Tides of Turmoil (NEWTINA)

Chapter 8 - The Visit

We stopped walking as we stood across the street from their flat. I directed my eyes towards the once dark, isolated alley next to the gate, and was glad of the decision I made not to Apparate there like last time. Right now, it was full of workers, drinking and talking loudly.

'Come on,' I said, dragging Jacob by the sleeve.

'Wait!' Jacob said, tugging hard on my coat's collar, almost choking me. I looked at him, perplexed, to say the least, asking with my eyes what was wrong. 'We cannot go in there.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'We're not supposed to!' he hastily said, 'That's what the landlady said the first time we were there, remember?'

'Oh.' That was all I could say; I had forgotten about her and that the Goldstein's aren't supposed to have men in the premises.

'Well, do you have a trick or something to make your voice sound like one of them?' Jacob asked.

I got quiet for a second. 'Yes. Follow me.'

We opened the entrance and quietly went up the stairs to the third floor. As we got there, an old step made the wood creak loudly under our feet. On cue, we heard a door snap open and the landlady's voice.

'Tina! Queenie! Is that you girls?'

I looked at Jacob, his face almost petrified, and put the tip of my wand on the side of my throat. The words that came out of my mouth then were just as if Tina had said them. 'It's just me, Mrs Espacito.'

Jacob looked both amazed and about to pass out.

'Are you alone?'

'Yes, I am.' 

'Where's Queenie?'

'Work.' A sound came from her, like a contented sound, and closed the door. I looked at Jacob, who gave me a merry thumbs-up, and we continued on our way. And, as I stood in front of the door, I realized what we were about to do, and I felt suddenly extremely nervous and partly apprehensive. First, I was with Jacob and he wasn't supposed to remember this place, much less about myself. Two, I wasn't supposed to be here unannounced. What if I was interrupting, or disturbing something? What if they weren't in the mood to host us? What would I do if, by doing this, I make them uncomfortable or annoyed?

There should be more reasons but those were the only ones that popped into my head at that moment.

'What now?' asked Jacob in a low voice.

I took a deep breath. 'Knock, I suppose,' I sighed out, and knocked on the door.

No response. 

We lingered there, silent, and yet heard no noise from inside. I frowned and looked at the time in my pocket watch. It was seven past four, and a Saturday, so they should be inside. I felt a tight grip on my insides as if a chain had clunch them and had started pulling. I knew then something was off. After a bit longer, I knocked again – this time a little louder, though not too loud so the landlady wouldn't hear. Nevertheless, we were met by nothing but silence once again.

'Something off,' mumbled Jacob. I just nodded. I took my wand out and stepped in front of Jacob. 'Alohomora.' The door unlocked, and I stepped inside, only to let out a gasp of horror along with Jacob as we turned on the lights.

The place had been ransacked, everything on the ground broken or torn apart. Broken china crunched under our feet along with pieces of glass; the sofa and pillows were all over the room, cuts covering them as if ravaged by a beast; the bedrooms' doors were torn opened in chunks, the beds all cut to pieces and turned inside out.

'What happened here?' Jacob whispered as we walked in.

I raised my wand, alert. 'I don't know... But it seemed that it was looking for something.' A sudden stillness fell over us as our eyes turned to the kitchen table.

It was the same table we all sat together the night before the battle. And right now, it was the only object that seemed unharmed from what happened in the flat. We approached it and noticed that on it, tons of tons of little, shredded pieces of paper were scattered all over.

I pointed at them and said, 'Reparo.' The pieces put themselves together one by one and, flicking my wand, I made the forming object to fly towards me. 

All the pieces put together, I had in my hand a postal card of Paris.

'Newt...' said Jacob, something in his tone of voice made me look at him, and his stunned face made my insides turn in worry. He pointed at something under the table. As I squatted down to grab it, I felt as if my heart had stopped working. As I wrapped my hands around the object, my lungs seemed to have gotten smaller. And, when I raised up and looked at it, I felt that my entire soul was coiled by vines full of thorns.

'Oh no,' muttered Jacob. And oh no, indeed. 

It was Tina's silver necklace, and specks of blood were visible on the chain and on the pendant.