Slow Dance

Chapter One

Tina Goldstein gave a frustrated huff as she paced around the room she'd been offered to stay in at the Scamanders' estate. It was a Saturday afternoon in late March 1927, and she had been in England for only a little over a day. The day before, she and a few other aurors from MACUSA accompanied President Picquery to an emergency international conference at the Ministry of Magic concerning Grindelwald's recent escape from MACUSA. Based on several reports from both wizarding and no-maj newspapers, the dark wizard was now most likely in Europe.

The conference ended rather late, which they'd anticipated given the urgency of the situation, and while it had already ended, Tina stayed behind and was due to return to New York tomorrow at noon as she had been invited to Theseus Scamander and Leta Lestrange's engagement party by none other than Newt Scamander.

The two of them had kept a steady correspondence ever since Newt departed New York last December. Over time the letters grew longer, and before Tina knew it, Newt asked her to accompany him to his brother's engagement party. She wrote back after Picquery agreed to let her go; a few weeks later, Grindelwald escaped, prompting her to be in England a full day in advance.

Earlier that day she and the Magizoologist met at the Leaky Cauldron, where she had just checked out from (MACUSA would only cover its employees' expenses for a one-night stay that was just enough for the conference; Picquery told her as much when she allowed her to stay in England another day) though she gladly would have paid for another night if Newt hadn't insisted she stay at his family's home in Hampshire.

It was the first time they'd seen each other in three months, and both had changed in some slight ways since then. She had a new wardrobe and a new hairstyle. His hair was still messy, and his face still freckled; and the only change to Newt's wardrobe was a grey coat instead of the peacock blue one. And was it just her imagination or was he more handsome?!

Regardless, both took a few moments to take in each other's presence and appearance; Tina at one point wondered whether Newt could hear her heart pounding from where he was standing. She had scarcely stopped thinking about him the whole time they'd been separated, and now that they were together again, she tried to take in every detail about him and tried to convince herself that she wasn't in fact imagining this, as she had done so many times in the last three months. He was here .

"Hello," he said eventually, with a smile that seemed to light up his whole face.

She couldn't help but beam right back at him, and hadn't realized she'd been biting her lip until she opened her mouth to reply with, "Hi."

The two had brunch in a corner of the pub, where he pulled out from his case (now enchanted with more protective charms to keep even the Niffler from escaping, he assured her) a copy of his book and handed it to her. The first copy printed, he told her. Her heart fluttered, and taking the thin scarlet book into her hands, she gasped when she laid her eyes on the gold lettering of the title. Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them . It was the title she suggested when the two of them were down in his suitcase on his last night in New York.

(After she helped him feed the creatures for the evening, she followed him into the shed where he'd laid out several loose pages of his manuscript on the desk. There was one page that had at the top center the words " Fantastic Beasts " and below it were several scribbles that had been crossed out: " and How to Care For Them ", " and Why They're Important ", among many others.

"My publisher and I have agreed to call it 'Fantastic Beasts' but he wants me to come up with an extension; he says it might make the book stand out more," he told her as he looked at the page in his hand. "But as you can see, I've been struggling to make any real progress in that area.