Newt stands very still in front of the shelf.

It’s taken him longer than it should have to work up to this, longer than he’d like to admit. The bookshop smells of dust and ink and faintly of polishing charm residue, the sort of place that encourages careful movement and hushed voices. He likes it. Usually.

Today, his hands feel empty.

The space where his copy should be is painfully obvious in his mind. His original copy, creased at the spine, annotated in the margins, pages softened by years of careful handling, is gone. Not misplaced. Not repairable.

Gone.

The creature hadn’t meant to. Newt knows that. A young fire-breathing creature, recently acquired, overly curious, sneezed near the book. Burnt it to ash. Literal ash. Even Reparo couldn’t save it.

Newt swallows and reaches for a fresh copy on the shelf.

It feels wrong in his hands. Too stiff. Too new. Not well-loved like his old copy.

He opens it anyway, flipping through the pages with reverence, as if checking that the words are the same. They are, of course, but his notes aren’t there. His little pencilled observations. The corners he’d folded down carefully. The pressed leaf he’d forgotten was still between two chapters. The ink smudges on the pages.

He sighs quietly.

“It’s a very good book.”

He murmurs to himself, mostly out of habit.

“Is it?”

The voice beside him makes him jump.

“Oh—!”

He snaps the book shut instinctively, then realises how that must look.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean—yes. Yes, it is.”

You’re standing close enough that he can smell rain on your coat. You’re holding another book, something on migratory enchantments. But, your attention is on the one in his hands.

“I mean, it’s one of the more accurate modern texts on dragon behavioural variation. Especially the nesting chapters. Most people focus on aggression, but the author actually understands territorial stress responses, which is… rare.”

He pauses, then frowns faintly.

“Sorry. I’m rambling.”

You smile at him. Kind. Seemingly interested in his little anecdote about the book.

“So you’d recommend it?”

“Oh, absolutely. I-I had a copy already. This is a replacement.”

“What happened to the first one?”

Newt hesitates. His fingers tighten around the spine.

“It was… singed. Well. More like burnt to ashes.”

You blink. Then laugh—softly, not unkindly.

“That’s… unfortunate.”

“Yes. I was rather fond of it.”

There’s a beat of silence while he looks back down at the cover, thumb brushing over the embossed title like an apology. Then you say, gently, almost offhand.

“You know I wrote that book, right?”

The world seems to tilt. Newt freezes. Slowly, very slowly, he looks up at you.

“Oh.”

That’s all he manages at first. His ears burn. His grip loosens, then tightens again like he’s afraid the book might vanish. He stares at you, eyes wide behind his fringe, clearly recalibrating everything he’s just said.

“You wrote it..? It-It’s one of my favourites.”

The admission feels far too intimate the moment it leaves his mouth. He ducks his head, embarrassed, but there’s something almost boyish in the way he smiles despite himself.