thedogbard

okay, first of all, heya, and i'm "thedogbard" or "N". I'm socially awkward irl, someone who pretends to be an introvert to disguise my loneliness, and someone who is really good at random living-life shit and not so good at anything specific (like maths) (ugh).

i originally made a tumblr account to promote my fanfic magnum opus. so here it is:

But firstly I'd like to specify that I do NOT support JKR. I have owned the books for years, and before I got tumblr, in Sep 2025, I didn't actually know what she was doing. Almost all of the fanfic I've written was before that. Writing fanfic does not give the franchise profit, but it might give the author or reader a bit of happiness. Anyway, I'm trying not to write anything else for the HP/FB fandoms now, and I'm steering well clear of the HP show. I don't judge you if you're an HP fan as long as you don't support JKR, so please extend me the same courtesy.

Nothing Like This

https://archiveofourown.org/works/71726416?view_full_work=true

December 1993. Newt Scamander appears in Hogwarts, clutching a battered suitcase, claiming to have just been duelling Grindelwald alongside Dumbledore - who’s now aged by sixty years.

Lord Voldemort is on the rise. Dementors surround the school. A Muggleborn Slytherin witch is fighting to find a place in the Wizarding World.

And, well, Newt’s just sort of there.

Fully completed: a Newt Scamander x original female character story, spanning the events of the HP books. Posted weekly on ao3, quotev, fanfic.net, and wattpad.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Thirty seconds can be very long sometimes. Long enough to work a miracle or a revolution.

Yes. This, exactly. This sentence is incredibly simple and it is relatable for probably just about everyone on the planet. Everything can change in thirty seconds.

She sometimes put them on of an evening in the Blue Castle…

(Do you think she wore them for dancing around to Abel’s fiddle with Barney??)

She could never tell how it happened. The ensuing thirty seconds always seemed in her recollection like a chaotic nightmare in which she endured the agony of a thousand lifetimes.

I remember reading this, curled up on a sofa very very late at night, one day before New Year, and I was sweating and gripping onto the book and my heart was absolutely pounding and I was almost too scared to read on in case Valancy died. Because until then, I’d never really considered the fact she was going to die and the story might end with her death. (Sound familiar, anyone??)

“Barney - Barney!” she called in alarm. Barney turned - saw her predicament - saw her ashen face - dashed back. He tried to pull her clear - he tried to wrench her foot from the prisoning hold. In vain. In a moment the train would sweep around the curve - would be on them.

Imagine if she hadn’t called him? Imagine if he hadn’t looked back until it was too late?

Imagine how utterly terrified he must’ve been.

“Go - go quick - you’ll be killed, Barney!” shrieked Valancy, trying to push him away.

Barney dropped on his knees, ghost-white, frantically tearing at her shoelace. The knot defied his trembling fingers. He snatched a knife from his pocket and slashed at it. Valancy still strove blindly to push him away. Her mind was full of the hideous thought that Barney was going to be killed. She had no thought for her own danger.

The romantic-terror scene of the novel; or, One Shoe And A Train Rail Vs The World, Guess Who Wins.

“Barney - go - for - for God’s sake - go!”

“Never!” muttered Barney between his set teeth.

My cardiac system was already on Windows blue-screen of death and doing error.exe. This was almost too much for sleep-deprived, thirteen-year-old-me.

He gave one mad wrench at the lace. As the train thundered around the curve he sprung up and caught Valancy - dragging her clear, leaving the shoe behind her. The wind from the train as it swept by turned to icy cold the streaming perspiration on his face.

Okay, so. Imagine what the hell the poor train driver thought. And also, I don’t know that much about train-tracks, and especially not older ones, but like…a shoe is a fairly big impediment? Imagine if it had just derailed the entire train. And what kind of a train was it? Were there passengers?

Anyway.

“Thank God!” he breathed.

For a moment they stood stupidly staring at each other, two white, shaken, wild-eyed creatures.

I. Want. The. Movie.

His silence was very eloquent: Had the same thought occurred to him? Did he suddenly find himself confronted by the appalling suspecion that he was married, not for a few months or a year, but for good and all to a woman he did not love and who had foisted herself upon him by some trick or lie? Valancy turned sick before the horror of it. It could not be.

Oh Valancy, I know you just had a near-death experience and thought the love of your life was going to die and all, but…For such an intelligent woman, you can be so. Foolish.

…and said casually:

“I suppose we’d better be hiking back. Sun’s getting low. Are you good for the rest of the road?”

I have never seen such an extreme case of ‘fake it till you make it’. Ever.

Valancy would have given her year of happiness to have been able honestly to answer ‘yes’.

“No,” she said flatly.

Oh dear god. SIT DOWN AND TALK, YOU EEJITS.

Barney went into Bluebeard’s Chamber and shut the door. She heard him pacing up and down - up and down. He had never paced like that before.

And an hour ago - only an hour ago - she had been so happy!