newt didn’t spend a lot of his time thinking about the past. his regrets didn’t help anyone - and besides, the past was often painful. they both knew that well.

better to smother old memories than to be reminded of his failures. he took the learnings he needed to do better next time and moved on.

he would never admit it to himself, though, that she might have a point. would things work out better if he embraced the past?

“i don’t think that’s true. necessarily. people spend too much time looking behind them and not enough time seeing what’s right in front of them.”

how exactly he’d ended up in this position, newt didn’t quite understand.

the last few days had been a blur, marred with grief but filled with activity too - discussing strategies on how to defeat grindelwald, and how to save their friends, and in between all that, returning home to check on bunty and the others.

theseus had been in a bad way since the battle, so newt had taken his brother with him. their losses had reminded him of the relationships he still had, and while he and theseus had never got along perfectly, he still cared about him. fortunately, his brother hadn’t objected to essentially being looked after.

sleep had never come that easily to him, but things were worse than ever now, and he shuffled into his kitchen, intending to make a cup of tea, but his brother was already there.

“no. me neither,” he said, walking past him to tap his wand to the kettle and hoping theseus wasn’t in the mood to talk. that might be too much for him to handle right now. “tea?”

“i don’t think i believe in luck,” he says, watching ripples propagate across the surface of the lake. they were supposed to be keeping an eye out for grindylows, but it was a nice day, and in reality all they were doing was relaxing in the sunshine.

“luck is just something humans made up to explain their lives,” he continues, picking up a pebble and running his fingers over it. all the same, he can’t help but feel fortunate in some way that leta is here with him to enjoy this moment. glancing up at her, through his fringe, he smiles at her, glad his life had given him just this one day to enjoy with her.

“of course you do, credence.” newt keeps his distance from the boy, well aware that even the slightest provocation could spell disaster for all of them. but he wants to help credence. above all, he just wants the boy to feel safe.

“i want that for you, credence. you can let us help you. tina. you trust her, don’t you? she’ll look after you. grindelwald - he can’t give you a home. you deserve a home, credence.”

newt didn’t want to. he didn’t want to be here. he wasn’t brave.

tina was the brave one.

but she wanted him to stay, and how could he say no? because here she was, lying in his arms, slipping away from him with every breath. and all he wanted to do was run away, because maybe if he wasn’t here then it wasn’t really happening.

she was stubborn, though, clinging to life. even as the curse ravaged her body, whatever it was that grindelwald had done. but there was nothing anyone could do. and he hated it.

the battle still raged on around them, but it didn’t matter any more. there was still so much he wanted to say to her, but newt could never find the right words, and now there wasn’t the time.

“please. don’t leave me.”

well strap in let’s go

👿 Something you and your muse strongly disagree on?

i tried to think about this for ages and couldn’t come up with anything really - newt and i have quite similar values i think

it’s not something i’d say we strongly disagree on but i definitely don’t think breaking rules and laws is the best way to do the right thing and newt is obviously way more inclined to do that

basically he’s chaotic good and i’m at least neutral good if not lawful

😇 Something you and your muse strongly agree on?

that humans are terrible and should be avoided where possible

neither of us believe that explicitly though but we live by it

🤝 In general, would you and your muse get along? 

i’d like to think so, because we’re quite similar, but that also means we’re both terribly awkward and while i do think we’d be good friends it would take a long time to get to that point because what are friends and how does that work

we’re both nerdy hufflepuffs who don’t talk much so i think we’d bond over his cute creatures tbh

🖐 How would you react if you happened to meet the muse in real life? 

probably avoid him because, again, awkward

but like if i could muster it i’d probably go say hi. tell him i loved his book. fanboy a bit.

💬 If you could tell your muse anything, what would it be? 

see above about loving his book

i’d also probably tell him to stop being an idiot where tina’s concerned but maybe that’s not really my place

🌌 If you and your muse swapped places for a day how screwed would you be? 

depends how many dragons i had to talk to

but yeah given i can’t do magic i don’t think I’d last that long, although i suppose as long as i could get into his case it’d be all good

i study at a desk most days so he’s probably screwed

🤬 Who has the shorter temper? 

probably me tbh, i get grumpy easily, although we’re both fairly good at not letting things get to us

🚑 Who takes better care of themselves?

me? newt will take care of all of his creatures before he even thinks about himself, and there’s a lot.

📝 Is the muse cooperative or do they like to take the wheel when it comes to threads? 

newt is the captain of this ship

👕 Who has better fashion sense? 

hm, possibly me, although i am fond of bow ties and i also have a similar coat so tbh if i could i’d dress like newt every day but it’s way too hot

🌈 In general, who’s more positive? 

hard to say. i think we’re both realists, but we hope for the best? i really don’t know.

💭 If the muse could say one thing to you, what do you think they’d say?

‘why do you still try so hard to impress people?’

🔒 What’s one thing about your muse that you still can’t figure out?  

his feelings/relationship with leta.

i think it’s pretty accepted that they were possibly romantically involved at one point, but i find it very hard to understand and pick up on romantic signals unless they’re blatantly obvious. it’s not that i don’t think that they could have been in a romantic relationship, i just can’t really tell exactly how he feels about her.

basically i can tell his feelings are very complicated and neither of us are very good at understand people’s feelings so like who knows. but i know that he cares about her a lot.

and obviously i like writing him in a romantic relationship with leta because i do it a lot lmao

📅 Who’s older? 

newt by like 100 years

actually 98 i think

⏰ Who’s better at keeping track of time? 

me, i get antsy about time and check my phone or my watch so often it’s ridiculous

and i think newt would very easily lose track of time in his case

📞 Who’s more likely to ask for help first?

me, i’ve gotten way better at doing that over the last few years, even the last 6 months really, but newt is way more like what i used to be and doesn’t think he needs help

👟 Who can run faster?  

probably newt, he has longer legs and i have weak lungs

➕ Who’s better at math? 

it’s MATHS don’t ya know

but this is the easiest question it’s me, i literally get paid to maths

🔪 If the muse and mun got into a (physical) fight, who would win?

newt’s definitely bigger and probably stronger than i am so he would

but tbh unless i tried to attack one of his creatures (i would never) i highly doubt we’d ever get in a fight anyway, neither of us tend towards violence

newt wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

to be fair, he often wasn’t sure what she meant. they were very good friends, of course, but by virtue of being outcasts, not because they had things in common. and sometimes it was difficult to understand leta’s perspective.

did he deserve better than her? he didn’t think so, somehow. newt felt he deserved the life he’d got. leta, on the other hand - he couldn’t understand why someone who, at the core of it, had a good heart, had faced so much trouble. she had never talked about her home life, at school, but newt could tell it wasn’t good. so he never asked. maybe he ought to have.

‘i’ve always had you,” he said, as if this explained everything. he blinked, and cast his eyes downward before continuing. “you… make me better.”