Hope

Menagerie

"Theseus whatever you do, don't drop that crate!"

"Why? What's in it?"

"Nothing to worry about!" She heard Newt shout, mildly high pitched, as the crate let out an ominous-sounding hiss and something that looked like saliva dripped out of the bottom of it

"He's just playing with his Teddy-" she heard a Niffler sounding squeak echo out from Nagini's arms and he stammered "Not you Teddy! He's playing with his toy but don't touch the saliva it's violently poisonous!"

"Newton! Why couldn't you have gotten a job in bloody flower arranging!?"

There was then a clang of what sounded like buckets and brooms being knocked over then Jacob's voice calling out

"Hey, Newt? What's in the blue bucket?"

"Carnivorous worms!" He sounded slightly distracted as if he was searching for something and Jacob asked sounding more or less terrified

"And the red one?"

"Feathers!"

"oh" Came a quiet reply and Tina smiled down at the tray of drinks she was preparing.

Today was the day when all of the creatures, new and old, were being moved into their new habitats. Something which usually took an evening when Newt returned from trips was taking the entire group what looked like was going to be most of the day to get them settled. This wasn't a surprise. The habitats were new and the family groups needed to settle with fresh bedding and food which lead to quite a riotous bunch. Newt could only do one species at a time and despite Bunty's aid the creatures now trusted her also but she was being kept firmly out of the way. She understood why, she had (as usual now ) spent her morning throwing up and they had told everyone that she was in St Mungos due to exhaustion so she was to remain relaxing and resting while everyone else levitated crates and bowed to hippogriffs. As she stirred in the sugar for the Scamander brothers a giggle sounded from near her feet. One of the only benefits from being stuck on the sidelines was that she was in charge of keeping an eye on her nephew.

He was almost crawling now, shuffling around on his bottom and reaching out to grab anything that wasn't tied down. At this moment it was the laces of her boots which he was pulling on and giggling when the enforced laces retracted slightly into the shoe.

"What are you doing Ceph?" She asked with a laugh as she added the milk and caused the tray to float up to follow her. She then stooped down to lift the giggling baby onto her hip. He babbled in greeting, shards of words starting to emerge as he peered over her shoulder, then she levitated a plate of biscuits to join the tea tray and walked out into the microclimate which was the garden. It didn't take long to pick her way through the menagerie to where everyone was concentrated, currently focusing on an array of birds ranging from Auguerys to Hippogriffs.

"I come bearing drinks"

There was hardly any movement until Tina added

"-and cookies" just as Newt popped out of the case.

Theseus and Leta were feeding Augury chicks between them but left the bucket on the floor in favour of cups of tea and Queenie and Jacob who had been herding graphorns to fresh hay finished their task and grabbed their individual mugs. Nagini and Credence who were filling water troughs came trotting over covered in mud and also helped themselves while Cepheus instantly reached for his mother who somehow managed to scoop him off her hip and onto her own without spilling her tea or dropping a crumb.

"Teenie, shouldn't you be sittin' down?" Queenie asked carefully as she perched on an upturned bucket and Newt echoed her statement with an added

"You are meant to be resting Tina" Turning to Theseus for help she received merely a raised eyebrow