jaha ish ⁻ ᶠᵉᵃʳ ᵗʰᵉ ᵐᵒᵐᵉⁿᵗ

Tara glared forward at her reflection in the mirror.

She had been sitting there for the better half of the past hour, trying desperately to tame her hair into something that was the semblance of acceptable for the wedding that they were expected to be at fairly soon. 

In the end, with a huff of annoyed defeat, she had opted to simply wind the strands into two braids down and over her shoulders.

As she absentmindedly tugged at the ends, trying to force them to become the same length without her having to completely re-do them for the fifth time, she suddenly noticed that another figure had joined hers in the mirror's reflection.

Propped up in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and a small smile on his face, was Theseus. He was done up in a fairly smart-looking suit, but had clearly done next to nothing with his hair.

Tara silently cursed him for that. That man could go through an entire battle and somehow his hair would come out of it perfect.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked, her hands falling into her lap.

Theseus let out a low laugh, pushing himself off of the wall and walking further into the room.

“Longer than you’d like, I’m sure.”

Tara rolled her eyes, running her hands down the front of her black dress a few, repetitive times. She then looked at Theseus’ reflection again, gesturing down with a wave.

“Well…how do I look?”

Theseus put on a false expression of pensiveness.

“Hmmm.” he mused for a moment. “I think you’re gonna have to change.”

Tara blinked in surprise.

“What? Why?”

A mischievous smile slowly appeared on the wizard’s face.

“I think you’re gonna upstage the bride.”

Tara felt her face ignite with heat, an embarrassed groan falling out of her throat as she severed eye contact in the mirror.

“Theseus Scamander I do not have time for this.” she grumbled.

The Auror simply continued to laugh.

Staring harshly at the mirror, Tara fought back the desire to once more re-braid her hair. Instead, she reached for the two, small black ribbons that were laying on the top of the desk. Bringing them each up to the bottom of the respective braids, she quickly tied them into bows.

As she did so, Theseus appeared behind her, his hands coming to a gentle rest on the tops of her shoulders.

When she inevitably dropped her hands from her hair, she hesitantly re-directed her attention back to the wizard's reflection.

There was a singular beat of silence before Theseus suddenly let out a breath, shaking his head from side to side.

“How in Merlin’s name did I get so lucky?”

All joking tones in his voice had gone. And the genuine awe that appeared in his eyes was something that Tara had in fact seen before but somehow, after everything that they had gone through these past five years…suddenly felt immensely different .

There had always been a part of her that had been overprepared to lose him. Having lost damn near everything and everyone else, she had constantly primed herself for that reality, every time one of them so much as walked out their front door. Or even, more buried in her subconscious, the reality in which he left of his own accord, upon deeming her nature far too much to deal with. She had been so ready for both those universes, no matter how much they would surely hurt to live in.

But this one…

The one in which she hadn’t lost him. The one in which his love for her only seemed to grow over the years just as furiously as hers did…she hadn’t been prepared for it.

Tara stood up from the chair, finally turning to face Theseus head-on. Her eyes took a long moment to dance across his expression, committing every inch of it to her memory before finally, a soft smile of her own made its way onto her face.

Reaching out, she gently ran her hands down the front of his suit, smoothing down the lapels a few times.

“If we’re going to talk about luck…” she started, glancing back up at his face. “I think I’m the winner there.”

With a pointed scoff, Theseus’ reached up to cover her hands with his own, keeping her palms pressed to his chest. 

“Is everything a competition to you?”

Tara smirked.

“Pretty much.”

With one last roll of his eyes, Theseus leaned down to press a quick, but purposeful kiss onto the witch’s lips.

“C’mon.” he mumbled as he pulled back. “We’re gonna be late.”

The two of them quickly grabbed their coats and wands before finally apparating out of their London homestead.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Tara and Theseus appeared on a mostly dark, sleepy, New York street a few moments later, the residual wind from their apparation blowing their hair slightly as they got their bearings. When they did, they noticed that the only real source of light, outside of the small lanterns that dotted the edges of the sidewalks, was pouring out of the front windows of a nearby building. The golden letters printed on the glass read; “Kowalski’s Bakery.”

Standing just outside the front door, was none other than the youngest Scamander brother. 

In his hand, Newt was holding a small piece of paper and was seemingly muttering under his breath as his eyes darted across what was printed there. He was pacing anxiously up and down the sidewalk as he did so.

Snow was gently falling all around them, with about two or so inches already coating the street. It was cold, but somehow still magical in its own right.

Tara’s eyes suddenly drifted past Newt, instead taking note of the semi-shadowy figure that was making its way towards the bakery, coming from the opposite direction that they had arrived in. As they passed underneath one of the streetlamps, the soft light briefly illuminated their face, causing Tara’s eyes to widen in slow recognition.

Theseus had made a move towards his brother, lips parting in what she assumed to be a greeting of some sort, so Tara quickly reached over and all but slammed her hand over his mouth. 

The Auror whipped his head towards her incredulously, but she just gestured back with her head, not daring to say a word.

“The maid of honor, I presume?” the Magizoologist spoke almost immediately as she had done so.

Tina Goldstein finally stepped out into the light of the bakery. There was a shy smile on her face, and her hands were buried deep within her jacket pockets as she stopped a few paces in front of Newt.

“The best man, I gather?” the witch replied warmly.

Theseus finally fell still, his realization setting in. So, Tara quickly dropped her hand from his face as the two of them continued to watch on in complete silence.

“You’ve done something with your hair?” Newt asked.

“No. Oh…well, yes, actually. Just for tonight.” Tina stumbled over a response.

“Well, it suits you.”

Tina beamed.

“Thank you, Newt.”

Tara found herself biting back a smile of her own.

Another crack of wind echoed over the otherwise quiet streets as a figure apparated into existence perfectly in the middle of the two groups of two.

Lally brushed her hair over her shoulder, her head tilting from side to side in order to greet everyone gathered there with a smile. At her arrival, Theseus and Tara deemed it safe enough to finally make their way closer to the bakery.

“Hello.” 

Newt reached out to gently place a hand on Tina’s waist.

“Look who’s here.” he said happily.

The assembled wizards began to exchange pleasantries, and Tara made a point to reach over with her free hand to shake Tina’s. She suddenly felt like a teenager again as she was formally introduced to the person her best friend had a crush on.

“How are you?”

“You look wonderful, Lally.”

“Well, thank you, Newt. I appreciate it.” the professor replied. She then gestured towards the piece of paper he was still clutching tightly in his hands. “Good luck.”

Newt winced.

Lally then turned to grab a pointed hold of Tina’s arm.

“Tina, come on. You must tell me how MACUSA’s been.” she said brightly, escorting the Auror inside the bakery.

Newt had made a step, as if to follow them, but stopped dead in his tracks. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder, as if hearing something call out to him.

Following his gaze, Tara was quick to notice that there was a person sitting on the bench directly across the street from where they stood. He was safely obscured by the shadows, but even she could recognize the coat and hat that he was wearing.

“What about me?” Theseus called out to his brother, breaking the growing silence. “How do I look?”

Newt turned his head back to the two wizards still standing outside with him.

“You look fine.” he replied shortly, glancing down at his paper again.

Tara tilted her head to the side.

“You alright, Newt?”

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

“You’re not nervous, are you?” Theseus asked. “Can’t be nervous about a speech after saving the world.”

Newt didn’t respond. Instead, his attention briefly returned to the figure across the street. And when he did inevitably glance back at the couple, Tara just nodded her head over her shoulder. Wordlessly telling him to go.

With that permission, the Magizoologist was quick to trot across the snow-covered street, leaving behind a trail of footsteps as he went. He ultimately landed in front of the bench, beginning a soft conversation that neither of them could make out. 

Tara tilted her head up towards the sky, closing her eyes for a moment and breathing as snowflakes softly landed on top of her nose and cheeks. 

That’s when the front door of the bakery suddenly burst open.

“Hey, Newt!” Queenie’s high-pitched voice echoed out across the street.

Glancing back at the building in surprise, Tara found herself looking at the bubbly, blond American witch. She was fully done up in her brilliant white wedding dress, and was illuminated by the soft glow of the bakery lights, giving her already bright expression and excitable smile and even more enchanting glow. 

“Jacob seems to think he’s lost the ring!” Queenie continued to call out to the Scamander across the street. “Please tell me you’ve got it!” 

Newt looked down at his coat pocket for a moment before immediately picking his head back up.

“No, it’s all good!” he assured her.

At Tara’s side, Theseus let out a low rumble of a laugh.

Queenie sighed in relief, sending the wizards in front of her a quick smile in greeting before slipping back inside.

As Newt went back to speaking with Dumbledore, Tara found herself staring off into the middle-distance. 

At the mere mention of a ring, she had been rather violently brought back down to the earth. And the feeling of Theseus’ hand in hers was suddenly red hot. 

Eventually, Newt returned to their side of the street. They watched him pocket his speech, before offering them both a shy smile and disappearing inside the bakery without another word.

On the other side of the windows, they could see people flitting about, both Muggle and wizard alike. The wedding cake was also visible, propped up just behind the main counter, and clearly of Jacob’s own meticulous design.

Immediately after the door closed behind Newt, someone else came hurrying down the street. She wore a dress with a simple pattern of red roses printed on it, and was shuffling through the snow with some semblance of anxious urgency. 

Bunty didn’t even glance at Tara or Theseus before she was practically throwing open the bakery door and stumbling inside. 

At that, Theseus let out a small but amused scoff.

“We should probably head in too.” he noted, making a move towards the door.

But just before he could reach out and grab for the handle, he found himself met with subtle resistance, as the witch holding his hand remained completely stationary.

Peering back over his shoulder, the wizard raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“You alright?” he asked, immediately moving back into her personal space.

Tara’s expression was mostly blank, her eyes briefly darting across his face before forcing herself to swallow in an attempt to quell the growing dryness in her throat.

Maybe this was a bad idea. It had been so long since the last time after all. Perhaps he no longer even wanted to-

Tara quickly shook her head.

“Theseus…” she started, her words coming out in a barely audible whisper.

The Auror blinked.

“Yeah?”

Tara swallowed a second time.

“Ask me.” she finally managed to cough. “Ask me again. Please.”

Theseus’ reaction was slow setting. With every passing second, his eyes seemed to widen a fraction of an inch more. Snow had begun to collect on both of their shoulders at that point, as the entire world fell impossibly quiet around them.

A smile finally exploded across the man’s face, one of the widest that she had ever seen to date. He immediately slipped his hand out of hers in order to dive towards his pants and coat pockets instead, fumbling around for only a few seconds before producing a black, velvet box out in between them.

Tara let out a surprised scoff.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been carrying that with you all this time.” she said breathlessly.

Theseus stared back at her with all the sincerity in the world.

“Tara, I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen goddamn years old.” he declared. “You’re it for me. Always have been. And always will be. I was willing to be buried with this box in my pocket if you never did end up changing your mind.”

Tara felt the hot burn of tears beginning to materialize at the bottom of her eyes, and her chin had begun to tremble.

Theseus smiled once more before carefully lowering himself down into the snow, flicking the back of his suit jacket out slightly so he didn’t catch it on his heel as he did. Propped up one knee, Theseus held up the small box that was now resting gently in the center of his palm. 

Tara had to do her best to keep from breaking into a sob right then and there, before he had so much as spoken a word. She bit down hard on the inside of her bottom lip as she watched the Auror set his shoulders with a particularly deep breath.

“We live in a dangerous, violent world.” Theseus began to say, snowflakes continuing to pile on his head and shoulders. “And it’s terrifying to wake up every single day not knowing what is going to happen next. But when I do wake up, and it’s next to one of the boldest, strongest witches I have ever known…that terror is instantly gone. You are the very reason that I am able to do what I do, Tara. And I’ve always wished that I could become the same for you. Someone who you could feel safe with. Someone who you didn’t always have to be so damned headstrong around”

A teary laugh escaped Tara’s throat at that, playfully rolling her eyes. But by then, tears were already streaming down the sides of her faces.

“So, Tara Kelly…” Theseus started again, clicking the box open. “Will you give me the extraordinary honor of becoming your husband? Will you marry me?”

And there it was.

That very same stomach flip and drop that had overcome her every single time that he had asked her in the past. That same churning that would come every time he so much as whispered that he loved her. A warmth as sweet as honey and as hot as tea seeped through her body, and despite standing covered in a thin layer of snow, she was no longer cold.

She nodded, a wide smile lighting up her face.

“Yes.” she replied, as boldly as she could manage. “Yes, I will.”

Theseus was unable to hold back the giddy and downright boyish laugh that tumbled out of his throat. He immediately pushed himself back up and onto his feet, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat.

Taking a hold of her left hand, he slid a cold, metal band onto her fourth finger.

It fit perfectly.

Tara looked from it, to Theseus’ face, her eyes shining brightly.

“It’s silver.” she whispered.

Theseus’ eyes were also watering by that point.

“Yeah, well, you hate gold, so…”

Tara let out a quiet laugh.

“I do.”

With his free hand, Theseus encased the right side of her face, pulling her lips up to his in a flash. Tara’s arms immediately encircled the wizard’s neck, having to stand on the tips of her toes in order to tug him down to her height.

And it was in that moment that Tara found, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t afraid.

She realized that there had not been a single moment in which she hadn’t been so. She had always feared the world around her, because it had constantly been doing horrible things to her and the people that she cared about the most. In response, she had been forced to build up the person that she paraded around; the tough and violent witch that could, and would, single-handedly take on anything that stood in her way. And while she had succeeded in most of those endeavors…she had always been terrified.

But then there was Theseus Scamander. Stumbling into her life and somehow lighting it up a tenfold. Whether it was him patching up her injuries in the Hufflepuff common room, rescuing her from Grindelwald, or defending her within the walls of the Ministry…he had always been there.

And now she knew, that with him, she no longer had to be afraid.

When the two of them eventually separated, they were terribly reluctant to abandon their shared oxygen.

Tara slid her hands back down to his chest, and there they remained for a moment as she felt the far away, but rapid beating of his heart.

Theseus was smiling back down at her, his eyes clouded with tears and pure, unaltered love. He gently bumped his forehead up against hers, letting out a low chuckle.

“Guess fourth times a charm, huh?” he whispered.

“Shut up, Scamander.” she muttered in return, tugging him down for another quick kiss.

Despite wanting to stay there on the snowy sidewalk forever, they both knew that it they remained outside for any longer, they were in danger of not only catching a cold, but missing the ceremony completely. So eventually, they did manage to untangle themselves just enough for them to meander back towards the front door of the bakery.

As they stepped into the warm light flowing out of the window, Theseus swiftly brought her left hand, which he now had a rather possessive hold of, up to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Tara Scamander…” he mumbled as he dropped it again. “...kinda has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Uh, who said I was the one taking your name?”

Theseus instantly let out a low groan, even while pulling the door open for her.

“You are going to be the death of me, woman.”

Tara let out a wild giggle, leaning up to kiss him one last time before slipping inside the bakery, pulling a dopey Theseus along with her.

The small group had quickly sat themselves down into the small cluster of fold-out chairs packed into the middle of the quaint shop. The witnesses consisted of Tina, Lally, Bunty, Newt, Jacob’s singular employee Albert, and a few other members of both the magical and non-magical families of the bride and groom.

Queenie, decked out in her lovely lace wedding dress, had finally landed in front of Jacob and the minister, and the Muggle baker looked absolutely awestruck. 

“Wow. You’re so beautiful.” he said out loud, causing a chorus of “aww’s” to fill the room.

Queenie let out a soft laugh as the ceremony itself began.

At some point during the remarks, Tara had snaked her arms around one of Theseus’, leaning her head over to rest snugly against his shoulder. On her face was a faint but content smile that did not leave for the remainder of the evening.

Tara Kelly was 41 years old when she decided who the love of her life was. He was two years older than her, he was a prick, and his name was Theseus Scamander.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

[The End]

Emerging out onto the other side, they were instantly greeted with a dense crowd of wizards. Looming high above their position, was a large staircase, and it was absolutely covered with people. Massive banners sprung up in different positions throughout the crowd, the moving images of the ceremony beginning to take place at the very top of the mountain rippled out across the tapestries.

As the group began to subtly make their way through the thick crowd and towards the stairs, Vogel’s visage appeared on the banners as he began to address those assembled. 

“I thank the candidates for their words-” he was saying, gesturing to the three other wizards standing at his side: Liu, Santos, and Grindelwald. “Each represents a distinct vision of how we will shape not only our world, but non-magical world as well. Which brings us to the most important part of our ceremony; the walk of the Qilin!”

Tara and her group began shoving through bodies a bit faster. On the banners that they passed by, they would catch the occasional glimpse of a Qilin being placed down in front of the three wizards. The creature moved forward carefully, tilting its head from side to side before eventually coming to a stop.

Directly in front of Grindelwald.

And it bowed.

There was a long, tense moment of silence. During which, even Theseus, Tara, Lally, and Kama had stopped dead in their tracks.

“The Qilin has seen.” Vogel’s voice boomed over the mountainside. “Seen goodness, strength, qualities essential to lead, and to guide us. Who do you see?” he asked, the question directed at the crowd.

Every single one of the assembled wizards on the mountainside, spare a handful, pointed their wands at the sky, firing off spells that matched the colors of their respective votes. But the moment that the streaks of light reached the clouds, they merged together, turning into a singular, sickly green color.

On the banners themselves, they all could see Grindelwald smirking in deranged satisfaction.

Tara swallowed a growl, immediately beginning to push through the crowd again. 

“Gellert Grindelwald is the new leader of the magical world by acclamation!”

The mob roared in equal parts excitement and disgust.

As Tara made her way through the last few rows of wizards at the top of the mountainside, she was finally able to glimpse what was transpiring over the crest of the final step.

Craning her neck, she watched as two large Acolytes, much like the ones that had been pursuing them throughout the village, pushed their way into the main circle of wizards, roughly dragging someone along with them.

It was Newt. Caseless.

Grindelwald gestured forward with his head, silently commanding someone across the eyrie from him. In response, a tall, slender female witch shoved two more bodies forward. A man and a woman. The latter of which was someone she had only seen and heard about in passing; Queenie Goldstein. Sister to Tina, the American Auror, and the Legilimens that had supposedly flipped to Grindelwald’s side back in Paris.

The man at her side was none other than Jacob Kowalski. But Grindelwald’s witch had quickly dragged him straight up to where the dark wizard was patiently waiting at the center of the circle. And Queenie was restrained by the same gaggle of Acolytes that had brought Newt onto the scene.

Once the woman and Jacob landed in front of Grindelwald, she handed him what looked to be a wand. The dark wizard looked down at it for a moment before turning his attention back out towards the crowd.

“This is the man who tried to take my life.” he announced, his voice carrying down the entire mountainside. “This man who has no magic, who would marry a witch and pollute our blood. This forbidden union will make us less, make us weak, like his kind. He is not alone, my friends. There are thousands who seek to do the same. There can only be one response to such vermin.” he declared darkly, throwing down the fake wand and brandishing his own.

Immediately, a bright red spell burst forth from it, nailing Jacob directly in the center of his chest and sending him sprawling out across the stone. The crowd at the edges of the circle parted ever so slightly, watching as he began to writhe in pain. 

“ Crucio! ”

Tara’s breath caught in her throat loudly.

“No!” she heard Newt scream from somewhere off to her right.

“Make him stop!” Queenie’s sob came next.

“Our war with the Muggles begins today!” Grindelwald roared, earning some cheers in response from his supporters.

Tara’s stomach lurched as she began to once more shove wizards aside, her wand in hand. But just as she managed to break through the final line of bodies, an arm materialized around her waist, holding her back with all of its strength.

The witch fought against Theseus’ grasp, demanding that he let her go. And in the middle of the commotion, Grindelwald’s attention had somehow been drawn towards their position. Despite his magic still fully concentrated on the withering Jacob, the moment his eyes fell upon the witch that was trying desperately to leap forward and attack him, he threw his head back and began to cackle loudly.

In the midst of the growing chaos, Santos raised her wand, casting a defensive spell in front of Jacob and effectively dispeling the Cruciatus curse. The Muggle had gasped in desperate relief. And somehow, Queenie broke forward, falling at his side and fiercely pulling him into her arms.

Grindelwald turned around with his arms outstretched to either side of him, clearly basking in the feeling of his imminent victory.

Tara was still fighting, rather violently, against Theseus’ attempts to keep her held back. So the Auror was forced to add a second arm to his efforts.

“Don’t.” he spoke directly into her ear. “This is exactly what he wants.”

“I don’t care.” Tara immediately barked back.

It was at that moment that the sharp cry of a bird sounded from high above their heads. Tara wouldn’t have paid it any mind, had Grindelwald not pointedly turned his attention up towards the sky himself, following the slow path of a falling feather. It landed directly on the side of his face, turning to ash upon impact.

The dark wizard squinted in what appeared to be a sudden onslaught of concern, his gaze quickly flying back towards the crowd in front of him. 

That’s when a body pushed its way through, only a few paces to the left of where Tara and Theseus stood.

It was Credence.

Tara froze.

She hadn’t seen the boy since Paris all those years ago. His hair had grown out long, and now hung in stringy strands down to about his shoulders. He looked terribly pale and weak, as if plagued by a violent illness. But still, he pushed himself to walk forward, approaching Grindelwald with seemingly no fear at all. 

The dark wizard watched his every step with a careful intensity.

Once Credence came to a stop, he slowly reached a hand up as if moving to cradle Grindelwald’s face. But instead, he swiped a single finger across the collection of ash on the man’s cheek, smearing it with a purpose.

In the confusion of the moment, two more shapes stumbled out of the crowd, following what clearly had been the path that Credence had taken. It was both Dumbledore brothers. 

The sickly wizard boy turned to address the assembled population.

“He’s lying to you.” he called out weakly. “That creature is dead.” 

He pointed to the Qilin.

Whispers immediately began to ripple through the crowd.

Speaking even so few words seemed to have used up most of Credence’s energy, for the boy soon fell to his knees, reaching up to brace a hand on the center of his chest. At the edge of the circle, Aberforth had made a move as if to run towards him, but Albus was quick to hold him back.

Across from them, Newt finally managed to escape the two Acolytes that had previously had him bound, stumbling out into the center of the eyrie himself.

“He did it to trick you.” The Magizoologist continued Credence’s statement. “He killed it and bewitched it so that you might think him worthy to lead. But he doesn’t want to lead you…he just wants you to follow.”

Grindelwald shook his head in protest.

“Words,” he spat. “Words designed to deceive. To make you doubt what you’ve seen with your own two eyes-”

“There were two Qilin born that night.” Newt quickly interrupted him. “A twin. And I know that- I know that…” he stumbled over his words, emotion suddenly wracking his body.

Grindelwald stared back at the wizard with pure malice.

“Because…? Because you have no proof.” he sneered. “Because there was no second Qilin. Am I not right?”

“Its mother had been killed.” 

“Then where is it now, Mr. Scamander?”

Newt finally fell silent. For he truly did not know the answer to that. 

Grindelwald’s expression had momentarily morphed back into a triumphant one, before suddenly his attention was drawn past the Magizoologist as a hooded figure emerged from behind the crowd of wizard dignitaries. As they stepped out into the gray sunlight, Tara could see that they were carrying a light brown leather case. 

Arriving at Newt’s side, the person brushed back their hood, revealing none other than his indispensable assistant- Bunty Broadacre.

“No one can know everything, Newt. Remember?” she said quietly, handing the case to him.

The moment that she did so, the small woman seemingly became aware of just how many eyes were on her, and swiftly turned to disappear back into the cover of the crowd.

Newt wasted no time flicking open the latches of the case, placing it flat down against the stony ground. He then slowly opened the lid, a silence falling over the entire mountainside as he did.

Everyone was still for a moment, before suddenly a small head poked itself up and out from inside.

The Qilin glanced around at the crowd with wide and curious eyes.

Newt smiled down at the creature, seemingly more in relief than anything else. With his assistance, she carefully crawled out of the case, slowly getting her bearings.

As if smelling something in the air, her head instantly tilted to the left, honing in on where the bewitched Qilin was still standing, unmoving, at Grindelwald’s feet. It let out a few soft, repetitive bleats, but the other creature did not react.

“She can’t hear you, little one.” Newt said heartbrokenly. “Not here. But perhaps somewhere she’s listening in.”

Tara felt a hot tear fall from her eye.

Vogel suddenly surged forward, scooping up the Qilin still standing at Grindelwald’s feet, only to hold it up in the air for the crowd to see.

“This is the true Qilin!” he announced. “Look at it! You can see it with your own eyes. This is the true-”

As he spoke, the creature's head slumped to the side, instantly becoming limp in his hands. 

“This can’t be allowed to stand!” someone from within the crowd shouted. “The vote must be taken again!”

“Come on, Anton! Do something!”

But Vogel did not move, just continued to stand there, stunned.

Back behind him, the living Qilin had walked away from Newt, only to begin trotting around the edge of the circle of wizards, as if looking for something, or someone, in particular.

“No, no, no, please.” Tara suddenly heard Dumbledore begin to whisper from off to her left. But by that point, the Qilin had already come to a stop at the professor’s feet. She stared up at the wizard for a moment, her eyes shining with a wise innocence, before slowly lowering herself to the ground in a pointed bow.

Dumbledore shook his head, quickly kneeling himself down to the Qilin’s level.

“I’m honored.” he said quietly, swallowing back some emotion. “Just as two of you were born that night, there is another here. Equally worthy. I’m certain of it.” he urged, gently running a hand down the Qilin’s head before whispering one last “Thank you.”

The creature eyed Dumbledore for a moment longer before finally adhering to his wishes, turning and trotting its way back around the circle. She then seemed to turn her attention inwards, looking at the smaller collection of wizards gathered in the center of the eyrie. And after evidently thinking for another long moment, she finally landed in front of Santos, dipping into a low bow in front of the female wizard. One that Santos had immediately returned, her hand pressed above her heart.

Grindelwald immediately sneered in response, re-brandishing his wand.

Seeing this, Credence launched back up onto his feet, placing himself pointedly in between the creature and the dark wizard. But this didn’t seem to make Grindelwald hesitate in the slightest, instead he continued to cast his spell forward.

Just as fast, however, a bright, white shield of energy appeared in front of the frail wizard. It’s source stemming from two wands in particular; those of Aberforth and Albus.

Grindelwald’s attention immediately snapped towards the latter, his eyes wide in what seemed to be genuine surprise. 

At first, it seemed like nothing happened, the two forces of magic simply burned together for a long moment in front of a cowering Credence.

Then suddenly, there was movement. Something shot out of Dumbledore’s front coat pocket.

It was the Blood Troth.

Tara followed its path with wide eyes, watching as it dove down toward the ground, spinning in a violent spiral towards the stones of the mountaintop.

All around them, the other assembled wizards had already begun to shoot up streams of yellow sparks in a show of support for Santos. 

Then the Blood Troth hit the ground. It immediately shattered into a thousand different pieces, red smoke rising up from the point of impact.

Grindelwald’s eyes darted from the broken accessory to the thousands of wizards surrounding him. All of the banners dotting the mountainside had since changed from his murky green, to a pleasant yellow color. 

And soon enough, hundreds upon hundreds of wands were pointed in his direction.

Knowing that he was beaten, he wasted no time in apparating himself back towards the very edge of the eyrie. Many wizards released their spells upon his movements, forcing him to throw up a transparent shield of energy in order to protect himself. Once the initial barrage stopped, his eyes scanned the hostile crowd before once more landing on Albus.

“I was never your enemy.” he declared for everyone to hear. “Then or now.”

And before another collection of spells were fired his way, Grindelwald fell backwards off of the side of the cliff, disappearing from their sights in a sharp snap of wind.

Tara finally managed to slip out of Theseus’ grasp, all but sprinting towards the edge of the summit, a few members of her party quickly following.

But when she arrived, all she found were clouds.

Grindelwald had gotten away once again.

Tara dug her fingers into the stone wall in front of her, hanging her head in frustrated defeat. Lally, who had since appeared at her side, placed a hand on the witch’s shoulder, but otherwise said nothing.

With another shake of her head, Tara glanced back at the crowd she had left. She watched Aberforth disappear back down the staircase, carefully ushering along a weak-looking Credence with him. Newt and Bunty were both busy coaxing the Qilin back down and into the case, talking quietly amongst themselves for a moment as they did. And Jacob and Queenie were embracing each other tightly a few paces away to their right.

A small breath escaped Tara’s throat.

Yes, Grindelwald had gotten away once again.

But everyone that she cared about was okay.

And that would have to do for now.

Hands suddenly materialized on either side of her shoulders.

“You alright?” Theseus asked.

Tara just stared up at him for a silent moment. Her anger over Grindelwald escaping dissipated the very instant that his eyes found hers. The instant that she was able to see the way his shoulders were rising and falling as he breathed.

Reaching up, she gently grabbed a hold of both his wrists, keeping him anchored to her. She then glanced back to her left, staring out into the cloud-covered depths of the mountainside.

Taking a particularly deep breath in, she returned her attention to Theseus, managing to nod in response to his question. She watched the path of his emotion as it rippled across his face. His hands then slipped behind her shoulders, pulling her into a particularly tight hug instead.

Tara let out a shakier, more unsteady breath as her face found momentary refuge against his chest.

The two of them stood like that for a few long moments, wholly ignoring the hubbub of movement and chatter going on behind them for as long as was physically possible for them to do so. In fact, it was only when Newt had taken the time to join them at the cliff’s edge that Tara finally managed to lift her head again.

The witch reached out a hand, grabbing at her friend's arm with a purpose.

“Are you okay?”

The Magizoologist answered with a simple nod of his head, a small smile playing at the very edges of his lips. Tara sent him back one of her own before releasing his sleeve.

Theseus reluctantly dropped the complete hold that he had on Tara, but notably kept one arm tightly resting around her shoulders. As if part of him was still worried that at any moment she would turn around and leap off of the cliffside in pursuit of Grindelwald.

Dumbledore was the next wizard to make his way over to their small group, his eyes briefly staring out at the cloudy landscape. After a long moment of silence, he unfolded his palm, allowing those gathered to see the shattered remains of the troth that laid there.

“Remarkable.” the professor mused quietly.

“But how?” Newt questioned. “I thought you couldn’t move against one another.”

“We didn’t.” Dumbledore replied. “He sought to kill. I sought to protect. Our spells met…let’s call it fate.” he said, smiling slightly as he fully turned towards the group of three. “After all, how else would we fulfill our destinies?”

Tara took a single step forward, causing Theseus’ arm to fall from her shoulders. She stared forward at Dumbledore, her intense gaze taking a moment to trace his expression. 

“Albus…” she began to speak, her voice low. “Promise me you’ll find him.”

The professor smiled back at his former student before eventually nodding his head, sealing his oath earnestly, but silently.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

The group made the trip back up the hill to Hogwarts early the following morning. A low, dense mist had settled across the valley over the night, and was slowly but surely being burnt away by the sunlight.

Many of the students were still fast asleep as Dumbledore ushered them down the halls.

Tara found herself unable to pick her gaze above the tips of her shoes, not exactly desiring to engage with the memories that would materialize should she look down a corner, or even out of a window. And it was only when Dumbledore finally ordered them to stop, that she was finally able to gather the courage to lift her head.

They found themselves facing a mostly blank, stone wall at the convergence of two large corridors.

Without any words spoken, or any wands brandished, the stones in front of them suddenly began to shake and shift until finally, an ornate door had formed in the dead center of the wall.

With a victorious smile, Dumbledore once more urged the group forward.

They emerged out into a rather empty room, spare for the collection of odd objects sitting in the center of it. The first was a large, floating ornate wheel of sorts that hovered about three feet off of the ground. Surrounding it, in a very ritualistic-looking circle, were six identical, brown leather cases.

Jacob leaned into Newt’s shoulder as they all shuffled inside.

“Hey, Newt, what is this place?”

“The room we require.” the Magizoologist replied vaguely.

Dumbledore stepped out in front of the assembled party, wringing his hands out in front of his stomach.

“I trust all of you have the tickets that Bunty gave you?”

Everyone nodded their heads in confirmation, Jacob excitedly lifting up the piece of parchment that they had all been issued during their walk up towards the castle.

“You’ll need them to gain access to the ceremony.” the professor continued, nodding his head over his shoulder. “What do you think, Newt? Can you tell which one is yours?”

The younger Scamander took a moment to drag his eyes around the circle of cases before slowly shaking his head.

“No.”

“Good. I’d be worried if you could.”

“I assume the Qilin’s in one of these cases?” Lally asked smartly.

“Yes.” 

“Well, which one is it?”

“Which one indeed.” Dumbledore said in response, a small smile appearing on his face.

Tara let out a breath of disbelief.

“Oh, it’s like a three-card monte thing.” Jacob piped up, causing a confused silence to fall over the room. “Like the shell game thing? Like a short con- nevermind. It’s a Muggle thing.”

“Grindelwald will do anything within his power to get his hands on our rare friend.” Dumbledore pointed out. “Therefore, it’s essential we keep whoever he dispatches on his behalf guessing so the Qilin gets to the ceremony safely. If by teatime, the Qilin- not to mention all of us- are still alive, we should consider our efforts a success.” The professor said as he donned his hat and scarf.

Jacob suddenly raised his hand again.

“For the record, no one ever died playing three-card monte.” he pointed out nervously.

“An important distinction.” Dumbledore noted. “All right, everyone choose a case, and we’ll be on our way. Mr. Kowalski, you and I will proceed together first.”

“Me?” the Muggle asked in surprise. “Okay.”

Jacob slowly wandered forward, reaching for the first case that he crossed paths with. But Dumbledore quickly cleared his throat. When the man glanced over at him, he found the professor not-so-subtly shaking his head. 

Standing back up straight, Jacob glanced around the circle again, then pointed wordlessly at one across from where he was standing. 

This time, Dumbledore nodded.

Picking up the case, Jacob paused for an awkward moment as the ornate wheel in front of him began to sparkle. And as Dumbledore reached out a hand to touch it, the room was instantly filled with a bright and powerful golden light.

“I’m looking forward to you educating me a little further on the finer points of three-card monte.” the professor said, offering his other hand for Jacob to take.

“My pleasure.” the man replied. The wheel began to spin faster and faster before finally, the two of them vanished in a flash.

Letting out breaths of their own, the remainder of the group quickly descended on the circle of cases.

“Well, good luck everybody.” Bunty said lightly.

Newt, by then, had already scooped up a case and was heading straight for the glowing wheel.

“Good luck.” he managed to shout back over his shoulder before vanishing.

“And you too, Bunty girl.” Lally said cheerfully as she skipped forward into the light. 

Tara had moved to do more or less the same, when Theseus suddenly grabbed a tight hold of her wrist. 

Her head shot back over her shoulder in surprise, watching as the wizard simply nodded his head towards the spinning wheel.

“Be careful, ok?” he said with the smallest of smiles. “Don’t do anything stupid until I come and find you.”

Tara scoffed in disbelief.

“Me do something stupid?” she repeated. “You’ve got some nerve, Scamander.”

With another smile, Theseus finally released the hold he had on her wrist.

Tara sent him one in return before taking a breath, snatching one of the remaining cases up off of the floor, and walking straight into the golden glow of the wheel.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

A singular second later, Tara was stumbling out into a Bhutan alleyway. 

She took a moment or two to gather her senses, the grip she had on the handle of the case tightening as she did so. Glancing over her shoulders in both directions, she allowed herself to breathe easier upon finding herself alone. 

At least for the time being. 

She had a vague idea of where she was meant to be heading for; a magical staircase up into the mountains where the ceremony was to take place, but she didn’t know quite where that was in reference to her current position. So, in the end, she decided to begin walking along the edges of the main road, believing that it would give her the best chance at mapping out the pathways of the village itself.

As she slunk through the shadows, she began to hear the muffled sounds of chants and cheers from somewhere up ahead. Quickly slipping into a nearby alleyway, she flattened her back up against the stone wall. There she remained for several long minutes, watching on with wary eyes as crowds of wizards began flooding past her position, thundering down the main road of the village. Many of them were holding banners and chanting the names of their respective choices for leader of the wizarding world.

The witch waited until the largest part of the crowd passed her by, before finally daring to dart across the main road, dipping down into another alleyway. As she traveled along its shadowy path, she began to hear footsteps behind her. Turning her head back over her shoulder a few imperceptible times, she clocked three dark-robed wizards that had evidently begun to tail her.

Doing the math in her head, she didn’t think that she had enough time to try and apparate in an attempt to shake them off. So instead, she opted to continue zigzagging down the uneven streets without any specific direction or destination in mind, hoping to lose them the old-fashioned way.

Continuing on like that for a few more minutes, Tara stumbled over cobblestones with her head on a paranoid swivel. Everywhere she looked, she could see their shadows following her. 

She knew it was only a matter of time before they would catch up, but she also knew that it was her job to keep them held off for as long as she possibly could. Because the more time they wasted pursuing her, the less time they had to be searching for the Qilin or accosting her friends. 

As she came upon an intersection of several different stone pathways, Tara covertly slipped her wand out from where it had been hidden in the side of her boot. Grasping it tightly in her hand, she stepped out of the cover of the shadows, swiftly spinning on her heels in order to face what had previously been her back.

A surprised breath fell out of her throat.

No one was there.

That’s when her back slammed directly into something.

Well, rather, someone.

Whirling around in a panic, wand still brandished, Tara suddenly found herself pointing it at the stunned face of Theseus Scamander.

With a gasp, she dropped the wand back down to her side, Theseus quickly mirroring her actions.

The wizard had opened his mouth, as if about to speak, when Tara suddenly caught sight of something just over his left shoulder.

As quick as light, she shot a bolt of energy forward, expertly missing Theseus and instead nailing the cloaked advisory that had been approaching his blindside. 

But in the time that it took for the enemy to collapse to the ground, the two wizards found themselves surrounded by about ten or so German Auror’s.

Falling into an instinctual defensive stance, Tara and Theseus wasted no time beginning to trade spells, blocking and countering whatever the Auror’s sent their way with equal amounts of aggression. 

The two of them fought together quite fluidly, a skill that they had been unknowingly perfecting since all the way back in their Hogwarts days. They could not only react to the threats at hand, but also could seemingly sense each other's thoughts and decisions, allowing them to maneuver accordingly. 

Once they had managed to break through a large enough chunk of the horde, they retreated up a nearby flight of stairs, one that carried them up and out of the small courtyard. All the while continuing to fire off the occasional counter spells as they went.

The moment that they reached the top, Tara felt a sharp shiver travel down her spine. Spinning on her heels, she had fired a spell forward before she even realized it herself. And the next thing she knew, she was watching an Auror tumble down from where they had been perched on a balcony overlooking the street.

Hearing Theseus grunt next to her, Tara quickly turned her attention back forward. There, she found him engaged in a rather nasty battle with an Auror that was slowly attempting to make his way up the staircase.

A flash of red crossed her vision, and her wand hand swung out in a rather violent arc. The brick and stones that made up the bottom three or four steps exploded out of the earth at her silent command. And with a simple flick of her wrist, the stones wrapped themselves around the Auror, swirling in a dangerous tornado, and effectively cutting him off from Theseus. Curling her fist even tighter around the wood of her wand, Tara then pulled it down sharply, slamming the wizard into the ground at the bottom of the stairs, the stones and bricks encasing him against the Bhutan street.

A silence quickly settled over the intersection.

Releasing a breath, Tara lowered her wand back down to her side, pointedly blowing a strand of hair around her face. Surrounding them now, were the same ten or so Auror’s, now all laying in various states of unconsciousness.

Turning her head to the side, she was met with the sight of an equally out-of-breath, but alive, Theseus. The moment that his eyes found hers, the man immediately broke out into a wide smile.

“You are one hell of a witch, you know that?”

Tara’s lips had parted in order to reply with something equally as snarky, when suddenly the sharp tip of a wand appeared in the side of her neck.

Theseus’ eyes darkened as the same was done to him. Two additional wizards emerged from the shadows behind them, and soon enough, standing before the couple was none other than Helmut himself.

“Cases, please.” the German man barked.

They hadn’t even allowed them the chance to comply. Rather two Auror’s roughly ripped them out of their hands, delivering them to the ground at Helmut’s feet.

The wizards at their necks stepped out in front of them, leveling their wands at level with their faces instead. Tara was hardly paying attention to the one in front of her, rather her gaze had darted over to Theseus, watching as he stared down the piece of wood that was damn near poking him in the eye.

She had just about finished her mental calculations, deciding that she was going to jump to the side and place her body in front of him before the Auror’s magic could go off, when suddenly Helmut raised his hand.

“Wait-” he commanded. “Open them. Make sure it’s in there, idiot.”

Back behind them, they could hear a muffled groan emit from the man that Tara had trapped underneath the stones. And if their situation had been even so much as a fraction less dire, she would’ve laughed.

Helmut sighed in annoyance, raising his wand reluctantly to release the man from his stoney bonds.

Everyone’s attention then turned towards the two cases on the ground. The assigned Auror’s pointed their wands at them, magically flipping the golden fasteners open in unison.

As if waiting for this exact moment, the two cases exploded. 

From inside of the one Theseus had been carrying, came what appeared to be an entire set of Quidditch equipment, Golden Snitch and all. The bewitched balls immediately shot out towards the Auror’s surrounding them, devolving into a rather violent magical attack.

Out of Tara’s case, come thousands upon thousands of pounds of paper. They swirled up and around their enemies, blinding and obscuring them from their captives.

Eyes wide in shock, Tara had momentarily followed the path of the Golden Snitch as it darted over a nearby rooftop. Her thoughts drifted to the rest of their party, wondering if the very same thing was happening to them. And if any of them truly carried the Qilin.

Tara was ripped out of her thoughts by the feeling of Theseus’ grabbing a fierce hold of her hand, all but dragging her down a nearby alleyway, leaving the chaos and German Auror’s behind.

The pair didn’t stop running until they found themselves centimeters away from crashing into a large group of people. Bodies were suddenly all that they could see. Wizards were everywhere, carrying banners and wearing identifying colors of their respective votes as they marched down the main village road.

Theseus pulled them to a sharp halt just before the end of the alleyway. He then quickly turned towards Tara, reaching up to pull the hood of her cloak over her head before doing the same to himself. Wordlessly, he grabbed her hand again before merging them out and into the stream of wizards.

They followed in the crowd's footsteps towards a large bridge that appeared to rise up into nothing but the clouds. The mountains of Bhutan loomed as a glorious backdrop to the sight of people continuing to thunder down the stone pathway, only to disappear through an invisible portal at the end of it.

Once they finally reached the end of the bridge, Theseus pulled them off to the side. They kept their heads held low until the main bulk of the crowds had passed through the portal. And they didn’t dare to pull back their hoods until the amount of bodies walking by slowed to an occasional trickle.

Several long minutes later, they heard the fast and unmistakable sound of heels clicking against stone. Someone was jogging down the pathway towards their position. Both Theseus and Tara picked their heads up in worried unison, only to watch Lally fall into the space at their side.

She too, notably, was now void of the case she had been carrying.

The professor greeted them with a short nod, bracing herself up against the edge of the bridge wall, evidently needing to catch her breath. Tara didn’t have to think too hard about what she could have gone through in the past half an hour.

As the group of them continued to wait on the rest of their party's arrival, Theseus had begun to pace the length of the now deserted bridge. From somewhere impossibly high above their position, a low horn sounded. The noise appeared to seep through the entire village, nearly shaking the very stones underneath their feet.

Looking back down from the sky, Tara noticed that Theseus still had yet to stop his nervous march. With a sigh, she pushed herself off of the edge of the bridge, making her way over to him. 

She purposefully placed herself into his path, forcing him to stop lest her run her over. Her eyes danced over his expression, noting just how tightly his eyebrows were furrowed together. 

“He’s gonna be here any minute.” she told him.

As if on some awful cue, the thundering sound of footsteps erupted from back out in the village. The three of them quickly turned together, watching as a semi-large group of Dark Auror’s turned the corner, heading directly for the bridge that they were standing on. Leading the charge was a rather familiar face, Yusuf Kama.

Tara held her breath, watching as the Auror’s all raised their wands out towards them, mere seconds away from casting their spells.

That’s when Kama moved.

He dropped to the ground, slamming his wand down into the earth. From it, came a huge pulse of silver magic, sending a stunning wave of force back towards those flanking him. A large crack shuddered out across the street, and all of the opposing Auror’s were immediately blown backwards, becoming still bodies against the stone.

Kama then stood back up, dusting off his coat in a rather casual manner before jogging over to the group waiting for him in the center of the bridge.

Theseus scoffed.

“What kept you?” he asked sarcastically.

Kama simply rolled his eyes in response, and the four of them moved together for the portal.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Groggy, and honestly feeling quite ill, Tara followed Lally and Jacob into the Great Hall for breakfast the following morning.

There was something about the familiarity of the walk down the halls and into the grand chamber that only served to heighten her festering anxieties. It felt wrong for it to feel so familiar. So many things had changed. So many things were missing. Things that should’ve been there. Her friends were not there. Her bullies were nowhere to be seen. And Theseus…

Tara quickly shook her head, moving to catch up with Lally.

A few scattered students had begun to arrive alongside them, and the professor had quickly placed herself at the end of the Gryffindor table in order to speak with a small group of, what appeared to be, students of hers.

Jacob, upon being revealed as a Muggle, had quickly gathered a crowd of his own. He was being bombarded with constant questions, which he answered excitedly through large bites of food.

In a stark contrast to her two companions, Tara was sitting alone, a few spaces down the table from Lally and her students. A large plate of uneaten food was splayed out before her, as her unfocused gaze lingered on the fork precariously balancing in between two of her fingers.

“Not that either of you asked-” she could hear Lally saying. “-but I would highly recommend learning Charms.”

Letting out a quiet breath, Tara lifted up her head to perform a half-hearted scan of the room. She watched clusters of small witches and wizards moving with sluggish excitement into the Great Hall. Exchanging both words and laughter with each other as they went. She had tilted her head over her shoulder to glance out at the house table that had once upon a time been hers, when suddenly she noticed two larger figures stepping through the main threshold of the chamber.

Her initial thought was that they must have been professors, for they easily towered over the students that were flowing in alongside them like the waters of a steady stream. But as her eyes remained on them for just a moment longer, they quickly glossed over with a striking recognition.

As an uneven gasp fell out of her throat, Tara pushed herself up from the wooden bench she had been sitting on. Her quick moments immediately caught Lally’s attention, who peered over the top of her students' heads to watch the witch stumble away from her breakfast.

Slipping out into the makeshift corridors between tables, Tara practically sprinted towards the back of the hall.

Where the two Scamander brothers were shuffling forward, briefly unaware.

Forgetting every ounce of embarrassment, fear, or propriety, the moment that Theseus was standing in front of her again, Tara all but launched herself forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders.

She felt a low chuckle travel through the man's chest as he instantly hugged her back.

When she eventually pried her face out of his chest, she instead braced her hands on either side of his face. Tilting his head from side to side, the witch frantically looked him over for any sign of injury. But the only things that her eyes ended up finding were superficial cuts and bruises.

Eyes still wide and wild, Tara then turned her attention to Newt, who was still standing awkwardly at his brother’s side.

“Are you both alright?” 

Newt silently nodded his head.

Turning her attention back to Theseus, Tara found his eyes already trained back on her face, seemingly unmoving. Only a soft smile painting his expression.

“What?” she whispered, confused.

Theseus’ smile grew.

“You’re hugging me.” he stated very matter-of-factly, tilting his head to the side. “In front of people.” he then added, with a voice as giddy as that of a child on Christmas morning.

Tara swallowed, swiftly dropping the hold she had on his face. As her arms fell, her fingers reached out to curl into the collection of fabric at the bottom of his shirt.

“Yeah, well…you scared me, Scamander.” she scolded in a near-whisper.

Theseus’ smile faltered ever so slightly, his hands coming to rest on either side of her hips. Applying the softest amounts of pressure, he pulled her towards him a bit, his head dipping down as if to kiss her, when suddenly Newt let out a loud, pointed cough.

“Lally.” he greeted at a slightly abnormal volume.

All three heads turned in time to watch Lally slide up to where they were standing. 

Even though they had quickly slipped apart, Theseus’ arm remained quasi-wrapped around Tara’s waist. Something Lally acknowledged with an almost inconceivable nod of her head.

“What kept you two?” the professor asked.

Newt winced.

“We encountered some complications,” he replied vaguely. “And you?”

Lally tempered smirk.

“We encountered some complications.” she repeated before handing the Magizoologist a copy of the Daily Prophet.

Looking down from over Tara’s shoulder, Theseus scoffed upon reading the headline splayed out across the front page: “ Murderous Muggle! ” Underneath which was a photo of a rather terrified-looking Jacob from the dinner fiasco the night before.

“Jacob tried to murder Grindelwald?”

“It’s…a long story.” Tara huffed.

Lally turned around to wave a hand over her shoulder at someone further down in the hall.

“Jacob! Look who we found!”

The Muggle’s head shot up, his eyes widening upon seeing the two Scamander's. He briefly turned back to the kids at the table with him, speaking some parting words before standing and jogging his way over to the small group, a large smile on his face.

“Can you believe this place? They got pint-sized witches and wizards running around here!”

“You don’t say.” Theseus muttered sarcastically.

“Newt, Theseus, and Tara all went to Hogwarts.” Lally gently informed the man.

“Oh. I knew that.” Jacob replied. “Well, they’re being very nice to me. The Slytherin boys over there, they gave me these. They’re delicious, who wants one?” he said, holding up a small pouch of what appeared to be unassuming chocolates. But when he popped one into his mouth, Tara immediately placed a hand over her own.

“I never cared for Cockroach Clusters much myself.” Newt replied. “Though Honeydukes are supposed to be the best.”

Jacob immediately paled. And a chorus of laughter erupted from the group of Slytherin students that he had pointed out previously.

Back behind him, some students and teachers had begun to slink out of the Great Hall. Breakfast was quickly winding down around them now.

Glancing over his shoulder, Theseus took note of two forms that were seemingly heading their way. And in response, Tara felt his hand flexed in the dip of her waist.

“McGonagall. Albus.” he greeted officially as the two wizards came to a stop outside of their small circle.

Dumbledore smiled back at them.

“Well done. All of you.” the professor said, clapping his hands together. “Well done. Congratulations.”

Tara blinked.

“Congratulations?” she repeated incredulously.

“Indeed.” the professor responded, gesturing out towards Lally then Theseus. “Professor Hicks managed to foil an assassination. And you are alive, and you are well. The fact that everything did not go precisely to plan…was precisely the plan.”

“Countersight 101.” Lally noted with a smirk.

With his free hand, Theseus tapped two of his fingers to his forehead, a confused wince crossing his expression.

“Albus, forgive me, but aren’t we back where we started?”

“Actually, I would argue that things are a great deal worse.” Dumbledore replied before his eyes hopped to Lally and Tara in particular. “You haven’t told them, have you?”

Both Scamander brothers immediately turned towards the two women.

Lally heaved a sigh.

“Grindelwald has been allowed to stand in the election.”

“What?” Newt exclaimed breathlessly.

“How?”

“Because Vogel chose easy over right.” Dumbledore said with a sigh. 

Taking out his wand, the professor pointed it up towards the ceiling of the Great Hall. With a swipe of his hand, he began to depict a beautiful, smokey landscape above their heads. Green mountains began to encircle them on all sides, their peaks covered in snow at the very top, with villages dotting the cliffaces at multiple different altitudes.

Jacob had momentarily stumbled on his feet, as if getting hit by a wave of nausea.

“Bhutan.” Newt quickly identified.

“Correct. Three points to Hufflepuff.” Dumbledore quipped. “The kingdom of Bhutan sits high in the Eastern Himalayas. It’s a place of indescribable beauty. Some of our most important magic has its origins there. They say if you listen carefully enough, the past whispers to you…it also happens to be where the election will be held.”

There was a pause, as the group continued to stare at the shifting and changing landscape above their heads.

“He can’t win…can he?” Theseus asked quietly.

“Only a few days ago, he was a fugitive from justice.” Dumbledore said knowingly. “Now he’s an official candidate in the International Confederation of Wizards. Dangerous times favor dangerous men.”

Dumbledore then placed his wand back into his pocket before turning heel and making his way towards the main entrance of the Great Hall, the smoky depiction of Bhutan slowly fading in the absence of his magic.

“And by the way-” Dumbledore said, calling back to the group over his shoulder. “-we’ll be dining with my brother in the village. Should you need anything before then, Minerva is here.”

When the professor finally disappeared from their sights, Lally glanced back over at her fellow co-conspirators.

“Dumbledore has a brother?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

When night fell, the group promptly returned to the same run-down tavern that Tara and the Scamanders had met Dumbledore in only a few weeks prior. The professor himself had been the one to push open the door for the rag-tag squadron as they all filed inside.

Emerging out into the dimly lit room of the bar, they found that three forms were already gathered inside: Aberforth, Bunty, and the Qilin. The latter of which was happily prancing up and down the length of the bar itself. Aberforth had just been setting down a small bowl of milk for it as they made their entrance.

“Bunty! You’re here!” Newt greeted.

“Yes.”

Newt immediately b-lined for the bar and the Qilin.

“How is she?”

“Oh, she’s fine.” Bunty replied with a wave of her hand. As she spoke, two smaller shapes darted out from underneath the stool she was sitting on, heading straight for Newt.

“Whoa!” Newt exclaimed happily as the two Niffler's clambered up his legs. “What’s Alfie done now? You’ve not been biting Timothy’s bottom again, have you?” he cooed.

Tara tempered down a smile.

“Miss Broadacre-” Dumbledore greeted kindly, making his way over to the bar. “I trust my brother has been a gracious host?”

“Yes. Ever so gracious.”

Dumbledore glanced over his shoulder at where his brother was stirring something in a large, steaming pot behind the bar.

“I’m delighted to hear.” Dumbledore noted. “So, rooms have been arranged for you in the village, and Aberforth here will prepare you a delicious dinner. His own recipe.” he explained with a clap of his hands.

As if on some sort of pre-practiced cue, Aberforth came out from around the bar, only to practically slam the large, silver pot down onto the end of the table closest to him. Using his wand, small semi-broken bowls floated out from shelves that they could not see and lined themselves up on the surface of the table, before the ladle then began dishing out the gray-colored stew.

Everyone moved, with notably little enthusiasm, to sit down along the wooden benches.

“There’s more of that if you want it.” the barkeep said gruffly.

“Thank you. Thanks.” Bunty had squeaked in response.

Aberforth glared out at the group for a fraction of a second longer before stomping his way up the staircase at the back of the tavern’s main floor.

Theseus had been the first of them to take a tentative gulp of the stew.

“Astonishing…” he mumbled. “Never has something that looked so repellent tasted so delicious.”

Almost as if in agreement, the Qilin let out a shrill bleat, hopping its way up and down the long table the group was sitting at.

After the vouch from Theseus, everyone else began to dig in.

“Who’s this little one?” Jacob asked about the creature that was attempting to eat the stew out of his bowl. “Hey, do you mind?”

Newt did his best to hold back a laugh.

“She’s a Qilin, Jacob.” he began to explain. “She’s incredibly rare. One of the most beloved creatures in the wizarding world.”

“Why?”

“Because she can see into your soul.”

Jacob looked up at his friend in surprise.

“Oh, you’re kidding me.”

The Magizoologist shook his head.

“So, if you’re good and worthy, then she’ll see that,” he explained. “If, on the other hand, you're cruel and deceitful, then she will know that too.”

“Oh yeah?” Jacob huffed, looking back over at the Qilin in front of him. “Does she just tell you that or…?”

Newt let out a soft laugh.

“Not exactly tells-”

“Well, she bows.” Lally chimed in. “But only in the presence of someone truly pure of heart.”

Jacob’s eyes had glazed over by that point. 

“I mean, almost none of us are, of course.” Lally continued to ramble on. “No matter how good a person we try to be. There was actually a time, many, many years ago, when the Qilin chose who would lead us.”

There was a pleasant pause following her words, and in that silence, Jacob stood up from the bench, walking over to the milk bowl that Aberforth had originally laid out for the small creature. He then promptly dropped some of his stew down into it. 

The Qilin squealed happily, bouncing off of the tables and vaulting back up and onto the bar.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Later on in the evening, they had all retreated into the respective rooms that Aberforth had prepared for them. Most of them had been forced to double-up due to the lack of space, a fact that Tara found herself silently grateful for. As she was given the ability to keep an overtly attentive eye on Theseus as they turned in for the night.

Even when they did finally slip underneath the shoddy covers, she was finding it particularly hard to fall asleep. Not due to the terrors that had plagued her the night prior, but rather because she was instead focusing all her energy on visually tracing Theseus’ features in the dim lantern light of the room.

“You alright?” the wizard suddenly whispered, eyes still closed.

Tara silently cursed him, but nodded her head.

“Yeah. I think so.” she replied in a whisper.

“Yeah?” he repeated, slowly peeling his eyes open.

Tara continued to watch him as he observed her expression in the dark. Pulling one of his arms out from underneath the sheets, the wizard reached over to brush some of the hair out of her face. As he did so, a small smile flickered onto his expression.

“‘Cause you’re kinda holding onto my arm a bit tight there.” he suddenly pointed out.

Tara flushed, immediately releasing the grip that she had on the limb propped up underneath her head. For a second, she had gotten a glimpse of just how white her knuckles had grown during the time they had laid there.

“Sorry.”

“No-” Theseus immediately interjected, dropping his arm to rest on top of her waist instead. “Don’t apologize.”

A tense silence fell over the room.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Theseus eventually said in a rather bold-sounding whisper. “It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than the German Ministry to take me away from you. You know that right?”

Tara caught his eyeline in the dark again, her grip re-tightening around his arm.

“I know.” she whispered in response, beginning to repeat it like a mantra. “I know.”

Theseus leaned forward just enough to press a light kiss to her forehead.

And as they finally managed to drift off to sleep, Tara could’ve sworn that she heard Theseus start humming the song he sang to the Qilin all those weeks ago.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

That evening, they were right back where they started, in the Great Hall of the German Ministry of Magic.

Donning semi-fancy clothes, Tara followed Lally and Jacob into the building, immediately searching for and finding seats amongst the multitude of tables that were now jammed into the center of the grandiose room. Plates piled high with lobster were floating about, landing in front of those already sitting in their chairs. Busboys and waitresses flitted up and down the long tables, occasionally having to duck their heads under the flying dinnerware. 

Once Tara found a seat, Lally and Jacob quickly fell into the ones on either side of her. The former of which was repeatedly mapping the room with well-trained eyes.

On the table in front of them, their goblets had filled themselves magically with wine. And whilst Jacob had been almost supernaturally quick to down his first glass, Tara hadn’t even made a move towards her own.

She never did like wine after all.

“Lally-” Jacob had spoken up after a while, swallowing down another gulp of his never-ending beverage. “The guy with the hair, sitting next to Edith. He looks like he can kill somebody.”

Tara blinked in surprise as both witches turned their heads towards the Muggle.

“Edith?” 

Lally in turn looked to where Jacob had been pointing.

“He also looks like my uncle Dominic.” the man added.

“Is your Uncle Dominic the Norwegian Minister of Magic?” Lally asked.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

As she spoke, the far doors of the hall all but burst inwards. And the air of the room seemed to drop an immediate twenty degrees in temperature.

Whipping her head to the right, Tara’s eyes widened as she watched Grindelwald and his medium-sized entourage waltz into the Great Hall. The music that had been being played by a band of musicians in a far-off corner, faltered ever-so-slightly upon their arrival.

In her chair, Tara went rigid, her eyes tracking the man across the room. She felt supernaturally possessed by both her anger and her fear. 

A hand quickly landed on her upper arm, as Lally instinctively reached out in what she could only assume was a fear that Tara was going to leap up from her seat.

But she didn’t.

She couldn’t, in fact.

As the group of dark wizards passed their position, it was actually Jacob who rose to his feet.

“Queenie…” he called out softly. “Queenie.”

Tara, finally managing to rip her eyes away from Grindelwald, tracked Jacob’s eyeline into the group of lackeys. Bypassing a squadron of Acolytes and other followers she passively remembered seeing that fateful day in Paris, momentarily lingering on Kama who was pointedly not looking in their direction, her attention finally found purchase on the woman that Jacob was calling out to.

She had short, cropped, blonde hair and wore a beautiful dark dress. But more importantly, she was doing a much, much worse job in trying to pretend that she had not heard nor seen the Muggle standing there.

Back at the head of the group, Grindelwald had stridden over to where Santos was standing with her own squadron.

“Madam Santos. A pleasure. Your supporters are in fine voice.” he said, his words carrying out across the room more than Tara would’ve liked.

The female delegate fixed her smile as pleasantly as possible.

“As are yours, Mr. Grindelwald.”

Now sitting down at a table of their own, Tara watched on with wary eyes as Grindelwald leaned down towards the blond-haired witch from before. She had jumped in surprise, seemingly lost in thought prior to his words, but quickly tuned in to what he was saying. The dark wizard had gestured over his shoulder with his head, and the woman was quick to direct her attention towards a back corner of the Great Hall.

Instantly following suit, Tara’s mouth fell open in surprise as she found herself suddenly staring at the half-hidden figure of Credence. He was lingering in the shadows of the entranceway that the group had sauntered through only minutes prior.

The blond witch nodded her head, quickly rising from her chair and beginning to head in the boy's direction. When she inevitably passed by their table again, Jacob had once more risen to his feet. And as the woman turned her head away from them this time, Tara could clearly see the way that her shoulders were shaking with the effort it evidently took her to do so.

Suddenly, Lally pushed her chair back, placing a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. Her eyes were trained on something at the complete opposite end of the room.

“Stay here.” the witch instructed before slipping into the crowd, beginning to snake around the edges of the tables.

Tara took a moment to watch her, quickly catching onto the way that she was seemingly following one waiter in particular. Both of them now approaching Santos’ end of the table.

Back at her side, still standing, Jacob let out a long sigh. The Muggle then took a pointed chug of the remainder of what she believed to be his third glass of wine before pushing his chair back and beginning to walk across the room.

The witch was on her feet in an instant.

“Jacob, no-!” she tried to whisper, but the Muggle was already long gone.

And he was making a b-line straight for Grindelwald.

Without hesitating, Tara tore off after him.

Shouldering past thick clusters of other wizards, she did her best to catch up with the semi-swaying man before he sauntered up to the dark wizard, but she was a fraction of a second too late.

The silver-haired man glanced up to regard the Muggle’s arrival with a mostly impassive expression.

“Let her go.” Jacob blurted out as Tara shoved yet another waiter out of her way.

“Excuse me?”

Finally, Tara arrived at Jacob’s side, immediately grabbing a hold of his arm in order to pull him away. But in the process of her doing so, her eyes had landed on the dark wizard sitting in front of them. The one who had murdered her parents. The one who had murdered her best friend. The one that had tried, on multiple occasions, to murder her. And she simply could not fight against the way that her feet frozen to the marble floor.

Grindelwald’s eyes were slow to slide over to the newcomer. But once they had, a sickening smile immediately appeared on his face.

“Tara Kelly…as I live and breathe. How lovely it is to see you again.” he spoke, his voice coated with a dark, velvety smoothness. Grindelwald then picked his head up, making a show of glancing about the room behind them. “But- where, oh where is your Head of the British Auror Office?” he asked mockingly.

Tara did not answer him. Mostly because she physically could not bring herself to do so. Her blood had quickly reached a boiling point beneath her skin, and all she could do in response was glare back at his smiling face.

At her side, Jacob had reached into his back pocket. In a flash, he had his fake wand pointed forward, directly at Grindelwald, whose attention turned towards it in what appeared to be genuine surprise.

“Assassin!” someone cried out from behind them.

In a millisecond, all attention in the room was on Tara and Jacob.

Cursing under her breath, Tara tried to calculate a frantic escape plan. But before she could do so, a huge, violent tornado exploded forward, seemingly from the tip of Jacob’s wand. It sent every object in the immediate vicinity careening in a thousand different directions.

As Tara instinctively held a hand up to shield her eyes and head from the flying furniture, she somehow managed to catch a glimpse of Lally across the room. She had been firing spell after spell at the wizard she was currently engaged in battle with, before reaching out into the air, and producing her trusty textbook in a flash of bright light.

The main doors of the Great Hall burst open again, depositing a group of German Auror’s into the now immensely chaotic room. And the man leading the charge was the now infuriatingly recognizable Helmut.

Furniture was still flying everywhere, and Tara quickly tried again to tug at Jacob’s arm, which was now even more difficult to do since he was seemingly having trouble controlling the tornado pouring out from his wand.

At their backs, the giant, shining chandelier that had been hanging above the banquet, swiftly crashed down onto the marble floor. Shattering into a million, glorious pieces.

Both Tara and Jacob turned their heads towards the sight, only to be immediately met with a sea of parchment pages shooting towards them with a purpose. Lally, while deflecting the onslaught of spells from the Aurors, was simultaneously using the floating pages as steppingstones, hastily thundering towards their location. 

Tara’s eyes widened, immediately tugging harshly at Jacob’s arm, once more urging him forward. And finally, she succeeded in her efforts. 

They leapt up onto the tables at their backs, using them as a launching platform for them to then throw their bodies up to the floating pieces of paper, quickly beginning to stumble towards the professor.

A large blast of magic hit the wave of papers at Lally’s heels, instantly setting them ablaze. The fire was hot on their face, and fastly approaching their position in the air. But by then, the group of three had already reached each other. And when they all grabbed a simultaneous hold of Lally’s book, they were sucked into the portkey in a sharp snap of wind.

Tara, Jacob, and Lally rolled out and onto a cold, expansive lawn. As their momentum slowly came to a halt, the three found themselves sprawled out amongst the otherwise peaceful soil and wet blades of grass.

Groaning, Tara used her fists to slowly push herself up off of the ground before shakingly climbing back to her feet. Swiping her hair out of her face, she quickly took in their immediate surroundings, her eyes landing on the large castle that loomed several hundred meters up the hillside from where they had appeared.

An indignant scoff escaped her throat as she stared up at the walls of her former school before swiftly turning back to her companions, watching as Lally hauled Jacob onto his feet.

“I have to go back.” Tara said breathlessly, moving over to grab a hold of Jacob’s other arm. He still appeared to be a bit dazed and confused by all that had transpired over the past hour. “Newt and Theseus are still at the Erkstag, we don’t know what-”

“Tara…” Lally said sternly, having draped Jacob’s arms over her shoulder.

When Tara looked over at the young professor, she found an understanding, but severe expression painting her features as she slowly shook her head from side to side.

“There’s nothing you can do for them. We have to put our trust in Newt.”

Everything in Tara wanted to argue with her. But the more sensible part of her brain, however slim it was those days, somehow managed to take over. Maybe it was the way that Lally, while out of breath, appeared to be so damned calm about the entire scenario. It contrasted so starkly with the buzzing of her own anxieties, that she had no choice but to believe wholeheartedly in her words.

Without another word, Tara secured Jacob’s other arm in place over her shoulders, and soon thereafter the group of three began to hobble their way up the hillside.

Once arriving at the castle’s front gate, they were greeted by several members of the Hogwarts staff, and Jacob was swiftly whisked off to the infirmary.

Tara had loitered just outside the doors for a moment after they disappeared, just…staring blankly up at the stonemasonry surrounding her. Once more, deep into adulthood, she found herself retreating into the hallways that she had used to run down as a child. How was it that she always ended up back here? What sort of message was the universe trying to tell her by repeatedly forcing her back into the embrace of this castle?

After about fifteen minutes, Lally reemerged from inside the infirmary, quietly joining the witches' side in the middle of the dimly lit corridor.

“They’re going to keep him overnight as a precaution.” she informed her. “They’ll send him to breakfast with us in the morning.”

Tara had absentmindedly nodded in response to her words, but wasn’t really paying full attention to what she was saying. Instead, one of her nails was caught in between her teeth as she tried her hardest not to let her thoughts linger for too long on the wizards they had left behind in Germany.

Lally pursed her lips, standing silent for another moment before placing a hand on the side of the witch's arm.

“Come on, let’s get some sleep, yeah?”

Tara couldn’t bring herself to respond in the affirmative, but allowed Lally to more or less drag her to where the professors were allowing them to stay the night on some spare cots in the faculty wing of the castle.

In the end, she had gotten maybe an hour of sleep in total, finding it particularly hard to close her eyes. For every time she did, one of two images flashed to the front of her mind; Theseus bound and beaten in a dark corner of a torturous wizard prison, or Grindelwald’s smiling face.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

The following morning, the remaining four members of their group found themselves back inside the German Ministry, following a low-level official down a long, but otherwise empty corridor.

“The man that I’m inquiring about is the Head of the British Auror Office-” Newt was trying to politely explain to the man who was very overtly pretending as if he could not hear or understand what they were saying.

Tara’s anger had only festered over the night. She had barely slept, and simply did not have the patience for any of this. Shouldering past Newt, her eyes flared as she stormed up to the official herself.

“How can you have misplaced the Head of the British Auror Office!” she shouted, her voice echoing off of the walls and down the hallway ahead of them.

The official finally stopped walking and turned to face their group for the first time since they had entered the building that morning. His face seemed void of any and all emotion.

“It’s our contention that since he was never in our custody, we never misplaced him.”

“Sir-” Lally implored, arriving at Tara’s side. “There were dozens of people there. Any one of them can corroborate.”

The Ministry official just turned towards the witch with an angry scowl.

“And your name is?”

Tara saw red.

“You son of a-”

Lally quickly held her back before she could leap forward and throttle the short wizard with her bare hands.

“Let’s get outta here.” Jacob huffed, turning around to start heading back the way they had come when suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Hey! Wait, that’s the guy!”

The rest of the group snapped their heads over to look in the direction that Jacob was pointing. There, they watched as none other than Helmut himself emerged out of a distant office door, flanked by a tall Auror bodyguard. The two had begun a leisurely stroll down the hallway, in the complete opposite direction from where their group was standing.

Jacob had been all too quick to dash off after them, a panicked Newt, Lally, and Tara following close behind.

“Excuse me! Hey! That’s the guy! He knows where Theseus is! Hey! Where’s Theseus!” the Muggle was shouting as they ran. “That’s him! He knows about Theseus-”

Suddenly, a large sheet of what appeared to be glass fell from the ceiling high above their heads. It cut the hallway in half, and forced the group to skid to a halt as Helmut continued to walk further and further down the hallway, ultimately disappearing from their sight.

Tara shoved a side door of the Ministry open with her shoulder, the rest of the group filing out behind her. They had only made it the first few steps down the main staircase, when Lally suddenly stopped short.

“Newt-” she called out. 

When the Magizoologist, and the rest of the group, turned back to look at the professor, they found her pointing at something a few feet away from their position, back up by the marble pillars that stood at the front of the Ministry.

It was a black, leather glove. Just floating there in the air. 

As they continued to stand there, staring back at it in silent confusion, the glove then slowly waved at the wizards, before pointing towards the corner of the building that it was hovering a few feet in front of.

Newt quickly jogged back up the steps, snatching the glove out of the air. Almost immediately after he did so, a second one appeared further down the stone path in front of him.

The other three members of their party followed after the Magizoologist and the second glove. And when they turned the distant corner, they watched as it floated gently down towards another one of the large pillars that lined the building. 

Out from behind it, a figure emerged into the gray sunlight.

It was Dumbledore.

The professor casually plucked the one glove out of the air. And as Newt approached, he wordlessly offered him back the second. 

Without a word, Dumbledore gestured for the group to follow him further, beginning to lead them down the side of the Ministry and into a rather busy alleyway. The man’s head would occasionally glance over each of his shoulders as they went.

“Albus-” Newt finally dared to call out as they caught up with the wizard in the shadows of the buildings that now encased them on either side.

“Theseus has been taken to the Erkstag.” Dumbledore quickly interrupted.

Tara felt her heart drop into her stomach. 

“But- but the Erkstag shut down years ago.”

Dumbledore let out a soft sigh.

“Yes, well, it’s the Ministry’s secret little bed-and-breakfast now,” he said. “You’ll need this to see him-” he said, taking off his hat and dropping his gloves down into it before in turn pulling out several pieces of parchment paper. “And one of these. And this.”

Newt had taken the items without question.

Dumbledore continued to lead them down another sharp corner, walking straight up to and ultimately through a dark, brick wall. Newt and Tara had promptly followed suit, whilst Lally had been forced to push Jacob forward in order to make sure the Muggle wouldn’t fall too far behind.

“Wait, wait, wait!” the man had stuttered fearfully, only to find that they had already safely appeared on the other side.

“I trust you’re enjoying your wand, Mr. Kowalski.” the professor finally said, turning around to face their group for the first time since he had begun walking.

Jacob swallowed awkwardly. 

“Me? Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Dumbledore. It’s a real pip.”

“I advise you to keep it close.” Dumbledore replied, fishing a pocket watch out from within his coat and passively checking the time. “Professor Hicks, assuming you’re not otherwise engaged, and frankly even if you are, I’d encourage you to attend tonight’s Candidates' Dinner. Take Mr. Kowalski. I’m quite sure there will be an assassination attempt. Anything you could do to scotch that would be greatly appreciated.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Lally said in response. “I shall welcome the challenge. Besides, I’ll have Jacob with me.”

As they spoke, the Muggle looked back and forth between the two wizard professors with an expression of semi-alarm.

“Not to worry.” Dumbledore immediately attempted to assure him. “Professor Hick’s defensive magic is superb.”

“Such a flatterer.” Lally said, waving her hand dismissively out in front of her. “Well…not really. It is superb.”

Tara shook her head, turning towards Newt, who was still flicking through the papers that Dumbledore had given him.

“I’ll go to the Erkstag with you.”

Newt looked back up at her, blinking once in surprise.

“I don’t think-”

“Newt will be fine.” Dumbledore was quick to interject. “You should accompany Professor Hicks as well.”

Tara immediately whirled on the professor, her eyes flaming in an instant.

“He’ll be ‘fine’ going, alone , into a prison that shouldn’t even exist?” she spat. “We have no idea what’s going on in there! He could be-!”

Newt suddenly grabbed a hold of Tara’s arm. She turned back towards him with an accusatory glare, only to find an uncharacteristically pointed expression on her best friend's face. He didn’t say a word to her, simply stared back at her in a way that made her quickly come to the realization that she had begun to shout.

And if the people in their party hadn’t taken much notice of the erratic way that she had responded to the events that had taken place in the Great Hall the night prior, they certainly were now.

And so was Dumbledore.

Tara turned back to her former professor, just in time to watch a slow, soft expression of recognition move across his face.

Swallowing harshly, the witch took a step back, slipping her arm out of Newt’s grasp.

Dumbledore placed his hat back on his head.

“Until next time.” he said, turning to begin walking down the road once more.

Newt shuffled forward in response.

“Albus!”

Dumbledore glanced back over his shoulder.

“I was just wondering…” the wizard trailed off, lifting up his right hand and folding his fingers over in a mock resemblance of holding onto some sort of handle.

“Ah, yes. The case.” Dumbledore said with a nod.

“Yes.”

The professor began walking again.

“Rest assured it's in safe hands.”

He shot the party one last look before disapparating.

Tara let out a huff of air in the silence that followed his absence.

“Well, we better be off.” Lally said with a definitive clap of her hands. “Miss Kelly?”

Tara glanced back over at her for a fraction of a second before turning her attention back to Newt.

“Bring him back.” she demanded softly.

Newt nodded.

“I will.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

About twenty or so minutes later, after slipping out of the station themselves, Jacob, Newt, Lally, Theseus, and Tara were shuffling down the Berlin streets in a rather tight-knit formation.

Eventually Newt, who was leading them, made a sharp and abrupt turn down a dark, but wide alley. They quickly found themselves encased on either side by tall, looming brick walls.

“Right…Well, here it is.” Newt said, coming to a stop in front of the barrier at the end of the no-outlet passageway. 

It wasn’t until those trailing behind him managed to peer over his shoulder, that they were able to gleam the sight of a large, shimmering crest that was etched into the wall itself. But just as quickly as they had come to that realization, Newt had begun to walk forward again, and in a light gust of air, disappeared through the wall and from their view completely.

The remaining members of his crew were quick to follow in his footsteps.

Once emerging on the flip side of the magic wall, they found a much larger avenue splayed out before them. Huge banners were draped down the sides of dark buildings. Each of which towered high into the sky, and completely lined either side of the road. Every single one bore identical campaign depictions of one Anton Vogel, the German Minister for Magic.

At the furthest end of the busy street, sat the largest building of them all. And even in the dark of the night, they could make out the massive crowd standing at the base of the grand staircase that led up to its doors. It was clearly split between two warring sides; some holding signs with either the last name or face of Liu plastered on it, others holding ones with Santos.

As their group began to shuffle down the road, Tara let out a breath of realization.

“The German Ministry.” she whispered.

“Yes.” Newt confirmed, sounding just as uncomfortable.

“I take it we’re here for a reason.” Theseus huffed.

“Yes.” Newt repeated. “We have a tea ceremony to attend. And if we don’t hurry up, we’ll be late.”

The Magizoologist surged forward, heading straight for the crowds and the staircases beyond them, thus forcing the rest of his party into a half-jog in order to catch up with him.

“Jacob!” Lally shouted back over her shoulder, as the Muggle had been momentarily caught staring up at the hundreds of wanted posters that decorated the flickering street lamps dotting the edges of the sidewalk. “Stay with the group!”

The rhythmic chanting of the Liu and Santos crowds quickly filled their ears as they attempted to shoulder their way through the protests and up towards the entrance of the Ministry. The noise quickly grew deafening, and occasionally their bodies would get jostled around amongst the masses, nearly toppling them over at some points.

At some point during the chaos, Tara had felt a large hand envelope hers as Theseus somehow reached back and found her amongst the throng. He pulled her along with him without so much as a second thought, ensuring that she wouldn’t get lost or knocked to the ground.

It wasn’t until they finally weaved their way out of the crowds and onto the first couple of steps that he let her go, surging forward to lead their group instead. And there had been a moment, however fleeting, where her hand had remained outstretched, not exactly ready to let go of him just yet.

At the top of the staircase, three German Aurors had stepped out into their path, and Tara had been rather quick to notice the way that their focus darted specifically towards Lally and Jacob.

Theseus straightened out his spine, an aura of command that he so very rarely used in the grand scheme of things immediately surrounding his body as he looked past the two Auror’s. Instead opting to stare down the man still stationed back by the door.

“Evening, Helmut.” 

“Theseus.” the older wizard replied just as shortly, walking forward and taking the first few steps down to meet them. 

As he did so, Theseus nodded over his shoulder.

“They’re with me.”

Tara glanced back over towards the Auror blocking Lally and Jacob. His gaze had snapped to Theseus as he had spoken, eyes widening in clear recognition. Looking for direction, he then turned his attention back towards Helmut.

The older wizard waited a beat before nodding, and the Auror retreated back to his side.

Theseus led the group up the remainder of the stairs and through the front door of the German Ministry.

Emerging out into the Grand Hall, they were greeted by the sight of hundreds of well-dressed wizard delegates. They were all milling about the large, ornate room, teapots floating hither and yon in the air above their heads.

The group continued to follow in Theseus’ steps as they traversed the hall, though technically Newt was the one directing his brother which direction to head in. The Magizoologist had his head on a swivel, clearly searching the room for something in particular.

“I take it we’re not here for the finger sandwiches?” Theseus asked in a low whisper.

“No. I have a message to deliver.” Newt replied vaguely.

“A message?” Tara piped up, slipping in between the two Scamander brothers as they continued walking. “To who?”

Instead of answering her, Newt just stopped walking entirely. The rest of them were forced to do much of the same. And it wasn’t until they did, that Tara realized they had somehow lost Jacob and Lally in the crowd.

Following Newt’s eyeline to the opposite end of the room, they found themselves staring at the man whose face had been plastered on the large banners back outside the Ministry, Anton Vogel.

The man was mingling amongst some of the other delegates, a bodyguard flush to his side along with a female attaché that was occasionally whispering things into his ear.

“You are joking.” Theseus scoffed.

“No.” Newt replied, immediately tearing off across the room.

Tara and Theseus exchanged a wary glance before following, trailing a few steps behind the Magizoologist as he semi-boldly approached Vogel and his guards.

“Herr Vogel, I wonder if I could have a word.”

The older wizard’s head turned rather quickly towards him, as if startled.

“Merlin’s beard! It’s Mr. Scamander, isn’t it?”

“Herr Vogel-” Newt repeated, taking another step forward. But immediately, the wizard’s bodyguards materialized in his path at an intimidating speed.

In response, both Theseus and Tara appeared on either side of Newt, the latter of which stared back and forth between the guard and the attaché with something close to murder in her eyes. She was quickly possessed with the rather terrifying knowledge that she was more than prepared to kill anyone who so much as looked at the Scamander's the wrong way.

Vogel stared down at Newt for a moment longer before waving his hand, dispelling his guards without a word. The older wizard then took a few steps down, meeting Newt halfway.

Tara and Theseus stayed a respectable distance back, allowing them some semblance of privacy, while also keeping keen eyes on the guards that remained a few paces to their right.

Once the two were done speaking, Newt had significantly straightened his posture. While Vogel, in contrast, remained rather relaxed. 

After another long moment, the female attaché shuffled up the stairs and back to the older wizard’s side.

“It’s time sir.”

Vogel turned back to Newt first.

“Is he here? In Berlin?” he asked, no longer whispering.

Newt didn’t respond.

“No. Of course not. Why leave Hogwarts when the world outside is burning?” the Minister said with a scowl. “I thank you. Mr. Scamander.”

In a flash, Vogel was gone. As were his two attendants.

With a heavy sigh, Newt took his first few steps back down to rejoin his friends. As he did so, the sharp sound of someone clinking their spoon against a porcelain teacup, instantly silencing all of the noise in the hall.

Everyone’s attention quickly turned towards where Vogel’s attaché was standing at the head of the room. She jutted out her pointy chin, stepping to the side and letting Vogel himself address all those who were gathered before him. His appearance was met with polite applause.

“Thank you, thank you. I see many familiar faces here tonight. Colleagues, friends, foes…” he cut himself off with a good-natured laugh. “Within the next forty-eight hours, you- along with the rest of the wizarding world- will choose our next great leader. A choice that will shape our lives for generations to come. I have little doubt that no matter who should triumph, the Confederation will be in able hands. Liu Tao. Vicência Santos-” the man had gestured towards the two wizards, who Tara hadn’t noticed, until that moment, had been standing at the front of the room, surrounded by their own respective entourages. “It’s at moments such as these we are reminded that it is this peaceful transfer of power that marks our humanity and demonstrates to the world that, despite our differences, all voices deserve to be heard.”

At some point during his speech, Tara’s eyes had been drawn away from Vogel, catching onto movement at the very edges of the hall. There, she rather quickly focused on a group of tall, black-robed Auror’s. They looked eerily similar to the one that she had seen on the train platform earlier in the evening, and as she continued to watch them, appeared to be strategically placing themselves about the room.

She quickly nudged Theseus’ ribcage, silently urging him to take notice as well. And when he did, she felt his entire body tense up next to her.

“Even voices which many find disagreeable-” Vogel was continuing on in the background as Theseus turned to his brother.

“Newt, any of those lot familiar to you?” he asked in a whisper.

The Magizoologist quickly turned his head over his shoulder, his expression falling the instant that he did so.

“Paris,” he whispered.

Tara’s skin began to burn hot.

“The night that Leta…”

She couldn’t bring herself to finish that sentence.

“They were with Grindelwald.” Theseus confirmed.

Tara had immediately made a move to start pushing through the crowd, but Theseus was just as quick to react. Something that in hindsight meant that he had anticipated her doing that exact thing. Grabbing a hold of both of her shoulders, the Auror spun her back around, rather forcefully, so that he could look at her head on.

“Don’t.” he hissed. “This is not the place we want to start a fight.”

Tara’s nostrils flared in defiance, but Theseus’ gaze was one of steady seriousness. And she knew that arguing with him would be pointless.

Acknowledging her visible resignation, Theseus nodded his head.

“Stay here.” he ordered, his hands slipping off of her shoulders. “I’ll go check it out first.”

“Theseus-” she whispered worriedly, but by then he had already begun to shoulder his way through the crowd.

“Where is he going?” Newt asked, immediately appearing at her side.

Tara didn’t answer him. Instead, she disobeyed Theseus’ order and began to follow his path through the masses, Newt swiftly in tow.

Back at the head of the room, Vogel was still speaking. And what he was saying didn’t exactly register in either of their brains until it was already far too late.

“And so, after an extensive investigation, the Confederation has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute Gellert Grindelwald for the crimes against the Muggle community of which he was accused. He is hereby absolved of all of his alleged crimes.”

Both Newt and Tara skidded to a halt, their heads turning to make stunned eye contact with each other.

The room around them exploded in a flurry of sounds. Mostly outraged shouts and confused jeers, but scattered amongst them were hoots and hollers of violent delight.

Up ahead, they heard a gruff voice shout above the rest.

“You’re under arrest!” Theseus barked. “All of you! Wands down!”

Newt and Tara quickly pushed the rest of their way through the crowd until they finally stumbled into a small break in bodies, allowing them a clear view of Theseus pointing his wand forward at five German Aurors. But the moment that they had done so, the bright flash of a spell hit Theseus directly in the side of his neck. His body collapsed to the ground in a heap, revealing Helmut, the wizard who had met them out on the stairs, walking forward with his wand arm still raised.

“Theseus!” Tara screamed in spite of herself.

“Nehmen Sie ihn weg.” Helmut barked at his men in German.

Two of them swooped in to lift Theseus up by his arms and began to drag him towards the back entrance of the Great Hall.

As Tara started surging forward, Lally and Jacob had somehow managed to find them amongst the growing chaos. And despite her hand already on her wand, Tara didn’t make it three steps towards those who she had her hunters sight set on, as a hand wrapped itself tightly around her wrist.

“Tara, Tara- Not here!” Lally shouted from her side, struggling against the witches' strength. “Tara, we don’t stand a chance!”

Helmut had turned around to lead his squadron of Auror’s out of the Great Hall, pulling along the unconscious Theseus with them as they went.

“No-”

“Let’s go Newt!” Lally shouted over her shoulder. “They have the German Ministry! We’ve got to go!”

“It ain’t right! It ain’t right! That’s not justice- extended investigation- were you there? I was there, you let a killer off!” Jacob’s voice cried out from somewhere back behind them.

Lally instantly disappeared from Tara’s side, grabbing a fierce hold of the Muggle instead.

“We have to go! We have to go! Jacob, let’s go! Newt had been quick to step up, grabbing a fierce hold of Tara’s arm in Lally’s absence, beginning to drag her away with him.

All around them, the volume of the crowd continued to rise, chants of Grindelwald’s name, sprinkled amongst shouts of indignation, began to echo off of the walls just as they managed to burst out of the main doors of the Ministry, retreating off and into the cover of the night.

Tara felt the burn of her tears as they cascaded down her face, the noise fading into the background, only to be replaced by the loud thumping of her own uneven heartbeat.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Close to an hour had passed after the group's initial introductions, and they were still a significant ways out from their final destination. 

The group inside the carriage had each separately busied themselves with different ways to pass the time; Jacob had fully resolved to take a nap (evidently apparation had taken quite the toll on his body) and Lally had her nose buried in a book. Newt, Bunty, and Kama had all disappeared off and into the rest of the locomotive at various different times, some of them heading for the dining car, others just wanting to stretch their legs.

Tara had been standing in a far corner of the train car, staring out of one of the windows and lulling herself into an almost trance-like state as she watched the countryside roll on by. She had chosen her position purposefully, for it was on the complete opposite end of the carriage from the Head of the British Auror Office. Who, inconveniently, hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since the larger group had dispersed. 

Theseus seemingly grew tired of being ignored, and promptly crossed the car in order to mirror her position at the window.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a low whisper. He had since turned his body slightly so that he could speak to her while effectively hiding his voice better from the other ears still within the car with them, distracted as they might be.

“Nothing.”

Theseus scoffed.

“Oh ‘nothing’ is it?” he pressed, watching as the scowl slowly began to appear on her face. “Come on. No secrets, remember?”

Tara took a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling with the effort. She then set her spine as much as she could, before turning to face him head on.

“What was that about?” she asked from behind gritted teeth.

“What was what about?”

“Oh, so we’re playing dumb now?”

“Tara, I don’t know what-”

“Seems like you got pretty flustered back there.”

“Flustered? I was not-”

“You think she’s cute or something? Is that it?” Tara continued to whisper-rant, no longer taking the time to choose her words carefully.

Theseus paused in surprise, his eyes tracing over her expression for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smirk began to play at the corners of his lips.

“Are you…are you jealous? ” he whispered.

“Jealous?” Tara spat back, as if the word were poison. But by then, her skin had already betrayed her. Her face flushing a hot-red color. “Please. Don’t try to turn this around on me, you’re the one that-”

At that moment, the train suddenly thundered over a change in the tracks, causing the cars to lurch to the side slightly. Those who had chosen to stand found themselves stumbling due to the dramatic change in momentum.

In order to catch himself, Theseus had been forced to brace his hands up against the wall of the carriage, lest he fall forward completely.

Tara, with her back now flushed against the wall, could only stare, wide-eyed, up at the wizard now looming over her. The sudden change in proximity had silenced all of her desire to fight in an instant.

After overcoming his own momentary surprise, and easily reading the expression on her face, Theseus smirked.

“This is nice.”

Flushing again, Tara scowled.

“Don’t be crass.” she hissed.

Theseus briefly glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes quickly scanning the rest of the cabin. Newt, Bunty, and Kama still had yet to return, and Jacob was snoring up a storm over at the bar. Lally on the other hand appeared fully enraptured by her book.

The Auror turned back around, and in a flash of movement he had leaned down to press a quick kiss onto Tara’s lips. Not even giving her so much as a second to react. All she could do was continue to stare back up at him incredulously. 

“I wasn’t flustered.” Theseus finally whispered, a small smile on his face. “I was just overwhelmed. You know I’m not exactly the best at making small talk in a regular situation, let alone something like that.”

He was right. Tara did know that. Theseus had a fairly Olympic knack for being blunt and straightforward, a trait that easily got underneath people’s skin. Her own more than included.

“And for the record-” the wizard quietly continued. “You’re the only one I think is cute.”

Tara rolled her eyes in a desperate attempt to hide the way that his words clearly had an effect on her.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Theseus hummed in response before once more leaning down to kiss her. Again, it was a quick action. He was clearly making the effort to be as secretive about it as he could manage. 

And because of that, when he pulled himself back up to his full height this time, he was greeted with the smallest of smiles in return.

Matching it, the Auror carefully pushed himself off of the wall.

“I’m going to head to the dining car. Grab some food.” he said quietly. “Want anything?”

Tara just shook her head in response.

Theseus stared back down at her for just a moment longer before quietly slipping out of the carriage.

Taking a slow breath in, Tara shook out and re-set her shoulders. But as she managed to pick her head back up, absentmindedly glancing about the rest of the train car, she somehow found herself making immediate eye-contact with Lally.

The professor simply gave her an imperceptible, but knowing smile before turning back to the pages of her book.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

It was early evening when they finally pulled into the German train station. Outside their car, the wheels screeched at a horrible decibel, smoke billowing up from them as they came to a slow stop.

Emerging from inside his case, after taking a moment to feed the Qilin hidden inside, Newt carefully clicked the locks shut behind him.

“Berlin…Wonderful.” Lally muttered from where she was standing, staring out a window at the bustling train platform outside. 

Tara appeared at the woman’s side, also taking a moment to scan the station. As she did, her eyes almost instantly fell upon a tall, dark-cloaked man standing out amongst the other every-day patrons. And not just because of his immense height, but also because of the particularly deep scowl painted on his face as he scanned the crowds flowing around him.

He was clearly an Auror. And if Tara knew anything about Auror’s in Germany those days, it was that their allegiance more or less teetered on the edge of being Grindelwald’s minions.

A memory suddenly flashed to the front of her mind’s eye. It was of a day, now long in her past, where a wizard had been sent to blow up her apartment back in London. She had taken it upon herself to steal the file on the incident shortly after it had happened and had seen the photo of the wizard that they had charged with committing the attack.

And he looked eerily similar to the one standing out on the train platform now.

“Kama, stay safe.” Theseus had said to the man who was patiently waiting for the doors to open. The French wizard had silently nodded his head in response before eventually disappearing outside and onto the platform.

Bunty materialized at Newt’s side, both of them standing where the Magizoologist had placed himself to the left of the now-open doors of the carriage.

“I must be going too now, Newt.” she stated quietly.

Newt had moved to respond, when suddenly his attention shot downwards. Instantly taking note of the way that his assistant was attempting to remove his case from the tight hold he had on it. His head tilted back up, staring at the smaller witch with panicked confusion.

“No one can know everything. Not even you.” she answered apologetically.

There was a long, pointed silence before Newt begrudgingly released the handle.

Those who momentarily remained inside the bar car, watched through the windows as Kama and Bunty began to walk off in two different directions, not even sparing each other so much as a glance as they went.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Early the following morning, the group had gathered at the Hogwarts train station, ready to make the journey back to Kings Cross. And from there; Germany.

Dumbledore had come to see them off, standing on the platform with them as other people from Hogsmeade, and even the occasional Hogwarts staff member or student, loaded themselves and their luggage onto the steaming locomotive.

“You have everything you need?” Dumbledore asked Newt.

The Magizoologist nodded, patting both his pockets and holding on a bit tighter to the handle of his case.

Tara was standing a few paces to the right of the Scamander brothers, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. Her eyes had been stuck to the side of the train car in front of her from the moment it had pulled into the station. And her mind was thousands and thousands of kilometers away.

Dumbledore excused himself from Newt and Theseus, making his way over to the third member of the party. The latter’s eyes followed him carefully as he went.

In the reflection of the train car window, Tara watched the professor appear at her side. Her shoulders tensed up immediately upon his arrival.

After a moment of suffocating silence, she finally released the breath she had been holding.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

In the reflection, she saw Dumbledore smile sadly.

“Would it truly have made a difference?”

Tara scoffed, looking down at the ground before squeezing her eyes shut tight.

“He has tak- he’s tried to take everything away from me.” she said in a gruff whisper.

“I know,” he replied immediately. “And I am truly sorry for all of it.”

In a flash, Tara turned to look over at the professor for the first time since back in the tavern. She found his eyes already on her face, and in them she easily felt the comforting wisdom of the man who had been one of the only adults in her younger years to ever encourage her rebellious nature.

“And if I kill him myself?” she said, her voice low and dark. “Are you going to be able to forgive me?”

Dumbledore’s smile didn’t falter as she spoke, not even for a second. Instead, he reached forward and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“All I have ever wanted, was for you to do what you believe is right. Not what other people tell you is.”

Tara took a shaky breath in, another one of those pesky tears escaping her eyes as she did so. She quickly reached up to swipe it away, feeling Dumbledore gently squeeze her shoulder. 

It was at that moment that Theseus appeared next to Dumbledore.

“We’re ready to go.”

Tara nodded her head and the professor's hand fell back down to his side.

“Be careful.” the older wizard reiterated. “All of you.”

Theseus assured him that they would, and Tara promptly walked away from them both, following closely behind Newt as he climbed onto the train.

Once inside, and as they made their way down the aisles in search of an empty collection of seats, Theseus reappeared at Tara’s flank.

“What was that about?” he asked her just before they finally slumped down into the first open carriage that they found.

Tara didn’t respond at first, her attention instead outside the window now to her left. Across from them, Newt was attempting to fit his case underneath his seat before eventually giving it up, and placing it onto the empty space at his side. His palm instinctively reached over to lay flat against its leather surface.

And it wasn’t until the train itself began moving that Tara finally tilted her head back toward Theseus.

“I told him that I was going to kill Grindelwald.” she told him, not an ounce of a joking tone in her voice.

A small smile twitched at the edges of Theseus’ expression as he reached forward, wordlessly taking hold of one of her hands, and tucking it securely into the space between their two bodies.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Once they had changed trains at Kings Cross, picking up a handful of their other co-conspirators, the group of wizards found themselves lounging around and waiting in the rented-out bar car at the tail end of the locomotive that was taking them to Germany.

The snowy Brandeburg countryside was speeding past the windows of the car at a considerable speed now that they were about halfway through the trip.

Yusuf Kama, a man that Newt had met during his adventure in Paris, and half-brother to Leta Lestrange as Tara had come to find out, had joined them in London. Alongside Newt’s assistant Bunty Broadacre. 

Kama specifically had been given a mission by Dumbledore directly; to attempt to infiltrate Grindelwald’s inner circle.

Tara was wildly unsure as to how that was supposed to work, considering that they now had a Legilimens at their disposal, but she also hadn’t the ability or foresight to question Dumbledore’s decisions.

At the farthest end of the cart, was a small fireplace. Theseus, Newt, and Bunty were all standing in front of it, talking quietly amongst themselves. Kama was standing silently in front of a nearby window, across from which was a fully stocked bar. Which Tara wouldn’t lie, she had been eyeing for the past ten minutes or so as she leaned her elbows up against its counter.

Sometime during the trio’s conversation, Theseus had begun to flip through the newspaper that he had picked up back at Kings Cross. On its cover, was an article covering the upcoming election. And on the back page, was yet another one of Grindelwald’s wanted posters.

“What are they saying at the Ministry?” Newt asked, breaking the now prolonged silence, gesturing towards the paper. “Liu or Santos?”

Tara glanced up from where she had been absentmindedly tracing the shapes in the marble countertop of the bar.

“Officially, the Ministry takes no position.” Theseus replied before looking up over the page. “Unofficially? The smart money’s on Santos. But anyone would be better than Vogel.” “Anyone?” Kama piped up from over by the window.

Turning their attention towards him, they all easily clocked the way that his gaze had landed on the back page of the newspaper, eyeing the wanted poster printed there warily.

“I don’t believe he’s on the ballot, Kama.” Theseus said dismissively. “He also happens to be a fugitive.”

“Is there a difference?” Kama muttered in turn.

Immediately after he had spoken, the fireplace behind the two Scamander brothers sputtered to life, beginning to glow a bright green color. Then, stumbling out from in between the growing flames, came a man. And he was gripping a cast iron frying pan tightly in his hands.

“Spinning.” the man muttered with what was clearly an American accent. “Always with the spinning.”

As Tara picked her head up from where it had been momentarily resting against one of her hands, she realized that she had seen this man before. If only for a brief moment, back in the catacombs under a Parisian cemetery.

“Jacob! Welcome!” Newt greeted happily. “You brilliant man. I was absolutely sure Professor Hicks would convince you!”

Once the man had finally appeared to get his bearings, he turned back towards the Magizoologist with a kind smile.

“You know me, pal. Can’t pass up a good Portkey.”

The fire behind the group began to glow again, and soon a tall woman was striding into the bar carriage, with a noticeable difference in grace than the man Jacob had done. She was dressed in a long, light brown coat, and her dark hair was pulled tightly towards the back of her head, with only a few stray curls hanging down on either side of her face. In her hands, she was clutching onto a thick, leather-bound book.

She glanced around the room for a moment before her attention eventually landed on Newt.

“Mr. Scamander?”

“Professor Hicks?”

“At long last.” They both spoke at the same time.

Newt quickly turned to address the other members of the train car.

“Professor Hicks and I have corresponded for many years, but we’ve never actually met.” he explained. “Her book on Advanced Charm Casting is a must-read.”

The professor let out a good-natured laugh.

“Newt is far too kind. Fantastic Beasts is required reading for all my fifth years.”

Newt did his best to hide a bashful smile.

“Now- well- let me make introductions.” he stumbled quickly, gesturing first to the woman behind him, who was sitting comfortably in a chair with two Nifflers perched on either one of her shoulders. “This is Bunty Broadacre, my indispensable assistant for the past seven years-”

“Eight-” Bunty immediately corrected. “-years. And a hundred and sixty-four days.”

In the brief silence that followed her words, Tara fought hard to hold back the smirk that was attempting to crawl its way up and onto her face.

“As you can see; indispensable.” Newt reiterated. He then gestured across the car towards Kama. “And this is-”

“Yusuf Kama. Pleasure.” the man replied a bit dismissively.

“And you’ve obviously already made Jacob’s acquaintance-”

Theseus suddenly interrupted his brother by loudly clearing his throat. Newt turned to look over at him, confused, only for the Auror to raise a pointed eyebrow.

“Newt-”

“Oh, yes. Sorry.” the younger Scamander scrambled to amend. “This is my brother, Theseus. And he works for the Ministry.” “Actually, Head of the British Auror Office.”

There had been a unique inflection in the man’s voice that for some reason or another made Tara stand up a bit straighter, coming out of the semi-slouched position she had adopted against the side of the bar. 

Professor Hicks let out a good-natured laugh.

“Ah. Well, I’ll have to ensure my wand registration is up to date.” she joked.

Tara instantly clocked the way that Theseus’ neck had flushed in what appeared to be mild embarrassment.

“Yes. Although, strictly speaking, that doesn’t fall within my purview-”

His words trailed off as his eyes had absentmindedly flickered towards the witch at the far end of the bar. There he found that her expression had fallen into a subtle half-glare, with a singular eyebrow raised, and tongue gently poking at the inside of her cheek.

Theseus instantly clammed up under her gaze.

Newt, somehow not clocking any of this, simply gestured to Tara next.

“And this is Tara Kelly. Director of Lawman Training for the British Auror Office.”

The professor turned towards where he had pointed, and upon seeing that she was fairly close to her position, extended out a hand in greeting.

“Very nice to meet you.” she said. “Lally Hicks. It’s refreshing to work alongside another witch, to be sure.”

Despite everything, Tara had managed to smile. She shook her hand with a nod, even going so far as to whisper her own greeting in return.

After introductions were finally completed, Newt then shuffled back to stand in front of the fireplace once more. The others watched him move with interest, those who were now standing further away from him shifted positions slightly, ultimately culminating in them forming a haphazard semi-circle around the Magizoologist.

“All right, then. I imagine you’re all wondering why you find yourselves here.” Newt said, causing all of them to nod in the affirmative, some even letting out scoffs of disbelief. “And in anticipation of that, Dumbledore asked that I convey a message.” Newt continued, wringing his hands out anxiously in front of his stomach. “Grindelwald has the ability to see snatches of the future. So, we have to assume that he’ll be able to anticipate what we do before we do it. So, if we hope to defeat him, and to save our world…to save your world, Jacob…then our best hope is to confuse him.”

Tara tilted her head to the side. Now this was interesting. 

The entire car had fallen silent as they all mulled his words over.

“Excuse me?” Jacob piped up, raising his hand like a child in a classroom. “I’m sorry, how do you confuse a guy who can see the future?”

“Countersight.” Kama answered, seemingly impressed.

“Exactly. The best plan being no plan.” Newt concurred brightly.

“Or many overlapping plans.” Lally added.

“Thus confusion.”

“It’s working on me right now.” Jacob mumbled.

Newt’s eyes suddenly widened, clearly remembering something at that exact moment.

“In fact, Dumbledore asked that I give you something, Jacob.” the wizard said, reaching into one of the large pockets of his blue trench coat. He then swiftly produced a short wooden wand. It was rather simple in design, but a wand nonetheless. “It’s snakewood. It’s somewhat rare-”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Jacob exclaimed. “Is this thing real?”

Newt visibly fought back a smile.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t have a core, so sort of- but yes.”

“Sort of real?”

“More importantly, where we’re going, you’ll need it.” Newt concluded.

Jacob eventually took the wand into his hands, staring down at it as if it were some sort of glittering, golden treasure.

Newt on the other hand, went back to furiously fishing around inside of the many pockets of his coat.

“Now there’s something for you too, I think, Theseus.” he muttered, eventually tugging at something deep within his coat. But as he did, he appeared to be fighting against something. “Teddy, please let go. Teddy. Will you behave? This is Theseus’s…”

With one final tug, a small creature suddenly came flying out from inside the folds of Newt’s jacket. It hit Jacob in the middle of his chest, a surprised “oof” escaping the Muggle’s mouth as he instinctively reached up to catch it. The dark-coated Niffler stared back up at him innocently.

The object that Newt had evidently been fighting the Niffler for had fallen to the floor by his feet, and quickly he reached down to scoop it back up. It was a bright red neck tie, complete with a golden emblem of a Phoenix stitched into the bottom of the fabric.

Newt quickly passed the tie to his brother.

“Well, of course, now everything makes sense.” the Auror mumbled.

“Lally-” Newt continued on. “Lally, I believe you were given some reading material…”

The professor simply held up the book she had in her hands.

“You know what they say, a book can take you around the world and back. All you have to do is open it.”

Jacob gently placed the Niffler down onto the bar’s countertop, which he was now standing at the edge of.

“She ain’t kidding.” he muttered under his breath.

Next, Newt grabbed a small, folded piece of parchment out of his front-most coat pocket and passed it to his assistant.

“Bunty. That’s for you. I’m told it’s for your eyes only.”

The small woman unfolded the paper, her eyes immediately widening at whatever it was she was reading there. But seemingly just as quickly as she managed to scan the words, the parchment suddenly incinerated in her hands in a bright flash of orange fire, causing her to yelp in surprise.

“Kama-” 

“I have what I need.” the man interrupted.

“What about Tina?” Jacob suddenly piped up. “Is Tina coming?”

There was a brief beat of silence.

“Tina’s…not available.” Newt finally replied. “Tina’s been promoted. She’s…very, very busy from what I understand.”

“Tina’s been made Head of the American Auror Office.” Lally chimed in happily. “We know each other well, she’s quite a remarkable woman.”

Another quiet befell the cabin as Newt slowly nodded his head.

“She is.” he confirmed in a small voice.

Tara felt the corners of her lips twitch upwards.

“So-” Theseus coughed, cutting through the awkward moment with a purpose. “This is the team that’s going to stop the most dangerous wizard we’ve faced in over a century? A Magizoologist, his indispensable assistant, a schoolteacher, an infantry trainer, a wizard descended from a very old French family, and a Muggle. A baker. With his fake wand.”

“Hey. We got you too pal.” Jacob interjected, holding up the drink that he had poured for himself while no one was looking. “And his wand works.”

“True.” Theseus said, the smallest of smiles on his face. “Who wouldn’t like our chances?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

A few days after their visit to Newt, Tara had been cleaning up the training room after one of her evening workout sessions. This one had been with a relatively newer batch of Aurors, and therefore had gotten a bit strenuous at times in regards to the teaching process. Nearly mirroring the tension that had filled her first couple weeks at the Ministry all those years ago. Every new group of Auror’s that got, essentially drafted into the Ministry those days were more and more…well, erratic. It was less of the arrogant personalities of the ones she had known when she first started, and more so people who were ready, and willing, to commit unspeakable acts of violence at the drop of a hat.

It was admittedly worrisome, but they did take instruction well. So there was at least a bit of a silver lining.

As she threw the small hand towel she had been using over her shoulder, Tara suddenly heard a rapid, scuttling sound echoing off of the walls of the otherwise empty room. With a paranoid turn of her head, the witch glanced towards the open window just a few paces away from where she was standing.

Her eyes quickly widened at the sight of a large, six-legged creature tumbling down from where it had momentarily been teetering in the windowsill. After it had landed on the floor in a heap, it took a moment to get its bearings, before turning and trotting its way across the room, directly up to where she was standing dumbfounded. It appeared to be some sort of cross between a crab and a tortoise. The large, rocky shell that took up most of its body was dotted with multiple different-sized gleaming gemstones.

The creature stopped right next to her feet. And it was only then that she noticed that it had been holding an envelope in its mouth.

Finally putting the pieces together, Tara carefully crouched down to the creature's height, cocking her head to the side.

“You’re one of Newt’s, aren’t you?”

The creature didn’t answer her, but instead dropped the letter onto the ground. It didn’t have her name written across the front, but that was common practice at this point. Taking it into her hands, she had nodded her thanks, without even stopping to consider whether or not it would understand her mannerisms. 

The moment that she began to rip the letter open, the creature turned heel and made its way back towards the window, expertly crawling up the wall and disappearing out into the dark of the night.

Tara’s eyes speedily danced over the words on the page. It was simple script. No hidden code. Just a message that told her plainly that Dumbledore had called them to some sort of meeting.

That was practically unheard of in those days, so she knew that it couldn’t be the result of anything good.

The letter had also stated that Theseus had been summoned as well. 

Letting out a breath of disbelief, Tara quickly used her wand to incinerate the piece of parchment before grabbing her coat and slipping out of the training room altogether.

It had taken a bit of convincing to get Theseus to agree to the meeting, especially given that she had very little information to give him in regards to its purpose.

But in the end, for better or for worse, his trust was still with her.

So the two of them apperated together onto the snowy grounds just outside the school of their youth.

Glancing up the pathway in front of them, they could see the first few buildings of the sleepy village of Hogsmeade. And after making momentary eye-contact, the two began the trek up the hill.

After walking in silence for what felt like forever, Tara had suddenly shaken her head.

“I don’t think I can even remember the last time we were here.” she noted quietly.

Theseus hummed in response.

“I can.”

Tara turned her head towards him in surprise.

“Huh?”

The wizard smiled, his gaze floating rather far away.

“You had bought some sort of candy from Honeydukes.” he began to recall fondly. “But I don’t think you ever got to eat any of it. Threw damn near the entire bag at Richard Bradely after he had stepped on the back of your robes. Had real good aim too. I think he had a red eye for like a week or something after that.”

Tara blinked, the memory returning to her easily under his guidance.

“You-” she breathed. “You remember that?”

“Of course I do.”

Tara just stared back at him, bewildered. 

In her silence, Theseus glanced over, smiling victoriously upon seeing her expression. He then stuffed his hands into his coat pockets, turning and beginning to walk backwards so that he could face her as they continued up the path.

“You know, a while ago, Leta had said something to me. It had to be during your first week at the Ministry-” he began to recall.

Immediately, a small smile flickered onto her face at the mention. Hearing Leta’s name those days didn’t hurt as much. Instead, her guilt and pain had slowly been replaced by a bittersweet, but ever so comforting, sense of nostalgia.

“-I didn’t believe her then. But she was absolutely right.” Theseus concluded.

Tara was still walking in time with him, occasionally glancing over his shoulder in order to make sure that he wasn’t about to run into anyone or anything.

“Right about what?” she asked absentmindedly.

Theseus continued to smile.

“That I’ve had a crush on you since I was a Hufflepuff.”

Tara scoffed loudly, coupling it with a defensive roll of her eyes.

“Yeah. Right.” she said, pointedly shoving his shoulder back as she surged past him, heading for the building that Newt had told them to meet at with a new sense of urgency.

“You don’t believe me?” Theseus called out to her, jogging in order to catch back up.

Tara just shrugged her shoulders as the wizard finally began to match her pace again. A brief silence fell over them as they continued their walk. The sounds of their boots trudging through the thick layer of snow that covered the ground was momentarily all that reached their ears as they finally hit the main streets of Hogsmeade.  

“I guess I don’t really…think about Hogwarts much these days.” she finally admitted, only briefly glancing up at the large castle that loomed on the hillside high above their position.

“Ah.” Theseus mused quietly.

As they continued their walk, his shoulder had brushed up against hers a few purposeful times, but he did not take her hand. This was common practice for them, as they were significantly more careful in wizard-populated spaces. However, she could still sense his intention, and the comfort that he was offering was more than accepted.

“That’s gonna be a bit of a problem.” he then added, lifting his arm up to wave at someone further down the street. “Considering who we’re here to talk to.”

Glancing forward, Tara saw Newt push himself off of the stone wall that he had been leaning against, waving back at his brother awkwardly. 

The two wizards landed in front of him only a few moments later, and the Magizoologist had been quick to urge them further into the village.

As they passed by many of the buildings, they could see a few other wizards milling about, but the place was more or less deserted. And Tara also couldn’t help but take note of the hundreds, upon hundreds of wanted posters plastered across nearly every stone wall in the village. Each of them depicting the moving mugshot of one Gellert Grindelwald.

A shiver traveled down her spine, as she swore she could feel the eyes following them as they went.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what this is about, would you?” Theseus asked as Newt continued to lead them through the snow.

“He just asked that we meet.” Newt replied quickly. “And that I be sure to bring you.”

“Right.” Theseus replied, sounding wholly unconvinced. 

Tara glanced over at the man, and upon meeting his gaze, sent him as apologetic of a wince as she could muster.

Newt finally led them up to the door of a small, shoddy tavern at one of the far edges of the village. There, a half-broken sign swung over their heads, the words “Hog’s Head” engraved, barely visible, in the half-rotting wood. 

Pushing the door inside, they found the building completely empty, spare the lone proprietor behind the bar. Who was running a rag repeatedly over a dirty mirror splayed out against the far wall. The bearded man, upon seeing the three of their reflections in said mirror, scowled in acknowledgement but did not turn around to greet them.

“Here to meet my brother, I expect?” he grumbled.

Newt shuffled forward awkwardly.

“We’re here to see Albus Dumbledore.”

The man paused for a long moment before finally turning around to look at them. His scowl only appeared to deepen as he did so.

“That would be my brother.”

“Oh. Sorry, um…brilliant.” Newt stuttered, extending his hand in greeting. “I’m Newt Scamander, and this is-”

The man promptly turned his back on them again.

“Up the stairs. First on the left.”

Newt stood frozen with his hand held outwards for just a moment longer before eventually managing to nod his head and usher his companions along after him. 

After walking up the creaky stairs, and through the first door as instructed, the three wizards found their old professor standing in a column of grey sunlight that was streaming in through a far window. 

Upon hearing the door open, Dumbledore had turned around to greet them with a kind smile.

“Hello professor.” Tara said, swallowing with a bit of difficulty as the man’s eyes found hers.

“Tara.” Dumbledore replied. “Lovely to see you. It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

A scoff left the witch’s throat without her permission.

“It has.”

Dumbledore’s eyes then slid the man at her side.

“Theseus. Thank you for coming.” he said. “Has Newt told you why you’re here?”

“Was he meant to?”

The professor stared forward at the Auror for a moment, clearly sensing his mild annoyance with the whole situation.

“No, as a matter of fact.”

Theseus looked over at his brother, but Newt had long since turned his attention to the floor.

“There’s something we- that Dumbledore wishes to speak to you about. A proposal.” the Magizoologist admitted quietly.

Tara’s head snapped towards Newt in surprise. Nothing in the message he had sent her indicated that he knew anything of the professor’s plan.

“All right.” Theseus said after a loud sigh.

In turn, the professor crossed the room so that he was standing directly in front of the odd group of three. On his way, he had plucked a small metal object out of the front-most pocket of his gray vest. The firelight in the far corner of the room glinted off of the silver in a way that forced a sharp chill down Tara’s spine. 

Once he was in front of them, Tara could make out more of the object itself. It was intricately formed into an almost cross-like shape. And at its center, there was a small, glass bubble that contained what appeared to be two red, liquid dots. Both of which were continuously bouncing around inside.

Dumbledore held it up towards them, letting it dangle off of the long, silver chain that it was attached to.

“You know what this is, of course.”

“Newt had it in Paris.” Theseus quickly answered. “I can’t say I have much experience with such things, but it looks to be a Blood Troth.”

“That would be correct.” Dumbledore replied.

“And whose blood is contained within?”

“Mine,” answered the professor. “And Grindelwald’s.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees in a fraction of a second. Even the fire in the background sputtered briefly, as if a rush of wind had passed through the entire space. 

In contrast, Tara’s skin instantly alighted with a heat so powerful that she had winced due to the flash of pain that had been brought with it.

“I’m assuming that’s why you can’t move against him?” Theseus noted.

“Yes. Nor he against me.”

Tara was stuck staring at Troth, her eyes burning into the two droplets of blood. Watching as they moved around each other inside their translucent container.

“Why?” she suddenly whispered, looking up at her old professor incredulously. “What possibly could’ve possessed you to make such a thing?”

Dumbledore stared back at her with a sad, knowing expression.

“Love,” he replied. “Arrogance. Naivete. Pick your poison. We were young. We were going to transform the world. This ensured that we would. Even if one of us had a change of heart.”

Tara’s mouth fell open.

“You-” her throat immediately went dry. “You loved him?”

In the deadly silence that followed her words, Dumbledore simply stared back at his former student, seemingly unable to conjure up any words in response. His expression was contorted into what was clearly intense amounts of pain and guilt. He knew about everything that Grindelwald had taken from her. And he knew, better than most wizards, of her anger, desire for vengeance, and longing for the very blood that he was now holding in the palm of his hand.

For a moment, Tara was astronomically furious with the man standing before her. 

For a moment, Dumbledore was the enemy. 

But just as quickly, she reminded herself who was seemingly the only wizard making any sort of effort to take a stand against Grindelwald those days.

And now she was realizing just how much harder that had to have been for him to do so.

A single, hot tear began to track down the path of Tara’s face.

“And what would happen if you were to fight him?” Theseus asked, breaking the tension and allowing Tara a chance to subtly wipe at her face.

Dumbledore didn’t immediately answer, instead he raised the troth up even further , dangling it in front of his face. He then took a long moment to stare intently at its contents.

“It’s really quite beautiful, you have to admit.” he mused. “Were I even to think about defying it…”

The Blood Troth suddenly flashed a bright red color, and in response, Dumbledore rather aggressively threw it down to the ground at his feet. It ricocheted off of the wooden panels as the wizard drew his wand. The piece of metal then flew across the room, burying itself into a crevice in the wall. 

As Dumbledore approached it, wand raised, the Troth’s long chain began to visibly constrict around the arm that it was still wrapped around, despite the distance.

“It knows, you see…” Dumbeldore mused as the chain continued to tighten around his arm and hand. Those standing in the room with him could see the way his skin was quickly turning a sickly blue color as the blood flow was getting more cut off with each passing second. At some point, he had even lost the ability to keep a grip on his wand, causing it to clatter down to the floor. “It senses the betrayal in my heart.”

Tara looked on in horror, watching as the Troth shook violently in the notch of the wooden wall panel it was stuck in. The chain then began to slither up Dumbledore’s arm until it eventually settled around his neck, his face quickly turning bright red just as his hand had.

“Stop it!” Tara screamed.

“Albus!”

The Blood Troth suddenly fell from the wall, and Dumbledore reached forward to catch it with ease. The chain slumped down from around his neck and arm, now seemingly void of any and all sentience. The professor took in a deep, shaky breath, closing his fist around the Troth again before turning back to the group, smiling as if nothing had happened.

Tara stared back at him absolutely horrified.

“That would be the least of it.” he reported. “A young man’s magic, but as you can see, powerful magic. It can’t be undone.”

Theseus had been the first of the three to speak after a long, and tense, silence.

“So this proposal-” he huffed. “I take it the Qilin has something to do with it?”

Dumbledore glanced over at Newt with a raised eyebrow.

“He promises he won’t tell a soul.” the Magizoologist said quickly.

Dumbledore nodded.

“If we are to defeat him, the Qilin is only part of it.” he began to explain to the Auror. “The world as we know it today will seem inevitable tomorrow if we don’t stop him. Should you agree to do what I ask, you’ll have to trust me. Even when every instinct tells you not to.”

After the professor had spoken, Theseus looked to his brother in order to gauge his reaction. He then chose to turn to the witch standing directly at his side, who was still eyeing the Troth rather warily. 

With another quick, covert swipe at her face, Tara managed a quick nod in response to the Auror’s unasked question.

Heaving another sigh, Theseus finally brought his attention back to Dumbledore.

“Let’s hear it.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

For the better half of the remainder of that year, Tara worked almost exclusively in the shadows. The only time she was found within the walls of the Ministry, was when she was expected to be. Training sessions went on, as per usual. But outside of that, she was actually hard to be found.

In the time that had passed since the incident in Germany, Theseus found himself and his office consumed by increasing levels of responsibilities. And that, gave Tara a bit more freedom in the sense that he hadn’t been able to physically worry over her as much as he might have wanted to.

Now Tara, in all that time, had never been approached by Dumbledore in person. But she had become a sort of errand-runner for the professor. She fed intel when, where, and to whom she could. Passed along messages as requested to bodies both inside and outside of the Ministry, and much more.

She felt like a proper spy. And for the first time since she had been given the position of Director of Lawmen Training, she felt like her actions were actually making a difference.

Tara had also become result in the time since Theseus had gotten hurt that nothing like that was going to ever happen again. Not while she was alive at least.

The two of them were still doing fairly well at hiding their relationship while at the Ministry, thanks to the combined business of their schedules. Oftentimes, the only place they were able to catch up, or even catch glimpses of one another, was back at home.

It quickly became a near-sanctuary for them. She could admit that to herself. And she appreciated the hours that she had there with him above everything else.

“Chester said you were late to training today.” Theseus had dared to bring up one day as he finished cooking. The Auror glanced over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, staring back at where Tara was perched on the counter a few feet away from him. “Anything you want to tell me?”

The witch shrugged in response.

“Just lost track of time.”

Theseus hummed as he placed the two plates of food down onto the small table that sat in the center of the kitchen. He then turned back towards her, a single hand resting on his hip.

“‘Lost track of time’…running around and hunting down dark wizards?”

Tara gnawed at the inside of her cheek, immediately looking away from him.

Theseus heaved a sigh.

“I just want you to be careful.” he added after letting a brief silence fall over the space.

“I am being careful.” Tara quickly fired back.

A dismissive scoff fell out of the Auror’s throat.

“If I know Tara Kelly, I know careful is the last thing that she is.”

Rolling her eyes, Tara pushed herself off of the counter without saying another word. 

Seeing this, Theseus sighed again, pulling out the two lone chairs that populated the table.

“Let’s just eat.” he relented quietly. “Forget I said anything.”

“Theseus…”

Before the wizard could sit down in his seat, Tara had grabbed a hold of his wrist, all but forcing him to turn back towards her.

“They tried to take you away from me.” she whispered. And immediately watched Theseus’ expression softened tenfold.  “I’m not going to let them win. I can’t. I won’t .”

The man was still and quiet for a long moment after she spoke, Tara’s eyes continuing to dance across his expression, searching and silently pleading for his understanding. 

Finally, Theseus leaned down just enough to press a quick, but purposeful kiss to her forehead, his free hand coming up to gently rest against the side of her face.

“Yeah. I know.” he whispered in the end, eyes finding hers again. “Come on. Eat.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

One evening, while Tara had found herself trapped behind her desk by a fairly large pile of paperwork, the door to her office had rather abruptly swung open.

Her head shot up in an instant, secretly grateful for whatever kind of distraction from her work it could be.

Theseus quickly shut the door behind him before striding over to her desk with what appeared to be an urgent purpose.

Tara’s eyebrow raised in greeting as he came to a stop directly in front of her desk, placing his palms down on the surface in order to lean over it slightly.

“I just had a visitor.” 

Tara tilted her head to the side.

“This late? Should I be worried?”

If Theseus had registered that she made a joke, he was purposefully not reacting to it, as his expression didn’t appear to change in the slightest.

That made Tara sit up a bit straighter.

“Theseus?”

“It was Dumbledore.” he quickly continued, causing the witch’s eyes to widen in surprise. “He was waiting for me outside.”

“What did he say?”

Theseus anxiously rolled his lips over one another.

“He told me I should check up on my brother,” he said. Then, with a sharp scoff, he pressed himself back up into a standing position, removing his hands from her desk. “And that was it. He disapparated right after.”

Tara reached up to drag a hand across her forehead.

“You promised to tell me if things went awry.” Theseus reminded her.

The witch shook her head.

“I didn’t think they had…” she admitted quietly. “But now that I think about it…I haven’t really heard from anyone in a couple of weeks.”

A silence quickly befell her office.

Tara placed her quill down on the surface of her desk sliding the pile of paperwork away from her before rising from her chair. She then snatched her coat up from where it was laying over the arm-rest.

“Let’s get outta here.” she huffed.

Theseus didn’t protest, and the two of them quietly slipped out of the Ministry early.

The following morning, the couple made the trip across London to Newt’s apartment.

Immediately upon their arrival, Tara had made her way up the staircase, trying for the doorknob in lieu of knocking. Before Theseus could so much as question her thought process, she was already pushing the unlocked door inwards.

“He really needs to stop doing that.” she mumbled before disappearing inside. 

Theseus followed in her footsteps after only a moment’s hesitation.

On the inside, Newt’s apartment was a bit of a mess. But that fact on its own wasn’t totally out of the ordinary. The Magizoologist wasn’t usually the kind to care about what people thought about the state of his living quarters, for he wasn’t exactly prone to having guests. And more often than not, he himself would be out on a long adventure of his own.

As the two wizards continued to search around the house itself, a soft trilling suddenly reach their ears. Peeking their heads around the corner and into the small living room at the front of the house, they found a small, doe-like creature tearing about the room. It was gleefully dipping and diving beneath the coffee table and around the sofa in continuous speedy laps.

“What the-?” Theseus breathed out.

Tara glanced back over her shoulder, glancing down the hallway to their left, immediately honing in on the sight of the wide-open door that revealed the passage down into the basement. At her side, Theseus cursed underneath his breath before instructing her to keep an eye on the creature while he went down to look for his brother.

The witch immediately got to work on corralling the creature into the back-most corner of the living room. It wasn't a particularly difficult task, for it was rather small in size. Just a tad bit rowdy, as she imagined any creature its, assumed, age would be.

It was a fair amount of time before Theseus returned from the basement, and by that point, she had gotten the creature to hop up and onto the living room bay window-sill. There, it had trotted around in continuous circles, occasionally looking back up at Tara and letting out soft, high-pitched whistles. Almost as if it was attempting to speak to her or something of that ilk.

“Who are you, little one?” Tara had asked out loud at one point. 

The moment the words had left her mouth, the creature had paused its trot. It glanced back up at her face, this time with a much more calm and almost thoughtful disposition. 

Tara blinked in surprise, but at that very moment, Theseus emerged back into the living room, therefore managing to steal her attention back.

“Did you find him?”

Theseus nodded, slipping his jacket off of his shoulders and tossing it over the back of Newt’s couch.

“He’s asleep in a hammock down there,” he reported. “Had a real gnarly cut on one of his hands so I wrapped it for him. But…I didn’t really wanna wake him.”

Tara hummed her understanding, glancing back at the creature in the windowsill, who had since gone back to trotting about in a circle.

“I don’t really know what to do with her.” she admitted in a quiet whisper.

She heard Theseus let out a soft laugh.

“Here, let me try.” he said, walking out from around the couch to join her.

Tara watched him with interest as he carefully lowered himself down into the small outcropping. As he did so, the creature stared up at him with wide, curious eyes. Theseus then slowly reached out his hands, gathering it up and into his arms. 

And it let him do so.

Holding the creature to his chest, Theseus then began to rock it gently, as if he was cradling a human infant.

Tara stared down at the sight with awestruck wonder for a prolonged moment, before eventually moving to sit herself down at the man’s side. She peered over his shoulder to get a better view of the now content-looking creature.

At some point, she wasn’t sure how long exactly, as they continued to sit there in the windowsill, Theseus had begun humming a soft tune. The creature had responded to that by visibly calming down a tenfold, nuzzling its head even deeper into the wizard’s chest. 

Tara let out a quiet scoff in disbelief, causing Theseus to look over at her with a smile.

“Not bad for a Ministry brute, eh?”

Her eyes quickly flickered back up to meet his, and any witty comment that she had been conjuring up instantly died on her tongue the moment that they did.

Theseus still had a soft smile on his face, but his eyes themselves were continuously dancing across her expression. She couldn’t really tell what she was seeing in his own, but she knew what she was feeling inside of her chest. It was a very familiar warmth that quickly went on to encapsulate her entire torso. She suddenly caught herself thinking back to the three times over the past five or so years that Theseus had asked her to marry him.

Specifically noting just how long it had been since he had done so last.

Theseus opened his mouth, as if to begin speaking, when suddenly the creature in his arms began to make its odd, purring sounds again, ripping his focus away.

“All right, all right.” he cooed, going back to rocking the creature. “Yeah? All right.”

A smile resurfaced on Tara’s face. Leaning to her right, she absentmindedly rested her shoulder up against Theseus’ as he continued to work on calming the creature back down.

About halfway through his attempts, they both heard the soft sound of footfall against the wooden floors of the homestead. 

Glancing up, Tara immediately noticed a rather disheveled-looking Newt peering out at them from around the wall of the living room’s entryway. Her eyes widened, and she all but sprung up from the windowsill.

“Newt-” she called out as the wizard slowly wandered deeper into the room. Her gaze quickly fell to his right hand, which he had been cradling, easily noticing the haphazard wrap job that Theseus had done.

The Magizoologist’s attention lingered on her for a moment before moving back to where his brother was still sat in the window.

“I don’t know what got into her. I thought I’d gotten her good and settled, and then…” Theseus sighed, looking up at his brother with a shrug. He then nodded his head towards his hand. “It’s a nasty scrape that, and by the looks of it, it needs changing.”

Newt said nothing, and Tara continued to carefully watch his every move. But his attention was seemingly fixated on the creature in Theseus’ arms. Which at that point, had fallen quiet again.

“All right, all right.” Theseus hummed as he finally stood up, gently laying the creature back down onto the collection of blankets in the windowsill.

Newt swallowed audibly.

“So, in my case, right next to the Dittany, there’s a blue bottle with some crushed Yerba leaves.” he quietly explained.

Tara nodded her head in understanding.

“I’ll get it.” she said, moving towards the back corner of the living room, where she had earlier clocked the briefcase’s location, locked and propped up against the wall.

Bringing it back over to them, she placed it down on the surface of the coffee table and flicked open the copper latches. As she did so, a small, green, stick-like creature appeared at the top of the couch cushions.

“Pickett. Morning.” Newt greeted tiredly. “You alright?”

The Bowtruckle squeaked in response. 

“You know, I was trying to recall the last time when I was here.” Theseus mused out loud as Tara began to rifle around inside the bottomless briefcase, searching for what Newt had described. The Auror then threw open the curtains of the bay window, allowing a bit more sunlight into the room.

That ultimately had been the thing that helped her locate the serum.

A long quiet had followed the elder Scamander’s comment, one that was only broken when Tara had resurfaced with the bottle. She passed it over to Theseus who took it with a quiet “thanks.”

Newt had since sat himself down in the cushioned recliner adjacent to his couch. And Theseus crossed the room to crouch down in front of his little brother.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?”

Newt hesitantly offered him his wrapped hand.

Tara sat herself down on the couch in order to glance at the wound herself as the Auror carefully removed the bandage.

It was pretty grisly, stretching clean across the center of Newt’s palm. And from what she could tell, ran fairly deep into his skin and muscle. Blood had saturated both the bandage and the rest of his hand by that point as well. 

“Well that’s coming along brilliantly.” Theseus said with a heavy splash of sarcasm.

Newt managed a shy laugh at that.

Theseus dropped the bloody bandage onto the surface of the coffee table before picking up and shaking the small vile of liquid a few, purposeful times.

“Do you want the leaves here?” he joked once more before placing the cork in between his teeth and smoothly ripping it out. He wasted no time before tilting the bottle over, carefully pouring its contents down and onto Newt’s waiting palm.

Theseus kept a tight hold of Newt’s wrist as the younger Scamander quietly hissed in pain. A small puff of green smoke billowed up from the center of the cut.

“Enough?” Theseus finally asked after a few more moments.

“Hm. Yeah.” Newt said, noting how much of the wound itself had already begun to dissipate. 

Theseus reached back over for the roll of bandages that he had brought up from the basement earlier, quickly unwrapping some more of the material.

“So, exactly how is it that you came to be here?” Newt asked, his eyes not so subtly sliding over to glance warily at Tara.

The witch winced.

“Dumbledore suggested that I pop by and look in on you.” Theseus answered as he carefully re-wrapped Newt’s hand. “Very mysterious about it too…I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what you all are up to?”

“Huh?” Newt coughed awkwardly. “No.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“Well, you know Dumbledore…”

Theseus scoffed.

“He’s full of secrets.” he noted as he tied the bandage tight around Newt’s wrist. “Like you. And this one over here.” he added, nodding back at where Tara was still sitting on the couch.

Newt didn’t respond to that, simply pressed his lips into a tight line.

“She’s a Qilin, isn’t she?” Theseus suddenly asked as he dropped his brother’s hand. Instead, gesturing at the creature that was now lounging peacefully in the streams of sunlight coming in from the open window.

“No she’s not.”

A rather large smile appeared on Theseus’ face.

“I believe she is.”

“She’s not.”

“She is.”

“She’s not.”

Back over in the window, the creature suddenly picked up its head, letting out a soft but purposeful trill. Almost as if attempting to interrupt the brewing argument.

Newt sighed, finally forced to relent.

“She is.”

“She is.” Theseus repeated in confirmation. “What are you doing with a Qilin, Newt? Hm? Or is she another one of your secrets?”

“Yes. And you mustn’t tell anyone you’ve seen her.” Newt replied quickly. “I’m quite serious, Theseus.”

The older Scamander nodded his head.

“All right.”

As Theseus straightened out his back, Newt jutted his chin forward slightly.

“Just out of curiosity, how did you get her to settle?”

A smile flickered across Tara’s face.

“He sang to her.” she replied before Theseus had a chance to, earning her an embarrassed glare from the Auror in response.

“But…Excuse me?” Newt coughed.

Theseus turned back to him with the smallest of smiles.

“You know that song that Mum used to sing, the one about the Muggle who fell down the well?”

Newt stared back at him blankly.

“'There was an old Muggle who fell down the well-'” Theseus began to sing, adding lyrics to the tune that she had heard him humming only a few minutes earlier. 

“'But along came a witch, who did do him a spell-'” Newt continued, almost instinctively, as a genuine smile appeared on his otherwise guarded expression.

“'When the Muggle awoke he said ‘Dear woman, do tell. Is it heaven I’m in, or have I gone straight to-’”

The Qilin let out an even louder, happier noise in response to their singing, rolling around in the sun-lit blankets. 

Tara let out a soft laugh, feeling her eyes beginning to water ever so slightly. 

Theseus glanced back over his shoulder, staring at the Qilin for a long, thoughtful moment. 

“Come to think of it, that might have been one of Dad’s old drinking songs.”

“That’s remarkable.” Newt noted breathlessly.

The Qilin squeaked again.

“They rarely consent to human contact, you know. Unless they sense an affinity.” Newt had been quick to add.

Theseus turned back to his brother.

“And she senses an affinity with you, does she?”

“Yes.”

Tara looked back and forth between the two wizards with a wide smile.

“Well, there you have it.” she piped up, causing both their heads to turn towards her. “You are brothers after all.”

Theseus smiled back at her warmly.

Taking in a deep breath through her nose, Tara slowly pushed herself up from the couch, turning her head towards Newt.

“Could I use your bathroom?” she asked politely. 

The Magizoologist nodded.

“Of course.”

Tara nodded her thanks before quickly disappearing down the hallway.

Once she was out of earshot, Newt immediately turned back towards his brother, who was still semi-crouched in front of him. There, he found Theseus’ eyes lingering on the last spot that Tara had occupied.

“You two are together. Aren’t you?” he asked bluntly.

Theseus’ head snapped back towards him, his eyes resembling that of a wild animal.

“Wha-” he coughed, shaking his head. “How did you-?”

Newt tilted his head to the side.

“I was with her the night that you woke up in the hospital.” he explained carefully. “Did she ever tell you that she collapsed on the stairs out front because of how worried she had been about you?” he asked, only a little bit accusatory.

At the sound of his words, Theseus’ expression had immediately turned crestfallen. 

“She…what?”

Newt hummed, looking down and tugging absentmindedly at the new wrappings on his hand.

“Yeah, so, I’ve had my suspicions since then.” he concluded before daring to glance back up at his brother. “Plus, you’re a pretty terrible actor.”

Heaving a fairly large sigh, Theseus pressed his palm to the center of his forehead.

“She’s gonna kill me.” he mumbled.

Newt couldn’t help but scoff at that.

Theseus took another moment, refilling his lungs with oxygen, before reaching out to gently pat Newt’s knee. 

“Well, at least I don’t have to hide it from my little brother anymore.”

“And why were you hiding it? If you don’t mind me asking.” Newt pressed.

Theseus’ expression turned serious.

“Grindelwald.” he replied quietly. “She’s worried that…If he found out, he’d…And she has every reason to be. You know everything she’s been through already.”

As the younger Scamander nodded his understanding, a brief bout of silence passed between the two of them.

“How long?” Newt finally asked, keeping his voice purposefully quiet.

“About five years now.” Theseus replied, this time unable to fully hide his prideful smile upon admitting that fact out loud.

“Wow.” Newt whispered, blinking in what appeared to be genuine surprise.

“Yeah…” Theseus said, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck as a bashful laugh escaped his throat. When he dropped his hand back down to his lap, he shook his head a few pointed times. “You know, I keep asking her to marry me.”

“And what? She says no?”

Theseus let out a heartier laugh at that.

“Not exactly,” he replied. “She wants to wait. Until we stop him for good.”

There was a particularly long pause after that.

“Can’t exactly blame her.” Newt whispered.

Theseus let out a huff of air through his nose.

“No. I suppose not.”

Tara eventually slunk back into the living room, and after a few more minutes of Theseus making sure that his brother was in fact alright, they finally let him be.

Bidding the younger Scamander goodbye, Tara and Theseus began their journey back across the city. Opting to walk instead of apparating. 

Once they had crossed the unseen border into the more Muggle-populated neighborhoods, Theseus had made a silent point to slip his hand into Tara’s for the remainder of the trek.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

On the first day that Theseus returned to the Ministry, he was locked into meetings from sunup to sundown. And the full scope of what had transpired back in Germany finally reached the ears of the rest of the department. 

Their original guess, that it had simply been a group of young radicals, had been correct to an extent. However, where they were caught off guard, was assuming that they were making their own decisions. The wizards that they had found in that house were operating under very clear orders and with scarily up-to-date information. The kind that had been able to warn them that Auror’s were coming to their doorstep, down to an hour before it happened.

No one had ever said it out loud, but the whispers and implications hung heavily in the air; the Ministry had a mole.

There was someone, and in Tara’s mind countless amounts of people, that were feeding information directly to Grindelwald and his followers. And the other Directors had decided that the best course of action was to continue on as if they knew nothing of it.

“We cannot let this stop us. We must push on.”

“It isn’t about stopping.” Tara had tried to argue at one of the meetings she had been required to attend. “It’s about taking added precautions. Which even before this hadn’t been common practice.”

Evidently, they hadn’t taken too kindly to her position. For she wasn’t invited to the next meeting. But Theseus made a point to sit with her in her office afterwards, filling her in on everything she had missed.

When he had finished talking, Tara angrily stood up from her chair, stalking over to the window with her arms crossed over her chest. 

Theseus had been quick to join her, his shoulders brushing up against hers as he mimicked her stance at the window.

“What are you thinking?” he asked knowingly, noticing just how tightly her eyebrows had furrowed together by that point.

“Don’t report me for sedition.”

Theseus scoffed.

“Is that a joke?”

Tara didn’t answer.

“You know I wouldn’t.” 

Tara took in a deep breath through her nose.

“I think the Ministry is compromised. I don’t think it has the capacity to move against Grindelwald anymore.” she admitted, her words hanging in the air between them for a long, heavy moment.

“I think you’re right.”

Tara glanced over at Theseus in surprise, not exactly anticipating his outright agreement. Which somehow made the situation a thousand times scarier.

“But you know we’re going to have to act like it still can.” the Head Auror had been quick to add.

Tara blew a stray strand of hair out of her face.

“To not insight panic.” she agreed.

Another long silence consumed her office.

“I might know of another way.” Tara suddenly whispered.

Theseus glanced over at her with an eyebrow raised.

“And that is…?”

Tara bit at the inside of her cheek.

“I can’t exactly tell you.”

Theseus immediately took a step forward, blocking out the light from the window as he moved to stand directly in front of her form.

“We agreed to no secrets.”

“This is an exception.” Tara countered quickly.

“How?” 

Again, the witch ground her teeth together.

“I can’t tell you.” she repeated. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

She could see the way that Theseus’ cheek dipped inwards as he clenched his jaw tightly.

“The last time you took something on by yourself-”

“This is nothing like that.” Tara interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere near him.”

Theseus didn’t respond to that, just heaved a sigh before turning his attention down to the ground beneath his shoes. His thoughts were clearly spiraling as he cycled through what he could say to make her change her mind.

Tara’s expression softened slightly upon seeing this. He had always been one to wear his anxiety on his sleeve. Reaching out her hand, she rested her palm flat against the side of his hip.

“I need you to trust me, Thees.” she implored in another whisper.

She felt the second heavy sigh travel through his body before he finally managed to meet her gaze again. 

“Fine.” he relented, briefly glancing over his shoulder back at the doorway. He then took another step forward, gently placing his hand on the back of her head.

“Just promise you’ll come to me the second things go ary.”

Tara pressed her lips together, nodding her agreement.

“I will.”

Tara left the Ministry alone that day, and did not go directly home. 

Instead, she journeyed to the complete other side of the city.

After knocking on Newt’s door, she stood mostly stationary on his stoop, anxiously tapping her foot. It took him a minute, as it usually did, but the Magizoologist did eventually pull the door open, blinking in surprise upon seeing the witch standing there.

“Can I come in?” Tara asked quickly.

“Yeah- yeah, of course.” he said, stepping aside to allow her do so.

The witch shuffled inside in a hurry, and Newt was quick to shut the door behind her.

“Has something happened?” 

Tara rubbed the back of her neck, turning to face him where they were now standing in the hallway just beyond the front door.

“Not yet.” she said. “But it will. The Ministry is compromised. There’s a spy, and I don’t believe they can actively combat Grindelwald anymore.” she explained in a rushed tone.

Newt’s eyes had widened with every word that she spoke, but ultimately said nothing in response.

Tara stared back at him with a restless seriousness.

“I can’t just sit in there and do nothing, Newt.” she added in a whisper. “I need to help. I need to…” 

The Magizoologist pressed his lips into a line as her words trailed off. And she could quite literally see the thousand different thoughts and fears flash across his eyes. And she understood why. She knew that Dumbledore trusted only him and a few others with the information that he had. And with good reason. 

She had been able to patiently stand in silence for a moment, wanting to allow him the time to think on it. But eventually, her anxiety got the better of her, her teeth taking a rather painful hold of her bottom lip.

“I’ll just start taking things into my own hands, Newt.” she whispered with a bit of exasperated urgency. “You know that.”

Newt let out something in between a scoff and a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah I know.”

Another long silence fell over the hallway.

“The next time he reaches out…I’ll say something.” Newt finally said. “But you must understand, I don’t even know where he is half the time so-”

“That’s all I’m asking.” Tara quickly interrupted him. “Thank you, Newt.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Tara was sat in the Director’s office at length that afternoon.

She was trying her absolute best not to scream as she repeatedly reminded the board of the section in her contract that did not allow her to take on the duties of an Auror. But they were being annoyingly persistent, arguing that these were mitigating circumstances and that the Auror’s needed someone to look to.

“This is ridiculous.” she spat angrily. “You don’t get to claim consideration over these wizards now. If you actually cared about their well-being, you would have never sent them on such a risky, under-investigated mission in the first place!”

Her words had finally managed to silence the group of men around the meeting table.

Tara took a deep breath to compose herself, laying her palms flat out against the cold surface in front of her.

“I will take this position. Not for you, not for the Ministry, but for Theseus. Because he is a friend, and I value his welfare, and that of all these Auror’s, far above your power-hungry, vindictive agenda.” she spat.

“How dare you-!”

“I will resign then.” she interrupted sharply. “If you cannot handle critique.”

Again, the room fell silent.

“Your mistakes got those wizards hurt. Yours. I highly encourage you to take the time and think about that.”

After that, Tara had stormed out of the room entirely, not bothering to stick around for any of their responses.

Tara owled Newt later that night, and upon receiving an unnaturally quick response, took him to St. Mungo’s to see his brother. 

The younger Scamander was understandably distraught, though did his best to hide it from her. But she had learned to read Newt’s micro-expressions over the years, and could easily make out the concern etched in the corners of his eyes, even as he actively tried to blink it away.

And after that first night, Tara found herself at St. Mungo’s every following day.

She spent her morning and afternoon hours at the Ministry, struggling to keep Theseus’ affairs in order while simultaneously balancing her own training sessions, which were still scheduled haphazardly here and there.

But the evenings, those were spent at Theseus’ bedside.

Often, she would find herself as one of very few people inside the hospital as a whole. And would occasionally accompany Newt during his own visits, only to then stay and prolong her own, often until the early hours of the morning. 

Tara could feel herself wearing thin, torn between several places at once.

But in the quiet moments at night, when it was just her, listening to the steady sound of Theseus’ breathing…that was often the time she found herself the most calm . 

On the other hand, those were also the moments that she felt the most pain in her chest.

One night, she had sat down next to the hospital bed, her hand gingerly reaching out to rest on top of the unconscious Auror’s. Her thumb had been absentmindedly tracing incoherent shapes along his skin, observing the few scattered scars across his knuckles. 

In her mind, as if often was those days, was playing out countless versions of what could’ve happened back in Germany. And in an effort to turn off those thoughts, she leaned forward to rest her head against the very edge of the mattress.

She hadn’t intended, or even remembered falling asleep. But suddenly, she had found herself startled back awake by the sound of someone softly calling out her name. 

Tara’s head shot up, her eyes flying open in a panic, only to find Newt staring back at her from the hospital room doorway.

Instinctively, she slipped her hand off of Theseus’, dropping it back down into her own lap.

“Newt?” she whispered in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just dropping off some vials of Murtlap Essence. The Poison and Disease department is studying them and requested some pure samples.” he explained, gesturing over his shoulder. “What about you? It’s rather late, no?”

Tara tilted her head up to look at the clock on the wall opposite from where she sat.

It was nearly midnight.

“Damn.” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Must’ve dozed off.”

“You don’t look like you’ve been sleeping much.” Newt noted rather bluntly. “Why don’t you go home, get some rest?”

“No, I-” she quickly bit down on her tongue with a wince.

Newt blinked in surprise.

“Sorry.” she said, shaking her head and rising to her feet. “You’re right. I should get going.”

“Are you sure?” Newt had asked her as she attempted to move past him.

Tara simply nodded her head in response, ducking out into the hallway.

Newt watched her go, up until the moment that she disapparated. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

The following evening, Tara was right back in the hospital. 

She had watched the doctors remove a good portion of Theseus’ bandages, which was a good sign, as was explained to her. A fact that she assured them would be passed on to the other directors.

But he still hadn’t woken up.

So again, Tara was sitting alone at his bedside as it closed in on ten o’clock. 

She had been staring harshly at the light scar that stretched down the left side of his face. One of the nurses she had spoken to had said that it, and the others, should disappear within the next few weeks, a process sped up by their treatment of course. But Tara knew that she would never truly banish the image of them from her mind.

Turning her eyes away from him completely, the witch’s attention instead honed in on the shoddy, white bed sheets beneath his body.

She felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes again, and covered her face with her arm in a desperate attempt to force them back. It was so damn quiet in that room too, so she held her breath as tight as possible in order to keep any sounds she might make from echoing off of the empty walls. 

She hated the image of herself crying silently in an otherwise empty room, but as the days continued to drag on, it was getting harder and harder for her to fortify her defenses.

Eventually, she could feel the energy beginning to leave her body completely. Slumping forward, her head gently hit the edge of the hospital mattress, and it was only when there that she finally let her tears flow freely, her hands curling tightly into the sheets. 

“Come back.” she whispered directly into the fabric. “You promised me you’d come back. You promised…”

She kept repeating the phrase until she eventually passed out.

And when she dreamt, she dreamt of him. As she often had in the past week.

He usually wouldn’t say anything. He would just stand there, a gentle smile on his face. One free of scars and bruises. She would attempt to call out to him, but no matter how much she begged him to speak to her, all he would do was continue to smile.

But that night, her dream had shifted. It wasn’t like the others. Because in it, Theseus had moved. In what looked like slow motion, his arm reached out to her, eventually resting on the side of her head, languishly beginning to run his fingers through the tangled strands of dark hair.

And then…he spoke. 

“Wake up.” he beckoned, a smile still painted on his dreamy expression.

Confusion wracked her subconscious.

“Tara…wake up. Wake up-”

A jolt traveled through her body, the same sensation one might get when falling from a great height. Her eyes quickly fired open, only to find herself once more staring into the blank, white bed sheets of the hospital bed she had fallen asleep against. 

Letting out a brief, dismissive huff, she had moved to push herself back up into a seated position, when suddenly, her muscles went rigid.

Something was gently combing through her hair.

Tara bolted up straight, causing the hand that had been resting on the back of her head to float down onto the sheets. And when she looked to her right, she found a pair of eyes ever-so-slightly peering out from behind hooded lids.

“Theseus?” she whispered, her voice trembling. She still wasn’t totally convinced that she wasn’t still dreaming.

A gentle, but tired smile appeared on the Auror’s face.

“Hey.” he whispered back with a bit of difficulty.

Tara pushed back her chair with a startled purpose. She stumbled over her feet towards the top of the bed, her hands hesitantly reaching down towards his face.

“I- you’re awake. How- how do you feel?” she coughed out.

Theseus smiled back up at her wearily, a soft grunt escaping his lips as he shifted against the mattress.

“Like I got hit by a train.” he said in jest.

Tara didn’t laugh. She just kept shaking, her hands still not daring to actually touch his skin.

“I’ll go get the doctor.” she whispered quickly, turning around to do just that. 

Theseus had, far too quickly for a man who had just awoken from a coma, reached out to grab a hold of her wrist before she could move from his bedside.

“Tara, wait. What’s wrong?”

The witch scoffed in disbelief.

“What’s wr-” she couldn’t even bring herself to repeat the sentence. “Theseus, you’ve been unconscious for seven days. They- they couldn’t even say for sure if you would wake up at all. I-” her voice cracked as she frantically shook her head.

“Tara…”

She slipped her arm out of his grasp.

“I’m going to get the doctor.” she repeated, peeling out of the room.

Soon thereafter, the doctor on duty, as well as a nursing assistant piled into the room, immediately moving to help ease Theseus back into the realm of consciousness. 

Tara was watching on warily from the back corner, only dropping her gaze when she would see Theseus’ eyes flicker over towards her position.

After a while, the doctor stood back from the bed, informing Theseus that they would like to monitor him for at least two days more. But after that, he would be free to go. As he continued to explain logistics to the Auror, his nurse had crossed the room to stop in front of Tara.

“You said you knew his family?” she asked, to which the witch nodded affirmatively. “Would you mind contacting them for us? I’m sure it would be good for him to see them.”

Tara gnawed at the inside of her cheek.

“Of course.” she replied, swiftly pulling her wand out of her boot and apparating away without another word.

Immediately, Theseus tried to sit up in his bed.

“Why did you send her away?” he demanded, a bit frantically.

The nurse looked back over at him in surprise as the doctor gently tried to push him back down onto the mattress.

“She’s contacting your family, sir.” they explained to him, in between reminders that he should not be moving so fast.

Theseus let out a heavy sigh, his head slumping back down into the embrace of the pillow.

Tara appeared on Newt’s doorstep in a snap of wind.

It was very late into the night, and she had only briefly wondered if he would even be awake before she began knocking on his door.

And she kept knocking. Until she eventually saw the light in his living room window flick on.

Dropping her hand back down to her side, she waited patiently for the door to swing open. And when it did, it revealed Newt. Standing in what appeared to be his work clothes; a pair of faded dungarees and a loose-fitting white blouse.

“Tara?”

“Sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you.” She quickly apologized.

Newt shook his head.

“Not at all. I was just downstairs. What is it?”

Tara took a deep breath before responding.

“Theseus is awake.”

Newt’s eyes immediately widened, and upon seeing his reaction, Tara felt herself slowly begin to shake again.

“The doctors told me to contact his family.”

“Right. Of course.” Newt said, quickly stepping back into his house to retrieve his coat. But when he emerged back out onto the stoop, wand at the ready, he faltered. “Tara? Are you alright?”

When the witch met his eyes, she knew that he could see the way that she was trembling.

“Of course.”

Newt looked wholly unconvinced, taking a single step forward.

“I’m fine, Newt.” she repeated. “I’m-” her throat had suddenly closed up.

Feeling her knees begin to buckle underneath her, Tara lowered herself down to the concrete of his steps, one of her hands clutching at her chest.

The Magizoologist had quickly rushed forward, catching her shoulders before she could fully fall. 

“Hey-” he whispered as she curled in on herself. She made no sound, and all he could see were the occasional tremors that flowed through her body. “It’s alright.” Newt said, placing a gentle hand on her back, trying his best to be some form of comfort. But he was finding himself struggling. His own worry for his brother had been bubbling beneath the surface for the past week. And now, one of the strongest people in his life had been reduced to a trembling mess on his front steps. 

That scared him more than anything. 

“It’s alright.” he repeated. “He’s alright.”

Tara braced her palm against her forehead, nodding as best she could, letting him know that she had at least heard him. 

Newt pressed his lips together, gently grabbing a hold of her hands in order to help her back up and onto her feet. Once there, he watched her take a few deep breaths.

“Sorry.” she finally whispered.

Newt quickly shook his head.

“Don’t apologize.”

Tara held her eyes shut tightly, trying to banish all thought, both good and bad, from her mind.

“We should go.”

Newt didn’t respond, simply allowed her to grab a tighter hold of his arm, and apparate the two of them away.

Tara had been pacing out in the hallway, while Newt spoke to the doctors, following his brief reunion with his brother. She refused to listen in on their conversation. In fact, she didn’t want to hear them speak at all. Which had led to her taking multiple laps around the entire floor of the hospital that they were on.

Back inside the room, Newt was nodding in response to the doctor’s explanations of Theseus’ injuries. 

“Your brother is a very lucky man, Mr. Scamander.”

In the bed, Theseus rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I would stay that he is.” Newt replied shortly.

The doctor had exited the room not long after that, and the moment that he was gone, Newt had finally turned to look at his brother.

“How are you feeling?”

Again, Theseus made an annoyed sound in response.

“You know, I’m quite tired of people asking me that question.” he mumbled.

Newt raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you let the Ministry send you on suicide missions.”

Theseus stilled, turning his head in order to face his younger brother with the weakest of scowls on his face.

“We didn’t know. No one did.”

“Even so. You can’t deny that this could have been prevented.”

Theseus heaved a sigh.

“You’ve been talking to Tara, haven’t you?”

Newt paused for a moment before responding.

“Not quite.” he said seriously. “She…hasn’t said much at all, in fact. But she’s been here every day since they brought you in. So, perhaps you should be thanking her instead of making passive aggressive comments.” he said, only the smallest amount of bite in his voice.

Theseus didn’t have a response to that, as it were. 

Newt sighed.

“Alright. Do you need anything? Help when you get discharged, or…?”

Theseus shook his head.

“No, I should be fine.”

“Right.”

Newt offered his brother a silent nod as a goodbye before spinning on his heels and leaving the room entirely. When he stepped out into the hallway, his eyes immediately fell on where Tara had turned the corner up ahead. He had only paused long enough to say goodbye to her as well before disapparating from the hospital entirely.

Tara took a pointed breath in, staring at the doorway a few meters ahead of her. And it took her even longer to work up the courage to walk through it.

At the sound of footsteps, Theseus’ head had lifted ever so slightly up off of his pillow.

When his eyes found her face, a sharp breath caught in her throat. She felt like it had been damn near an eternity since she had seen his eyes. It was an alarming feeling, almost alien, so she was quick to drop her gaze as she moved further into the room, eventually sidling up at the edge of the bed.

Theseus watched her every step.

When she inevitably fell still again, a heavy silence blanketed the small room.

“You’re not looking at me.” he pointed out, shifting slightly against the sheets.

Tara didn’t move.

“Your face is busted.”

Theseus scoffed in disbelief.

“Ah, so I’m not handsome enough for you, eh?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Theseus let out a hum, leaning back into the pillows.

“So you’re still mad.”

That finally got Tara to look back up at him, her eyes flaring with anger.

“Mad? I- Are you serious right now, Theseus? Mad? Of course I’m mad! How could I not be? I knew this mission was a bad idea. I knew that it was dangerous, but none of you listened! Do you have any idea what it was like hearing Russell say that you were in the hospital?” she shouted. “Have you any idea-” her voice suddenly failed as a lump lodged itself in the center of her throat. 

Theseus’ expression immediately fell.

“Tara…”

She quickly forced her emotions down, taking a moment to calm her breathing as best she could.

Pressing his lips together, Theseus lifted one of his arms up off of the sheets. Reaching out, he just barely managed to grab onto the ends of her fingers.

Tara briefly glanced down at the sight before returning her attention to his face. Her eyes had already begun to water as she shuffled herself closer to the side of the bed, allowing Theseus the chance to completely envelope her hand in his.

“I know that an apology isn’t what you want-” he started, staring back up at her as serious as serious could be. “But I am sorry, Tara. You shouldn’t have to deal with all this.”

“Shouldn’t have to deal…” she let out an empty laugh. “Merlin’s beard, Theseus. I’ll never understand you.”

Somehow, that made Theseus break out into a wide smile. His thumb gingerly traced over her knuckles without daring to take his eyes off of her face.

“Will you stay?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Tara immediately nodded her head.

“Of course.”

And she did just that.

Returning to the chair she had pulled up to the side of his bed, she occasionally spoke to him throughout the night about his injuries and all that had transpired in Germany.

As the hour approached one in the morning, Theseus had begun to fall asleep, evident by the way his eyelids had grown heavy, his head slumping against his pillow. A silence had blanketed the room for a long while by that point, white noise surrounding them instead.

Tara had been absentmindedly running the back of her hand down the side of his face. All of her anger and fear, while still very much present, had finally subsided enough to where she could breathe again. She resigned herself to the fact that he had come back to her. That he was alive .

And that would have to do for now.

She could take the fight to the Ministry another day.

Her hand had paused just beneath his left eye, silently observing the tranquility of his expression in his semi-unconscious state. The nicks and bruises that were scattered about his skin barely stuck out to her anymore. 

Suddenly, Theseus shifted against the sheets. Even half-asleep, he appeared to notice the pause in her movements. 

He slowly peered up at her from in between his lashes, but said nothing at first.

Instead, it was Tara that ultimately broke the silence.

“I love you.” she whispered earnestly.

A smile quickly grew on his sleepy expression.

“I love you too, Tara.”

The witch blinked back a tear as she watched him finally succumb to his exhaustion.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

It was late one afternoon at the Ministry, about a week after Tara had visited Newt last, when the quiet stillness that had long blanketed the organization up, was suddenly, startlingly, and rather violently broken.

Tara had been getting ready for a training session when she heard the thundering sound of several, frantic pairs of footsteps sprinting past her office door. 

Furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, she stood up from behind her desk and quickly made her way over to the door. Upon tugging it open, she found several Auror’s whizzing past her position. 

Blinking, she flagged down the first one that she knew by name.

“Chester-” she barked, causing the man to falter just outside her doorway. “What’s going on?”

The man looked back at her with a clear and present expression of worry.

“The recon team just got back,” he said, slightly out of breath. “It’s bad.”

Tara’s eyes widened as the Auror took off back down the hallway.

She hadn’t thought twice before following.

When she caught up with the rest of the Auror’s she found herself stumbling across an ever-growing crowd, converging in the main lobby of the Ministry. It was a flurry of chaos, dozens of bodies encircling the center fountain, murmuring nervously amongst each other.

Breathing heavily, Tara pushed her way through the horde until eventually emerging out past the front lines. Standing at the edge of the fountain, she found more faces that she recognized: the Auror’s of Theseus’ team that had gone on the mission to Germany.

Her heart dropped into her stomach.

There were only three of them. And they each had visible cuts and bruises littering their skin.

“What happened?” she demanded, her voice booming slightly above the rest.

By that point, several of the other directors had also made their way through the crowd, falling into formation on either side of her. 

The Auror standing directly in front of them, a man named Russell, took in a shaky breath before answering her question.

“When we got there, the house was completely empty. It looked abandoned.” he started to explain. “We spent a few days investigating the surrounding area, but every fact we collected kept pointing back to the house. So, we went back. And when we did…” his voice suddenly faltered. “It was an ambush…a trap. They knew we were coming somehow.”

“What did they want?” Travers asked from over Tara’s right shoulder.

Russell shook his head.

“They just threatened us. Said they would kill the entire Ministry if we kept pursuing Grindelwald.”

“Where’s the rest of your team? Where is Sca-”

“Where’s Theseus?” Tara interrupted with an uncharacteristic franticness.

The crowd around them fell deathly silent.

Russell swallowed with difficulty.

“Some of us got it worse,” he said. “Theseus was the first through the door. Was practically fighting them on his own…he’s the only reason I’m standing here now if I’m being honest.”

Tara felt her hands begin to tremble where they hung at her sides.

“Where are they?” Travers asked.

“We sent them to St. Mungo’s. They’re being treated right now.”

“Spielman. Kelly.” Travers barked, turning around and heading straight for the Floo Network.

Tara’s entire body felt numb as she sucked in a covert breath, following them after only a moment's hesitation, during which she and Russell had held worried eye contact.

Hospitals were terrifying.

Tara felt like her throat was closing up more and more as she walked down the halls. She had tried to chalk it up to the combination of strange smells and disembodied moans of pain that filled the air around them, but she knew deep down that it was because of what was waiting for them at the end of this unsettling promenade.

They had just finished visiting the other four members of the Auror team. Each was conscious, but horribly injured. The doctors told them, away from their bedsides, that they had never seen such a violent combination of curses before, especially used on other human beings. But they were expected to recover in full, given time of course.

Following a doctor through the halls, they made their way down to visit the last patient; the leader of the group itself, who they said had suffered the worst of the onslaught.

Tara had lost all feeling in her hands by that point and opted to shove them deep into her jacket pockets, in order to gain back what little warmth she could.

Finally, they stepped through the doorway of the room at the furthest end of the hospital wing. The head doctor dismissed the two nurses who had been floating about inside, and Tara’s eyes immediately fell upon the figure that was lying motionless on the bed in the back corner.

His eyes were closed. And there was a large, bandaged gash that ran down the side of his face. The area below his right eye was a dark, purple color and was also fairly swollen. His arms were resting out on top of the blankets, displaying the bandages that were crawling up nearly their full length.

It was clearly Theseus, but he was lying there with such a stillness that Tara’s body was racked with a fear-inducing sense of unfamiliarity. Her jaw clenched so tightly for a moment that she thought it might snap, all in order to keep her expression as stony as possible.

“He’s been unconscious since he was brought to us.” the doctor was explaining. “But we managed to patch up the worst of his injuries. They should heal, given time and care…I cannot imagine what he had gone through to procure such…” the wizard’s voice trailed off as he spoke, shaking his head dismissively after shooting a rather pointed look at the Head of Magical Law Enforcement. 

Travers didn’t entertain him with a reaction.

“How soon can we interview those who are awake?” he demanded instead.

The doctor sighed.

“You could begin now if you wish, but I would not advise-”

But before the man could even finish his sentence, the other two Directors were already in motion, storming out into the hallway and chattering amongst themselves about who first to speak to, and who else to bring in from the Ministry.

Tara, on the other hand, hadn’t moved to follow them. And from the looks of it, they didn’t notice her absence. 

The doctor, who was still standing in the room with her, let out a heavy sigh. He had briefly run his hand over his forehead before turning towards the door as well. Only to falter upon seeing that there was still one wizard left in the room.

“Oh. Is there something more I can help you with, ma’am?”

Tara tore her eyes away from Theseus, opening her mouth to answer, but found herself hesitating. She took a few, purposeful seconds to think about her words before inevitably speaking.

“I was wondering what your policies on visitation are.”

The doctor blinked in apparent surprise.

“I’m good friends with his younger brother, I’d like to bring him in if I could.” she added quickly, her tone only a tad bit rushed in nature.

“Ah.” the doctor replied, nodding his head. “Well, his wounds are going to continue to be treated by our staff for at least the next week. And I can’t give an exact timeline for when he’ll wake up, but I personally encourage visitors during a time like this. I imagine it would be best for him to see a familiar face i- when he comes to.”

The witch forced herself to nod.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” the doctor replied, bidding her a silent goodbye before finally leaving the room.

Now completely alone, Tara tilted her head back over to the hospital bed. And after reminding herself to breathe, she gingerly crossed the floor the rest of the way.

He was so… still.

Tara had lost a great many people in her lifetime. But in a strange turn of fate, she had never seen a single one of their bodies. She had never been cursed to witness them in the worst moments of their suffering and therefore had always been able to lean back on her more happy memories of them.

But now…now she was looking death straight in the face. She was watching as it reared its ugly teeth and claws, and she could feel its foul breath against her face.

Standing there in that blasted silence- it made her sick to her stomach. It made her want to scream, cry, and tear her hair out all at once. 

Reaching out with a shaking hand, she gently rested the back of her palm against Theseus’ forehead. It was cold, but covered in a thin layer of sweat.

Tara felt the sharp burn of tears in the corners of her eyes.

“Prick.” she whispered.

“Director Kelly?” a voice suddenly sounded from behind her.

Retracting her hand at the speed of light, the witch spun on her heels. Reappearing in the doorway, was Travers, eyeing her with a hint of suspicion.

“Yes, sir?”

“Report back to the Ministry in an hour.” he barked. “You will need to take over Mr. Scamander’s duties while he’s incapacitated.”

Tara hadn’t even been given the time to respond before he had already walked away.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

The end of the week came far too quickly, and before they knew it, the small band of Auror’s were preparing to depart for Germany.

Tara had effectively locked herself in her office, filling her time with re-reading the past week’s report. Even though it had been her fourth time through, she just kept convincing herself that she had missed something important. 

And throughout the entire morning, she had refused to so much as glance at the clock on the wall.

When there came a knock on her door, she had let out a short “come in” without even thinking about it. And certainly without looking up from her papers.

Her door slowly creaked open, and footsteps approached her desk soon thereafter. But it wasn’t until they had stopped directly in front of it that she begrudgingly tore her attention away from the report. Finding none other than Theseus himself staring back down at her.

Tara blinked in surprise.

“Were you not planning on seeing us off?” the Auror asked.

Pressing her lips together, Tara quickly looked back down at the parchment clutched in her hands.

“Was I supposed to?”

Theseus let out a scoff.

“I guess not.”

Tara stole a glance back up at him, her expression purposefully blank. 

At the sight of this, Theseus nodded his head as if she had spoken.

“Right.” he whispered, promptly turning around to head back the way he had come.

When he had made it about halfway to the door, Tara suddenly called out after him.

“Be careful.”

At the sound of her voice, the Auror stopped walking. Tilting his head over his shoulder, a small smile began to tug at his lips.

“Ah. Worried about me now, are we?”

Tara immediately flushed with anger. Pushing herself up from her chair, she stomped across the room until she was standing directly in front of him. She had opened her mouth once to speak, but quickly closed it again. Her jaw instead clenched in dangerous frustration.

“I’ve always worried about you, prick.” she eventually spat.

Theseus’ expression fell as Tara moved to walk past him, and seemingly out of her office entirely. 

“Hey-” he called out after her, just barely managing to grab a hold of her arm before she could disappear. “Hey, hey, hey. Wait-”

Tara whirled back around to face him, her vicious glare not quite reaching the shine of the tears that had appeared in the bottom-most corners of her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said carefully. “I was just messing with you.”

In response, Tara tugged her wrist away from him.

“You should know better than that.”

Theseus couldn't help the soft laugh that escaped his throat.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Smiling softly, Theseus reached out to grab a gentle hold of both her hands.

Tara allowed herself to stare back up at him, working overtime to keep her expression in check. For only a few meters away from where they stood, was the half-closed door of her office. Behind which they could hear the occasional sound of passing voices as other witches and wizards wandered down the hallway.

After a long moment, Theseus had opened his mouth to speak, but Tara interrupted him before he got the chance.

“Promise me.” she said, stepping closer to him.

The Auror stared back down at her in surprise, finding her eyes wide and pleading. It was the most vulnerable he had seen her in a while. And that - made him nervous. She wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was the strong one of the two of them. He simply pretended to be. 

But now, as he briefly lost himself in her eyes, he came to the realization that she needed- if only just for a moment- their roles be reversed.

Upon hearing the next flurry of hushed conversation out in the hallway, Theseus knew he was running low on time. With a gentle tug on her hands, he brought the witch closer to himself. The space between them becoming nothing but the width of their interlocked digits and palms. In response, Tara had not-so-subtly taken in a breath.

“I promise you, I will come back.”

The witches' tight visage instantly began to tremble.

“You better.” was all she whispered in response.

Theseus smiled sadly, dipping his head down to her height. But just as his lips barely managed to ghost across hers, louder voices arose from just beyond her door.

“Has anyone seen Theseus?”

“We need to get going. Come on.”

Tara let out a quiet sigh, directing her attention towards the carpet at her feet. And as the voices faded further down the hallway, she slid her hands out of the wizard's grasp.

“Go.” she whispered, composing herself just enough to look back up at him. “Go, Theseus.”

The Head Auror’s expression fell, as did the heart inside of his chest. And before either of them could so much as blink, he had grabbed a hold of either side of her face, binding himself to her through a rather feverish kiss.

Tara had instinctively reached up to clutch onto the flaps of his suit jacket. So hard in fact that her knuckles had turned a bright white color.

And when they eventually separated, both of them took several selfish seconds to catch their breath.

Reconnecting their gazes, Theseus looked like he wanted to say something. But Tara had been quick to shake her head.

“Go.” she repeated once more.

Theseus stood there for a moment longer before finally forcing himself to turn around and slip out of her office.

And as the door closed behind him, Tara let out an unstable breath.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

The Ministry was quiet following the absence of the recon team.

Too quiet for Tara’s liking.

She despised having to go into work with absolutely no knowledge of what was going on outside of her own division. With only a handful of Auror’s left in the London office for her to train, she was more than often able to leave the grounds early but despised going home all the same. She would instead wander the streets by herself for hours at a time before eventually scaling the steps of a house that she had begun to visit more frequently in the last couple of years. Especially when she needed solace away from any Ministry-flavored things.

As the sun began to dip below the horizon line, Tara knocked three quick times on the door in front of her. Standing there in the silence after, she wondered, only briefly, if he would be home at all. She knew that Dumbledore had him running several strange errands as of late. But she also knew her friend. And the many, many lives that he took care of would always take precedent. 

Finally, she heard a far-off clatter come from behind the door. Followed quickly by footsteps. And after a few more patient seconds, the door creaked.

Tara pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Hi Newt.” she greeted quietly.

“Tara-” the wizard responded, his eyes and voice bright as he pulled the door open even further. “Please, come in.”

The witch whispered her thanks as she shuffled her way inside his house.

“Sorry for the mess.” he apologized, pulling the door closed behind him. “Bunty left the basement door open and a few of the Niffler’s got out.”

Tara stifled a soft laugh, plopping down in the chair that was closest to his fireplace. A long sigh escaped her throat the instant that the pleasant warmth hit her face.

“How are things at the Ministry?” he called out to her from the kitchen.

Scoffing, Tara shook her head.

“Same as always.” she replied. “They’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

She heard Newt give off a quiet laugh, clearly unsuccessful in his attempts to muffle it and soon thereafter he had floated back out into the living room. In his hands, he was carrying two steaming cups of hot tea, one of which he offered to her as he sat down in the chair across the way.

“Thanks.” she mumbled, taking her first sip and allowing the warm liquid to sooth everything she was holding within her chest. “Have you heard from Dumbledore recently?” she then dared to ask.

Newt bashfully looked down at his lap. He had mentioned the last time she had visited that she was the only one he had had ever disclosed information to about his secret missions. Something that he clearly held a bit of guilt over. But Tara had assured him sincerely that none of his secrets would ever pass through her lips.

“No.” Newt finally answered her question. “It’s been really…quiet as of late.”

Tara hummed, swallowing more of her tea.

“How’s Theseus?”

Nearly choking on her drink, Tara looked back up at her friend in surprise.

“What?”

“Oh.” Newt said, seemingly a bit taken aback by her reaction. “My brother. I thought- you work with his department, no? I just assumed you see him more than I do.”

Tara swallowed as subtly as she could manage.

“Ah, yes.” she finally answered. “Well, the Auror’s have been very busy lately, as you can probably imagine. My training sessions have practically been shelved.”

Once Newt hummed his understanding, Tara took another sip of her tea.

“I believe he’s away on a mission, if I’m not mistaken.” she finally added, feigning a sudden remembrance. “Been hearing whispers about one for a while.”

She saw a flicker of worry pass across Newt’s expression. Though he had done his best to hide it. That caused her own carefully veiled anxiety to begin to rise once more in her chest, so in turn she had been more than quick to change the subject of conversation. 

The two friends ended up talking for several hours more, only stopping when it got too deep into the nighttime hours.

Tara stepped back outside, her boots hitting the concrete of Newt’s front stoop.

“Please apparate back home.” Newt said pointedly. “I know you like walking, but it’s much too late now.”

Tara let out an almost child-like sigh.

“Fine, fine.” she muttered, pulling her wand out from where it was snuggly tucked into her boot.

Newt smiled in response.

“And, do give my brother my best…if you ever cross paths.”

Tara looked back at her friend for a long moment, trying to determine if she did in fact see an odd sort of gleam in his eyes as he spoke. But in the end, had simply chalked it up to a trick of the streetlights.

“I will.” she promised. “Goodnight Newt.” she said, quickly swishing her wand and disappearing from his doorstep in a sharp crack of wind.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───

Tara had suggested to Theseus that they keep their relationship a secret, especially while at the Ministry. 

Not because she was ashamed or embarrassed, like he had tried so relentlessly to imply through his teasing, but because the number of people inside of the Ministry that she trusted had dwindled significantly over the years. And if no one there knew, then it was less likely that Grindelwald or his followers would figure out, or remember, that Tara still had another thing left to love and defend. 

Theseus had obviously agreed in theory, but in practice found himself fairly poor at the task. 

It turned out to be second nature to him. To want to be around her. To need to be constantly within arms reach. To have his eyes follow her every movement. Tara had to once or twice smack his hand away from the small of her back, where it had absentmindedly appeared during the tediousness of a directors meeting.

But he was trying. And that’s truly all Tara could ask of him.

The years were slowly passing them by, and with little to no progress in the search for and capture of Grindelwald. Every now and again, Auror’s would get a trail, follow it for as long as they physically could, but only rarely did it lead them to a final person, location, or plot. 

Tara continued training the Auror’s, most of whom now regarded her with a heightened sense of respect after hearing stories about, or in some of their cases seeing with their own eyes, what had transpired at the rally in Paris. The un-fading scar on her neck was more than proof that the tales were true, and had earned her quite a few unrelenting stares and questions over the years. None of which she had been too keen on responding to.

Blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face, Tara called one of her nightly training sessions to a close. She stood near the back wall watching, and occasionally waving, as Auror’s began to lazily file out of the room.

As she tucked her wand behind her ear, the one form still lingering behind made its way over to where she stood. 

With a raise of her eyebrow, Tara tilted her head up to look at him.

“Yes, Mr. Scamander?” she asked, keeping her tone fairly official.

Theseus briefly glanced back over his own shoulder, taking note of the small group of Auror’s still loitering just outside of the door, talking avidly amongst themselves.

The Head Auror not-so-subtly sighed in disappointment, then straightened out his shoulders, his hands folding tightly behind his back.

“Might I- inquire why today’s training was so rigorous?”

Tara gnawed at the inside of her cheek.

“I’ve been paying attention to the reports.” she replied. “Hearing whispers-”

“You’ve been spying.” Theseus countered.

Tara glared back up at him pointedly.

“My job is to prepare you for threats. To do that, I need to know what those threats are.” she said through gritted teeth. Glancing back at the doorway, Tara noticed that the number of Auror’s had dwindled down to only two. With a huff of breath, she turned her attention back to Theseus. “I know that you’re going on a recon mission at the end of the week.” she admitted in a whisper.

Theseus tapered a sigh, nodding his head in acknowledgement.

“Right. Well, I suppose we could discuss this further at the next board meeting.”

Tara let out a breath through her nose, looking back down at the floor. “Board meeting” was the code that they had subtly developed to mean “Back at home.”

Theseus’ hand twitched where it hung at his side, and as he opened his mouth to say something further, someone suddenly called out his name from back in the hallway. The Head Auror glanced over his shoulder, nodding to the man that was waving him over. 

When he turned back to Tara, he found that she had already crossed the room to gather her things, only giving him a view of the back of her head. With another sigh, he finally turned and jogged over to the doorway.

Tara waited until she heard their voices disappear down the hallway before leaving herself.

Standing by the window in the front living room, Tara skillfully nursed a small glass of fire whiskey. She had been locked in that same position for nearly an hour by that point, before finally hearing the distant sound of the front door opening. 

“Tara?” the sound of her name echoed semi-softly through the house. And the witch couldn’t stop the shiver that traveled down her spine.

For she had never quite gotten used to the way that he said her name.

It’s not like he hadn’t spoken it before with any sort of reverence. In fact, if you asked him, that’s all he spoke to her with, even before they got together. But as the years continued to pass, she felt like she was noticing it a bit more. It was as if his words were dipped in something as sweet as honey. As the syllables seeped into her ears, her chest would warm the way it would when one downed a steaming cup of hot cocoa. It both calmed her, and made her heart race all at once.

Theseus rounded the corner from the hallway, taking in the sight of her standing at the window. He let out an audible sigh, shedding the top layer of his suit and draping it gently over the couch.

“Something interesting out there?” he asked, walking over to join her.

Tara shrugged her shoulders, taking another swig of her drink.

“The family across the street came back from their trip today. Took them thirty whole minutes to unpack the car.” she noted absentmindedly, pouring out the information just to fill the impending silence.

But after Theseus hummed his acknowledgement, the room went quiet. Far too quiet for her liking. Tara pointedly continued to stare forward, quickly taking another sip.

“Tell me about the mission.” she finally demanded.

Theseus nodded to himself, having prepared for this discussion his entire way home.

“We got a tip about some of his followers holding up in a small house in Germany. We don't have any reason to believe that he will be there, but if we can get our hands on any information, or people, we’re gonna take it.”

Tara winced, subconsciously blaming it on the whiskey traveling down her throat.

“Smart. Good strategy.”

“Tara-”

“Any names we recognize?” she quickly interrupted.

Another quiet breath escaped Theseus’ throat as he watched her swallow more alcohol. 

“None of the inner-circle members have been there as far as we can tell. It almost seems like a group of young adults going at it on their own, which should make information-extraction a bit easier.”

Tara clenched her jaw.

“Or more dangerous.” she countered, bringing the glass to her lips again.

“Okay-” Theseus said, reaching over to snatch the drink clean out of her hand.

Tara whirled on him accusingly. 

“Hey!” she barked, making a grab for it. But due to his height advantage, he easily lifted it out of her reach, shooting a pointed look back down at her.

“Talk to me.” he ordered. “What is it?”

Tara was genuinely piqued by how seemingly easy it was for him to read her. Especially considering just how difficult it was for her to do the same. So for a moment, the two of them simply engaged in a brief staring contest, one that she was now determined to win.

“Who’s leading the mission?” she asked boldly.

Theseus blinked. 

“Me.”

Tara squared her shoulders.

“There. I talked to you.” she said with finality. “Now give me my drink back-” she had made another grab for it, but instead of giving it up, Theseus leaned over and placed it down on the small couch-side table behind him. Simultaneously, and without looking, he had caught her arm mid-swipe, a large hand curling around her wrist.

When he turned back to face her, he was met with an overtly familiar glare.

“Are we really going to have this conversation again?” he asked lowly.

Tara successfully tugged herself out of his grasp.

“No.” she spat, folding her arms over her chest again and turning to stare back out the window.

Theseus sighed again.

“You have nothing to worry about. I promise.”

Tara immediately shook her head.

“Don’t, Theseus.” she scolded. “You know you can’t make promises like that.”

After carefully studying the back of her head for a moment longer, Theseus took a final step forward, closing the distance between them completely. He wrapped his arms tightly around her middle, dipping his forehead down to rest against the back of her skull.

“I know.” he finally responded, whispering directly into her hair. Now in his arms, he could feel her body shake as she let out a breath of her own. “Tell me what I can do.”

Tara scoffed weakly.

“Nothing. Just let me…wallow in my stress.” she replied in a half-hearted mumble.

Theseus, evidently, had not been a fan of that answer.

“Nope.”

“Theseus- hey!”

A surprised yelp escaped her throat as she was suddenly lifted up off of the floor, Theseus’ arms wrapping even tighter around her waist.

“There will be no moping around in my house.” he grunted as he moved to cross the living room.

“Your house?” she quipped back, struggling against his grip to no avail.

Reaching the couch, he all but threw her down onto the cushions below, her back hitting the plush with a small “oof.” Theseus was quick to join her there, his arms bracing his body above her position, a small smirk dancing on her face.

“Mine.”

Tara felt her face flush a hot, red color.

“Slow your roll big, bad, Auror man.” she countered. “You’re the one who suggested this living arrangement in the first place. But if you’re insisting that it’s ‘yours’ then I suppose I’ll just go and get my things…” she joked, making a move to roll off the couch.

Theseus reacted quickly, one of his hands reaching out to grab the side of her waist, dragging her back into the center of the couch cushions.

“No, no, no.” he said. “You stay right here. It took me way too long to get this.”

Tara stifled a laugh, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

“Then…?”

Theseus took in a deep, purposeful breath in through his nose before his eyes eventually found hers again.

“Ours.” he corrected. “Our house.”

Tara grinned victoriously.

“Now was that so hard?”

Theseus attempted to keep up his annoyed expression, but the longer that she stared back up at him with those eyes, and with that wicked smile, the faster his walls crumbled. And soon enough, a wide grin was slowly blooming across his face.

“Minx.” he mumbled, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead.

Tara sighed contently, slouching further into the embrace of the couch. Theseus was quick to follow suit, locking his arms around her middle, and resting his head just over her shoulder.

The two of them remained like that for a while, wrapped together as the sun slowly fell beyond a horizon line far from their position.

Tara ran her fingers absentmindedly through the curls at the back of Theseus’ head, staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes followed the last sliver of orange light, watching as it grew smaller and smaller, before eventually fading away completely. When it was gone, she suppressed the shiver that had tried to travel down the center of her spine. 

As if sensing something, Theseus’ body shifted, his head lifting up from where it had been settled in the crook of her shoulder. His eyes quickly found hers, only centimeters between their faces as Tara’s fingers remained lazily locked in his hair. He took a moment to carefully trace her expression before daring to speak.

“Have you given any more thought to it?” he whispered.

Tara, instantly knowing what he was referring to, pressed her lips into a straight line.

“Theseus…”

“Tara…” he echoed back, his arms tightening around her waist as he continued to wait for a real response.

“I already told you…it’s not a good idea.” she said after a beat. “Not right now. It won’t come without consequence. It’s not an easy thing to hide, Thees. You know the kind of target it would put on your back.”

“And I already told you that I don’t care.” he countered seriously. “Marry me, Tara.”

Her stomach flipped, as if she had been dropped from some sort of great height. In the exact way that it did the last two times that he had asked her that same question.

She had never been a girl that dreamed about marriage. She had never been a girl that dreamed of a prince running into her life and sweeping her off her feet. That just wasn’t the world that she grew up in, and it certainly wasn’t the way her parents raised her.

But when Theseus Scamander asked her to marry him, it was as if everything she thought she knew about the world was flipped on its head. For every cell in her body screamed at her to say yes.

Despite that however, there always seemed to be a small corner of her brain that managed to cling onto the true gravity of the situation outside the walls they were currently taking refuge within.

So she shook her head, locking her fingers together at the base of his neck.

“No.” she whispered softly.

Theseus opened his mouth to plead his case, but Tara quickly interrupted him by tilting her own head up and kissing him boldly.

The Auror let out a quiet, frustrated groan, but ultimately surrendered to her.

He wouldn’t stop trying, he told himself. He would never stop. Because he was never going to live another moment in this life without her by his side. So if for now that meant that the ring, which he had already bought, would continue to collect dust in his sock drawer…then so be it.

“You’re infuriating. You know that?” he mumbled when they inevitably parted for air.

Tara grinned.

“So you so incessantly remind me.” she replied. “And yet…here you are.”

Theseus hummed, the sound traveling through his entire body.

“Here I am,” he repeated. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Tara blinked, her expression softening as her fingers curled at the base of his neck.

“Thank you, Theseus.”

“Always.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡☆ﾟ.･ ───