Chapter Text
The SS Marie was a wonderful boat so far as muggle ocean liners went. Steam powered and fairly spacious by muggle standards it boasted a quick ride between London and New York of only 5 days (a week, if the weather was bad). The exchange rate between wizarding money and muggle money was also low enough that Newt Scamander felt no guilt at all in getting a private room, since hiding his Magizoologist activities from a non-magical person was hardly ideal (and after becoming so close with Jacob Newt no longer felt as comfortable with simply obliviating a muggle right on the spot).
It was his first day at sea since his adventure in New York when Mr Scamander finally settled in for bed. His creatures were all fed and calmed down after their crazy rendezvous into the United States and the steady back and forth of the ocean liner rocking over the waves lulled him swiftly into a deep sleep.
Newt rarely had nightmares, though he was sometimes plagued with visions of his time in the army with the dragons. But that night he found himself revisiting his childhood home, all stained wood and the smell of cut grass though its ceiling was choked by a great grey and black shadow like smoke which filled the rafters and split out into the air like a lightening storm threatening to strike.
Newt bolted upright in a cold sweat as the boat struck a particularly large set of waves, hammering the bow, only to find something insistently tugging on the sleeve of his night shirt.
“…Dougal?” Newt whispered groggily.
By his side, perched on the side of his single bed, Dougal filtered into view. His large orb-like eyes blinking at Newt earnestly in the gloom of the room (which was broken only by the small amount of light through Newt’s porthole window). Dougal continued to pull at Newt’s sleeve, looking back at the case and then returning his intelligent gaze to Newt’s face.
“What’s wrong? How did you-“ Newt’s gaze fell on his case-which sat ajar on his small writing desk attached to the wall.
Something in the way it was thrown so widely open made the hairs on the back of Newt’s neck stand on end. Newt quickly settled Dougal on his shoulders and climbed from his bed and into his shoes, which he pulled on in a rush without tying the laces. Newt scrambled over to the case-then remembered his wand at the last moment when Dougal tapped him twice on the shoulder and pointed at his jacket where it hung on the back of the door.
Newt grabbed the wand, thanking Dougal for his insight, then stuffed it into the waist band of his pants.
Newt leapt into the case as quickly as he could and was only half way down the wooden stair inside when he got the feeling that something was distinctly wrong.
Dread began to creep up on Newt as he quietly tip toed from the small shack at the centre of his case, looking left and right and noticing with concern that the usual sounds of his creatures (even in sleep) was absent. Like they were all being quiet for some reason.
Dougal tapped Newt again then, gently pulling his hair and turning his gaze to the door on his right which led to the North side of his enclosures near the moon calves.
Not needing any more prompting Newt stepped as lightly as he could out the door and across the magical earth towards their pen.
The first thing Newt noticed, asides from the horrible silence, was the way that the world inside of the case seemed to be rocking, ever so gently, in time with the boat outside despite several spells put in place to prevent such a thing from happening. The case was not supposed to be affected by the outside world’s motion Newt had perfected that magic and couldn’t think of a reason why the spells might be breaking down now.
Newt passed several enclosures on his way toward the moon calves and noticed with some trepidation the way the creatures within were huddled, scared, trembling and silent, in their respective hutches, nests and caves. He hushed them calmly as he went by when they whimpered at his presence and kept moving forward at Dougal’s pointed insistence.
The moon calves were not gazing at their artificial moon as usual. In fact they were nowhere to be seen as Newt got closer to their enclosure and Dougal’s grip on Newt’s shoulders grew tighter and more afraid. Newt stroked the demiguise’s arm softly as he approached the mooncalves small mountain then stopped dead as he realised the source of the horrible, ominous, feeling in his chest.
The flaps to the obscurus’s habitat were dead still, as if no wind, magically created or otherwise could pass it. Newt knew that flap to flutter, in a wind of his own making, knew for a fact that it often blew cold air out and billowed like a curtain in a breeze.
But it did not move at all.
“Alright, I see it.” Newt said and carefully removed Dougal from his shoulders, placing the creature on the ground by his feet. Newt drew his wand and crept up to the opening of the obscurus’ habitat, using his wand to push the curtain apart.
Inside of what was usually a winter’s landscape there was now nothing but dark snow and a red, stormy, sky. Newt’s eyes widened as he stepped forward into the enclosure, only to be pulled back at the last second by Dougal as a thread of vicious red lightening scorched the earth at his feet.
Newt stumbled and casted a shielding spell at the last second as a black cloud surged forward as if to drag him in. It bounced off his spell without effect and Newt dropped to his knees, Dougal wrapped around his chest like a blanket, small heart beating rapidly and afraid as the red storm in the distance suddenly roared like a muggle engine.
“Credence?” Newt called, terrified, as the red storm above bellowed like a train putting on the breaks and a crack like thunder rumbled through the earth. The storm above illuminated pitch black icy mountains while closer to Newt a black swarm collided with something smaller, the little girl’s obscurus, crashing into the girl’s obscurus’ opaque barrier with a sound like stone colliding.
Newt turned away, cradling Dougal with his body as there was a horrible clash, ending in vibrant, molten red sparks burning through the magical sky above them.
Newt pried Dougal from his chest and pushed him through the flaps towards the moon calves then, before shooting to his feet.
“Go Dougal! It’s alright,” He assured the demiguise who watched Newt with frightened blue eyes. “It’s alright,” He said again and then turned, wand drawn and ran into the wet, shadow snow to meet the oncoming dark storm.
“Credence!” Newt called, as a sudden gust of wind and cold wrapped around him. His thin bed clothes doing nothing to keep out the chilling surge of frigid air. “Credence is that you?”
There was no answer until the thick black cloud around Newt suddenly solidified and surged forward, crashing through the snow like a burrowing monster. Newt threw himself out of its path, falling into the snow and then righting himself with his wand raised as the shadow rose up in a waterfall of black smoke. At its core blue and white light struggled to pierce the black and Newt watched in morbid fascination as a high pitched keening sound, like a kettle boiling over, suddenly burst into a deathly, child-like, scream.
“Credence, stop what you’re doing!” Newt cried, as a sudden, terrible fear overcame him for the fate of the little girl’s obscurus. She couldn’t possibly be redeemable within it, could she? Was that really a child’s scream?
The sound suddenly broke off with a snap, like wood breaking and Newt had seconds before the black smoke, formally a giant rotating whirlpool in the sky, fell to the snow like a dead weight.
Newt shielded himself magically as best he could but was blown back by the force of the black form crashing to the earth, thrown across the snow and rolling, battered, like a stone in a hurricane. Far away Newt could hear the terrified cries of his creatures as the collision shook the ground.
It took a few seconds for Newt to finally push himself upright from where he’d been tossed. He spat out snow onto the ground. Completely saturated and trembling with cold.
Once he was upright again Newt lit the end of his wand with a chattered ‘Lumos’ and warily began to trudge in the direction of the fallen obscurus. All around him the habitat was frightfully black as if all the magic he had used to create his winter enclosure had been sucked dry, leaving only the snow beneath his feet and empty air in its wake.
There was no sound except for the slosh of snow beneath Newt’s shoes and his own, nervous, breaths.
After a minute of travel however the edge of Newt’s circle of light fell on a dark head of hair bent to the ground above cold, shivering, shoulders.
Newt swallowed anxiously as he lifted his wand and revealed the shuddering, pale body of one Credence Barebone, bent over himself and sobbing silently in the snow.
“…Credence?” Newt murmured and the boy stopped sobbing for a moment to turn dark, hysterical, eyes up at Newt from the ground...