Mnemosyne [ Newt Scamander ~ NewTina ~ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ]

Part 50

"No, no. It was a regular horse. Well, Kiann would resent that description, as he's a very fine animal with warhorse ancestry, but he hasn't got wings. And how the Aetherions lord it over him in the stable! For this reason, Blethering used to have one stable for horses with wings, and one for those without, but once Mother brought in the hippogriffs, all the equines had to share. Their needs and temperaments are really quite alike-maybe too alike and that's why they don't get along."

"Oh. So you can ride a regular horse?" Tina thought about that for a second, while Newt tried not to smile. He had ridden a great many things stranger than a garden-variety horse, and Tina herself was getting some instruction on winged horse ridership from Salsify and his mother when she had the time.

"Yes, I can. Would you like to try?"

Tina looked interested, but shook her head. "Weirdly, that's one thing that the midwife said was right out. The packet says no horses, but I told her you guys used winged horses to get around here, and Jane said that might be all right because there wasn't any jolting if I only did flying and no running on the ground."

"Oh, well, I suppose that makes sense." Newt was always a little concerned to find there was a new rule or regulation on the list that he hadn't noticed when he'd glanced at it. He really ought to take a better look at that towering stack of parchment with all the midwife's recommendations. Somehow whenever he sat down to it his eyes crossed and his stomach turned over. It was dizzying to consider all the things that could go wrong with Tina's pregnancy, and that on top of it he was planning to subject her to a highly experimental memory treatment.

"But where were you?" Tina persisted. "What were you doing in the village?"

Newt looked off to the side, a little embarrassed. "Well, I was telling Father Wentworth that I was available to sing at Chrismas, if he wanted me to."

"So you're going to? Really?" Tina looked surprised and interested as she had the other night.

Newt just nodded his head. As Sal had predicted, the vicar had been quite enthusiastic about the idea, even after Newt reminded him not to expect too much as he was badly out of practice. Father Wentworth waved this away and pointed out quite rightly that there was scarcely another decent tenor in the county and they might as well rejoice in what God had given them. Newt had shrugged uncomfortably and hurried home. The storms of the past weekend had kept the dragons inside, but George had wanted to make sure that Reggie and her mate each had the opportunity to exercise before staying with the eggs became too pressing. Newt looked at the sky. There wasn't going to be much time for it today, since it was already afternoon and getting cold and dark. Playing in the dark with huge and deadly dragons was not usually worth it, even considering the cover the darkness gave them. Too much could go wrong. Besides, they were reptiles, even though huge and with magically aided auxiliary circulation that kept them from suffering as much as their tiny reptilian brethren without heat from the sun to warm them. Night was not usually their time, and certainly not in the dead of winter.

Their lair was kept hot by the concentration of layers of Scamander spells on it, and Reggie likely wouldn't want to leave her nest. But she needed to keep her strength up, and it wasn't good for her to go too long without stretching her flight muscles.

Newt's thoughts were mostly on dragons as he and Tina ambled up to the house, taking the back stair up and into the family wing. Newt had thought that he would check in on the denizens of his case, which was still semi-hidden in the owlery, but he'd been keeping it from Tina so that she wouldn't have the temptation. He'd assumed Tina was heading up to her room. Instead, when they reached the corridor that went toward his parents room, Tina stopped and tugged on his arm.