(in regards to the wip ask game)
Hope is the thing with feathers? 😦❤️🩹 I love that one sm. It’d be nice to see more Theseus and Tina interactions on this app; they have a lovely dynamic. (And to see that baby too I’m a sucker for Newtina as parents)
Hello! Sorry for the delay in reply! My life is..."baby niffler" level chaotic right now, if you know what I mean! Anyway, here's the link to my WIP ask game post he27o is referring to (originally tagged by @keepmeinmind-01) for anyone playing along.
As for Hope is the Thing with Feathers (HTwF)... I'm so pleased you're enjoying it! I honest to goodness had most of it written before I realized I had inexorably written myself into a corner regarding Queenie and thus had to entirely scrap most of it -- hence the sudden abandonment on AO3 as I massively reconsidered parts of earlier fics (of which only a few one-shots and half of With Its Head Under One Wing are posted /sweat emoji/). Anyway, HTwF is intended to be part 3 or so of the "full length" stories in the WIHUOW 'universe,' focusing on the erosion of human rights during wartime, families in war, and chronic illness.
So here's a few quite unedited snippets that will assuredly make it into the eventual fic once I sort out WIHUOW! (Unfortunately, not a ton of Tina-Theseus interaction, but it is what it is. And for proper Newtina as parents, check out The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures and A Home by the Sea.)
An excerpt from Newt's journals (opening of ch3):
Excerpts from Newt Scamander’s personal journal while in Australian custody
3 May 1944 - Wednesday
I have never been in an airplane before and I have certainly never been in one wedged between a half-tonne of medical supplies and seven Australian aurors. They forcibly took my case when they invaded my camp to detain me, but they’ve allowed me to keep my writing implements and art supplies during travel. I’m not concerned yet with the ____ and ____, as I’d healed them as well as I could for the time and there are enough charms set to provide routine care without my intervention for nearly 36 more hours.
In regards to my predicament, though: My questions have been entirely unappreciated. I’ve also had my wand seized and am certainly keeping to myself that I have any wandless abilities whatsoever (beyond charming my writing illegible to anyone but me, that is), at least until it becomes clearer what exactly is going on. All I’ve gotten out of them is what I was told upon my arrest, which is all really rather ridiculous, because I still can’t figure out (a) how I’m meant to have been in two places at once; and (b) what gave the Australians the right to arrest a British citizen in a non-Commonwealth territory at all.
But, I suppose — what do I know about Magical Law beyond beasts?
On a positive note, they were willing to tell me that this plane is called a C-47 and that they “requisitioned” it from the American military, which just very much sounds to me as if they took it without asking. I’m not allowed to look out the windows as they have very thoughtfully chained my feet to the ground, as if I can go anywhere at all without my creatures or my wand, anyway. There are the parachutes, of course, but—with my luck—I’d land either right in the middle of a minefield or unintentionally deliver myself precisely to Grindelwald’s doorstep, so I think I’d rather take my chances here.
(What a thing to say.)
I guess I’ve nothing to do except sit for now… Work on transcribing my notes on those particular tropical species I haven’t made sense of yet. Hope Theseus is aware of what is going on and can get me out of this, the poor bloke. Think about Tina and hope she’s been left alone; that Leora, my little light, is safe; that the world will hold itself together for long enough that I can see them once again.
Across the way, the youngest auror has begun using my case as a desk to roll his cigarettes on, and if I had my wand I swear on Ptolemy’s name…
Yes, it is definitely time to work on my notes, before I get charged with something—somehow—more serious than high treason.
An excerpt from later chapters (ch4 or so)
There was something Theseus could only describe as a ‘kerfuffle’ happening at the heavily guarded international Floo hearths at the far end of the Atrium, and he immediately took off at a run.
The Australians were, apparently, running ten minutes early. Tina hadn’t even arrived yet, let alone Dumbledore, and he heard his brother’s frantic voice before he could even see him.
“Theseus! Theseus, they’ve got my case!”
And then there Newt was, gripped tightly under the armpits by two aurors taller than even Theseus himself, hands clearly bound behind his back with charmed bindings, too, at his ankles, a silver magic-suppression cuff situated close to the skin of his neck.
Certainly, Newt always looked a bit worse for wear when returning from abroad, but it was clear the Australian aurors hadn’t even let him properly re-dress before placing him under arrest, for he was wearing only an undershirt, a half-buttoned flannel, and a pair of thick canvas pants spattered with mud (and what Theseus was reasonably certain was slime from an oversized snail)—an outfit Theseus knew Newt would not normally be caught dead in in actual public. For all his peculiarities—or perhaps exactly because of them—Newt dressed neatly (if occasionally casually and always unconventionally) when he knew he had to interact with “Society” (and Theseus also knew Newt to be ridiculously fond of his stupid bow ties)…
The rest of the transport team spilled out of the hearth behind them then, and he could finally catch Newt’s eyes amid the sooty ash dominating his face.
Theseus strode purposefully forward and shook the highest ranking Australian auror’s hand, before taking his brother at the shoulder to subtly suggest the Australians release him.
“They’ve taken my case,” Newt repeated immediately, shrugging out of the aurors’ grip to step closer to Theseus’ orbit. (And as Newt’s gaze flickered away from him, he suddenly noticed the deep circles under his eyes, how grey he looked beneath sun-darkened freckles…) “I have written permission from all governments involved to rehabilitate these creatures, and I won’t have them killed!”
He’d spat the last over his shoulder at the Australian entourage, with a surprisingly caustic accompanying glare. At that, Theseus gave him a look that he prayed Newt remembered from childhood—‘we both know our parents are wrong but you’ll get nowhere with that attitude, so please dear Merlin wait’—and held out a hand toward one of the aurors slinking in at the back of the group.
“Newton Scamander’s effects, please.”
But the mission lead spoke up then, before their frighteningly young attendant could even get a word out— “Those aren’t to be released, per Director Travers’ orders, until the contents have been cataloged by the British Ministry.”
“I am the British Ministry,” Theseus countered cooly.
But the Australian’s response was lost in the rush of activity that followed, for—a few hearths down—Tina Goldstein had stumbled dramatically out of a fire, while four down from that, Albus Dumbledore was striding from the flames.
An announcement identifying Tina reverberated from nowhere all about them, and then Theseus’ own aurors were on their colleague—their American counterpart—like lions on a gazelle. As he ran—digging about in his pocket for the letters from MACUSA and the American Wizarding Embassy—he could vaguely hear Newt shouting behind him, followed by the sickening crack of knees hitting much too hard against stone, but he couldn’t look back.
By the time he got to Tina, Dumbledore was already standing in front of her, arms outstretched—
“Wands away!” Theseus shouted. “Wands away! Diplomatic immunity!”
And he waved the documents he had finally been able to fetch from his jacket pocket, before duplicating them and sending them flying to each of his men.
Most of them immediately fell silent and stepped back, but one fellow—Blishwick, who had always resented Theseus’ quick rise through the ranks and long-held power—stood his ground.
“Oh, come off it. She’s as good as British—she’s married to your brother, Scamander!”
Theseus took a step forward and stared at him in silence for a moment, hoping to intimidate him by reminding him what he’d just done in front of a room full of witnesses.
Around them, the Atrium was deadly quiet, apart from the occasional clicking of newspaper cameras and Newt’s unfortunate continued struggling to reach Tina behind him. (A hissed jinx and fleshy thump quickly quieted Newt’s protests, though Theseus could hear him gasp and then draw in a deep rattling breath in the beat after the thud, as if he’d been pinned to the ground by a boot to the back...)
“One, my brother has been falsely accused, of a very serious crime no less, and—two—Goldstein’s not a citizen, you absolute bloody pillock.”
He pointed emphatically at the specialized immigration and marriage papers in Blishwick’s hands, before pulling the man close to hiss in his ear—
“You are flirting with insubordination and fully courting an international incident. You may be able to put Newt through the wringer once again; but Goldstein is off limits, because we respect international law in this department, Auror Blishwick. Do I make myself clear?”
