What's in that magazine that's made Queenie so jumpy today? She tried to reach for the magazine again only for Queenie to stand up to pull it away from her grasp.

"Queenie! Give me the magazine!"

Queenie shook her head frantically. "No! Tina, it's really nothing. You're not gonna be interested anyway. Just a bunch of gossip, that's all!" she tried to convince her.