The next day seemed to pass by in a blur. After ______ decided that she would go with Newt, she had to contact her family and tell them she wouldn't need help with expenses on her apartment anymore. They thought it was because she finally got a better job, but when she told them the real reason, they were surprisingly supportive. They were all for her getting out of New York. They knew how much the city drained her, and how much she's always wanted to leave. So, they let her do it.

The next thing she had to do was talk to her landlord. Obviously, she couldn't take all of her stuff with her to Britain. She already knew what she was going to bring, but as for the rest of the stuff, she told the landlord to just include it with the apartment next time they try to sell it. Considering she was still on a one-month contract, it took some time to get the landlord to let her off, but she finally did it.

Considering those two things alone took up the majority of her last day, it wasn't surprising when she woke up and she knew it was the day. The day they were leaving. She couldn't wait. It was goodbye life in New York, hello life in Britain.

With Newt.

With Newt.

That thought send chills down her spine. She didn't have to move out alone, she got to move somewhere new with him. He always seemed to bring a smile to her face, it was just something about it. It wasn't just his magic that made her happy, it was his smile, his personality, how he knew how to treat her. Thinking on it, she couldn't imagine moving out with anyone else.

She got up from her bed, changing into different clothes and packing for the last time, getting all the stuff she couldn't pack before. After double checking she had everything, she went over to Newt's room to check on him. She walked down the hallway, peaking her head into his room. "Newt?" she called out.

No answer.

"Newt?" she called out again, stepping inside. To her surprise, he was still sleeping. She walked over to the side of the bed, looking at his sleeping face. She knew she had to wake him up so they could get to their boat on time, but looking at him like this... he was very cute when he slept. She knelt down to his level, looking at his sleeping face. Whatever he was dreaming about, it was making him smile softly. His eyes were closed so gently, and she thought she could probably count his freckles to pass the time if she wanted to-

Her thoughts were interrupted when suddenly Newt mumbled in his sleep. "______..." he mumbled, shifting slightly.

______'s face went red. Why was he saying her name? "Are you awake?" she asked suddenly. Maybe he was actually awake and saw her come in, he couldn't possibly be dreaming about-

Newt's eyes shot open as he heard her voice. "______!" Newt shouted, sitting up quickly. His face was red, how long had she been in there? Luckily, ______ was too embarrassed herself to notice how red his face was. Had he known she was staring at his face?

"Sorry!" she exclaimed, standing up again. "I was just coming on here to tell you that we should get going soon. I didn't mean to... uh... wake you up." She looked away. "I'm going to go make up coffee before we go!"

Getting out of his room, she was still embarrassed that he saw her staring at his face. Usually she didn't act like that, but she really did think Newt was cute when he was sleeping. However, Newt was too busy dealing with his own embarrassment. He knew he sometimes had a habit of mumbling in his sleep, he just hoped he hadn't said anything about that one. The specifics of the dream had already begun to slip away from him, but he knew one thing for sure: it had something to do with ______.

As the water of the coffee was boiling, ______ heard a knock at the door. Who's trying to visit me? ______ asked herself. She never got visitors, no one ever came to see her. The fact that there was someone knocking on her door on the day that she was going to be leaving made her curious. She walked towards the door, looking through the peephole.

She saw the woman from the grocery store the other day. Her name was Tina, right? What was she doing here?

______ began to cautiously open the door. "Hello?" she questioned. What was she doing here? Did she come to say goodbye to Newt or something?

Tina stared at no-maj before her. She could already tell Newt hadn't wiped her memory, she could tell just from the look in her eyes. She obviously was wary of Tina, not like someone would be towards a stranger, but like someone would be when they were unsure what a person would do. She sighed. "Mister Scamander couldn't do it, huh?"

Tina's voice rang through the house and hit Newt's ears with a buzz. What she told him suddenly came back to him. That if Newt didn't wipe ______'s memories by the time he was supposed to leave, she would. Quickly, Newt finished getting ready and dashed out of the room.

Tina looked at ______, grabbing her wand from her pocket. "I'm sorry," she began. "Just stay still. This will be painless."

"What are you doing?" ______ asked, taking a step out. When Tina took her wand out, ______'s heart almost jumped out of her chest. All of a sudden, it came back to her. Tina was the one who told Newt that it was her job to make sure she was obliviated, so of course she wouldn't let ______ just walk away with her memories.

As Tina opened her mouth and pointed her wand, she didn't get a chance to even say the spell before she was interrupted by a louder wizard.

"Expelliarmus!"

Newt had run out of his room, wand in hand, and pointed it right at Tina. Her wand flew out of her hand, and her attention was immediately turned towards Newt. He had a hurt, destroyed, and accusing look on his face. One she never wanted to see. He was looking at her like she had just stepped on one of his beasts. Her wand had flown out of her hand, and now it was rolled out a couple of feet in front of her. Tina wasn't invested in getting her wand back at the moment, she and Newt were just looking at each other.

"Newt, why couldn't you just obliviate her?" Tina asked, a sad tone in her voice. "I told you it couldn't be avoided."

Newt kept his wand pointed, stepping towards them now. ______ was caught in the middle, fearing that she might not make it out of this with her memories intact. "Newt..." ______ began, looking over at him with a scared expression. "What do I do?"

Newt got closer, taking the girl's hand. "Stay behind me," he told her, leading her behind him. Tina watched this exchange with sad eyes. What was so special about this no-maj? Why was Newt going through all this trouble for her? She'd never seen him like this, he was suddenly acting very protective, like she was threatening him. Tina took this moment between them as an opportunity to snatch back her wand from the floor. Now she and Newt were at a standstill, pointing their wands at each other.

Nobody thought you'd ever see this kind of sight. It was atypical of a Hufflepuff, which people consider to be the nicest, most innocent houses, to point his wand at someone, ready for battle. What people tend to miss is that Hufflepuffs are so much more than their stereotype. Hufflepuffs could come through for battle when it came down to it, they could rise to the top when it was somebody they cared about. They were resourceful, and despite Ravenclaw teasing, they were intelligent. They knew how to stick up for themselves, and more importantly (to them, at least), they knew how to stand up for others.

So, that's exactly what Newt was going to do. He was going to stand up for ______, and he was not going to allow her to be obliviated.

Tina pointed her wand at Newt with a heavy heart. She didn't want this, this was the last thing she wanted. Why did no one listen to her when she told them not to get attached to no-majs? It was causing her sister grief, and now, it was going to cause her and Newt grief. She was going to have to obliviate ______, whether Newt liked it or not. She had convinced herself of this now, there was no other way. She couldn't let the two of them walk away together.

Even if Newt never forgave her, she had to do it. He couldn't walk away happy with a no-maj. Her sister wasn't allowed to. Her sister had to live with the heartbreak.

So now Newt had to.

Why couldn't Newt just pick her? Wouldn't that make everything so much easier?

"Newt," Tina began in a sad voice. "You know I have to do this. Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Tina, you know that you don't have to do this," Newt began. He knew what he was talking about, and he hoped Tina did too. In fact, he knew Tina should know what he was talking about. She had lied to him. While ______ had been getting ready to leave yesterday, he had popped in for a visit in MACUSA. There was no law about moving away from America with a Muggle.

Tina feigned ignorance. Or, perhaps it wasn't feigning. Maybe she truly had convinced herself that this was the only way. Either way, she didn't register what Newt was saying. "What do you mean?" she asked, furrowing her eyebrows. "Newt, please, if you don't want me to do this, then you have to do it yourself."

"No way," Newt shook his head. "Tina, you lied to me."

"What?" Tina asked, her voice cracking. His voice was so accusing, so cold towards her.

Newt could stand here and argue with Tina, he could fight her, he could bargain with her. He could do all of this, but what he wanted to do was make sure that ______ was safe under any of these circumstances. He didn't want to get distracted and possibly miss something, ______ getting hurt of obliviated in the process. No matter what he did, he had to make sure she was safe. He turned to her. He hadn't let go of her hand, and she was still standing behind him, confused and worried. "______," he began, looking at her. "Go into your guest bedroom and step into my case, I will not have you lose your memory. Not like this."

"I don't want to leave you," ______ told him before she thought through her words.

"______... I don't want you to lose your memory under any circumstances. Especially not under these ones, not when you're so close to finally leaving like you always wanted."

"Newt, don't do anything rash for me. I don't want you getting into trouble for me."

"You and I have done nothing wrong, I promise. I didn't lie to you ______, I never lied to you." He looked down from her eyes, so her lips, to her pocket where he could see Pickett. Usually he told others to look after his beasts, but here, now, he was asking Pickett to look after ______. It was so obvious, he knew Pickett could get ______ out of this situation if he had to. He already proved to be protective of her before, so now he knew Pickett would come through for him. "Just please, go. I'll come get you in a second."

"He might not," Tina piped in. "Laws are laws."

"Go, now," Newt told her in a soothing whisper. ______ nodded silently, looking towards Tina. She knew she should be mad at Tina. She was trying to take away her memories, she was being heartless, she seemed full of herself from the moment she walked in the door, but at the same time... she could see a shade of sadness. Tina didn't want to do this, not to Newt at least. She could tell that much.

Could it be that Tina was in love with him?

As she turned her back to walk away, Tina pointed her wand. "Obliviate."

As ______ heard the words leave Tina's mouth, she froze up. She expected something, and in a millisecond of silence, she was expecting the worse. However, that's not what happened. Instead, she turned around to see Newt jumped in front of her, pointing his wand. "Protego!" he shouted, and the silver mist that seemed so close to hitting her seemed to be deflected by an invisible wall. He looked back at ______. "Run," he told her in the calmest voice he could muster.

______ nodded, and she turned and ran, hoping she wouldn't hear Tina's voice again. Newt seemed to be keeping an incredibly calm demeanor the entire time, but on the inside, he was panicking. He wasn't sure what he was doing, or if he was doing anything right. He was acting off impulse, and perhaps that was what was saving him.

______ ran into the now-vacant room, seeing Newt's suitcase resting on the bed. She took a breath and opened it slowly. She had never been in there without Newt, she felt like she was invading. She felt like she was trespassing. He did, however, tell her to go in there, and she trusted him. So, with one last look behind her back, she climbed down, hiding herself.

Meanwhile, Newt and Tina were still in a standstill. Newt kept his wand pointed, watching her. You could barely detect that there was a shade of sadness and regret in his eyes. He didn't want to fight with Tina, he didn't want this to be happening. "Tina," he began, in a low, calm voice. "Why did you lie to me?"

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Tina told him, beginning to lower her wand. She didn't come here to fight Newt, she came here to obliviate ______. She wasn't going to leave without doing that, but she wasn't going to hurt Newt in the process.

"I went to MACUSA to brush up on some of the laws against Muggle and wizard relations. There's nothing stating that they have to be obliviated even if they're leaving the country, nothing that even sounds like it. As soon as ______ and I leave, we're out of MACUSA's jurisdiction, you don't have to worry about it."

Tina froze. She knew that, she knew that. Somehow, she managed to convince herself there was no other way. She didn't want to believe that was the law. She didn't want to believe that she'd be seeing Newt and ______ get on a boat and leave, off to be happy together.

She wanted to leave with him.

He had saved her, and she couldn't forget that. They were going to die, but he saved her. Since then, she's always felt... something. She thought that maybe he felt it to, but now, she could see he never held her that way. Still, she wanted to hear it from him She needed to hear it from him. Why did he like her so much? What made her so special? Why was he doing all of this?

"Newt..." she began, now in a calmer voice. On a completely different level, on a different thought. "Why are you doing all of this for her?"

"I already told you-" he began, but he didn't get to finish.

"You said it was because she's your friend, I know. That's what you're saying, but it doesn't make any sense. Jacob was your friend too, and you didn't do half of this for him. You didn't try to protect him from the law, you just accepted that's the way things were. You watched as your friend lost all his memories of you. It doesn't make sense. You call her a friend, but you hold her higher. How do you really feel about her?"

Now Newt was the one to pause. She wasn't lying, and now he didn't understand it either. Jacob was Newt's friend, and he knew he had to let Jacob go. So, he did. He felt so bad about it, watching Jacob forget everything. Of course, he did give Jacob a little something for his trouble, even if he doesn't know why it was given to him. But, with ______... he couldn't imagine just letting her go with a trinket. He couldn't imagine giving into this fight. It was just something about her, he felt more drawn to her than he was to other people. She understood him, she understood his beasts.

And she had the most magnificent eyes.

"I care about her, Tina. I really do. I can't see another person forget about me, not when I hold her so close. I can't forget her, and I can't let her forget about me."

She finally heard it. Tina finally heard the straight answer she wanted.

"I loved you," she suddenly told him. Newt's eyes widened with shock as she continued. "Ever since you saved me, I loved you."

Before Newt could open his mouth to say something, Tina sighed and held up her wand again. Tears she didn't even know were in her eyes spilled over, and she tried everything not to just full out cry right there. She finally heard it, and she knew it all along. He didn't love her, she knew that.

It just hurt so much more knowing he was in love with ______. ______, the no-maj.

Before Newt could say anything to her, she interrupted him. "I'll leave you alone then. Get your case, get ______, and get out of New York. Be happy, for me Newt. I loved you." With that, she waved her wand, and she had apparated out of the apartment.

Newt just stood there, dumbfounded.

"I had no idea."