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The problem of the blood troth, as it turns out, is not one that will be solved quickly or easily. Travers and Spielman have the decency to remain silent as Dumbledore, Newt, Theseus and Tina discuss possible ways to destroy or un-enchant it, occasionally breaking off to sip their tea or stop the Niffler from making off with the silver sugar tongs.
Tina quickly stops speaking, once it becomes clear that she has nothing of worth to contribute. It had taken old Nicholas Flamel, back in Paris, to recognise the vial for precisely what it was- all Newt had known was that it looked important- and Tina herself has never heard of such a thing. (Apparently, it’s an incredibly difficult piece of magic to perform in the first place, well beyond anything she could have done in her 7th year at Ilvermorny. There’s a hugely difficult spell, needing to be cast by two powerful and experienced wizards, and requiring specific… mental conditions between the two participants. Dumbledore avoids- on purpose, she thinks- saying any more than this.)
(Still, she can’t help remembering, at the word mental, a line of poetry she read aged 16. Let me not to the marriage of two minds admit impediments. Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds- she forgets the rest. It was on the Valentine’s card that Queenie, 15 but already more experienced than Tina, had gotten from her then-boyfriend.)
Perhaps at another time, she’d be thinking more clearly; the answers would be ready on her tongue, brisk and calm and efficient. But none of those apply now. It’s as if she’s watching the rest of the world through a misted-up window. Everything is distant and strangely muffled, every colour looks a little less bright than before. When Dumbledore asks her is she alright, would she like some water, it takes a few seconds for the words to reach her brain. A few tries, too, before her lips and vocal cords can summon the energy to form words.
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
Her voice, toneless and brittle, does not sound like her voice any more.
To her left side, Newt’s arms moves as if to take her hand, but then he seems to change his mind. He and Theseus, too, have run out of things to say. When she glances at his face, she can see nothing but cold, numb grief, filling the void where speech and action should have been. Leta’s death sits like a rock in the brothers’ stomachs, drowning them slowly from the inside, suffocating them like the cold, hard silence that her heartbeat can no longer fill.
Tina knows this, because it was how she felt when her parents died. And because now, again, she can sense it inside her: that feeling of being as empty and hollow as their corpses. Being horrified by it, wanting desperately to feel again- yet just as desperately holding off the flood of anguish that she knows will come with it.
A bit of that is for Leta, yes. It hurts that someone strong, and brave, and kind, is gone forever. It hurts that her murderer got to walk free. It hurts that Theseus has to grieve for the fiancee who he loved and who will never be his wife, Yusuf Kama for the sister who he loved and will never see again, and Newt for the friend he loved, and who he will never laugh with again. And Tina herself is mourning the woman with the inquisitively raised eyebrow, and the steady outstretched hand, and the friendship that- given time- she had imagined growing between them.
But it’s not Leta’s absence that’s tearing her apart from the inside. The bulk of her grief, her pain, her anger- that’s all reserved for someone else.
Or rather, for the others.
“Miss Goldstein?”
She starts and looks up, straight into Spielman’s tired eyes. There’s a mottled splatter of grape-red scars across his face, souvenirs of Grindelwald’s escape. “Forgive me. I was just saying that I need to speak to Professor Dumbledore alone, and we may be some time. Perhaps you would care to take a stroll around the grounds, or investigate the library. You will be notified, if there are any developments concerning you.”
(New developments, like if the ICW, the British Ministry, MACUSA, want to question her. About her sister, about Credence, about whether she herself is secretly a traitor.)
She gives a mechanical nod, and rises from her chair, following Newt, Theseus and Travers as they file out of the room.
Travers seems awkward, unable to find the right things to say to Theseus. He settles for a curt nod, before turning and walking away. She’s heard it was his decision to send the Aurors in there, and hopes his lack of composure is guilt. Theseus stands frozen for a moment, then mutters something to Newt. They, too, are unable to look each other in the eye. Then he turns, and walks away, his eyes full of barely held-back tears, around the corner and out of sight.
Suddenly, then, she and Newt are alone. He looks everywhere but into her own eyes, and his are shadowed, heavy with nothingness. His shoulders are even more hunched over than usual, as if he wants to fold himself up so tightly he could slip into a crack in the castle’s walls, and stay there forever until he becomes the stone itself.
Tears well up in her eyes, the ones that he said were like fire in dark water, for the first time since the morning. They had been numb with shock even then, and still adjusting to the sudden peace of the silence and the darkness, undisturbed by Grindelwald’s fire and the screams of the dying. And then, the sun had started rising, and they had sat together in the ruined graveyard, untouched croissants on a plate between them. Newt had taken her hand, and hot water had trickled down her cheek. It had hurt, but not in a bad way exactly. And in the midst of her hard, cloying grief, a small but strong voice had said, but at least you have him. You have each other. It will be ok.
And then Travers and Spielman and some French officials had turned up, and there had been interviews, and debriefings, and more interviews.
(They had all lied for Yusuf Kama, had claimed not to have seen or spoken with him before he stayed to fight in the cemetery. Everyone’s lost too much, they all agree, and no-one wants to see Leta’s only surviving family imprisoned. She wouldn’t have wanted that.)
And then they had all placed one finger on a portkey, and had come here. All through this, she and Newt hadn’t spoken once. It was too late; the moment had gone.
She tries to say something. Anything would be better than this awful silence.
I’m so sorry.
Are you feeling any better?
Please tell me if there’s anything I can do.
Is the Niffler ok now?
And Pickett, is he ok?
I’m truly, truly sorry for your loss. I really am.
Leta would be so proud, if she knew what you did back there.
I love you.
Before she can choose one he says, his voice husky and shaking, “I’m… I think I ought to go to the others. You don’t have to come, I just- I think it would be better for Jacob to have some company, for the moment.”
Of course. Jacob. (He doesn’t want me there.) Kind, funny, stubborn Jacob, who has as much reason to grieve as she does. (Newt doesn’t want me there.) Jacob, who she has always liked and respected, but never once had the decency to say so. (Newt doesn’t want me there.) Who has lost, twice over, something more precious to him than diamonds.
And it’s all her fault.
Well… not entirely. But still, however little she intended it, she’s given this man nothing but trouble. And now…
She can’t go sit down with him. She’ll be nothing but a walking, breathing reminder of the part she played in everything going so wrong. Even though Jacob would forgive her in a heartbeat. Or else tell her, there’s nothing to forgive. Or perhaps, because of that.
She wonders, briefly, if she should push this and her selfishness aside, and go try and comfort the girl. Nagini. But then again, they barely know each other and as with Jacob, Tina’s guilt would clog up the space between them, stifle any helpful words that might otherwise have accidentally slipped from her stupid, awkward mouth.
Besides, the red-haired woman, the one Dumbledore called “Minerva”, had taken Nagini under her wing the instant they’d arrived. The girl, stony-faced and still clutching Kama’s coat around her, had been shepherded into the seat closest to the fire, cocooned in blankets and given a seemingly endless supply of tea and sandwiches. Minerva had then rounded on Travers, her cheeks bright red, and given him a furious lecture about how dangerous, how irresponsible and frankly how unprofessional it was of him to drag a half-starved, probably traumatised and certainly vulnerable young woman across two countries, and subject her to hours of interrogation, without so much as a nap or even a change of clothes, what on EARTH had he been thinking? Tina had gained a healthy dose of respect for the woman after that, although Travers’ obvious dislike for her was reason enough by itself.
So she nods, grateful at least that the others won’t be alone, while all the bad feelings twist and writhe and harden inside her, clogging up her throat and stomach.
The walls of the castle are pressing in on her. The whole place is too, too much like Ilvermorny, the corridor too much like the ones Queenie used to race her down. She would laugh as she ran, eyes sparkling, golden hair flying behind her.
“Tina, are you-”
She jerks out of the memory to find Newt watching her. His eyes are full of worry- but he’s tired. So, so tired.
She can’t talk to him.
She knows it’s dumb, she knows that it’s not fair on him, and that this will only make them both feel worse in the long run. But she can’t. She just can’t. Not now.
“I’m fine,” she says. Her voice sounds distant again, as though it belongs to someone else. But she can feel it, in her throat, beginning to crack. “I just… I’m going to take a walk outside, I think. Get some fresh air.” And she turns and walks away, as fast as she can, wanting to get as far away as possible before her walls collapse.
“Tina-” but she doesn’t stop.
Perhaps, as she walks away from the one person who has always been able to heal her pain, a selfish part of her wants him to chase after her. But by the time she’s made it outside the castle, greenhouses to her left and a wooden gamekeeper’s hut in the distance, she’s accepted that it’s not going to happen.
And that’s fine.
Of course it is.
She keeps telling herself this as she approaches a line of trees, dark and cool and foreboding. It’s fine. It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine. After all, Newt needs space, and time to come to terms with his grief. And she’s an adult; she can handle her grief on her own.
He’s probably better off without her anyway.
It’s this thought, more than any other, that pushes her over the edge. All the guilt and grief and loathing, all the agony- it all comes crashing down inside her, ripping her to pieces. She manages to stagger into the shade of the forest just as the first sob comes tearing out of her lungs. Her legs crumple under her and she folds in on herself, inhuman noises coming from her nose and mouth as she collapses against the trees and the damp, earthy forest floor.
All her fault. It’s all her fault, all of this, it’s over, it’s gone, she’s failed, it’s all her fault.
Oh, Newt… you never met a monster you couldn’t love.
Leta was never the monster. She was only a child when it happened. It’s Tina, 23 years old and capable of making her own choices, who seems to break everything she touches and fail every single person who depends on her.
She hadn’t meant to drive Queenie away. Hadn’t meant for her thoughts, her fears, to be so loud. Of course she loves her sister, of course Jacob is a good man. But- or so she’d yelled at Queenie during one of their worst fights- is he really worth breaking the law? Worth him being Obliviated all over again, or worth Queenie being slapped with a 1,000 dragot fine and anything from six months to three years in prison?
(Tina, over her career, has visited three separate MACUSA-run penitentiaries in New York, Maine and South Carolina. Queenie wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.)
And naturally, her motives had been selfish too. She’d known how it would look, if she’d been discovered to have allowed such a flagrant violation of Rappaport’s Law for six months- possibly longer- under her own roof. She’d have been fired, for good this time. The career, the life she’d dreamed of since she was thirteen years old, the life to which she’s dedicated nearly every particle of her existence… it would have all been over. Cutting her arm off would have been less painful. And with no income they’d have lost their home, maybe have had to sell off Ma and Pa’s things… Mama’s locket… Tina had worn it around her neck since they died, and never let it go, if she’d had to sell it…
But Queenie. Queenie had been in love and so happy, her eyes sparkling every time Jacob’s name was mentioned, and Tina remembers this with a howl and knows that she should have done something. Given them money, helped them leave the US- but Jacob hadn’t wanted to go- but she could have turned more of a blind eye, gotten Queenie some polyjuice and taught her the Disillusionment Charm, helped them stay safe until they’d figured the issues out together. And then things wouldn’t have gotten so bad between them, and Queenie wouldn’t have taken the stupid, desperate, stupid measures that she had, and she wouldn’t… Oh god, why had she lied? Why had she said in her letters that it was a foreign assignment, why hadn’t she just written Dear Queenie, I think I’ve found Credence so I’m going to Paris to track him down, MACUSA thinks I’m off sick, don’t go to the French Ministry because they won’t have a record of me…
Why hadn’t she sent an address? A meeting point, just in case?
But she hadn’t. And Queenie had been left alone, and probably terrified, in a city where she knew nobody, had no-one to turn to for help. And that must have been how they’d got her.
And Credence… oh god, Credence. If she’d just found him more quickly, if she’d acted faster when Kama had had him at wand-point, if she’d stayed with him instead of running after Jacob, if if if if if…
But instead she’d made every mistake, fucked up in every way possible. She’d failed them. One job, she’d had ONE FUCKING JOB and she’d blown it, shattered everything beyond repair.
She’d broken two promises, that night.
Look after your sister, ok? Keep her safe. Please, Pumpkin… promise me…
I promise, I really really promise, don’t die Momma, please don’t die…
Then, nine months ago in a ruined subway: Newt and I will protect you.
But she hadn’t. She hadn’t even been able to stand close to him at the rally. And Credence, angry and alone, had fled to the arms of the man who could give him the protection he needed, and the answers he so desperately craved.
As had Queenie.
They’d both run to Grindelwald because she, Tina, had failed to give them what they needed.
Her fault. It was all her fault.
Oh Mercy Lewis, he’ll never let them go now, will he. And even if they could leave, returning would mean life sentences if they were lucky. The Pool, if they weren’t.
This last, horrible thought made another anguished cry tear its way out of her. She’d failed, lost everything, it was all over, so what was the harm if all the water drained from her body too?
She ended up curled in the foetal position, her head cocooned in her arms, a small childish part of her still pretending that nothing was wrong. She was six years old again, safe under her blanket with her cuddly Wampus cat toy, and soon Momma would come in and give her a cuddle, and everything would be ok. But no amount of pretending could change the facts.
She really had lost everything.
Tina lay there for some time, finding the frail, skeletal ghost of peace in the cool dampness of the forest floor, and the grounding solidness of the trees. Light falling in cold sunbeams on the darkening soil; a spider’s web, glittering on a thorn hedge. Somewhere, the distant fluttering of birds.
She forced her legs to move, and used the nearest tree trunk to heave herself to a standing posture. Then, with no clear destination in mind, she began to place one foot forward, then the other, and so on. She kept on in this way without any real sense of direction, or knowledge of how long she’d been walking for; her watch had somehow gotten broken last night, a jagged crack across the glass like a bolt of lightning. She knew all it would take was a simple Reparo, but honestly… what was the point? She didn’t give a damn how many hours were passing around her, not now. And to fix the watch, and erase the crack, felt like a pointless attempt to erase the time at which it had frozen.
Fixing a watch wouldn’t save Credence.
Fixing a watch wouldn’t bring Queenie back.
She kept walking.
A small but firm voice in the back of her mind, telling her not to be so stupid, kept her away from the forest’s darker parts. She had a vague sense of walking around in a large arc, but had no idea where to.
The trees were dwindling now. And the smell was different: cool and slightly bitter. A hint of decaying plants mixed with fresh, empty air. A rushing, then a rippling sound.
Water.
She sees it then: a vast, grey lake, the dull shimmer of iron sunlight on its surface. Walks towards it, as if merely being closer to the water will be enough. Will wash away all her troubles, cleanse her of her guilt.
Then she sees the dark wooden jetty and the man sitting on the end of it, his once-gleaming brogues lightly skimming the water’s surface, and she realises she isn’t the only one to have had this idea.
She takes another step forward, slowly. Yusuf Kama stirs a little, but does not look round.
“Qui est là?”
Tina remembers to breathe, and tries to speak, but the words lodge in her throat.
“Is someone there?”
When Tina still can’t answer, and settles for another tentative step, he turns a little. Spotting her, he raises his eyebrows slightly.
“There’s plenty of room for two, if it’s company you want,” he says, moving to his left to leave a space. “Although I do hope you haven’t come to arrest me. This… I’m unsure of the English term, but regardless it makes for a surprisingly comfortable bench, and I’ve only just started admiring the view.”
Briefly, Tina considers walking away, taking the safe option. That light, friendly tone has spelled trouble before- and he lies like other men breathe. Then, she realises she doesn’t care about any of that just now.
“Don’t worry,” she says. Her voice is still a little choked with tears, but she manages to walk towards him and sit, almost like a functioning human being. “Anywhere outside US territory is also outside my jurisdiction. I couldn’t arrest you even if I wanted to.”
She lets her own legs hang over the water, and glances at him. His eyes remain fixed on the horizon but close up, she notices tear tracks. They’re faint but still fresh on his skin, like a child’s footprints on a beach. There’s a faint redness, too, to both his eyes, which she is sure has nothing to do with water dragon parasites.
She lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Then again, I probably won’t have jurisdiction anywhere once MACUSA’s through with me. Another tear slips down her cheek- the mute despair of acknowledging this out loud.
“Ah. You expect to lose your job, then?” None of the over-affected worry she would have hated, though perhaps a touch of concern. Still, no empty reassurances. Just a question.
She swallows, and tries to steady her breathing. “I think it’s only a matter of time, now that… now that they’re both gone.” (She still can’t say it, not out loud.) “I didn’t tell anyone I was going to Europe. I thought it’ll be ok, no-one will know, I’ll find him and find somewhere to keep him hidden, and I’ll look after him if he lets me, and everything will be fine. I didn’t know- I didn’t know- that Grindelwald knew, it took me months to track him, to track Credence down, I still don’t know how he- I just wanted to look out for him, keep him safe, and I screwed it all up, I…” She shakes her head desperately, the tears coming thick and fast now. “I thought I had more time,” she adds with a sob. “To fix things with Queenie, and find Credence, and…”
A light breeze whispers around them, making her shiver. Kama says nothing, and she’s grateful for that, although she can feel his eyes on her. “I promised,” is all that comes out, her voice faint and hoarse from crying. “I promised my- my Ma I’d look after Queenie, and I told Credence, before, that I’d protect him, and I fucked it up, I-”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
His voice is soft, but doesn’t waver. She chances a look at his face, wiping tears from her own with the sleeve of her blouse.
“What?”
He looks away, and she notes the sadness in his eyes. Then he reaches into his pocket, and proffers a handkerchief.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, taking it and dabbing at her by now very tear-stained and blotchy skin. “What about you?” she asks, without thinking.
Kama, who has been politely gazing down at nothing in particular, looks up, brow furrowed in question.
“I mean…” she looks down, then back at him, trying to find a tone and expression suiting a request that he has no obligation to fulfill. “How are you… you know, coping? After..”
But the image of Leta, head thrown back in a cry of pain as the fire engulfs her, is suddenly glaring in front of her eyes and stopping her mouth.
After a long silence, she looks anxiously at him. He doesn’t seem angry, to her relief, but this strange combination of stoicism and despair doesn’t make her feel any better.
“To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure,” he says, finally. “I barely knew more than her name, and I hadn’t set eyes on her since she was a girl. I just…” He swallows, his face trapped in those slight convulsions people make when they’re trying not to cry. “I just regret that I never got to know her, I suppose. And last night, her courage, what she did…” He gives a short, melancholy laugh, pride, grief and love battling for dominance in his eyes. “I really fucked it up there, didn’t I. Missing out on the love, even just the friendship of someone like that.”
Of course. He’s mourning the loss, not just of the sister he never really had, but of the past they never shared and the future that they never will. She feels that a little, too. The pain is just an echo of the raw agony she feels for Queenie and Credence, except when she imagines how Newt must be feeling. But still, whenever she thinks of Leta she mourns not just her, or Newt’s happiness, but the friendship she’d sensed beginning with that first raised eyebrow in the Records Room. Anyone would be lucky to have that woman for a friend, to have someone so kind and brave and brilliant.
All gone, now.
“Just like I fucked everything up in Paris, there was still time,” Kama says suddenly. She looks at him, confused, and he elaborates. “You could have still got to the boy, perhaps, if I hadn’t…” He shakes his head, and something twists in Tina’s stomach as she sees the remorse on his face. Still, who knew with this man… but it looked genuine…
He steels himself, then: “I’m sorry for all the pain I have caused you, Miss Goldstein. I truly am. But my point is, if you are looking for someone to blame… well, I’m more at fault for the boy’s loss than you are.”
Tina considers this. Then, she finds herself shaking her head. “I don’t blame you for that. I mean it,” she adds, in response to his sceptical expression. “You’re not-” and she thinks of his words just now, an exact copy of her own that night she turned Newt in. To be fair she hadn’t intended to harm anyone, but still- “You’re not the only one who’s done stupid things when they’re desperate.” Hell, look at my sister. “And besides, it took me months just to track Credence to Paris. If you couldn’t find him that night without me interrupting, I doubt I could have managed it.”
He considers this, then gives a small smile and a shrug. “You may be right. But still, you knew him better than me. Perhaps…”
Tina shakes her head again, slower this time. “I guess I can’t have known him all that well, really. Otherwise, I… I always thought Grindelwald would have to abduct him. After what happened in New York I never imagined…”
“Perhaps not. But as you said, people are capable of the unimaginable when they are desperate. And don’t forget, he has lived nearly twenty-seven years thinking that love and cruelty are synonymous. Still, if I hadn’t... obstructed you, in the crypt… there might have still been time. There was still time.”
“Still. If I’d stayed with him instead of running after Jacob, if I’d just-”
“It’s what I kept thinking, after my mother was… after she was taken.”
Tina freezes, a fresh sob lodged in her throat as if by an Impediment Jinx.
Kama hesitates, then continues. “My father was away that weekend, on a business trip to London- as I’m sure Lestrange knew in advance. He would have needed time to dismantle the enchantments on the house and grounds, too. But-”
His fists clench on the edge of the jetty, as though he is trying to crack and splinter the wood- or perhaps, to keep himself from slipping into the black water.
“- but we had a house-elf, you see… Deelie, her room was far off and she was a heavy sleeper but I kept thinking, if I had just called her…”
Tina is shaking her head again, driven frantic by the brokenness in his voice. “No- no, don’t. None of that was your fault, you were just a kid. And- look, we can’t choose how we act when- when something unexpected happens. Some people run, some freeze, some scream the goddamn house down and some people can’t make a sound, it doesn’t mean-” She shakes her head again, out of breath and short on words to articulate what she’s trying to say, what he has to believe.
Kama gives a small, bitter smile. “You’ve never owned a house-elf, I take it?”
She gives him a don’t-be-ridiculous look, with a healthy dose of not-all-of-us-were-born-on-an-estate-you-stuck-up-dorcas.
“Well, the first thing you’d know about them if you did? If you call them by name- no matter how quietly, or how far away they are, and no matter how many enchantments are around you- they will always come. And their magic- it’s different to ours, but strong. Most can’t attack their masters even if they want to, but for anyone else- an intruder, say…”
Oh.
“I should have called her,” he says, finally. She can see, just like last night, the beginnings of tears in his eyes. “There was still time. But I didn’t- until it was too late- all I had to do was say her name but I didn’t, I didn’t even think…”
Tina watches, paralysed. She’s seized with a strong desire to hug him, but isn’t sure if- even in this state- he’d appreciate the gesture.
“There was still time,” Kama says, so quietly she barely hears it. A single tear escapes, which he ignores. “There was still time.”
They sit in silence for a few moments. Then Tina, hesitantly, places her hand on his shoulder. He looks briefly surprised, but does not pull away.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeats, as firmly as she can. “Even if that- that sick creep wasn’t prepared to take down Deelie along with you. And honestly-” she ploughs on quickly, because Kama shows signs of interrupting- “I don’t think it matters, who made what mistakes or who could have acted differently, because none of that makes anything your fault. Your ma-”
She knows this is going to mean saying things aloud, that would be more comfortable remaining silent.
Some things, however, have to be said.
“Your ma didn’t die because of anything you did, or any mistake you made. She died because Lestrange was a vile, selfish, repulsive, evil bastard who didn’t care who he hurt as long as he got what he wanted. He wasn’t the one being controlled; you didn’t make him do anything. It was his decision. His choice. No-one else’s.”
It was, in fact, Percival Graves (the real one) who first said those words to her. That was years and years ago, now. Aged 21 and still fresh out of school, she’d broken down in tears after an exhaustive account of the many, many occurrences of inappropriate behaviour that she, and at least five other trainee Aurors, had been subjected to for the previous year by one of their supervisors. Graves’ words had come after the eighth time she’d blamed herself for letting him get her alone, and eventually he’d managed to get the bastard fired.
“To be fair,” Kama says, snapping her out of her reverie, “I could say exactly the same to you.”
She stares at her lap, picking at the skin around her fingernails.
“I- I appreciate that, but I don’t think it’s-”
“No, listen.”
She stops, reluctantly.
“What your sister did- however afraid or insecure she was, however… understandable you might find her choices, they were just that. Her choices, and no-one else’s.” He shrugs. “If I’m not responsible for the loss of my family, you should not blame yourself for losing her. Or Credence, for that matter. It’s hardly your fault that Grindelwald has a silver tongue and an alarming knack for foresight.”
Tina nods, more to show that she’s listening than anything else. She is still hunched over, still holding her sadness in with a clenched jaw and unseeing eyes. But it doesn’t feel as heavy as it did before. She tries to say “thanks” or, at the very least, “Fine- I won’t beat myself up for this if you won’t. Deal?”
What comes out instead is “I’m going to get them back.”
Kama gives her a sidelong glance, as unreadable and searching as when he approached her in Place Cachée, all those hours ago.
“Don’t get me wrong”- and she manages to laugh, a little- “I know it’ll be goddamn heard. Hell, I’ll probably fail, it might even kill me. But I’ve got to- please understand, ok, I’ve got to try. I’ve got to do whatever I can to-” her voice cracks again, just a little- “to save them. I have to. I’ll never forgive myself if…” She tails off as, for a horrible moment, she can’t stop herself imagining the worst.
“I know,” Kama says. She gives him a sharp look, half-expecting a mocking one in return. She’s wrong about that, although there is a rueful smile on his face as he says, “That’s your weakness, I think. A person, in particular a young person, who is vulnerable or in danger. I could hear it in your voice, Miss Goldstein, when you spoke of him. That you would have done anything to keep him safe, no matter the cost.” He spreads his hands a little, ashamed but matter-of-fact. “The rest was easy.”
Tina feels everything inside her clench, the smallest dregs of resentment towards him mixing painfully with regret, that she’d let her guard down that badly, allowed a complete stranger to play her like a goddamn fiddle. But then, she’s been conversing quite amiably with that same complete stranger for Morrigan knows how long. And hey, getting kidnapped and locked in a sewer overnight is nowhere near the worst thing that’s happened to either of them.
So she laughs.
She’s still angry, and hurting, and sad, and terrified. But she laughs. She grins, too, at her would-be kidnapper, throws in a playful shove. “Mercy Lewis, am I really that easy to suss out?”
Kama doesn’t laugh exactly- it’s more a very sudden exhalation coupled with a very small smile- but it’s something. The smallest hint of letting go, exploding through a chink in his composed, cold façade, like a bird poking a single feather through the bars of its cage.
“Not entirely,” he says. “I just happen to be rather good at “sussing people out”. Always have been. It’s about training oneself to notice the signs- the tone of their voice, how they hold themselves… then it’s a simple matter of asking the right questions, and you might as well be sculpting wax.” He’s smiling again, a rather wicked gleam in his eye. “But if it’s any comfort, in terms of blatant transparency you are nothing compared to your Mr Scamander- trust me.”
Tina chokes on her own laughter, trying to gulp up some air at the same time as expelling it, and simultaneously wanting to gasp with delight and hurl an obscenity at his smug face. Cheeks suddenly as red as Ilvermorny robes, she splutters “My- excuse me, since when was he my Mr Scamander?!”
Kama is laughing for real now, and looking ten years younger for it. “Please. It’s written all over the pair of you. Not such a bad idea, really, to lock you in a room together.”
“I’m sorry, at what point during our very short acquaintance have I-”
“Oh, hush. You are in love with him- face up to it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps back, unable to keep the smile out of her voice. “It’s much too soon to think on anything like that, and anyway it wouldn’t be right, not after-”
She falters, unwilling to bring up, yet again, the murder of his little sister. “I just don’t think it’s the right time,” she finishes, lamely.
“Really? Because I’d say that the right time is as soon as possible, given a blind man could see his affection for you.”
“C’mon, how can you possibly-”
“He thinks that you’re beautiful, Miss Golstein.”
She stares at him, her mouth hanging open. “How would you- what- I mean, he said- wha- when exactly-”
He is now wearing a very aggravating smirk. “When he and Kowalski accosted me in Place Cachée. Ask him if you don’t believe me- we both know he’s an appalling liar.”
Tina fluctuates between laughing and shaking her head in disbelief- but the whole time, she’s unable to stop herself from smiling.
“Kowalski described you as “intense”,” Kama adds. “In case you were wondering. Scamander agreed, not that it seemed to bother him…”
Tina can do nothing but sit and digest this for several long seconds, forgetting all the pain of last night and feeling as though sunlight is flooding through every particle of her body. Then, her gaze falls on Kama, who despite his best efforts seems unable to wipe that self-satisfied grin off his face.
“Oh, you’re laughing at me now?”
He looks back at her with polite and obviously staged bemusement. “No, of course not. I can’t imagine why you would think such a-”
“Oh, shut up!” Still laughing, she reaches into the water, scoops up a handful and suddenly it’s hit him right in that handsome, smug little face.
“Hey-!” He follows suite with the speed of a striking python; Tina shrieks and doesn’t quite duck in time, the icy liquid smacking her hard on the cheek, and tipping down the side of her neck.
“Aaaah-” she shoves him, gasping- “You asshole, you complete and utter-”
They freeze, her right hand and his left inches away from the rippling surface, primed for a reload. She glances at him.
“Did you see-”
They look again and yes, there it is (for sure this time): a tentacle, white-ish in colour and as thick as Tina’s arm, slimy and translucent against the blackness of the water and then- gone.
Tina and Yusuf met each other’s eyes, and then scrambled like spooked cats away from the water.
Then they get their breath back, and they’re both laughing again- at themselves as much as each other.
Tina takes a few deep breaths, tries to steady herself. The memories are settling back in, and with them the sadness. But she feels lighter than she has in hours, maybe even days, and then she realises: right now, she wants nothing more than to find Newt. Partly because it will help her grief subside, just a bit, and because she knows, now, that she has it in her to lift a little of his own. She starts to rise, then-
“Are you staying?”
Yusuf stands with her, wearing a quizzical expression.
“To help, I mean. Against Grindelwald. I’m going to, if they let me.”
For the first time, she knows the answer before he has opened his mouth. His jaw is set, eyes full of a cold determination. The last time he explained his intentions with that look on his face was two nights ago, in a Paris sewer. The first time he had told her something true. “That bastard killed my sister, Miss Goldstein. I cannot walk away now.”
She nods. Again she can’t think of anything to say- but then again, maybe she doesn’t need to. Sometimes, just listening is enough.
“Besides,” he says, turning back towards the castle- but looking back, inviting her to walk with him- “the young woman from the circus still has my coat, and I happen to be rather attached to it.”
She laughs, again, and they walk on in silence until-
“Call me Tina,” she says. “Please. Everyone else does.”
As she says this, she remembers that she has been called something else, but the only person who used the name Teenie is gone, perhaps forever.
No. Not forever. I will find you. And I will bring you home.
“Alright,” he says, sounding surprised but pleased. “But that’s to be the last of Kama too, I’m afraid.”
She grins at him.
He responds in kind.
As they walk back up through the Hogwarts grounds she thinks, still, of the loved ones they’ve all lost, and grieves for them. For some, she is afraid.
But Grindelwald, she knows, isn’t the only one with powerful people in his camp. She’ll take what comes with MACUSA and then- whether they like it or not- she’ll do whatever it takes to get justice for those who he’s killed, and recover those who can still be safely found.
And with any luck, whatever happens, when she does it she’ll be fighting side by side with the man who thinks her eyes are like salamanders. The man who’ll do anything to protect the people, and the creatures, that he loves. The man who- she thinks, she desperately hopes- loves her, and who she loves right back.
And one day, without a doubt, she’ll tell him: she thinks he’s beautiful, too.