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every little thing
part one, crimes of grindelwald
chapter three, london calling

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WITH A SUDDEN JOLT, Ada released her dark eyes from beneath the squeezed shut eyelids that half them captive. Opening them, she saw the surroundings of Green Park materialise around her. To say, she had never really been one for Portkey travelling, was an understatement, she much preferred Apparating and Disapparating but business was business and what business wants, business gets.

       She blinked hard a few more times in attempt to wake herself up and stabilise herself a little more, clutching her luggage tight in her hand.

       It was a dreary day, but she didn't expect much more from the the Old Smoke, at least the greenery of her surroundings wasn't lost in the meek weather; its natural beauty succeeding in putting a small smile on her features.

       The sound of a sharp cough brought her out of her brief daze, as some Portkey officials attempted to hurry up along the arrivals.

       The group she'd arrived in was only small one of five; a stout man with balding hair whose breath wreaked of cigarettes, his wife a woman in her late fifties wearing a bright blue feather boa, a boy no more than sixteen who kept to himself and kept cracking his knuckles and finally a young gentleman with a kind smile who had helped Ada and offered her a toffee when she felt ill.

       The officials quickly checked the travel documents of each passenger in turn as well as their means of identification before letting them on their way into the city, in the most discreet and quiet way possible.

       Ada was last in the line, watching as one of the officials, a man with a thick moustache retrieved the out of use Portkey, an old rubber glove and tucked it into his pocket, no doubt to be taken back to the Ministry to be recycled and administered.

       Ada gave the official checking her papers a quick smile as he passed them back to her, and the two parted ways.

       The brown eyed woman racked her brain for a moment in attempt to work out her bearings from the park to her brother's house in Whitehall where she'd be staying throughout the course of her mission, when a tall figure walking at a pace toward her caught her eye.

       "There she is!"

       The Auror let out a small scoff and shook her head in disbelief as the figure became recognisable and she saw her own eyes staring back at her.

       "Arthur?!" She cried, jogging a little to meet the man in the middle, and wrapping her arms around him tightly for the first time in six months.

       Arthur was Ada's older brother by twelve years, who shared her eyes, nose and overall attitude. He worked as a History of Magic professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly in the UK, an institution that always seemed to be hiring, hence why he was residing in the country with his fifteen year old daughter, Amiyah, in attendance at the school. Despite the large age gap and ocean between the Kaur siblings, their bond was never stronger and despite getting on the other's nerves everyone now and then — as was a sibling's right — they quite easily viewed each other as a best friend and close confidant to the other.

       "What are you doing here?"

       "I do live in this country, Ada." Arthur Kaur hummed, as he squeezed his little sister tightly with a small smirk.

       "No!" She objected, withdrawing from the hug, scoffing once more. "I mean, why aren't you at school?"

       "Ada, it's Sunday." The man quipped once more, earning a playful slap on the arm from the younger Kaur sibling, who spared him a small glare accompanied with a light chuckle.

       "Oh stop it!" She retorted, as he picked up her luggage from where she had laid it to rest upon the ground in order to hug him, moments previously. "You really didn't have to come down to London to greet me off a Portkey."

       "Oh come on, Ada." He dismissed her with a shrug, before linking her arm with his, and beginning to walk along the path and away from the looking presence of Buckingham Palace. "Is it so bad that I just want to see my little sister?"

       "I suppose it's not the worst thing." The brunette shrugged, mirroring her older brother's demeanour briefly.

       He bumped his shoulder with hers teasingly, before adding more purpose to their stroll, "C'mon the house is about a twenty minutes walk from here."

       The majority of the walk consisted of their usual brother-sister talk, meaningless chit chat as they bustled their way through the busy streets of the Old Smoke.

       "So why are you here really?" Arthur turned to his sister, eyebrow quirked; a characteristic she recognised too as her own. "Some top secret MACUSA mission? Your letter was very evasive."

       Ada gave him a small shrug, not having decided how to answer his question in way that would satisfy him; something that was notoriously difficult to do in relation to a Kaur.

       "New York not busy enough?" He pressed on.

       "If I told you I'd have to kill you." Ada responsed, narrowing her eyes playfully, deciding in the end to not satisfy him with her answer in the slightest.

       "Intriguing."

       "How's Miyah?" She said suddenly, deciding to change the subject by asking after her niece, knowing full well it would peak her brother's interest.

       "Oh she's great, really." He replied with smile, thinking fondly of his daughter, "Her grades are good too, which are equally as important as her."

       "Oh, of course." Ada stifled a laugh at her brother's kidding tone, before deflating slightly. "It's a shame I can't see her while I'm here."

       "Not at all?" Arthur asked, sharing part in her deflation, not realising her mission would be restricting quite so much.

       "It's a ... very time-consuming assignment." Ada stumbled her way through her excuse, giving him an apologetic smile, not realising by the time their conservation had even concluded, they stood outside Arthur's townhouse.

       "Well, you can stay here as long as you need to." He told her, as he wriggled his arms out of her grasp and putting his keys into the lock of the house, opening the door for her. "What's mine is yours."

       "Boy, are you gonna regret those words." She joked, stepping past him into the house.

       "You still remember where everything is?" He asked, after closing the door behind him and placing her bag on the staircase, as she lingered in the hallway.

       "I was only here last summer, Arthur." She rolled her eyes, as he handed her a spare key for the house.

       "Just checking!" He defended him, "I'll let you get settled in, and do whatever you need to do, okay?" He propositioned to which she nodded, "I've got a few errands to run while I'm down here. I'll be back by 8. Dinner? I'll cook."

       "I'll try and make it." She grimaced, not hiding how little she knew about her time commitments with her assignment, as her brother took an apple from the sideboard.

       "Cross your heart?" He asked.

       "And hope to die, brother." She chuckled, doing the action just as they did when they were kids. "What time is it?" She asked with a scratch of her head, in a sudden change of subject.

       "Just gone four o'clock, why?" Her brother replied, with a glance at his watch, and then quirking his eyebrow yet again.

       "I'm meeting with the department — which I'll be working with in the foreseeable future — at 4:15." She explained, as she removed her own watch from her wrist and changed it to the correct time this side of the Atlantic. "They have a hearing they want me to oversee, and then I'm being initiated." She went on, "So, we don't want to make a bad first impression by being late, do we?"

       She spared him a quick wink snatching the apple from his hand and taking a bite, before moving past him and back out of the door, they'd only just entered through.

       "Ada!"

       "I'll unpack later." She replied, innocently, beginning to walk away down the street in the direction of the Ministry.

       "Thats not what I meant-"

        "I love you!"

***

      THE USUAL CLICK that Ada was used to her heels making on the tiled floor of MACUSA was muffled by the carpeted hallways of the Ministry of Magic, instead emitting a fair less elegant thudding sound.

       Finding the guest entrance and being admitted into the Ministry had proven to be quite the easy task, as she found herself walking along a corridor in the Department of Magic Transportation, where she had been told she would find a Mr Travers.

       A small smile was proudly placed on her lips as she took each step with stride, she had to look confident; she was of course representing MACUSA in being here.

       Well, that and she'd been directed by a wonderful old British lady named Doreen who gave her a peppermint before pointing her in the right direction; and that really lifted her spirits.

       So, with the cooling taste of peppermint on her tongue and a smile upon her face she couldn't down the winding corridor, peering nosily in every window she passed until something in particular caught her attention.

       Stopping in her tracks, she smirked at the sight. Maybe a metre above, struggling to cling onto to the pane of a semi open window — from within Ada could hear a rhythmic stamping — was a furry little creature desperately grasping onto the golden chain of a pocket watch.

       "Oh hello." She smirked, at the Niffler who stopped his struggle at the sight of her. "I think I remember you well enough."

       She edged closer to the creature recognising him as belonging to a certain magizoologist she'd been a year before.

       "Is Mr Scamander somewhere around here?" She asked, curiously, looking further down to the hallway for some indication of other humans. "We should probably get you back to him, shouldn't we?"

       She pressed her lips together as she surveyed the small creature methodically, trying to piece together a solution as to how to reinstate him in the care of his keeper, who she really hoped wasn't too far away.

       Then, it suddenly clicked in her mind, a smirk stretching across her lips as she fiddled with the fastening of her watch.

       Taking a few steps backwards further down the halls, she raised her fingers to her lips and let out a sharp whistle attracting the creature's attention.

       "Hey!" She held up her watch to the light, "You like my watch?"

       The creature's eyes widened in an almost state of ecstasy as he surveyed the glossy metal object in his hands. In no less than a second has the creature aborted his escape plan and dropped to the ground, scampering towards the Auror.

       The creature jumped up at her just as she threw the watch up for it to catch in mid air. Just as the Niffler clasped his small claws around the object, the quick-witted Auror seized him in her arms and held him close to her.

       Once she had him in her grasp, she turned on her heel and walked quickly down the corridor in the hopes of his owner. To her surprise, he didn't struggle and very quickly settled in her embrace, laying on his back and playing with the watch and beginning to stuff it into his pouch.

She chuckled lightly, looking down at the magical creature in her arms as she rounded the next corner in the winding corridor, only to stumble upon the exact person she was looking for, in conversation with two other people.

Newt Scamander hadn't changed a bit from when she met him in New York, the year before. Even though the two hadn't explicitly spoken, they were acquainted through Tina and she would recognise him anywhere and quite frankly found the man to be very endearing.

Opposite him stood another man who resembled him greatly with the copper coloured hair that was combed neatly — in comparison to the loose curls of Newt — and a freckled face. She suspected he was maybe a relative of the man she knew.

The only difference about the other man was that he stood taller and had features seemed a lot harsher, with a strong jaw and sharp eyes — a person may even go so far as to say handsome, but Ada wasn't that person.

Between them was a woman who looked like she was struggling to get a word in edgeways, looking between the two men desperately. She had dark eyes with soft features, standing a little closer to Newt than the other man, as though she were taking his side. Ada thought she recognised her, but from where she couldn't say. She was very beautiful, and even Ada couldn't argue with that and she often found herself to be capable of arguing anything.

After a good few seconds of spectating the encounter before, she decided to make a presence known so she could do her good deed and find her way to her meeting before she ran out of time.

"Mr Scamander?" She called, with a light smile as she neared the group of three.

"Yes?"

Both men had turned towards her and replied to her query in unison. As it turned out, her suspicions were true as to why they resembled one another; they were brothers.

Stifling a small chuckle at their reaction, she clarified, "I meant the one with all the fantastic beasts."

The man in question cracked a small smile of recognition at the female Auror he'd met in New York, while his brother continued to survey her taken aback by her sudden stricken presence. A faint smirk crossed his lips.

"Speaking of which," Ada continued, walking towards the group, holding out the Niffler that was still eagerly distracted by her watch. "Is this guy one of yours?"

"Oh, Niffler." The magizoologist scolded, her brows furrowing as he took the creature from her and held it in his own grasp.

This interaction seemed to have awoken the other man from his daze and he suddenly adopted a sterner manner and looked down at his younger brother.

"Newt, you can't let these things run wild around here."

Newt flashed his brother a nonchalant nod, he was familiar with what he was and was not allowed to do and was simply glad the Niffler was back in his care.

"Did he cause any trouble, Miss Kaur?" Newt asked, brushing off his brother's statement and turning back to the American, who was reaching forward and scratching the Niffler's belly much to his pleasure.

"Of course not, unless you count taking my watch again." Ada dismissed, sparing Newt a smile as she remembered a former time in which she had encountered his Niffler.

She stood herself up straight again, her eyebrows raising slightly withdrawing her wand as she remembered to retrieve the watch she'd sacrificed to bait the creature.

"Which reminds me." She said quickly, but flourishing her wand quickly and focusing intently on the spell. "Accio!"

In an instant — much to the Niffler's disgruntlement — Ada's watch came flying out his pouch and clasped itself back onto its rightful place on her wrist.

"Much better."

"What brings you here?" Newt asked, readjusting his grip on the Niffler, his eyes not quite meeting Ada's — a behaviour she'd noted from their first meeting.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly say." She told him, with a small smile, her gaze drifting off to the man's two other companions who had simply been spectating their interaction.

Ada's eyes widened at her own rudeness, her eyes shooting smiles at the man and woman opposite her.

"Forgive me, I'm the worst at introductions." She chuckled, lightheartedly, extending her hand to the woman. "I'm Ada, Kaur."

"Leta." She replied, her voice lined with a thick British accent, as she smiled in response before adding, "Lestrange."

Suddenly, the cogs in Ada's mind finally clicked into place. She had seen the woman before in that Spellbound article she read in the office nearly three months prior.

"Oh, of course!" Ada nodded, withdrawing her hand and looking between Leta and Newt. "I saw in Spellbound, congratulations!"

"Oh, actually, it was a misprint." Ada quickly corrected the dark haired Auror, and suddenly nodding to the man on her left. "It's Theseus I'm marrying, not Newt."

"Oh, I see." The words left Ada's lips with little thought as she now looked between Leta and the other man, Theseus.

Her eyes furrowed slightly as she did however, Leta stood far closer to Newt than she did to Theseus. Normally, she would expect greater proximity between newly engaged couples but neither looked particular interested in the other in this occasion. But perhaps that was just the British.

Nonetheless, she redirected her congratulatory gaze and sent it in the direction instead, just as a thought dawned on her.

"Oh no."

"Is everything alright?" Leta asked, eyebrows furrowing as Ada's face fell.

If the article had been a misprint and Leta was marrying Theseus that meant that Tina's affection for Newt was not misplaced at all. But she didn't know that.

"Oh yes," Ada quickly dismissed Leta, before muttering quickly, "It's just — I know there to be someone else who would benefit from knowing that information."

       A few moments of silence passed between the four adults, a sudden awkwardness overwhelming them before a clearing of atheist disrupted their silence. 

       Ada's gaze looked up and met that of the taller man who had once more adopted a more authoritative almost patronising tone.

       "Miss Kaur, I've been expecting you."

       "Is that so?" Ada quirked an eyebrow, pursing her lips as she narrowed her eyes at the man whose ego practically stank out the corridor, "I thought I was meeting with a Mr Travers, not yourself..."

       She trailed off slightly inviting him to introduce himself which he had yet to do despite Leta vaguely mentioning it.

       "Theseus," He said proudly, straightening up before nodding at the other man across from him, "I'm Newt's older brother."

       "That much I gathered strangely enough." Ada retorted, ignoring his outstretched, not taking to much of a liking to the man before her.

       But much to dismay, Theseus didn't seem very put off by her rebuked manner and coolly brought his hand back into pocket, a smirk still resident on his lips.

       "I'm also Head of the Auror Office, so the two will probably find ourselves to be working together."

       "Well, aren't I lucky?" Ada replied, with a smile that anyone could tell was extremely insincere, a small chuckle sounded from Newt at her attitude. "Am I able to speak with Mr Travers?"

       "Of course, we're just heading to him now." Theseus replied, his manner still unaffected by Orla's hostility. "Newt's appealing to end his ban on travelling internationally for the fifth time."

       At the breach of a new subject, Ada's mood lifted as she turned to the man on her left with a light smile.

       "And there I was thinking why we hadn't seen more of you across the pond." She mused, before her mind rewound itself to working out the nature of his ban. "You're banned because of what happened last year?"

       The magizoologist at her side simply nodded, confirming her statement, causing her to grimace at the idiocy of the decision.

       "Oh, how ridiculous!"

       "I'm glad you agree."

       "Well, we better not keep them much longer." Theseus cut into their dispute, before turning to his fiancée and bidding her goodbye. "Leta."

       "It was nice meeting you." Leta smiled at Ada who stayed back at moment as the two men began to walk further along the corridor.

       "And you." She replied, before quickly jogging after the Scamander brothers.

       "Just try and keep an open mind, will you? And maybe a little less —"

       She heard as she neared the two, the older telling the younger quietly.

       "Like me?" He prompted, as they stopped before a door.

       "Well, it can't hurt." Theseus sighed, hopelessly, patting his brother on the shoulder before stepping forward to knock on the door.

       "I can't say I'm taking much of a liking to your brother, Mr Scamander." Ada said to Newt in a hushed tone as she stepped next, the two surveying Theseus as they spoke.

       "Then you'd be the first." Newt scoffed, as the door freaked open and Theseus turned to beckon the other two in.

       "Maybe that's not such a bad thing." She shrugged with a small smile, placing her head gently upon his shoulder, before taking a step forward towards the room before them. "C'mon."

AUTHOR'S NOTE
thought i'd change it up
and publish this thing for
the first time in a year?
but hey, i missed ada
so though i'd bring her
back for a hot second
AND hey look at that,
a new cover