Chapter Text
New York City, October 1927
Porpentina Goldstein was not one to sit around moping over a man. Or stand around, for that matter. But there she was in the magizoology section of the newest bookstore on 4th Avenue, and she was most definitely moping. It had been ten months since the memory-erasing rainstorm had fallen over Manhattan. Ten months of being an Auror again, ten months of Grindelwald trials in the MACUSA court system, ten months of long days spent quieting rumors spread by Second Salemers.
Ten months since Newt Scamander had boarded an ocean liner and sailed back to England.
Tina, she thought to herself, pull yourself together. But there it was, red leather and gleaming gold lettering and Newt Scamander in a smaller font beneath the title. She had seen a table display at the front of the store but couldn’t bear to stand there so close to tears. Instead, she dashed to the far back corner and rested her forehead against the same shelf she had checked every day, week after week, for this thin reference book with its simple, straight-to-the-heart title. One hand reached out slowly to touch the binding, the smallest “O” for Obscurus Books letter-pressed onto the spine.
She heard a small cough and quickly wiped her eyes on the corner of her coat sleeve. Turning, she saw Benji Bass, his hands in the pockets of his ink-stained Strand Bookstore apron. “Can I help you, Miss Goldstein?” he asked, and Tina could hardly bear to see the kindness in his eyes. He knew her by name because she had visited his No-Maj bookstore 81 days in a row, ever since discovering that a simple Specialis Revelio charm would unfold new sets of bookshelves from the walls.
It had been a blistering hot July day when she’d first walked into the Strand after seeing the “now open” sign in the window. Benji had been behind the counter that day, asking her what she liked to read. She stumbled through something nonsensical about animals and travel, and he had pointed her toward the back rows of shelves. As an Auror she had gotten into the habit of whispering revelio whenever in a new place, but this was the first time something actually happened in the middle of a very No-Maj part of Greenwich Village. When the first set of shelves pulled out of the wall she’d swung around, ready to obliviate the store clerk, but Benji was focused on unpacking a box and hadn’t even looked her way. He’d never said anything, so neither had she. Any time she brought a magical book up to the counter, like the sequel to The Flap of the Cape, it transfigured itself into whatever No-Maj book was most popular that week, like Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse or Agatha Christie’s The Big Four. Usually she’d end up buying one of those as well – Benji would joke for years afterward that without her, the Strand would have closed its door in three months.
Benji was one of the nicest No-Maj’s she’d ever met, Tina had decided after a few days of stopping by the store on her way home from the office. He was about her age, and quiet, but he understood literature and texts better than anyone she knew, No-Maj or not. In some ways he reminded her of Newt Scamander, but Benji wore thick glasses and his hair was already starting to thin, and he was married to a girl named Margaret, a librarian at the New York Public Library. He didn’t ask her too many questions, which she was thankful for – interacting with No-Maj’s had always been difficult for her. She had none of Queenie’s allure, or her legilimency. But between her obsessive book-buying habits and Benji’s kindness, they had forged a simple friendship. She told him, after two weeks of checking the magizoology shelves each evening, that she was looking for a recently published book written by a friend in England. She didn’t mind telling him Newt’s name, knowing that between the December rain and the nature of No-Maj bookselling, Benji would probably never manage to find the book. Or its author. Still, Tina couldn’t help but check every day, July giving way to August blowing into September. And day after day, no book by the British wizard who’d broken all of the rules when he had apparated into her life and, just as quickly, sailed out of it.
She knew, she knew Newt had asked if he could deliver it in person, and she was pretty certain she had told him that he could. And yet, there it was, shelved between The Erkling Wars and other Scary Stories for Children and the more austere Gardening with Gnomes.
“Miss Goldstein?” Benji asked again, his hand on her arm. “Are you alright? Here. Come sit down over here.” He led her over to his stool behind the counter and she sat. The front display was flickering between the bright scarlet of Newt's book and the mint-green of Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. To Benji’s eyes, it probably just stood still in pale green, but to her it looked like a Christmas display drunk on too much giggle water.
She wiped her face with her sleeve again, sighing. “I’m fine, Benji, really.” He didn’t look convinced. “It was just a long day at work.” And a long sixth months since Newt Scamander’s last letter, she thought, but she kept that one to herself. She stood up and made her way over to the door.
“No book today, though?” Benji’s eyebrows were raised. “That’s not like you.”
Tina glanced quickly over at the green-to-red-to-green covers. “No,” she said quietly. “No,” again, more firmly this time. But Benji shook his head and, stepping out from behind the counter, took one of the books – a steady green in his hand – and pressed it into hers.
“Take Wilder’s new one,” he told her. “No, no. I don’t want any money. Escape from work a little tonight.” He opened the door for her, and she stepped out into crisp fall air.
She looked down, and there it was, as red as a maple leaf in her grasp.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.