Harry Potter One Shots (Vol. I)

Unprecedented Pairing (Newt Scamander)

It's still the 17th so technically this isn't late 

But it is being posted later than I originally would've liked. 

Anyway, here it is. 

Also, like I said in the message I posted yesterday - pay attention to the author's note at the end of this

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It was strange how things changed, how your perception of a place could change in such a short time. Hogwarts, once my favoured place to be and somewhere I looked forward to returning to after each summer holiday, was now a place I dreaded being. It used to be home, somewhere I knew I belonged and I enjoyed every day at school.

But now, as I sat hiding away in the library, all too aware of the eyes on me as people pretended not to be watching me, I wished I hadn't returned. I wished, more than anything, I'd listened to my mother's well-meaning, but slightly infuriating offer to appoint a homeschooling professor. She'd offered me the opportunity to complete my education safely within the grounds of my home but Salazar, I was too prideful to take the offer. I had too much confidence in the steel armour I thought I possessed to agree. How was I to know that I didn't have any armour? Instead of being protected, all whispers, all glances pierced easily through my skin and littered it with hundreds of invisible scars.

Letting out a deep breath, I rubbed my arms as if to ease the non-existent pain of the stares piercing me alive. Why were they looking at me? Why couldn't they all just leave me be? I hadn't done anything. Since I'd returned for my sixth year, all I'd done was try to keep my head down, to keep to myself and just work towards completing my education. That was all I wanted to do. All I was doing was working on my Potions essay. I'd pointedly tucked myself in the corner of the library, at the table no one used but still, I couldn't evade the whispers. It was made worse because none of them believed they were being cruel.

Gripping my quill between tight fingers, I tried to stop myself, I tried to fight the urge, and yet I couldn't. Easing my grasp on the quill so that my knuckles were no longer white, I peeked at the two students sitting at the table closest to mine. The two, my dormmates and friends - or perhaps former friends was a better descriptor - were seated, pretending to be busy with their assignments, but that was far from the truth. The two, after seeing me enter the library, had abandoned their place at the table nearest to the entrance and traced my steps before settling at the table closest to mine. It didn't take me long to figure out why.

Ratna and Thando, having long since given up even holding their quills, were talking animatedly with each other, in voices too loud to be a whisper. Their words easily carried over to me, but knowing the vindictive streak both could have, a streak I shared but had disappeared as of late, they wanted me to hear every word. Was I that cruel as well?

"Some people will pretend to be innocent," Ratna started breezily, "despite being anything but. It's ridiculous the lengths people will go to, to pretend to be a victim."

I was a victim, I wanted to protest, but I held my tongue. They wanted a spectacle. They wanted me to respond, so I wouldn't.

Instead, I listened without a word as Thando responded, "You know I'm not one to say such things, but someone people really deserve the things that happen to them. What else did she expect after stringing Carrow along like that?"

Breathing out shakily, I willed myself to remain seated, to stay where I was and for my steel spine to return. But, the strength that I'd always had, that I was sure I'd been born with, had withered and rusted and was nowhere to be found. It was simply too difficult. It was too difficult and too much. Gathering my things with shaking hands, I willed them to stop, if only to stop myself from stumbling as I tried to get everything. Like everything else, they refused to listen.