The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs

Regulus Black's mouth went quite dry.

Standing before him was Newt Scamander.

Newt's eyes flickered over Regulus, as though he were sneaking peeks at him, "What're you - you doing in the stables?" he demanded.

Regulus said, "I just wanted to see the creatures."

Newt hesitated. He was holding a thick leather journal in one hand and his wand sort of lazily in the other, as though he'd drawn it but thought twice about raising it. "You aren't, uh, intending to - to hurt them?"

"No," Regulus shook his head.

"St-steal them?"

Regulus shook his head again.

"Mock them? Scare them? Tease them?"

"Do students do that?"

"Oh they did - they did all the time when I was in Hogwarts," Newt muttered, "Great sport it was to - to come out here and - and scare the grindylows and plimpies and to - to poke at the supposedly empty air where the thestrals were and uh, to uh to make them whinney." His eyes were sad and he slipped the wand back into his sleeve and turned away.

Regulus stared after Newt Scamander, his hand falling away from the thestral's muzzle. He nervously stumbled forward after Newt. "Mr. Scamander... what're you doing here?"

"Research," Newt answered and he ducked away into another room.

"Research?" Regulus scurried to follow and he found himself in a great big room full of books that stretched on and on for what seemed like miles. It was as large, if not larger, than the library inside the castle. His eyes widened, "What... what is all this?"

"Caregiver guides, mostly," muttered Newt, "Old field journals from - from various magizoologists that have - have donated their notes... All the information you could, uh, ever - ever want on any magical creature in the world is - is probably in this room some place." He disappeared between a few shelves a way down.

Regulus stared around the room. "This is incredible." He stepped up to the nearest shelf and found books on augameys and ashwinders and astrobugs and various other creatures that started with A. He ran his fingers over the spines of the books in awe, then took one out on bowtruckles and flipped the pages slowly, peering at the notes and pictures.

There came a series of great thumping sounds - books falling to the floor and the sound of Newt Scamander apologizing frantically, "So - so sorry, so sorry, sorry, so sorry..."

Regulus jammed the bowtruckle book back in and followed the sound of Newt's voice to the aisle he was in, peering 'round to see a book dusting itself off and climbing back on the shelf, Newt staring at it in surprise. He looked up at Regulus, "I always forget he's - he's here."

Regulus stared in disbelief as the book on the shelf flapped it's own covers and leaned against the book beside him, as though he were taking a nap. "That's a -- a creature?"

"Yes. A Bookie." Newt nodded, then bent and collected the books he'd dropped.

Regulus bent forward to help and he paused as he collected a couple of the books into his elbow. They were both on werewolves. He looked up at Newt. "You're studying werewolves?"

Newt hesitated, "A bit, yes." Then he took the two tomes out of Regulus's arms and added them to his own pile. Newt awkwardly stood there before Regulus a moment, then turned and went off down the aisle toward a table, where Regulus saw a lantern and loads of book already stacked about, leaves of parchment on the table before the books, absolute loads of notes and scribbles written across the page in disarray, no apparent strategy to their haphazard placement on the page. Newt added his new books to the pile then paused, feeling Regulus's eyes on him again. "What?" he asked.