𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖙𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖊 ⋆ newt scamander

the ninth chapter

Cora dropped the locket, and the niffler snatched it up immediately and stuffed it into his pouch instead of putting it with the rest of the jewellery and coins around him. She smiled lovingly and scratched the creature's head, just as she heard the case opening and people descending the ladder. The niffler placed it's paws over it's stomach, as if vowing to protect her necklace. She giggled at the sight and stood to greet the others.

Tina came in first, clutching a teapot like her life depended on it. "The occamy's in here," she told Cora as she walked past.

"Occamy? I thought you'd lost a demi- oh," she stopped when she saw Jacob carrying the demiguise, which had wrapped itself around him like a young child would. "Merlin's beard, isn't he adorable?"

"You don't need to keep telling me, Cora," Jacob teased. She rolled her eyes.

"I meant the demiguise, smarty-pants," she retorted with a smile. "I heard a crash, did anybody get hurt?"

"That must've been the occamy," Newt said as he passed by her to help Tina put the creature back in it's nest. "They're choranaptyxic, you see."

"I won't pretend I know what that word means." She followed and watched as they tipped a small, feathered snake-looking thing out of the teapot and into the nest with the others.

"These little blighters can grow and shrink to fill the available space," Newt explained, turning to her with a smile he only wore when talking about his creatures. "I try to restrict them to this nest. It'd be catastrophic if one got out, as you could imagine."

"I don't think I want to imagine that, to be honest," Cora chuckled. "Well, you've got all your little friends back now. What next, Mr Scamander?"

"I've got to head back to England to hand in the manuscript for my book," he said. She felt her heart fall a little, expecting that he would've stayed a little longer. "But I might come back one day. You never know, there could be some undiscovered beast I haven't written about here in America."

Pickett chirped from her shoulder and tugged on a loose end of her hair.

"Is he being reasonable yet?" Newt asked, eyeing the bowtruckle unsurely. Pickett stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry. "Now, that really is beneath you."

A thought appeared in Cora's head, something she'd wanted to ask him. "What were you going to say to me, in the bar?"

He scratched his head with a look of poorly feigned confusion. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh," she murmured. "Don't you remember? When we were dancing, you began to say something but Tina called us over because Gnarlak-"

"I do remember, I just didn't want to admit it," he sighed, raking his hair away from his face. "It was more of an 'in-the-moment' sort of thing, really."

"Go on," she urged, desperate to know what he had to say.

"I was going to tell you how much-"

"Hey, Newt?" Queenie called from the shed. "Who is she?" She had a framed photo of a beautiful girl in her hand. Newt rushed over to take the picture away from Queenie, and they began to talk.

"Oh, honestly," Cora huffed, crossing her arms. Pickett had made his way to perch on her ring finger, swinging his legs as he sat. "Do you know what he was going to say, Pickett?"

The bowtruckle chirped happily and wrapped himself around her finger.

"He wanted a hug? He should have asked, I've been told I give fantastic hugs."

Invisible to her due to the tiny nature of his body, Pickett rolled his eyes. She allowed him to sit on her shoulder as she approached Queenie, Newt, Jacob and Tina, who had gathered by Frank's section of the case.

"What are you lot talking about?" Cora asked.

"School," Jacob said. "I didn't know there were wizard schools."

"What about you, Cora?" Queenie asked, unknowing of Cora's past. "What Hogwarts house were you in?"

Cora blushed slightly and looked down at her feet. Her hand twitched to reach for her necklace, but then she remembered she'd given it away. "I- um, I never actually went to Hogwarts. Mum wasn't too happy about the idea of purebloods and muggleborns mixing together. My family has a long history of home-schooling, anyway."

"Oh," Queenie murmured faintly. "That must've sucked."

"It did," Cora laughed sadly. "Seeing all of my friends heading off on a bright red train every September was torture as a child. I got over it, though," she added on when the group gave her sad looks.

"What house would you have liked to be in?" Newt asked curiously.

"Oh, I've no clue," Cora answered with a chuckle. "I try not to let it consume my thoughts."

"I think you'd be a Pukwudgie if you went to Ilvermorny," Queenie said excitedly. "Oh, imagine how fun that would have been. We could have shared a dorm, and gone to classes together-"

"Quit daydreaming, Queenie. We're ten years out of school and you're still fantasising about going back," Tina laughed.

"It was great there," Queenie sighed dreamily. "It's the greatest wizarding school in the world."

"I think you'll find the best wizarding school in the world is Hogwarts," Newt corrected, a cheeky smile on his lips. Cora giggled at the exchange, torn between schools.

"Hogwash," Queenie exclaimed. Cora began to laugh even more, yet again spreading her contagious laughter to Jacob, and then to the two sisters. Newt watched Cora, the smile lighting up her face and her curly hair bouncing as she laughed. She still wore her short dress from the bar and he noticed that her necklace was missing. He opened his mouth to ask where it was, but was cut off by Frank's deafening screeching and a loud clap of thunder.

"What is it?" Cora asked, her laughter dying immediately and giving way to nervousness.

"Danger," Newt mumbled. "He senses danger."

"What kind of danger?"

"The dangerous kind," he answered with a tiny smile. Cora snorted with laughter.

"We should check it out," Tina said. Everybody agreed except Cora, who was timid to leave the relative safety of the case to encounter 'dangerous' danger.