The fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and the cat on the table curiously stuck its whiskers into a glass bottle. The foam on the butterbeer was collapsing, and snow was gathering on the ground outside.
"You look far too old."
Leta lifted her mug of butterbeer, the pale golden drink hiding Newt's face behind it.
"Mm."
Newt still wouldn't look at her directly. He only answered.
He clearly wanted to say something, but now that the moment had finally come, all the words he had hidden away for years refused to leave his mouth.
"You should be angry with me."
Leta stared at the blurred white outline of the distant mountains and said it softly.
"I was never angry with you."
Newt's voice came out stiff and awkward.
The two of them fell silent, and to the black cat, it almost seemed as though they spoke different languages.
Its head tilted slightly, and it more or less understood the whole story.
The Hufflepuff senior had once taken the blame for Leta, and in the end he had been expelled from Hogwarts.
But back then, Leta had lacked the courage to tell everyone the truth.
Even all these years later, she still believed Newt ought to hate her. She had gotten him thrown out of Hogwarts and ruined his chances of ever finding a proper job.
If Dumbledore, then only a Transfiguration professor, had not opposed the school's punishment, Newt might not even have been allowed to keep his wand—just like Hagrid.
And what becomes of a wizard without a wand hardly needed saying.
That explained well enough why the Hufflepuff senior had once lived in such straitened circumstances.
By his own account, one of the reasons he wrote Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was this:
[Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books commissioned me to write an authoritative guide to magical creatures.
At the time, I was nothing more than a low-ranking employee at the Ministry of Magic, so I jumped at the opportunity—first, to increase my weekly salary of two Sickles, and second, to spend my holidays traveling the world in search of new magical species.]
A weekly wage of two Sickles was absolutely not enough for a wizard trying to survive in the magical world.
Especially not for a Hufflepuff senior who had always dreamed of traveling the world and studying magical creatures.
Snow drifted onto the window of the wooden cottage. The warmth from the hearth melted it into rivulets that dripped down into the white flowers outside.
Leta went into the kitchen.
Newt hesitated again and again, and in the end could only look at the cat.
The black cat was drinking butterbeer. It did it in an especially funny way—opening its mouth wide so the tilted cup could pour the butterbeer in. It looked nothing like an ordinary cat.
Newt found himself smiling before he even realized it, and then he just kept watching the cat.
"If there's anything you want to say to Miss Leta, then say it."
The black cat set down its cup.
Newt fell silent. Faced with the cat's question, he truly didn't know how to begin.
"You don't have much time left."
The black cat watched as the mist thickened, rising unnoticed along the shore, across the garden, and even through the warm fire inside the cottage.
The Borderland was ushering them out.
The black cat counted the time and realized it had been able to stay here longer again.
It suspected that the reason was the strange legend that had suddenly begun spreading through the Borderland.
Still, it was odd. Souls in the Borderland seemed almost too ready to fall in love with something.
A vague rumor, for instance. A cat from a rumor.
The black cat looked at Newt with its emerald slit pupils, and Newt felt as though he had been seen through completely.
He felt he ought to resist, but he had always been too honest for that.
"You should tell her."
"W-what?"
"You don't even tell the truth inside your own heart."
"What?"
"Mr. Scamander…"
"Dear Bastet, please don't keep making me go in circles."
"I mean, your heart is incredibly complicated."
"All wizards' hearts are complicated."
"Miss Leta feels terribly guilty."
"Why?"
"You are…"
The black cat understood.
The Hufflepuff senior was too upright, too kind. He had willingly accepted the consequences of his own choices and had never hated anyone for them.
But Leta did not see it that way.
Which meant the Hufflepuff senior could sense there had to be some misunderstanding, but he did not know where the heart of it lay.
And Leta, naturally, had no face left to bring it up.
What made the black cat suddenly realize even more was that this might be a conversation delayed by an entire lifetime.
No wonder Mr. Scamander had been so determined.
From the kitchen came the sounds of clattering pots and pans. Leta was carefully preparing something.
The black cat gave Newt a look he couldn't understand. While Newt stared back blankly, it had already slipped into the kitchen.
"Dear Bastet—or perhaps I should call you the black cat who rules over good luck and dreams?"
Leta's hand paused midair over the cooking pots as she looked at it.
The black cat shook its head, though it wasn't clear which title it was denying.
"What are you looking at me like that for? Since when did the Borderland get such a wicked wizard?"
Leta resumed moving the pots and pans. Only then did the black cat notice that this place seemed to have been damaged before. Some bowls were cracked, and some cupboards were missing their doors.
It was the first time the black cat had seen traces of conflict between souls in the Borderland.
What it didn't understand was this: what could even harm a soul?
"The opposite of what you just said, actually."
The black cat jumped onto the table.
"Nobody here likes me either. Maybe you never liked me either."
Leta kept working as she spoke, pulling open a battered oven.
"That's not true. I never thought you were bad."
The black cat said it plainly.
"But everyone else did. And they were right. I'm wicked."
Leta's voice was very soft.
"Miss Lestrange, there is no one who shouldn't be forgiven. Including yourself. Even if you've done wrong."
The black cat said it gently.
"Are you comforting me?"
Leta smiled.
The black cat neither admitted it nor denied it. It simply jumped onto her shoulder and stayed there with her, watching the snow melt on the window under the kitchen heat.
"No wonder people like you."
Leta let out a sigh.
The black cat's tail shot upright in confusion.
"But you'll never really understand wizards, dear Bastet.
Not unless you become exactly like me."
Leta had never imagined she would talk about these things to any wizard—but standing on her shoulder now was a cat.
Her gaze drifted.
All these years, those same events had replayed through her nightmares again and again.
It was the night of 1901.
Inside the ship's cabin, the child Leta was awake on the lower bunk. Her baby brother, Corvus, was screaming in his cradle.
The lamp flashed once, then went dark again. Child Leta did not move. She kept staring at the screaming infant Corvus.
Footsteps rushed past in the corridor outside. Child Leta walked over to the crying baby Corvus and noticed that the cabin door across from hers stood slightly open. Baby Credence slept soundly inside.
Child Leta slipped in quietly and switched the two babies.
"I never meant to hurt him. I only wanted to get away from him for a little while. Just a little while…"
The black cat, its slit pupils bright with Legilimency, heard the adult Leta's voice.
The ship in 1901 suddenly lurched violently. Child Leta's mother snatched up baby Credence, never noticing that the baby had been switched in the chaos.
Then the cabin door was flung open again. In the corridor stood a young dark-haired woman in a nightdress and life jacket.
Credence's mother rushed in, darted into her cabin, and scooped up baby Corvus, never realizing he too had been switched.
Child Leta, Irma, and baby Credence ended up in one lifeboat.
Credence's mother and Leta's brother, baby Corvus, were in another.
A huge wave crashed over them. Child Leta watched helplessly as the lifeboat carrying Credence's mother and baby Corvus overturned.
A few survivors surfaced in the water. Credence's mother was one of them.
Baby Corvus was not.
Credence's mother took off her life jacket and let herself sink.
She never surfaced again.
Child Leta's gaze pierced through the water, past the drowned woman, and found the dark outline of a drowned infant.
The drowned baby sank through the green-glowing sea, until at last it hung suspended in a mausoleum.
Leta had conjured that vision. It had haunted her her entire life, and now she showed it to the black cat.
"It wasn't your fault."
The black cat said it softly.
"Then whose fault was it?"
Leta asked.
"In the face of disaster, no one is at fault."
The black cat fell silent.
"I'm a monster, dear Bastet. What Newt found was a monster he could never love."
Leta no longer seemed inclined to go back out. She set some dried fish in front of the black cat and simply watched it.
"Thank you, but I'm not actually a cat."
The black cat pushed the fish away with a paw.
"Oh, I see. Then, great ruler of dreams, bringer of good luck, Bastet, symbol of war and family—will you accept my offering?"
Leta said it with a smile.
And at that moment, the black cat suddenly understood.
They had loved each other.
Leta and Newt—in all those blurred, quiet moments at Hogwarts, love had taken root.
"Grandma Milan once said…"
The black cat began, and Leta's attention turned fully to it.
"When she was young, she didn't yet understand how contradictory human nature could be, how much pretense could hide beneath sincerity, how much meanness could lurk beneath nobility—or that perhaps even in wickedness, some virtue could still be found.
Where one person sees evil, another may see goodness."
Leta fell silent. She tilted her head slightly so that her cheek brushed the cat's whiskers.
"You've learned a great many truths about wizards. Some people know many truths, and still fail at being one."
After a long silence, Leta let out a sigh.
"You should tell him."
The black cat said it plainly.
"Tell him what?"
Leta asked.
"Tell him that you feel guilty."
The black cat answered.
"But he ought to hate me."
Leta's gaze went distant.
"He never hated you."
The black cat realized they had spent a lifetime going around in a great circle.
"I'm grateful to you. We all are. But you don't need to comfort me."
Leta clearly didn't believe it.
That left the black cat silent for a long moment.
Back then, Mr. Scamander had chosen silence. And Leta, because of her own cowardice and guilt, had chosen to flee.
Two sixteen-year-old children had been left with a regret they could never speak aloud.
And that regret had been buried together with a love that never had the chance to grow.
~~~
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