For five days, Mavka was forced to endure eating in the presence of Newton Scamander. He never moved from his spot, simply standing on the other side of the barrier feet away as she ate.

She tried to eat aggressively, at first, chomping viciously and staring him dead in the eyes as though he were her prey. She would never actually eat him, of course, eating humans would be a new level of low that Mavka was not ready to hit.

Not now—not ever.

However, Newt was strong and he asserted his own respectful dominance by meeting her stare casually and remaining unbothered. When Mavka realized that her antics were not working, she begrudgingly accepted it and ate normally.

He fed her in the mornings—standing patiently until she finished before caring for the rest of his creatures. Throughout the day, he would occasionally visit her to check up on her, speaking to her as he did so.

But it truly was not until the nights that he would come back, feeding her again before sitting and sketching her, all the while talking to her as though he knew she was a person.

Newt, of course, did not know this, only speaking to her as he did the rest of his creatures.

But with the wolf, it was different. There was something about this wolf that made him truly feel as though she was listening.

Newt was doing as he did with all his creatures, slowly getting her to trust him. As she now trusted him enough to eat with him nearby, he considered that an amazing progression of mutual trust and bonding.

However, it was time to move on to the next stage. Getting the wolf to trust him enough to not care about him entering her habitat while she was inside. Along with this, he was ready to begin the steps of trying to hand-feed her.

That morning, when Newt woke up at the crack of dawn as he typically did to care for the creatures, he quickly checked that his briefcase was still safely hidden away in his locked room at the Inn.

After that, he spent time in all the other habitats feeding, nurturing, and caring for the rest of the creatures. He also made sure to check on the Occamy eggs—pulling out a stethoscope and listening to the inside activity of the egg.

He smiled as he heard noises of pure liquidation. The eggs still had months to go before hatching, but at least they were starting out right.

His incubation spell to keep them warm was working.

Unfortunately, Newt found the Occamy who laid the eggs dead in her nest about two weeks prior. After giving her a proper burial, he took the eggs intending to nurture them to life.

After putting away the magical stethoscope, Newt made his last rounds.

"Good morning, Dougal!" He cheered to his Demiguise, the peaceful creature waving its monkey-like hand as he ate the greens Newt had given him.

"Teddy..." Newt said as he flipped a golden coin. "Don't give me trouble today!"

Teddy the Niffler easily caught the coin mid-air, scurrying away to add it to his collection greedily.

Newt knew that even if his Niffler could speak, Teddy's word would be worth almost nothing. Especially if he 'promised' not to stir up trouble. Newt should have named the little guy 'Trouble', it was only a miracle that he had not managed to escape his case as he typically did.

Newt suspected it had something to do with the fact that he himself had not left the case much in the past few days. He really needed to go out to find an Ashwinder, but he had been a bit caught up in the newest addition to his sanctuary.

He continued to walk.

"Pickett, Marlow, Tom, Poppy, Titus, Finn!" Newt greeted, bending his legs slightly to come face-to-face with the sociable little creatures.

They each squeaked at him in greeting: Pickett and Poppy playing together on one of the higher branches. Newt smiled at the adorable sight, his heart swelling with joy from being surrounded by such creatures.

These past few months had been the best of his life: being able to travel the world, building his own traveling animal sanctuary, and spending countless hours studying the creatures he loved most in the world.

What more could a man ask for?

With that, Newt started to make his way to the wolf, passing by a few giant dung beetles he had acquired. The dung beetles were rather friendly and hard-working: they recycled the waste of the many creatures in Newt's sanctuary. It made the cleanup process much easier for Newt.

Not that Newt would mind if he had to, but he virtually had no animal waste to clean up. Not when the dung beetles naturally got it for him.

Before going to the wolf habitat, he briefly stopped near the water habitat where he was just barely starting to build up his sea sanctuary. It was still a work in progress seeing as the only animals in the large area of water were a few magical fish.

He wanted to get a kelpie, but the only way would be if he came upon an injured one, and he definitely didn't want that.

Newt crouched by a small bucket on ice, pulling a large trout from it. The fish had long since been dead, only preserved by the cold bucket it was in.

It was generally food for the magical sea creatures that swam in the water—giant creatures of the sea who ate small fish for their meals. But Newt had different intentions for this trout, holding it in his hand as he made his way to the wolf sanctum.

After five days it was time for Newt to take the next step to get closer with the wolf. He did have manacles to get off her, after all.

Seeing as the wolf was not attempting to get closer to him, he then had to push for it. Typically, he would wait it out, but he already had no clue how long those manacles had been on her and he was not keen on leaving them on her for much longer.

"Darling!" He called, seeing the wolf already pacing by her den as she waited for him to give her breakfast.

He was a bit later than usual which would explain the pacing: she was hungry.

Mavka eyed him as he entered the habitat, expecting him to stop by the entrance as he always did to refill her water and food. To her shock, Newt entered but walked past her bowls—slowly beginning to take steps in her direction.

Even though he was many feet away, Mavka still started yelping and growling, immediately racing off in the opposite direction he was coming from.

Newt quickly stopped, still many feet away from her and holding up his hands while bowing his head in submission. A show that he was not going to harm her.

Rather, he threw the trout that was in his hand a good distance. Far enough that it landed a little over halfway between himself and the wolf: closer to the wolf.

Mavka immediately stopped her growling, pausing and tilting her head at the sight of the trout.

She loves fish.

It was one of the main things that the people of her tribe would eat before they were attacked. For Mavka, fish was a rare delicacy to eat out in the wild. A wolf was good for hunting many things. Specifically smaller mammals, deer, and rabbits.

However, what they were not suited for was hunting fish.

Mavka, when feeling risky enough would try to hunt fish in the cold stream. Most of the time it was unsuccessful, the fish were simply too fast, and as a wolf—Mavka was not built to hunt them. On rare occasions though, when a fish just happened to be slow and her fast, then her hunt was successful and she was blessed with a delicious fish dinner.

And so, to see a fresh trout just lying in the snow mere feet away caused her already hungry stomach to growl. Her mouth was salivating—drool coming from the edges as she kept her stare on the fish.

She started to move forward, only to pause and look at Newt. The magical man gave her an encouraging nod, motioning to the fish a smile.

"Go on," He said softly, making no move from where he stood near the edge of her habitat.

He was further away than when he stood watching her eat, but the difference this time was that there was no barrier separating him from her.

But he was far away and Mavka was hungry. Also, he'd been incredibly nice thus far, she was finding it harder and harder to believe that he would ever hurt her.

And so, she trotted forward, eyes on Newt as she made it to the trout. Laying down, Mavka was quick to rip into the fish that smelled salty like the ocean. It once again put the idea in Mavka's mind that she might like to be a dolphin in the Atlantic Ocean one day.

Free to swim anywhere she pleased.

She kept her eyes on Newt as she ate, lying in the snow and chewing through the treat that was held down by her paws.

Oddly enough, but then again, Newt was a very odd man—he thought that the wolf looked rather cute as she ate her treat. Her big golden eyes were wide with happiness at the delicacy he had thrown to her.

And he made sure to remain where he was, not daring to take any steps closer.

Being the natural animal lover that he is, Newt wished to stroke and cuddle against the wolf as he did with many of his other animals. However, he was nowhere near being able to do that with her, even so not all animals were cuddly creatures, and Newt more than anyone knew to respect that.

As soon as she finished, she looked back up with a small huff but remained where she was lying. Newt chose to sit down, the snow crunching under him as he watched her silently. One of the many things that Newt liked about animals was that he was not forced to make conversation with them.

Despite many people's beliefs, a lot could be said without necessarily needing words. And even as Newt enjoyed speaking with his creatures, there were days like these when he was perfectly content with sitting in silence.

It mattered not, for the creatures were perfectly fine with it as well.

The wolf stared back at him—both himself and her many feet away, and yet watching each other as though a thousand words were being spoken.