The Scamander ✧ Harry Potter Year 1

Chapter 3

The suitcase was regularly too busy and large for any young girl, but to me, on the day of my departure, melancholy ached a bigger space in my heart than any mountain range or valley could craft. The beauty that a child took for granted, well, I, ready to run away into the world of bigger things, on that day seemed to come to an understanding with my home in the suitcase. The mountains seemed grander, the butterflies more colourful, the meadow more unruly. Suddenly the beauty of the outside world seemed to be comparable to the life inside this suitcase. The itch to leave was replaced with a need for change but a longing for return. I, Mathilda, was about to depart on my biggest journey yet. It trumped troll hunting, cave searching, ocean riding and sky-high flying. It was a journey that I couldn't have predicted, where new friends became family. Where my life in the suitcase, with all its chaos and absurdity, would become my solace in a world much larger and darker than anyone could caution me against.

"Bye Cello, Flute, Bagpipes, Banjo..." The list felt endless, but I never wished to reach its final line. My eyes burned just as my less-than-human friends did with me. Each name rewarded me with its final squeak or roar. "I'll be home before you know it. I'll miss you." Tears slipped down my cheeks to meet my lips as I smiled.

"Bye Horn, Martha, Bassoon, and Phillip..." The list's end was one name away from its finality. But the words didn't make an effort to leave me, there is something disconcerting, even to a girl as young as I was, about saying goodbye to your grandpa entering his latest years. To a grandpa that had been father and friend.

Grandpa Newt stood there, cane in one hand and pocket watch in the other, nervously checking the time to distract with the reflective glint in his eye. He recognised the silence that sounded in the suitcase, the gap in time where neither said anything. It was silently agreed upon as I prepared for my departure that if either of us asked for me to stay, I would. So those words were left unsaid, but the emptiness that this left behind felt just as foreboding as the future.

"Bye, Grandpa, I'll miss you." And so words were said that renounced hope for continuality but made way for a new adventure. A smile struggled on his ageing cheeks, a quiver of emotion that twisted my heart.

"Have a great time at Hogwarts," he paused, emotion-stricken, the onslaught of emotion held behind a thinly veiled curtain, "Tina would've loved to see you go."

My youth saw things either a bit clearer or more hopeful than Grandpa Newt's age could permit, "she sees just as you do."

"Yes, I suppose she might." A laugh escaped with his breath, just as a tear did with his blink.

"Oh, Grandpa." There was a rush to embrace him, my arms tightly wounding around his waist as far they could in my smaller body. The tips of my fingers barely met, but I felt to show my love that they must as I squeezed tighter and tighter.

"I'll take good care of them, you needn't worry." Grandpa's warm breath hit my ear, and I shut my eyes tighter. I knew I wouldn't spend my time at Hogwarts worried about my creatures, but I did know that I would spend my time only waiting for the moment to return. So, I spent those last few seconds before King's Cross Station not feeling worried but welcomed in my Grandpa's arms. Both ready for my departure and impatient for my return.

"I trust you, Grandpa."

✦✧✦

The train whistle rushed the families in their final goodbyes, fervent hugs and kisses to their young children on their first trip to the foreboding future of the school. Gentler kisses were given to the older scholars, and those now young men and women, not so blinded by the excitement of the castle, wished goodbyes with more sincere eyes. Some of the abashed faces of my peers I saw turned into their first laugh with their first friend on the waiting train as they passed by my empty carriage. I had planned to meet Luna Lovegood, cousin and friend, on this train - but I received a cryptic note about an infestation in their home that would delay her arrival. It wasn't common for Grandpa Newt or me to question the inner workings of the Lovegood family.