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The Time Thief


Newt Scamander leaned against the gates of Hogwarts, staring up at the castle. He’d sent a patronus to Dumbledore ten minutes prior and he was just standing and waiting for the Headmaster to come for them. Tina stood beside him, rubbing her arms against the cold as they waited, the air chill enough that their breath came out in tendrils of smoke before their faces. Newt clutched the handle of his briefcase and pressed his face to the gate, his eyes fixed on the castle. “Hurry up,” he whispered. “Hurry up.”

Tina watched the clouds pass overhead in the bright blue sky.

“Mr. Scamander, sir! Never ‘magined it was you I was comin’ down ter get!” It was Hagrid, the groundskeeper of the school. “Dumbledore sent me, o’course, ter unlock the gates, but I never would have thought it’d be you I was lettin’ in!” he smiled about at Newt and Tina both. From behind him came Fluffy, barking with all three of his heads.

Tina’s eyes widened and she looked at Newt, “You said you brought that Cerberus back to Greece.”

“Yes, well. Yes, I was - uh, I mean to say that, honestly, I meant to, but -- things… things came up, darling,” Newt stammered, his face going red - tips of his ears as scarlet as could be and he smiled sideways at her timidly.

Hagrid caught Fluffy up before the dog could slam into the wrought iron gates - though Fluffy was quite large, he looked like a small lap dog in Hagrid’s very large arms.

Tina raised an eyebrow.

Newt looked at Tina, then back to the ground, flushed even more.

“Merlin’s beard,” she muttered. “A cerberus at Hogwarts! What’s next, you’re unleashing a erumpent on the first years?”

“Heavens, no. That would just be savage,” Newt said, as though it were a true possibility. “They may enjoy the moon calves though… oh … oh uh, no,” he’d just realized she’d been being sarcastic, and he added, “Not, uh, unleashing anything else, no.”

Hagrid meanwhile had gotten the keys off his belt loop and undone the gates of the school, stepping back to allow the pair of them onto the grounds and closing the gate again, clicking the lock. “Do yeh have some moon calves?” Hagrid asked eagerly, “I wouldn’t mind ter see’em, like.”

“Oh I have loads of creatures,” Newt offered up, “Just loads! I can uh show - show you sometime, in my case - I - I most appreciated the meeting with Aragog two years ago, Mr. Hagrid, so, I - I reckon I do, uh, owe you one, if you wanted to come in my laboratory, we could -” He was quite excited at Hagrid’s interest and then Tina cleared her throat, and Newt said, “After - after the meeting with Albus, of course - and uh, you know, we’ve taken care of the - the situation at hand.”

“O’course,” Hagrid said, but he was filled with so much excitement at the idea of going into Mr. Scamander’s laboratory and seeing all the creatures that he had a bit of a skip to his step as he waved for them to follow as the hiss of the shield charms resuming echoed behind them.

Tina looked up at the school in awe - despite having come here many times in the last fifty years with Newt, she just wasn’t quite used to the scale and beauty of Hogwarts with it’s high towers and spires and the sloping grounds, all reflecting in the Black Lake…

They followed Hagrid across the grounds. “So what brights yeh back ter the school, Mr. Scamander, sir?” Hagrid questioned.

“Important uh Ministry business,” Newt replied. “Top secret, you understand.”

“I hear yeh, I hear yeh, very good.” Hagrid nodded.

They reached the castle and Hagrid walked with them all the way up to Dumbledore’s office, where he told the gargoyles about some pepper imps and they leaped aside. He watched as Newt and Tina climbed aboard that magical rotating staircase and waved.

“I shall, uh, bring you in the case one day, I promise, Hagrid,” Newt called as the wall closed up behind them and the staircase carried them away.

Hagrid stared at the wall as the gargoyles slid back into place and clasped his hands hopefully, already looking forward to the day he’d get to meet the creatures Newt Scamander owned. He hurried back to his hut, then, to re-read Mr. Scamander’s book and to try and guess at which of the creatures listed were in that case… he did hope there was a hippogriff. He was rather fond of those.

Meanwhile, Newt and Tina rode the rotating staircase all the way up the tower to the landing outside Dumbledore’s door. By the door was the wellingtons and umbrella. Tina walked up to the door and knocked three times, Newt hovering beside her, his eyes wide. No matter how many times he came here to this office with Dumbledore on the other side, or as an adult with actual business to conduct, the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts would forever be a formidable place to him. Even now, as he stood there, clutching his briefcase, he felt a rush of nerves as he recalled the day he’d been ushered roughly through these doors to face Phineus Nigellus Black, the headmaster of his day, for the accident that had gotten him expelled in the end… He shivered.

“Newt?” Tina looked at him with concern.

“Nothing,” he shook his head.

The door swung open and there was Dumbledore, who smiled widely upon seeing them, and he welcomed them into the office, stepping back to give them clearance. The pair of them walked in - Tina with her strong, quick gait, and Newt with his slouching sort of walk as he looked around the office at all the silver instruments spinning and whirring about and Fawkes the Phoenix, near burning, his feathers all singed as he sat, belching smoke.

Dumbledore waved for them to take a seat, “You said you have important information, Mr. Scamander?” he asked, walking ‘round his desk and waving his hand to make a few glasses and a decanter appear. The bottle poured one then offered to Newt and Tina. Newt shook his head no, but Tina took hers and the third glass and the decanter disappeared.

Newt leaned forward as Tina and Dumbledore exchanged their pleasantries and Tina told Dumbledore how they’d been traveling doing some ministry work and had just gotten back to London and gone right to their investigations the moment they returned… Meanwhile, Newt balanced his briefcase on the edge of Albus’s desk and undid the latches, reaching in for the clock he’d taken from the mantel of the Lupin house.

Suddenly the Niffler leaped out of the case and ran for some of the shiny objects on Dumbledore’s shelves. Newt quickly waved his wand, “Accio Niffler,” he said without looking up and the Niffler went flying backwards into the trunk once more with a loud thump. “Serves you right,” Newt said as the Niffler whined from the floor of the lab below. “Now you - you stay in there and don’t you be coming out again unless you’re called. Little bugger.” He closed the lid of the suitcase firmly and flicked the catches closed with his wand before putting the case down, firmly wedging it between his leg and the leg of the chair to be sure the Niffler didn’t try her hand at squeezing out again. Now that she’d seen the shiny silver things in Dumbledore’s office, the little bugger would be quite obsessed.

Dumbledore smiled in amusement.

Newt put the clock down on Dumbledore’s desk and he stared at it - his eyes instantly clouded.

“I - I, uh, I know who killed Lyall Lupin,” Newt Scamander announced, “And… uh, what’s more is… is I know why and how… and it’s, I’m afraid it’s very dangerous, what’s… what’s loose in the world, Mr. Dumbledore. And if V - Voldemort gets his hands on it… if, if he understands the power… what it could - could do… very bad...”

Tina looked over at Newt. He’d explained it all to her, of course, in the case, in low whispers with Ned Veigler and herself, sitting about in the laboratory room…

“And what is it?” Dumbledore asked.

Newt sat forward, “Mr. Dumbledore… you’ve - you’ve heard of a… Horaladrao?… a time keeper, or rather more directly translated, a time thief, yes?”

Dumbledore’s eyebrows shifted on his face.

He sent then for Gideon and Fabian Prewett, the two aurors who had been working closely with Alastor Moody on the case of Lyall Lupin’s death, who were conveniently both located in the castle for the Defense Against the Dark Arts class that day. It took them only a few minutes to arrive, the urgency of the request for their presence taken seriously - though in the time it took them to arrive, Fawkes burned and Tina let out a shriek of surprise when the phoenix burst into flames. “It’s what they do,” Newt said to calm her down, “Watch and - and a new bird will be born in the ashes, just wait and see.” He pointed to the ashes of Fawkes in the great gold basin beneath his perch. The Prewetts arrived before the bird was reborn, but Tina kept stealing glances that way.

After quick introductions, and the conjuring of two more chairs for the Prewett brothers to have a seat in, Dumbledore turned to Newt, “Please, Mr. Scamander, the details of your discovery for the Prewetts?”

Newt said, “Well, Mr. Lupin was a very - a close friend of mine, I - I helped get him started at the, uh, the Ministry and we, we worked together many years there. I was one of the only people who - who he trusted at a very hard time in his life, just, just after the signing of the Werewolf Restriction Act and we… we were very good friends… So I… I took it upon myself to, uh, to investigate a bit about who might’ve… killed… killed him.” Newt’s eyes stayed trained on his own knuckles as he moved his fingers nervously over the edge of Dumbledore’s desk.

Gideon twitched and Fabian said, “There was no evidence to go by, what --? What did you find?”

Newt said, “Well… We.. we went with Remus Lupin, Lyall’s son, to collect a, uh, a boggart… over the summer… we needed a boggart to create a … a habitat… for one of the creatures I - I was taking care of and Lyall had kept one of the bogeys we’d got in - in our day, in a matchbox in - in the house there and Remus took us to collect it and -- while we were there… I - I felt a presence.”

Fabian and Gideon exchanged glances, then turned back to Newt. “A presence.”

“Yes,” Newt nodded. “See, I’m very - I’m very sensitive to… to things of that nature.” He cleared his throat then, “So Tina and I went back just - just this morning… and…” he gestured to the clock on the desk. “I found this.”

Gideon stared. “A clock?”

“Yes,” Newt replied.

“What’s a clock got to do with anything?” Fabian asked.

“Horaladrao,” Newt replied.

“Whoawhatty?” asked Gideon, looking utterly confused. Fabian wore an identical expression on his face.

“Horaladrao,” Newt repeated. “Time thief. Mr. Prewett, I believe what’s killed Lyall Lupin is a time thief. It’s a - a sort of -- a sort of magical entity that is part human - they - they take the form of human, and that’s how we interact with them, but they - they have unnaturally long lives, very unnaturally, because they steal - they steal time from the lives of - of others, they’re very parasitic and very - very hard to identify and be rid of because they, uh, they tend to be very, uh, very careful about their victims. But… but it seems this one got a, uh, a bit sloppy.”

“Steal time?” Fabian asked.

“From the lives of other people?” Gideon echoed.

“How?” asked both twins together.

Newt drew a deep breath, “Clocks.”

“Clocks?”

“Yes.” Newt nodded. “A time thief stores time. They chose objects of importance and they suck the time out of a person and store the time in the objects. It could be any - any objects… any at all, and they - they put that time in there and it acts like… like… like gas in a muggle car. They… they remove the time they’ve stolen and they add it… add it to their own lives so that… so long as they have a… a bit more time they can go on and… and live.”

The Prewetts eyes were wide.

Tina ran her palms over her knees, her hands sweaty.

“Our - our current time thief… it appears used clocks. Very poetic, really, using clocks to store time.”

Dumbledore looked at Gideon and Fabian.

“Mopsus?” asked Gideon.

Fabian whispered, “But he’s dead. We found his body in the Lestrange mansion.”

“He killed Lyall Lupin long before the battle at the Lestrange mansion,” Gideon reminded Fabian.

“And his body might be dead but his spirit lives on,” Newt answered, “The clocks - they still tick.” He pointed to the one on the desk. “Until all the clocks he stored time in are destroyed, the spirits of the men and women he - he stole from are trapped and - and so is his for he is bound to - to them. Most time thieves are - are careful not to kill their - their victims, they only take small amounts of - of time. Three or four years here or there… Rarely do they - they take anything that’s even really of noticable duration. But sometimes, sometimes they find a victim whose - whose life is - isn’t guarded as well and they - they take it all.”

Gideon shivered.

“They sense... strong emotional urges to - to end one’s life. They find those people and they - they oblige them, so to - to speak,” Newt continued. “And - I - I’m sorry to say I - I think that maybe what’s happened with my friend. Lyall Lupin’s life was not - not well guarded the last few years. Since Hope died. He - he was very emotional. I - I’m so sorry to say that I wasn’t a very good friend to him either, I - I only visited a couple times and only very briefly, I had a lot going on myself, my son --” he paused and bit his lip, then shook his head and went on, “I had to attend to things with my son. But Lyall Lupin’s guilt - guilt over losing Hope and guilt over losing touch with - with his son, Remus, it would’ve been enough to draw a horaladrao for certain.”

Fabian asked, “So - so wait, you think Mopsus stole the rest of Lyall Lupin’s life… because Lyall Lupin was feeling… suicidal?” He shook his head and looked at his brother, then back to Newt, “Mr. Scamander, if that’s true, why is Mopsus dead?”

“Time thieves are not - not immortal, they are mortal, they just have - have time that extends their lives -- in Mopsus’ case, I - I believe centuries and centuries worth of time. But they still - they still can die by killing curse or or other unnatural causes to death. He was probably cursed. He was - was with Voldemort, was he not? Mopsus… Mopsus made a mistake.”

“So much for seeing all,” muttered Gideon.

“Well, Mr. Prewett,” said Dumbledore, “In his defense, Mr. Mopsus did see a lot. He’d been alive for… a very good deal of time.”

Newt Scamander smiled awkwardly, “Yes and his spirit continues on until all the clocks he’s stored are… are destroyed. His power to - to steal time is… is something that could potentially be harnessed, could be controlled and… and transferred.” He looked ‘round at them each, then cast his eyes downward again. Just in time, too, for he’d relaxed his leg and the Niffler had squeezed her entire torso out of the case and was struggling to pull herself through. Newt waved his wand and she slipped back in and the case snapped closed once again. He pressed his leg against it harder. “If Voldemort knew -- if, if he got that power…”

“Bloody hell,” murmured Gideon.

“What do we do?” asked Fabian.

“We… we find the clocks. And… and we destroy them. Set the - the spirits that he stole time from free… set Mopsus free… and… and his magic will be finished, his power… his power will go.”

“Blimey,” muttered Fabian.

“How do you know which clocks are his clocks?” Gideon questioned.

Newt reached for the clock on the mantel, pressing his wand to the back and the mechanism door flipped open. He held it up for them to see. Inside, all the gears and nuts and bolts and springs were loose, just lying broken in pieces on the inside…. But the clock still continued to tick.

“The spirit of the - the one he stole from… it resides in the clock until it’s been broken… and the spirit is set free… and a part of Mopsus himself is… is also freed… little by little… until they’re all gone and the whole of him will go.”

Gideon stood up, “I guess we’ve got work to do, then.”

“Yes, destroying loads and loads of clocks,” Fabian rubbed his forehead as he, too, stood up.

Gideon held out his hand for the clock Newt held. “Shall we start with that one, then?”

Dumbledore shook his head, “We will dispose of that one here, Mr. Prewett.”

“Yes, sir,” Gideon nodded.

Gideon and Fabian left and Dumbledore sighed, turning to look at Newt Scamander. “I’ll send for Remus Lupin immediately.”