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Ned Veigler’s Memory


NEWT'S STORY CONTINUES...


Ned Veigler awoke in the observation room in the laboratory, his shoulder freshly bandaged.

He shook as he sat up.

He couldn’t recall how he’d gotten there. Last he remembered, he’d fallen at the feet of Newt Scamander as he transformed, directly beside Fenrir Greyback… He’d never dreamed, as he lost his consciousness then, that he would wake up from this full moon.

He pushed himself to his feet - very shakily, clutching his head. He tried to remember… tried to pull memories from the recesses of his brain… but none would come. Carefully, he unlocked the door and stepped out to find Newt.

There were children everywhere. He looked around in confusion. There were children sleeping all over the floor, in little piles together, and apart, on the stairs, laying over rocks. One little boy was sleeping as Dougal the demiguise, in his visible form, sat holding him carefully and staring around at the others. Ned picked his way carefully across the floor, making sure not to step on any little hands or toes…

He found Newt in a chair beside the operation table. In his lap was the small boy they’d had with them the night before when Ned had seen them last. The boy’s blonde hair fell over his forehead in a soft wave and he was asleep, his hand clutching Newt Scamander’s blood-stained vest. Newt himself was a mess and very pale. Blood on his face, dried, and his eyes unfocused, staring at Tina, his hands shaking as he clutched her hand. Ned realized, then, that Tina was laying on the table, a horribly sodden bandage across her chest - sopping with blood - her face pale - even paler than Newt’s.

“No - is she --” Ned hurried into the room, panic rising up in him.

“She’s alive,” Newt said, his voice a monotone from exhaustion.

Ned hurried to her side, “What happened?”

Newt’s eyes stayed unfocused. “A lot.” Then, before Ned could ask anything more, “We need to - to go to Hogwarts,” he said.

“Ok.” Ned noded. “Ok. Where are we now?” he looked up at the lid of the suitcase.

“Exactly where we were.” Newt replied, “Unless they moved us.”

Ned felt sick. “Is Greyback out there?”

“I don’t know.” Newt squeezed Tina’s fingers, “I haven’t looked.” He paused. “I’m… I’m very dizzy, really, I’ve… I’ve given her quite a bit of - of blood.”

Ned nodded and he went to the ladder, though his bones still ached from the transformation. He climbed up and pushed the lid open and found they were alone in the trees. “They’ve gone,” he said.

Newt looked up at him.

Ned hesitated, “I’ll get us to Hogwarts,” he said, and he climbed out of the case.

Newt closed his eyes as the lid of the case shut. Then Tina’s fingers flexed around his and he looked down at her. The rush of air from the opening of the briefcase had woken her and she stirred. “Teeny? Love?” he whispered.

“Was that… Ned?”

“He’s outside, love.”

“He’s… he’s ok?”

“Y-Yes,” Newt answered.

“I’m not… mad… at him… tell him… tell him I’m not… cross,” she begged.

“I will, love,” Newt answered.

She closed her eyes again.

Newt looked about the room at the forms of all the children and he glanced down at Bradley, who lay sleeping on his chest, his little face back to being a boys’ instead of the wolf pup he’d been all night. Newt ran a palm over his hair softly.




Outside, Ned stood, his joints still aching, his feet in the snow, and he lifted the briefcase and hurried through the trees to the path. He walked swiftly, listening through the trees for any sounds that might be heard… but surely the wolves were all recovering from the full moon… sure they were all experiencing the same pains he was…

He’d gone a little way along before the first memory struck him.

Greyback’s growling voice echoed in his head.

You are a traitor, Mr. Veigler…

He hated the sound of Greyback in his head and he paused as a shiver made its way down his spine… and then on down the path he went…

Bare your neck.

His stomach twisted with nausea. He’d been sentenced - sentenced to death by Greyback. Being Omega, he had surrendered himself, laid himself down, welcomed his penalty… What could possibly have saved him?

And then a flash of memory…

Tina Scamander leaping through the brush…

Tina Scamander fighting the wolves… his brothers under Greyback… stunning them, petrifying them...

Tina Scamander, kneeling over him… bandaging him with her wand…

The smell of her in his nose…

Twitching…

And the muscles in his legs leaping upward…

Her scream…

He grabbed onto a tree for balance, having nearly toppled over as he remembered the blood, crimson red across her chest, the way she’d laid there in the snow, gasping, shaking, how he’d geared up for the kill… pacing his foot across the snow… then there was Newt and the briefcase and the little boy and the taste of copper blood in his mouth and now, at the memory of it, Ned turned and wretched into a brush, clutching his stomach.

He’d bitten.

He’d bitten that little boy.

His mind was an absolute blur of guilt and raging self-loathing. He had done it. He was the reason why Tina Scamander lay, possibly dying, on that table in the briefcase laboratory. He was the reason Newt Scamander sat next to her, covered in blood, holding a tiny boy with bandages on his bicep, bitten by a werewolf… He was the one that had caused so much agony.

Ned…

A voice seemed to carry through the trees.

He looked around.

Ned…

There was no one there.

Ghosts. Ghosts of guilt, he thought, ghosts designed to torment and remind him of the horrible things he’d done. Biting children and killing one of the only people who had ever cared for him in his entire life. Tina Scamander was as close as he had to a mother - Newt as close as he had to a father. Greyback was right. He was a traitor.

A traitor to the Scamanders.

A traitor to goodness.

He couldn’t go with them. He couldn’t stay with them, knowing what he’d done.

He’d get them to safety… but then he had to go. He had to leave them. Had to let them go on to safety without him. He was dangerous. A dangerous creature. An XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX M.O.M. Classification.

Clutching the case, and catching himself from tree to tree, his stomach churning horribly inside of him, Ned Veigler stumbled his way to the edge of the forest, to the edge of the lake. Across ,he could see the town in the early afternoon light, and he stood in the sun, blinking back the brightness, which reflected in his tears, and then, with a crack, he disapparated.

He found himself in Hogsmeade, by the Hogshead Pub and he ducked quickly among some trees, not far from the Shrieking Shack, where he’d once tried to kill other innocent people - tried to bite other innocent young boys. He remembered Sirius Black’s eyes that night, two years before. Remembered Remus Lupin looking up at him so hopefully. He could recall Remus’s tears in his office back at Hogwarts as they talked about what a terrible struggle it was to be a werewolf…

He’d inflicted that horrible pain on someone else now.

That poor little boy.

And had he bitten Tina? What if Tina Scamander was a wolf now, too? What if she died? What if he’d taken away the only person that Newt Scamander fully and completely trusted?

He unlatched the case and looked down. Newt was still sitting in the chair, the boy still asleep across his lap… Tina still pale and limp on the table.

Newt looked up, “Ned, are we, we there?”

“We’re in Hogsmeade,” Ned said, then, “This is where I leave you.”

“You leave me?”

“Yes. I - I can’t stay. With what I’ve done to you, I don’t deserve to stay. I - I deserve to be alone. I deserve to - to die and --”

“What are you - you saying?” Newt’s eyes flashed with panic. “Don’t say things like that, my boy, don’t say - things.” He scrambled to stand up.

“Thank you for everything --”

“Mr. Veigler, I --”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done and I’m so sorry that I - I repaid you this way -- and --”

Newt shifted the boy onto the chair, hurrying for the ladder. “Mr. Veigler --”

“I’m sorry.” And Ned backed away from the opening of the case.

Newt popped out of the case into the snowy clearing and he stood in dismay.

Ned Veigler was gone.