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Newt Scamander’s Journal


Peter handed Remus a Honeydukes chocolate bar as they made their way down the front steps of the school toward the thestral drawn carriages that were waiting to carry the students down to the platform for the Hogwarts’ Express. “I noticed you didn’t eat much at lunch again,” Peter said in a reprimanding tone.

Remus sighed. “It’s hard when everything you smell turns your stomach.” He tore open the wrapper like he was peeling a banana, though, and bit into the bar of chocolate. It was literally the only thing he would have accepted. The smooth, velvety flavor of it in his mouth was comforting, and he thumped Peter on the back in appreciation as he chewed. He looked around, then, around a mouthful of chocolate, “Do you see Sirius anywhere?”

“No,” Peter replied.

Remus craned his neck.

“Mr. Lupin!” McGonagall’s voice cut across the shouting crowd noise as she trotted down the steps of the school toward him. SHe was dressed now, but Remus still couldn’t help but blush at the memory of that tartan nightgown and the fluffy slippers. He paused, glancing at Peter, “I’ll be right there.”

Peter paused on the steps, looking back at Remus nervously.

Remus would’ve been more nervous - except he knew it couldn’t be anything too horrible… After all, both his parents were already gone. The only other thing it might have been about was Sirius, but he knew Sirius was alright - save for having detention for basically the rest of his natural life. And Minnie had been far too amused by the look on Sirius’s face that morning to have had him expelled or anything like that… so he was surprised to see the look of anxiety crossing over McGonagall’s brow as he neared her.

“Professor…?” he asked as he neared.

McGonagall’s voice was low,” Mr. Scamander requests a word before you board the Express.”

“Alright,” Remus nodded. He only knew that Newt was there because of Sirius telling him about it. He’d been too sleepy in the hospital wing to recall seeing him at all himself. Now, he was nervous. Was Tina okay? What could Newt Scamander possibly need him, Remus, for? He walked along behind McGonagall, up the stairs to the hospital wing once again.

Sunlight streamed through the windows in great gashes across the stone floor and dust particles danced in the beams. McGonagall led Remus into the ward as Madam Pomfrey turned, holding a cup of tea and a bottle of potion. She looked at Remus as he walked in the doors and pointed, wagging her finger, “You.”

“Me?”

“I need to give you a proper talking to about your nutrition, Mr. Lupin,” she said sternly. “You need to be eating - three square meals a day - whatever it takes! And I mean it! I don’t need you passing out again!”

“Yes m’am,” murmured Remus.

She huffed, then said, “And you’ll be needing tea, too.. Let me get you a cup.”

“I’m not staying, I’m actually on my way to the --” but Pomfrey had handed off the cup she had to a small boy in one of the beds and turned away again already, back toward her medicine cupboard.

Remus turned and looked at the little boy, who held the cup in his lap. He had blonde hair that fell in long bangs over his forehead. He looked up as Remus came nearer and his eyes widened at the sight of him. Probably at the scars, thought Remus, and he looked away from the boy. He noticed then that every bed in the ward was filled - children doubled in each one - and they’d even rolled in more cots, which were stuffed between the rows of beds and lined up against the far end wall and double-parked in a row along one side… There were loads of children in the wing and Remus gaped around at them.

“We saved them,” came a voice.

He turned to see Tina Scamander sitting up in her bed, a smile on her face. She was holding Newt Scamander’s hand with one hand and the handle of a teacup wit the other. She had bandages going across her upper chest diagonally and her hair was pulled back in a tiny stub of a pony tail - all that it could fit into with it’s short-cut length. She was pale, but better than Sirius Black had described her looking when he’d told Remus she was there.

It was Tina who had spoken. “We saved them all from Greyback in the Great North Woods,” she added, “Thirty-eight kids. Thirty-eight.” She sipped her tea.

Newt Scamander kissed her hand, clutching her hand with both of his, keeping her knuckles pressed to his wide lips even after he’d kissed her.

Madam Pomfrey came ‘round him then and put a cup into Remus’s hand. He tucked the Honeydukes chocolate into his pocket and held the cup, breathing in the licorice scent of aconite tea. He looked up at Pomfrey in surprise, but she hurried on to one of the kids across the room as he was stirring. Remus sipped the tea and felt the warmth of aconite spread through him, warming his joints, which still ached horribly from the effects of the moon.

Newt lowered Tina’s hand from his mouth. “You’ll - you’ll be needing to drink a cup of - of aconite tea everyday from now on,” he said. “I’ve been doing a spot of - of reading up this morning and - and I think it’ll help a good deal with your, uh, your --” he paused, glancing over his shoulders, then back to Remus. “Condition.”

Remus tried not to flinch at the word. It was contaminated by now. He hated the term. “It’s my furry little problem, sir,” he requested, “Not - not condition.”

Newt nodded, “Furry little, uh, problem.” He looked at Tina. “We’ll need to - to be remembering that one.”

Tina nodded and sipped her tea, her eyes flickering toward the little boy in the bed next to hers.

Newt stood up suddenly. He looked rather odd to Remus for a moment and he realized it was one of the first times he’d ever seen Newt Scamander without a vest on. Newt was wearing just his trousers and an oxford with the red suspenders over them, his vest and his coat hung over the back of the chair. He stepped ‘round the end of Tina’s bed and said, “I’ll - I’ll be right back, my love.” He turned to Remus, picking up his briefcase from the floor, and said, “Come with me, we need to - to speak in, uh, in private.”

Remus nodded, and downed the cup of aconite tea quickly, putting the cup and saucer down on Pomfrey’s desk as they passed by it. Newt put the suitcase down on her desk chair and he opened the lid and motioned for Remus to go inside. Remus climbed down the ladder, so familiar to him by now and he stood waiting at the bottom, looking ‘round at the mess of the counter by the medicine cupboards that Newt had made the night before, and the clutter of empty vials strewn about. There was blood staining the table, not yet sopped up. It was easy to tell something great and terrible had occurred here.

He looked around for Ned Veigler, expecting to see him about somewhere… but he wasn’t there.

Remus’s heart gave a jolt. He turned around. “Professor Veigler… Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Newt answered honestly. “He’s - he’s left us.”

“Left you?” Remus looked up at Newt, “Why?”

Newt hesitated.

Remus closed his eyes, “It was him… that did that to Tina. It was Ned. On the full moon. Wasn’t it?”

Newt hung his head, “He wasn’t himself. He was so very clouded - by the wolf, by the circumstances… we were with Fenrir Greyback, he - he was being attacked himself when it started… heavily, uh, under Greyback’s con-control at the time, and very, uh, very defensive… Tina was simply in the wrong place… My - my Teeny -- her heart is - is too big to be thinking about the consequences… it - it wasn’t Mr. Veigler’s fault.”

But Remus knew how he would feel if it was him - knew how he felt every time he saw the scars on Sirius’s shoulder and forearm. He hated himself for it. The sight of those scars made him want to make scars on his own body because that’s where those scars should’ve been. His heart broke for Ned Veigler.

“He ran away ye-yesterday,” Newt continued. “I - I tried to stop him. But the moment he remember what, uh, what happened - he - he left and -- I haven’t any idea where to begin looking.” Newt hung his head.

Remus tried to think of a place that Ned Veigler might have gone - but he could think of none.

Newt Scamander reached for the vials that were strewn about the table and bent to pick up one that had fallen to the floor and he collected them all together, the clinking of them musical in the silence. He put them in the sink by the medicine cupboard and then he drew a deep breath, “He - he also bit the little boy. Bradley.”

Remus looked ‘round at Newt in surprise.

“He’s only - only five, Remus.” Newt was leaning against the counter, staring down at the clutter of vials in the sink as he spoke. “He - he’s a muggle… his parents were muggles at least,” Newt looked at Remus. “Rare for a muggle to survive the transformation so… so well as Bradley has. There may be magic within him. I - I don’t know yet. But - but he needs… he needs help, Mr. Lupin.”

Newt’s eyes met Remus’s and they were pleading.

“Help, Mr. Scamander?”

Newt said, “He’s the tiniest little werewolf pup I’ve ever seen… aside from you.”

Remus stared at Newt in silence. “You… saw me as a pup?”

“Of course,” Newt looked up at Remus with searching eyes, “Of c-course I did. Who, uh, who did you think your father called first when he - he realized what had happened to you? I - I was there that very first night, my boy… Twelve years ago.” He paused and tapped his finger to his lips. In fact…” He turned and walked into another room for a moment as Remus stood, flabbergasted by this new information. Newt returned a moment later, holding a book, flipping it open and turning the pages quickly. He came over and put the book down on the counter, “There. Look at that.”

Remus stepped over and there, in Newt’s book - a field journal, really - was a sketch of a boy. Not just any body. It was him, Remus, that stared back at himself from the page in Newt’s excellent style. He’d drawn from the collarbone up, showing the bite from the front and the back on Remus’s shoulder, the detail of the marks of the teeth where Greyback had penetrated Remus’s skin, and Remus’s hand went automatically to his shoulder as he looked at the drawings. Then the page opposite… there were sketches of a tiny puppy with too-large paws and pointed ears that flopped over on themselves, not yet sturdy enough to stand up. He had a pouffy little tail and wide eyes. The only colour Newt had used on the entire page was for the eyes in both drawings… hazel, somewhere in the yellow-brown range, too young to realize that being a werewolf was a horrible thing, too young for the transformation to hurt enough to make his eyes turn green.

Remus’s hand shook as he ran his palm over the page.

“I was there for - for all your transformations for - for the first, the first year, Remus,” Newt said gently. “Your mum, Hope, she - she used to wrap you up in this blanket - a blue blanket with little ducks on it --” he laughed, “It was thick and she’d wrap your limbs all up and hold you like - like a baby. You’d snap and growl until you tired your - yourself out, and finally you’d fall asleep that way… bundled up.”

Remus’s throat ached.

“Cutest little thing I ever saw, really,” Newt murmured. “Heartbreaking… but… but cute.” He rapped his knuckles against the counter top. “I know you struggled with - with what you are. With, uh, being a werewolf. I know Ned helped you, by - by talking about it and, uh, by listening to you. It came late, it came after you - you’d already formed thoughts about it in your, uh, your mind. I don’t want Bradley to - to grow up thinking he’s a monster, Mr. Lupin. I don’t want that for him.” He looked at Remus pleadingly, “Could you - could you please --?”

Remus looked up at Mr. Scamander. He’d gone years and years of his life growing up, thinking that Newt Scamander’s visits to his parents’ house had been about Ministry business… that when Newt Scamander had asked him how he was when he was a child that it was out of obligation and that the way he stared at him was annoyance at the childish things he did and said, not a caring adult checking up on him.

And suddenly a memory flooded him… his father shouting -- shoving Mr. Scamander toward the door as Remus sat on the stairs, spying when he ought not to have been… Mr. Scamander yelling at Lyall in his trembling way…

”The, the boy deserves more than this, Lyall!”

“He’s my boy, I’ll decide what he deserves!” Lyall Lupin had shouted and he’d pointed at the door. “Good day, Mr. Scamander!”

“Lyall, my - my old friend, please…”

“You know it was us that signed the Restriction Act first - it was us, you and I, Newt. You know good and well what the law entails! He should be on his way to a retainment center like all he others - bad enough I’ve kept him here at all… bad enough already!”

“Perhaps we - we were, uh, we were wrong, Lyall, with - with the laws. Perhaps we were too - too strict. He’s - he’s a boy, like any other, 29 days of the month. He doesn’t, uh, he doesn’t deserve to be - to be shrouded away like this…”


Remus could still see Lyall’s horrified expression as he pointed to the door.

”Good day, Mr. Scamander!”

“But - but one, one day he’ll, uh, he’ll be going to - to Hogwarts. Or do you propose to - to keep him locked away all of his life? That’s abuse, Lyall. It’s an - an unkindness! The boy is - is a good boy, he’s a smart boy - he deserves - deserves better than - than that old shelter in the ground. He deserves friends and, and a normal life, Lyall.”

“Go to Hogwarts?” Lyall scoffed. “A werewolf? You’re mad! He’ll never have a normal life. He’ll never be a normal boy. He’s not a normal boy!”

“But - Lyall - he - he is a - a normal boy. He is.”

“Mr. Scamander -- he is a monster. I’ve come to terms with that, and so has Hope. Our son is a monster.”


It was the last time Newt Scamander had come ‘round, Remus realized… the last time he’d seen Mr. Scamander until that day in Care of Magical Creatures class, when he’d arrived carrying his briefcase to see the lovely birds Professor Kettleburn had borrowed from Persia. Remus looked up at Newt, and he saw the man before him suddenly in a whole new light all over again. Newt Scamander had been his advocate all along.

It hadn’t been because of Ned Veigler that Newt and Tina Scamander had offered to take him last summer, as Remus had assumed. Newt Scamander had offered of his own accord - because with Lyall Lupin gone, Newt Scamander had stepped up to care for the boy - the way he’d done when Remus was small.

“Of course I’ll be there for Bradley, Mr. Scamander,” Remus said thickly, nodding.

Newt’s teeth were resting on his lower lip as he looked just to the right of Remus’s face, “Th-thank you, Mr. Lupin,” he said thickly, “I - I’ll owe you one.”

Remus shook his head, “No, Mr. Scamander,” he said, running his fingers over the page in the journal. “I’ve owed you. For a very long time.”