Post by Arctura on Feb 2, 2014 21:21:01 GMT
The following is only an excerpt of my novel. Like Sleeves, I did not wish to spam the site.
Chapter I: Humble Beginnings
Newt Scamander sauntered by his quaint Bristol abode, feeling lighter than a Jobberknoll feather. Like Atlas shrugging off the world. He supposed the burdens he had were a bit unreasonable; his three-year tenure at the Ministry was a gift. In fact, he had recently been promoted in the Beast Division. At the Ministry, though, it need not matter whether you dealt with dangerous half-breeds, Muggle contraptions, or paperwork. It was a perpetually dull atmosphere.
Newt was an ardent believer that one must not be content with their work. They should be dedicated. Engrossed. Essentially, they should strive to be the very antithesis of poor Newt, a man jaded from the years in a cubicle.
It was the reason why Merlin took pity on him and sent a representative of Obscurus Books by the office. In a conversation lasting no more than two minutes, Mr. Augustus Worme had commissioned Newt with writing a compendium of magical creatures. He must travel the world and document its wonders, unencumbered by the overbearing Ministry and its bombastic pillocks.
After work one day, he had thought, “How could they possibly be bothered with reclassifying Chimaeras? It’s rated XXXXX for a bloody reason!” Newt kept these daily frustrations to himself; how this restraint was possible was ascribed to his ahem, ‘Hufflepuff’ sensibilities. Oh, how he hated it. It made for an easy enough ride in school, but it hindered him in his professional life.
Perhaps, if Newt had been suited to Ravenclaw or Slytherin, he would not have felt so poor when his poise slipped and he called a co-worker a “blast-ended skrewt’, leading to his unpaid leave. Or if he had been more of a Gryffindor, he would not have even put up with the Ministry's incompetence in the first place. His courage would have come to the rescue.
At the very least, Newt had always excelled in his field. His extensive knowledge of Magizoology and approachable nature landed him those promotions despite his tender age of nineteen- not his connections, wealth, blood status, or any other useless factor. Despite how old Newt grew and all the adults that discouraged him, his dream had always been that one day he would rise above the others. Make a name for himself.
Do something great.
All throughout Newt’s childhood, no one ever expected him to be anything extraordinary, given his being a Hufflepuff, a House in which potential often went to waste. It was the other houses -blimey, even Slytherin- that were expected to give to society. It was 1918 and still no one had ever heard of a man or woman from Hufflepuff that was even worth mentioning. Since graduating from Hogwarts, Newt decided his prerogative would be to the greater good. To education and exploring. He would ditch the provincial life, travel distant lands, and catalog every creature.
That is, until his doting mother ruined this happy deliberation. One morning, a bleary-eyed Newt trudged down the stairs only to be greeted by the pervading stench of hippogriff dung and his mother’s onslaught of questions. “How do you expect to be paid on a daily basis? How do you expect to be paid at all? Young man, do you know how dangerous it is to be someone of your age and out in the world? Dear, the Ministry is safe.” she said in Gaelic, hardly allowing breath in between sentences. Newt was dubious about the last statement, but he understood her qualms with salary. However, that did not institute caring.
He had long learned there were to be obstacles in his path. His mother was, fortunately, an expected one. What she had yet to see was his preference in simple pleasures- not the usual frivolities that came with Pureblood life. But, trying to reason with a Lovette women was like trying to piss against the wind.
It was foolish of Newt not to have foreseen his imminent surrender. After months of exhorting, he finally accepted the vacancy in the Office of House-Elf Relocation.
And after years of toil, there came his waxed wings. His escape to freedom. The Department of Magical Education ruled that the Care of Magical Creatures textbooks were ‘too outdated’.
Newt was more than happy to remedy that.
And in the blink of, well, a newt’s eye, he was walking down the sodden Bristol road, dressed in austere robes, about to embark the next great adventure. This was, of course, unbeknownst to his mother, who was drinking a cuppa in her tiny Waterford home thinking her son had left for work that Monday morning. At least he had sent an owl.
Common courtesy.
Chapter 2: Diagon Alley
“Isn’t it thrilling, going on an adventure? First though, I should probably visit Nicolas. Merlin knows the old codger is lost without me,” Newt thought fondly, shaking his head, “It’d be rude not to get him something. I am his protegé. Well, not entirely. But kind of.”
His relationship with the famed alchemist was not that of a mentor and apprentice. Nicolas Flamel had contacted Newt and offered him an apprenticeship upon seeing his promotion in the Daily Prophet. Now, one must understand that this was a most unusual circumstance, for he never took on apprentices and therefore would not have even batted an eyelid, but something about young Newt had piqued his curiosity. Newt had the potential to go far, but he politely declined his offer.Tempting as it was, he knew the strict etiquette involved with being an apprentice, and ‘etiquette’ was a term that made him run for the hills. Luckily, Flamel understood his reservations and agreed to be a guiding spirit instead. But in the process, Flamel had become a weird uncle in the several months the Hufflepuff was debating whether to accept Worme’s commission.
Newt was idly pondering over sweets. “I should bring him crystallised pineapple. Or perhaps a pack of questionably flavored Berties Bott’s Every Flavored Beans. Hmm...I wonder if he’ll appreciate treacle-flavored…but he does like the pumpkin ones…” Not only was Nicolas a friend, but it was a courtesy that he bring the host a gift.
He apparated to Diagon Alley and followed a squat and portly wizard into Sugarplum’s Sweet Shop. Newt would have gone to Honeyduke’s, but he had been barred from the shop in his fourth year. Because the Hufflepuff dormitory was in the dungeons, he had access to many of the secret underground passageways. The cellar route was by far his favorite: It led straight to his favorite Hogsmeade store. Unfortunately, Newt was never good at covering his tracks and was consequently caught by a portrait on one of his midnight excursions. It was truly unfortunate he chose sugar as his self-prescribed cure for insomnia, but for him, potion-making was as futile an endeavor as pissing against the wind. Newt dearly hoped, above all, two things for his future children: they would not discover the tunnel passageways (complete sellouts, portraits) and they would not be troll at Potions.
Newt walked merrily out of the sweet shop, carrying a gift basket of the bags of beans, crystallised pineapple, and saltwater taffy. He decided if he was going to be nice to his mentor, he might as well kill him with it. He was about to disapparate when he glanced at the array of stores and came to the conclusion it would be unwise not to buy anything (for travel purposes, of course).
He walked down the North Side to one of his favorite stores, the Magical Menagerie. Newt visited twice yearly to give the store its needed revenue. Folks these days were only interested in the showy owls of Eeylops Owl Emporium, so he took it upon himself to buy as many eccentric breeds as he could without arousing suspicion. He did not mind though, having had realized his ‘unique proclivity’, as Professor Kettleburn so aptly put it (Mental he was, but a good teacher nonetheless).
Any normal visitor would be inexplicably bombarded by rows of cages containing poisonous orange snails, Puffskeins, Transforming Rabbits, sleek black rats, strangely colored cats, and even the occasional giant jewel-encrusted tortoise. Save for the zealot, this would make any sensible man or woman fly off the handle. And Newt was that zealot. This was exactly the kind of bizarreness he craved.
It was in his blood, after all.
Newt’s mother, Amaranth, was the one who had fostered his talent. A Lovette child, she was predisposed to those very creatures, and though it may be hard to fathom, and ones more foreboding than Puffskeins and Transforming Rabbits. While it was true she had discouraged his initial career choice, it was out of motherly concern. She argued that compared to many job opportunities, a Ministry position was the safest option. It was a sensible argument and one that flew over young Newt’s head. Ministry work guaranteed solid pay and though the hours were long, at least there was little chance of injury- something that could not be said for trekking unsuitable terrain in horrid weather, cataloguing wild, possibly diseased beasts. And Amaranth greatly doubted her son’s ‘unerring civilit’ would prevent him from being mauled by a werewolf, or better yet, Kissed by a Dementor. One can only hope. But then again, luck never did seem to be on Newt’s side.
The twenty-one year old finished his purchases of baby Pygmy Puffs and fire crabs (he decided to play it safe this year) and generously paid the shopkeeper. Newt then decided to browse around Flourish & Blotts, which was unnecessary considering he had Flamel’s entire archives, but it couldn’t hurt to have a look around. They were, after all, Diagon’s finest booksellers. He had come here four years previously for his schoolbooks, yet it still fascinated him to see the ceiling-high stacks of books and tomes and eccentric symbols that graced many of the covers. For obvious reasons, there were two models that were encased behind glass: The ever costly The Invisible Book of Invisibility and the troublesome The Monster Book of Monsters. Newt shuddered at the memory of the tattered, toothed behemoth that was required for Care of Magical Creatures. It was the only real danger of the class, unless one believed Flobberworms to be a hazard.
