Our Actions Our Intentions
When Newt sunk into the comforting arms of slumber, he found his mind dragged back to the memories of before. Before he’d gathered the will, the knowledge, the heart, to leave. To escape.
Newt liked to wander the halls of the manor when he had finished tending to his creatures, his wanderlust barely sated by the titters and roars of his pseudo-children and the view of the moor beyond. It gave his feet something to do, his mind something to focus on other than the fact that he was straddling the line between light and dark each day he stayed in this place.
Gellert tended to blur that line a lot better than Newt could ever hope to, however. As much as Newt liked to argue with the man on their political views—often too casual for either of their tastes, but unable to stop—he was no longer as set in his ways as he had been, no matter what he’d told Gellert.
When he had started thinking of him as Gellert, he had no clue.
Pickett chirped into his ear, tucked behind it like an idle quill, as Newt took his pencil between his teeth as he balanced a stack of books in his hands to tote them back to his room. The Grindelwald library was enormous, and Newt would be hexed if he wasn’t going to make use of it. There was an entire section dedicated to the study and cataloguing of dragons.
His time with the Ukrainian Ironbellies during the first war was brief, but educational, though it left Newt with an itch in his skull that he hadn’t been able to scratch since. The distaste Newt felt for the Ministry was due in a large part to them shutting down his operation because no one else could get close to the dragons without getting fried.
Hipchecking the door to his room open, he staggered over to his night table and dropped the books gratefully onto it.
"Non, putain d'idiot! The other way! I will not be the one to tell him that you somehow messed up something so simple as directions."
“Simple? You try this then, ya tramp! They’re bigger ‘n hell, it’s hard to get ‘em through the doors!”
Newt perked up at the distant arguing and left his books to poke his head out into the hallway. The voices were coming from down the stretch and around the corner. He pursed his lips.
While it wasn’t uncommon for Gellert’s Grimms to mill about the manor, to accept missions and relay information and the like, they normally didn’t venture to this side of the manor. It was why Gellert had put Newt there in the first place—less chance of him convincing one of the Grimms to take pity on him and help him escape. Newt doubted that he could actually do that as every follower he’d ever come across was fiercely loyal to Gellert, but apparently the Dark Lord considered it to be a real possibility.
The voice from before was the high, smooth shout of Vinda Rosier, Gellert’s righthand. Vinda held a certain...disdain, for Newt. The feeling was almost mutual.
For that reason alone, Newt ventured out of his room and padded down the hall towards the ruckus. Brow furrowed at an inhuman screech, Newt quickened his steps.
"Merlin’s buggering tits! Shut it up!"
"Do not touch it!" Vinda screamed. "A single hair out of place, and it is your head that we will be feeding it, do you understand?"
"Ms. Rosier? What’s—?" Newt clicked his jaw shut as he rounded the corner. Hazel eyes widened in shock.
Before him, in the center of the drawing room, stood a rough-hewn man Newt had never seen before. Beside him was the largest Gryffin Newt had ever seen in his life. There was a leather rein around its beak, wrapped around to the man’s arm.
Across the room, next to the door that had abruptly been slammed shut at the sight of him, stood a cross looking Vinda. "Mr. Scamander," She said clippedly. "Go back to your rooms. Please."
But Newt could see the ruffled feathers and the matted fur and the blood spilled across the Gryffin’s hind legs. Rage igniting in his chest, the magizoologist stalked forward. "What have you done to it? What purpose could you possibly have for—"
"Mr. Scamander, we have not hurt the beast.” Vinda shot back sharply, eyes narrowed. She paused for a moment, contemplative, the turned on heel and opened the door behind her. "Come. I will show you." She stalked off into the next room, and Newt gave the man standing next to Gryffin a dirty look before slowly following.
Newt managed to drag his eyes away from the Gryffin to look beyond the doorway, and stopped dead. It was one of the smaller offices, cleared of all furniture with a large bed of maple leaves and wheat stalks woven together in the middle o the room. On that bed rested five baby cubs, their eyes barely opened and little bodies still covered in amniotic fluid. One looked in his direction and gave a weak chirp.
Understanding and compassion blossomed in Newt’s chest, unable to hold onto his indignant rage in the face of such innocent need. He quickly shucked his vest and rolled up his sleeves.
"I’ll need a vat of warm water, twelve stalks of lavender, and a garden snake. The mother needs to be brought in as well."
"Very well." While Vinda did not seem surprised that Newt had jumped to their aid so quickly, her lips twisted, sour, at being told what to do. "Le paysan! Get it in here!"
"I’m comin’, I’m comin’." The man barked as he lead the despondent Gryffin into the other room.
Newt’s heart ached at the weak trill she gave at the sight of her cubs, and his eyes sharpened on the man holding the reins. He would ask questions later—and he would be getting answers. But for now, they needed his help.
Vinda conjured up a tub of hot water, along with a work table to the side of the nest. Once everything had been set out on the table, Vinda and the man left Newt to his work with little fuss.
Newt cradled each cub and gently washed them clean of the fluids, then crushed the lavender stalks into paste to distill later. The garden snake, a small brown thing writhing inside a glass jar, hissed when he popped off the lid. Newt felt a twinge of guilt as he reached in and plucked it out. Whispering a quiet apology, he decapitated it—the quickest death he could currently give—and then divided it amongst the cubs for food.
With the cubs busy, he finished distilling the lavender and polished it off into a vial with a baster at the top. Eyedrops, to ease the strain on their eyes. Cubs weren’t supposed to be kept in direct light right after being born, they to be given time to adjust. Judging from their current state, Newt was going to assume that had been given no such thing.
The mother watched him silently as he milled about with her children, oddly silent, then tipped her head at him when he turned his attention to her. The bit of wandless magic Newt could do consisted occasional summoning, a little of conjuring, and a single charm.
Newt gently took her by the reins and rested his other palm against her beak. "Relashio." The Gryffin jolted at the sudden feeling of too-tight bonds being released, a soft squawk slipping from her ruffled chest. Newt released the useless reins and smoothed his hands down her neck. "Sh, girl, it’s okay. You’re going to be alright. Come with me."
Somehow, he managed to coax the mother Gryffin over to the tub of water so her could clean her up as well, then let her hesitantly wander back to her babies, who cooed at her prescence. She curled around them with a happy, tired trill, and bucked her head up into Newt’s hand as he patted her crown.
Newt chuckled softly. "You need a name, don’t you? How about...Fiona. Can you live with that one for a while?"
She chirped at him.
"Fiona it is."
"Mr. Scamander." Vinda’s voice came from the doorway, arms behind her back.
Newt looked over and narrowed his eyes at her. He gave Fiona one last pat before straightening and walking over to Vinda. He followed her out of the room and tensed a bit as she shut the door behind him. He crossed his arms.
Vinda was unaffected. "They are looking better."
"What on earth were you lot thinking?" Was Newt’s immediate angry response. "Are you hosting a trafficking ring somewhere on the grounds? In the house?”
"What an absurd accusation."
"Then please explain to me where you acquired an abused, forcefully mated Gryffin and her cubs."
"As you said, the were acquired," Vinda drawled. "Our Lord discovered an illegal breeding camp near our borders, and sent us to disband it. Any creatures found alive were to be brought back here."
Newt’s brow furrowed. "Why would he want them here?"
Vinda gave him a look that made him feel simultaneously very stupid, and very important. "So you could care for them, Mr. Scamander. What use are injured or dead animals to a man that is not like you?"
He froze. He knew what she meant, of course. She was implying that they would be used in the war against the Ministries. But that was not what Newt heard.
What use are they...To a man that is not like you?
To a man that is not like you...
Newt heard Vinda speaking, something probably important, but he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. In that moment, he felt like starlight.
Vinda let out an indignant shout as Newt turned and walked briskly down the opposite hall, a purpose to his steps. His eyes were wide, so single-minded in his revelations that he didn’t even notice that Pickett had stayed with Fiona. His quick walk transformed into a run, until he was sprinting down the halls towards his destination.
The halls were empty, the doors unguarded as he passed, but he couldn’t focus on that. Newt burst into Grindelwald’s office, chest heaving, looking like something wild with the fevor of a man possessed.
Gellert started at Newt’s sudden entrance, heterochromatic eyes wide as he took in the sight of the man. "Newton? What—"
"I know why the caged bird sings," Newt gasped out. He stumbled forward until he could reach out a grasp Gellert’s coat lapels, then dragged the other man in for desperate, searing kiss.
For all his surprise, all his shock, Gellert didn’t hesitate. His arms wound around Newt’s back and his fingers tangled into sunset curls. He reciprocated on instinct, softly, but as he came to terms with what Newt had said, what he’d meant, his breath stuttered and he deepened the kiss.
Then he abruptly pushed Newt back by his shoulders. The redhead staggered back, disoriented and frustrated. Gellert’s eyes stopped any protest he could have made. They were dark, darker than Newt had ever seen them. A sea of molten gold and an ocean of perilous waters, each pulling him in until he was drowning, unable to move, to breathe, to think.
"Do that again," Gellert rumbled. "And I will not stop."
Newt’s eyes went from wild, to feral. He stalked back up to the Dark Lord until they were chest to chest. There was no facade to hide behind now. Newt had been stripped raw of any humility, any demureness he might’ve had. No, now he understood. Newt understood, and he wanted to know. He curled his lithe fingers around the back of Gellert Grindelwald’s neck and gave him a daring glare.
"Maybe I don’t want you to."
Molten eyes flashed, and starving mouths descended on each other once more as they fell into one another.
They were lost.
They were one.
They were loved.
