Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When He opens his eyes he only sees the gray sky. Stormy clouds, dark as the upcoming night and the murder of crows circling under them, in restless waiting of a fest. All around reigns impenetrable silence and the smell of iron, putrid and moist crawling into his nostrils and mouth. He can’t feel his body, can’t will himself to move his limbs. Somewhere at the back of his conscience, he knows he should try to stand up or to call for help. But he doesn’t know who to call for. He doesn’t know where he is and even less why he is there. The crows chant their funeral cry overhead and darkness descends over him again.

When he wakes up it’s on a dry surface that smells of something bitter, and noise all around. His fingers twitch and he registers the low throb of pain over most of his body. His mouth feels dry and he tries to clear it, almost falling off the narrow bed in an unexpected fit of coughing. Luckily, a nurse hurries over, helping him back down. She looks almost as exhausted as he feels.

“Name?” she inquires, picking up a clip pad.

“What?” He asks, voice still raspy.

“What is your name? It says here no badge was found on you. Name and unit identification.”

“I…” He looks from her down to his lap, tries to think, to concentrate, but- “I… I don’t know.” He mumbles, a cold sense of dread overtaking him.

His mind is completely blank. He knows he has a pair of feet and that they are called feet, but not where they had carried him from or to. He knows he has a body but doesn’t even remember what color his own hair is. He knows that he is in a military hospital but not why . He tries to remember, anything, anyone at all. All in vain. The nurse sighs and he looks up at her in despair. There’s something kind in her tired eyes, but no surprise, as if it’s not the first time she’s been confronted with a case such as this.

“Can you at least tell me your nationality. English? Irish?”

He thinks again and then shakes his head. It starts to ache and he buries his face in his own hands, trying to keep his rising panic and bitter bile down. He is actually relieved to hear the nurse leave when someone calls for her.

The more he tries to think, to remember, the more lost and confused he feels. All the faces in his head are blurry, all the voices tainted with a metallic screech, none of the names and words make sense. His fingers itch to grab something, something long and thin, like a part of him that would restore sense to everything, that has been ripped away, but he doesn’t know what it might even be.

He lowers his hands to stare at them and only then notices it.

A single thread. Thin like a spider’s web and red like blood, no, more like fire, glistering with an unnatural shine under the dull hospital lights. Its end is tied loosely around his pinkie finger and when he follows its length with his eyes he sees another nurse hurry by and just passing through the thread, which doesn’t even stir and quietly disappears in the distance. He tries to grab it, pulls at it, but it’s like it’s made of pure light. Immaterial and ethereal.

Great, on top of the memory he is losing his mind now.

He is dispatched from the hospital soon enough. Still unable to tell them his name, but he’s not seriously injured, only slightly mauled, and they desperately need the space. Go see your troop sergeant, a haggard doctor tells him. Our hero doesn’t have the time to remind him that he doesn’t know who that is either. He asks around, gets sent from one person to the next, but nobody seems to recognize him. The various sergeants, captains, and vets just shake their heads. If it wasn’t for his, apparently unmistakeable accent, he would have probably been suspected of a German or an Austrian spy. It will pass, the most considerate tell him, short memory lapses after a shock are common. It will come back.

But the weeks pass and it doesn’t.

During the night, what little sleep he can get is filled with the sounds of explosions, flashes of lights, screams and, just sometimes, the touch of warm lips and the smell of sweet herbs. During the day, he is perpetually cold, dirty, and has no money or ways to sustain himself. Doing cargo and cleaning jobs in exchange for a piece of bread or a cup of warm water. He knows now that he is in Bretagne, an area in a French town occupied mostly by British and American troops, that supply the battle lines in the west front. And also, he apparently knows some French, which he is eternally grateful for because he doesn’t know how worse his situation would be if he was unable to beg for food. And whatever he does, his hand still itches towards his side, towards an inexistent pocket in the ratty uniform he had been given in the hospital, itches to grab something, to say words that don’t come to his tongue. And the days grow colder and colder.

He lucks out when he wanders into the countryside, subconsciously trying to follow the red thread that is still unwaveringly tingling on his finger. He stumbles upon a rich house with a half-destroyed front lawn and an old lady as the only mistress. She allows him and two other men stay under her roof and take cold baths, mends their clothes and feeds them hot porridge and bread, in exchange for working in her terrain and clean the debris away from the house. She wants it to be presentable for when her son comes back from the front. She refuses to believe it might not matter but spends most of her days praying and it makes him wonder if there is an old woman somewhere praying for him as well. If only he could remember her name!

The news reach them in the middle of November. Germany surrendered! The rest of the central powers are going the same way. Most of the troops will be returning home, coughing and missing limbs, but hopeful to see their native shores again. Not everyone will reach their destination, succumbing to the fevers along the way. But the deathly grip of disease doesn’t even touch Theseus, he seems immune to the illness and is among the lucky ones to set foot on London’s streets again. Or at least he thinks it’s “again”, struggling to feel any sort of familiarity. Nothing. Nothing except the red string, which seems brighter somehow, warmer, excited. He follows it for lack of anything better to do, through the crowded streets, and gasps when he feels it throb, increasing his pace. He doesn’t know why his heart is beating so fast in his chest. A man without a name, without a home, but with growing hope. There must be a reason he can see that thread, it must be leading somewhere where all the answers lay. The pull becomes almost physical at this point, when he is about to round a corner, he just knows that he is almost there-!

But just as he turns into a dark, deserted alley, the connection shatters. The tense thread falls to the ground as if it had just been severed, and he is just left staring into the empty darkness. The string twitches and raises again, loose, as it had been in France, but this time it’s pointing in another direction, south-west. Something like this has never happened before, and he is thoroughly confused. But at least, this is some development, and despite the bitter disappointment, he tries to convince himself that this means coming to London has been the right call, and that as long as he doesn’t have anything better to do and any other lead, he might as well follow the mysterious filament.

The first snow falls over the countryside and he burrows deeper into his clothes, grinding his teeth together and breathing on his callused hands. They are bruised and dirty, nails broken and peppered with white streaks, a sign of malnutrition. The wheel of the hay cart he’s hitching a ride on catches on a stone or a batch on the road and the whole precarious structure jerks, making him lose his balance and crash painfully with his shoulder against the side of the cart. He hisses and rubs it, pulling his feet closer to his knees. Maybe he should have stayed the winter in London, or even never left France. But… the light of the thread seems to flicker as if reassuring him in his decision to pursue its path.

He has an idea now, a suspicion pierced together by the fragments of tales that he’s been hearing from the people he’d talked to along the way. At first, he asked discreetly but quickly learned that those that lived on the streets and on the go, either didn’t care or didn’t stay completely sane for long themselves. There exist tales, in faraway lands, of an invisible string that ties together soulmates, lovers, fated… however you call it, it sounds like madness. But he allows himself to dream, maybe of a wife waiting for him back home, with a warm dinner and a kind face, or of a childhood sweetheart that knows his name and his story, who can tell him everything and help him find his place in the world. He closes his eyes and allows himself to dream, ignoring the rumble in his stomach.

The thick layer of snow seeps into his shoes and drags him down. It’s getting darker and maybe he should have stayed the night over in a town, which lights he saw between the hills in the distance, but the impatience gets the best of him. He can feel the thread getting excited, almost as if it has its own mind, throb, and tense up, guiding him between the fields. He follows it faithfully when, huffing and almost stumbling over, he reaches the top of a hill and watches over the empty expanse of the land. One more step and a tingling sensation down his spine distracts him but when he raises his eyes again, he sees a farmhouse in the distance, surrounded by old trees, that he could have sworn was not there before. Shaking his head he figures he’s too tired at this point. Maybe he can stay the night over in the stables…

However, when he gets close enough he observes the red thread disappearing straight into the house. Or maybe it’s just running through-

He barely has time to stop behind one of the trees when the door opens and a young man walks out, carrying a bucket filled with some dry herbs and talking to apparently no-one under his breath. Leaving the charge on the floor, the youth straightens up and looks over into the sky.

And our man, hidden behind an old oak, gasps. He can’t help it, breath hitching with the realization that this is the most beautiful human being he’s ever seen. After all the misery and devastation he’s witnessed over the past few months it sounds stupid, to become entranced at first sight with some stranger, but there's something hypnotic in that boy, something that calls to him. The fiery red hair picking under the woolen hat, the pale skin peppered with freckles and rosy from the cold, chapped, full lips letting out warm puffs of breath, and kind, dreamy eyes framed by long eyelashes.

Hypnotized, heart beating frantically in his ribcage, He takes a step forward, and then another, hesitantly walking towards the young man who just hears his approach. Their eyes meet and it feels like the most crucial moment of the life he can remember. He is about to ask forgiveness for intruding, torn between staring some more at that gorgeous face and closing his eyes to capture it in his memory when the man lets out a shocked cry and covers his mouth with his hands. It’s only then that He notices the end of a scarlet thread tied around the boy’s pinkie.

The other end of his own.

The other end of the connection he’s been following for months.

His only hope .

The end of his journey.

Before he has time to process what it means he’s suddenly got an armful of a handsome stranger and the youth is hugging him tightly, kissing his temple and forehead and crying, his tears freezing on pale skin.

“Oh Theseus! Thank Merlin! I can’t believe- we thought you were dead! Oh, thank what powers there be- you are alive! You- oh you came back!! Wait until mom- MOM!! MOM!!” He cries out and a disheveled woman runs out of the house. She locks eyes with the picture of the two of them hugging and clutches at her chest, eyes wide in shock and filling with tears. Something in her face runs right through His heart and he suddenly feels like it’s too much, like he can’t keep up with everything that’s happening. The unbearable exhaustion of the long journey catches up to him-

And he passes out.

Chapter Text

The first thing he notices when he starts coming into himself is warmth. Delicious, relaxing and gratifying warmth in his feet and hands and all over his body. It’s been so long since he could indulge in it he takes his time savoring the gentle embrace of it. Then, he feels the smell of something hearty and savory and hears the cracking of wood in a fireplace. He is calm and safe. But the next thing he notices is a hand in his hair, gently brushing over his forehead, and that prompts him to open his eyes, slowly focusing them over that same beautiful stranger he met before. Still not completely awake, he lets his cracked lips stretch into a wide smile.

“Hello” he mumbles

“Hi” the young man smiles back.

“Ur very pretty”

The boy’s eyebrows raise and he blinks in surprise.

“Theseus, are you alright?”

“Theseus?” He shuffles backward, incorporating a bit on the pillow. His clear reasoning is coming back to him and it latched into that word. “Is that… could that be my name?”  He looks up at his companion hopefully and sees fear and confusion creep into these gentle eyes. That doesn’t feel right.

“Noo- please, don’t be sad, beautiful one” He tries, reaching with his hand to take one of the other boy’s. The fingers in his twitch and when he looks down he sees the red thread binding them together, barely an inch long. The string of fate, that has brought them together. He glances up into the other’s face again. “We know each other, right? I can feel it. If Theseus is my name, what is yours? Tell me, please.”

He doesn’t get an answer. The half-closed door to the room opens wider and the woman from before walks in.

“Oh, honey you are awake.”

Her eyes are rimmed in red but her entire face is shining, and she’s only holding a slim stick in her hand, but… a tray is- is levitating behind her, just… following her through the air. Theseus (and yes, that must be his name, it feels right to have it back) drops his jaw but for some reason doesn’t feel as baffled as he should. Really, he’s more intrigued in the steam rising from the tray than the levitation itself.

And certainly, when the tray, full of stew and warm bread and a glass of milk lowers down on his lap he doesn’t even wait for an invitation before grabbing the spoon, months of hunger twisting in his insides. The woman sits on his other side and kisses the top of his head, hugging his shoulders as he almost chokes, washing down the food with milk.

"Sweetie look at you, you are so slim. What did they do to you, my dear?"

“Mom.” The other man interrupts her. “I think there’s something really wrong with Thes.”

“Hush now, Newt” and that makes Theseus slow down a bit and start paying attention again. “Whatever happens, everything is okay now. He is back, and we can deal with anything else.”

“Newt” Theseus asks after he swallows. “Is that your name?” He smiles and repeats, warmly “Newt…”  Then he turns to the woman, feeling her puzzled look oh his nape “And you must be his mother, right?” He can certainly see the family resemblance. “I’m sorry if I’m supposed to remember you I… really don’t.”

The next day they summon a professional from a place called “St. Mongus” and she examines Theseus using a similar wooden stick that Newt and his mother (Helen) carry around (“Those are wands , Thes. And where the hell is yours? Don’t tell me you don’t remember you are a wizard either”). Her diagnosis is nothing he didn’t already know: memory loss, shell-shock, confusion.

“Since it’s most likely due to a traumatic experience,” she tells them, scribbling on a piece of paper “bringing it back all at once could be really damaging to him. The best option is to open up his mind and allow him to recover in his own time. This is a potion prescription that should help him out.”

“Will he remember… everything?” Newt asks, and for some reason when Theseus looks over at him he catches a shade of worry on Newt’s face.  

The doctor nods “It may take a few months, but-”

“I don’t care” Helen butts in “my son came back to me after everyone told me he was dead. I don’t care if he never recovers, all that matters is that he is back.”

The doctor smiles but still talks her into coming along with her to get the potion. Helen kisses Theseus’ forehead, cups his face with a warm hand and promises to be back soon. She turns on the spot and suddenly she and the doctor are gone, disappeared with a pair of loud cracks. Theseus blinks owlishly but doesn’t question it. He looks down at his hands instead. The red thread is still there, malleable and immaterial but shining just as bright, linking him and Newt together.

“We are brothers.” He mutters, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “I guess the stories about this string weren’t accurate after all.”

“What string?” Newt asks, and he looks puzzled, sitting back on the edge of the bed.

Theseus rises a hand, showing him the knot on his finger. “The one binding us.” Newt seems completely lost and it dawns on Theseus. “You can’t see it?”

Newt shakes his head and Theseus would believe himself mad, except that- “I followed it here. All the way from France, across the channel and from London, hundreds of miles across towns and fields. I followed and it brought me to you. It brought me here.”

He leans forward, resting his forehead on Newt’s shoulder and feels a pair of arms hesitantly brush his back. Encouraged, he circles Newt’s waist, pulling him closer and inspiring his warmth. It feels right. It feels like home.

The weeks pass, the bitter winter transitioning into a shy spring. Whenever he sleeps and sometimes even when he’s awake, Theseus has visions suddenly come to him. Sometimes they are realizations, facts without context-

“I was a Hufflepuff. You too.”

“Yes, we were.”

“...What’s a Hufflepuff?”

-and other times just pictures, images imprinted in his head, not unlike the nightmares of the war. A Christmas dinner when he’s holding a baby in his tiny arms and then his father’s funeral, years after, followed by the name of his first girlfriend and the recipe for a potion, then an explosion and the sharp pain of a gaping wound on his side, the smell of blood and pastries in one.

He takes these pieces and catalogs them, spends long days piercing his memory together, ordering it and filling the blanks.

Most things he remembers naturally, a few he’s just told or shown. Family pictures, the hippogriffs and other pets of the family, his quidditch trophies...

His mother barely leaves his side, rushing into his room every time she hears him scream at night. Newt is there as well, more often than not. He would apologize about the distress he’s causing them but knows he’d get hit over the head if he dared to insinuate something so ridiculous.

The more time they spend together and the more memories he recovers of her, the sweeter it is to see again and love Helen as his mother. His always attentive and supportive mother.

With Newt, it’s not so easy.

Newt takes him to the ministry. It’s a monumental, amazing place. A whole battalion of faces, some of which he recognizes, others he does not, come out to greet him, hug him and clap his back or just ogle him as if he was a ghost. "Something like that", he learns from his boss. The mission he was commanding went wrong. Turns out there was a mole in their ranks and the enemy had more intel than they thought. If it had gone right, Theseus would have been hailed as a hero, but even as he failed, he managed to protect most of his men from certain death and has been awarded a postmortem medal of valor.

“The muggles arrived first,” The head of his department tells him with a sorry smirk “Buried the dead and hospitalized the wounded. Those came back afterwards, but you never did, and we found your broken wand so…”

“So you left him for dead” Newt finishes, drily, but the official ignores him.

Theseus is granted time off from work until he recovers, and Newt is given the task to keep him under watch. That, at least, makes Theseus very happy.

They go to Diagon Alley next and buy Theseus a new wand. The moment the right one touches his fingers he sighs in relief. “Lumos” He whispers, and his face lights up alongside the tip of the wand. As if a severed limb has been attached back to his body.  He feels calmer, more confident in himself now. So much so that he gets distracted by a showcase and loses Newt. Not worrying even for a second, he follows the red string through the crowd and in less than a minute finds his brother frantically looking around. He grins and waves. Newt pouts.

It’s so difficult to think of him as a brother, as his own flesh and blood. Even despite the memories of the little, adorable boy playing in the fields that keep sneaking into his head, of helping him with homework and standing up for him after Newt did something stupid and got into trouble, Theseus can’t shake off that “first” meeting. The infatuation that he’s been nursing since then.

When they are alone, Theseus can’t help but stare sometimes, leaning against the frame of the stable fence to watch, entranced, the soft smile play over Newt’s face when he’s grooming the hippogriff wings, or to lean in way too close, brushing his nose and the side of his face against Newt’s hair.

Or to take his hand and watch the string uniting them shrink, until the delicate bows are the only traces left, blinking happily and sending a warm pulse of contentment up his arm and through his entire body. Sometimes when he does that, he glances at Newt’s face and delights in the blush over his cheeks and neck, notices the awkwardness of his movements. He wants to be close to him, touch him and spend hours and hours talking to him.

He knows it’s not right. He knows he should let it go. But he’s also dealing with too much these days to pick up a battle with his own heart as well, so he postpones facing that particular demon and just enjoys their time together.

One day Theseus wakes up with the aftermath of a bitter fight fresh in his memory. He goes downstairs and finds Newt elbows deep in the garden, covering some bulbs that keep trying to crawl out of the hole.

“We had an argument before I left for the front.” He says without beating around the bush.

Newt goes very tense, looking everywhere but at Theseus. “Do you remember every detail?” He asks hesitantly, and Theseus shakes his head.

“No, only that you wanted to follow me and I categorically forbid you. We started fighting and I don’t remember anything else, but I know it was bad.”

Newt finally looks at him, studies him for a few seconds and apparently decides he’s telling the truth. He tilts his head then, and smiles apologetically.

“It was bad, yes. I was seventeen, old enough to go to war by wizarding laws but not by muggle standards. I wanted to enlist and you were understandably against it, even if you’d just volunteered yourself. I called you out on your hypocrisy, you called me a kid, we fought and that’s all. There’s nothing else to remember to that, don’t dwell on it. Better focus on something else, okay?”

“It’s not like I can choose it.”

“Well try it, please.”

“Why? I mean-”

“You were right then. I was a kid. I said and did things I shouldn’t have. Leave it. Okay? Promise me.”

There’s something imploring in his eyes. Something guilty. And how could Theseus ever refuse him anything? He agrees, smiling affectionately. “I will do my best.”

Newt nods and goes back to his gardening, but Theseus can feel his lingering discomfort so he drops down on his knees and pushes back his sleeves, helping him keep the bulbs still.

“You finally went tho, right?” He changes the topic discreetly enough.

“Well yes, the drafts became mandatory soon enough. I was on the eastern front, worked with dragons throughout most of the war.”

“Dragons?”

“Ukrainian ironbellies. They are true beauties, but tricky to tame or weaponize.”

They spend the rest of the morning in amicable chatter, with Theseus asking and Newt gushing over the dragons and other beasts he got to know during his service, until their mother finds them and drags them inside for lunch.

They don’t return to the topic of that fight. However, and despite his promise to let it go, Theseus can’t help but dwell on it over and over again. Something in the way Newt reacted to his mention of it, in the guilty and embarrassed look in his eyes, makes him wonder if a bunch of childish insults is all there was to it. Or if something else had happened, something that Newt wishes he’d rather never remember.

Chapter Text

Theseus wakes up from the nap he didn’t know he was taking, arms flailing, and almost falls off the couch. The book he’d been reading before nodding off clatters to the floor but he doesn’t pick it up, just sits there, opening and closing his mouth, licking his lips, trying to decide whether what he just saw was a mere dream or another memory, another part of that memory. He saw it again, the angry fire in a younger Newt’s eyes, the so uncharacteristic determination for someone so pacific to enlist, to go to war, got to hear the rest of his argument, to understand why and, and... and then-

He bites on his lip and looks down, at the red string calmly stretching from his pinkie towards the wall, running through it. Finally getting up he approaches the window, drawing aside the curtains to look at Newt, digging into the ground again with his tools and hands, next to their mother, who’s doing the same by magic. Theseus smiles, enjoying the picture for a while, then walks up the stairs and sets to write a letter to Hogwarts. If there’s anyone who can answer his questions, that person just has to be in the best wizarding school in the world (or so everyone here says, Theseus met a fair share of foreign wizards during the war that would disagree).

He avoids Newt for the next couple of days, not because he is angry but because he doesn’t think he has the self-control to be around him at the time. The family owl returns with a letter and he snatches it up before anyone else can see it, locking himself in his room and reading it over and over again. It just confirms his suspicions, makes him think harder, and for the first time -  consider a plan.

He’s done with passively roaming around his newly-recovered life. He’s itching to do something, to take action.

So Theseus awaits another day and then kisses his mother goodbye, wishing her a good evening down in town. As soon as she is out of the house, he marches upstairs and knocks on the door of his brother's room.

“Come in.” Newt is sitting before his desk, a bunch of drawings and notes scattered all over the surface and a quill in his hand. He smiles at Theseus over his shoulder. “Did mom leave already?”

“Yeah”, he says, sitting on the edge of the bed, a few feet away from Newt’s stool. The other man goes back to his sketches and opens his mouth, but before he can ask anything, Theseus speaks up, loud and clear.

“You were in love with me.”

It’s not a question, but an affirmation. Newt’s whole body jerks and then freezes. He remains seated with his back to Theseus, the ink dripping from the quill, for what feels like an eternity. Finally, he swallows hard and puts down his quill with shaking fingers. “You remembered.”

Theseus hums in agreement. “I guess I can understand why you didn’t want me to recover the rest of that memory.”

The laugh that Newt lets out is bitter and sharp. He turns around on the stool, to face Theseus, but doesn’t look him in the eyes, staring up at the ceiling instead. “How much-?”

“Everything, this time, I think,” Theseus says gently. “I know that you were afraid for me and wanted to tag along. I would not allow it. You were determined to protect me and to prove to me that you were not a child anymore, that I shouldn't see you like that, but as someone capable. You told me that you were old enough to know that you were in love with me and then” He clears with throat before continuing “you kissed me, on the mouth.” He looks over at Newt and sees him shrink into himself, hugging his own frame. “But I pushed you away.”

“I guess you were right,” Newt says quietly. “I was still a dumb child. I…” he snorts “I misunderstood my own feelings, made a mountain out of a grain of salt. Being just worried about my brother I thought that I- you were right to tell me all of that and to yell at me. I just didn’t want you to remember that I had…” His tongue flicks out for an instant, leaving a wet trail over his lower lip and Theseus aches to close his teeth over it and pull. Instead, he thinks about how he had kicked Newt out of his room after that kiss and how estranged they became in the last few days leading to his deployment. Up to and including Newt refusing to give him a goodbye hug, or to look him in the eyes at all. But he doesn’t mention it.

“Don’t worry, I quickly grew out of it.” The real Newt declares meanwhile, nervously combing a hand through his hair “It was a stupid illusion anyway.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Theseus says quietly and hands him the letter.

For the first time since that conversation started, Newt meets his eyes, and Theseus smiles encouragingly, pushing it closer. “See what it says”.

Newt accepts the torn envelope and takes out the folded piece of paper, he reads aloud:

Dear Theseus,

 

I’m so glad to hear from you. We were all devastated by the news of your supposed demise and elated to find out that they had been false. It’s great to know that you are well and on your way to full recovery.

 

As for the question you asked to the teacher body in general, I think I’m the most qualified to answer, since I had studied the phenomenon. What you described to us is called, rather unimaginatively, “the red string of fate”. It’s belief is more extended through the eastern cultures, but the prevalence is universal, and just one of those higher mysteries that neither muggle studies nor magic can explain. The string of fate, supposedly, ties together soulmates, people born and destined for each other. Very few people are born with the ability to see theirs, or even other’s, strings. But there were known cases of individuals that acquired the gift after a great trauma or a near-death experience. I would love to study your case but only if you consent to it.

There’s not much known about the phenomenon in western society, but apparently even if it's invisible, the thread of fate still influences the life and relationships of its bearers. If this theory is to be believed, most of us have that one person that is our “meant to be”, that we feel pulled to, even if we can’t see the physical manifestation of that pull. If you really do see yours, take it as a present from the Fates but remember that your will is, and will always remain, your own.

 

I hope to hear more news from you and your answer to my request. Please, take care of yourself and your brother.

 

Best wishes,

Albus Dumbledore

Newt stopped reading aloud halfway through the letter, but Theseus can tell when he reaches the end and then goes back to re-read some sentences.

“So what?” He finally says, folding the paper back into the envelope. “Are you to tell me that my perceived teenage infatuation was a doing of fate? That I should not be ashamed of it and move on?”

“Quite the contrary.” Theseus shrugs. He doesn’t want to let on that he’s becoming quite nervous at this point. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

“I was around twenty minutes old, probably, so no.” Newt deadpans, and Theseus laughs out loud, throwing his head back. “No, dummy! This winter, when I got here following the thread.”

Newt nods, so Theseus continues. “I thought you were the most beautiful thing in existence. Finding out we are brothers was… disappointing.” He sighs.

Looking up at Newt he finds himself unable to decipher the mix of emotions on his face. “I don’t know how to take that” Newt confesses, and Theseus takes advantage of his confusion to reach in and touch his hand, gently rubbing his slightly shaking thumb over the calluses of Newt’s fingers.

“Don’t misunderstand me, I love my baby brother. But it’s like I see two different people when I look at you. On one hand, the boy from my memories, who is still here but, somehow ethereally. And on the other, the gorgeous man in front of me right now. The man I met for the first time a few months ago and been lovestruck with ever since.”

The fingers in his hand twitch and when he looks up he’s met with a pair of startled eyes. Newt looks lost and frightened, but also sort of… hopeful, which incites Theseus to keep pushing. “I might have only been able to see you as my responsibility back then, but I refuse to believe that your feelings were an illusion or that you grew out of them. Because I want them to be real. Be- because that letter proves it. That something above all human conventions decided we are meant together, and so I should be able to find you, it guided me home, to you. God knows where I would be now otherwise!”

He is startled when Newt stands from the stool and for a second Theseus is afraid that he is going to march off, but then he leans forward and Theseus suddenly finds himself with a lapful of ginger.

Newt buries his face in the crook of his brother’s neck, knees digging into the mattress at each side of his hips and arms around his shoulders.

“I hated myself for how I treated you.” And his voice sounds so muffed that Theseus can barely understand him. “That I refused to say goodbye to you. And so many things changed these past four years, but I couldn't bear to think that one of us could die and our last…” His voice breaks and Theseus turns his head to kiss his head, inhale the sweet perfume of his hair. “I still love you in that way, in every way.” Newt breathes out, so fast it’s almost incomprehensible. But Theseus does hear it, and his heart sings with joy and relief.

They have a lot to talk about, to clarify and agree on. But now is not the time. He circles Newt’s waist with his arms and nuzzles the side of his head, kissing his temple, brow, a trembling eyelid and the salty, wet arch of a cheekbone. Newt scrambles up and pulls away a bit, taking his brother’s face in his hands and leaning down. They breathe each other’s air, noses bumping slightly, Newt with his eyes closed and Theseus looking at him lovingly. When he makes the first move it’s more of a question, feathery touch of lips, but Newt answers immediately, deepening the kiss and shifting his body closer. They fit together like two complementary pieces of a puzzle and it’s not long until Theseus falls on his back, Newt perched over him.

“I want to make love to you” He breathes out, and Theseus nods. He should probably say that it’s too soon, or that he doesn’t know how to do that with a man, and highly doubts that Newt does either. But somehow it feels like they have waited enough, and that there is just no point in delaying the inevitable, the sweet closeness that they both crave.

They will figure it out later, everything. How to touch each other’s bodies until their souls melt into one, how to build their life around their secret (“I want to travel the world” Newt says days later “And I want you to come with me. To places where nobody knows us”) and how to come to terms with the fact that the Fates had as much to do with their love as their own free will.

It’s a new beginning.