Newt has finally come home and to his senses, and told me all about you. Once started, he simply couldn’t stop, as is his wont, and spent all of Sunday waving his arms about and saying ‘Bugger!’ when the door bell rang. I feel as if I knew you already! He’s also told me of your plans to marry. Well, Jacob, you’ll find us a plain English, plain wizard, plain-speaking lot, but plain is as plain does, and so let me plainly say: welcome to the family.
Now, my dear man, let’s have none of this stuff and nonsense about class. I was a farmer's daughter when I married Ned Scamander, and, believe me, he was glad enough to have a fiancée who could call a spade a shovel and didn’t dawdle in bed waiting for her morning pumpkin juice. There is an open-armed market here for young men of an active persuasion. Bakers, too. Especially bakers. Why, when my elder boy went to Hogwarts, he was offered moldy bread at his very first meal. Moldy bread, I ask you! Really, a man could invest in a sweet, cosy little shop at Hogsmeade – such a nice picturesque spot, too, only four inches of snow at winter – and live like King Arthur on his revenues. Only a gobstone’s throw from here, too, now we have upgraded our chimney.
But more of that when you come to visit. Now, Newt has a four day’s live on Beltane, three weeks from today. If you can see your way to booking your passage, he will make certain to fetch you at the Muggle dock and bring you here. Do say yes, and make a mother’s heart glad.
With all best wishes, Demeter Scamander
(We also need to have a word about the American Muggle banks.)
------------------------
Mr Graves,
Here are this month’s words. I’ve tried to keep them short and punchy, like you said. Also 100 per cent pure No-Maj. Except that Grindelfella spent his three months here investigating the Bronx, they’ll mean jack to him and his gang.
Chrusciki - that’s one of mine. Knot pastry, batter fried in oil, light as air. Would go nicely with a levitating spell.
Jukebox – I don’t think your kind has them as of yet. It’s a music box you kinda feed nickels to, so it puts out the swing. Perhaps that jinx you spoke of, that makes the adversary’s ears go kah-boom.
Svoyi Kodziri – a card game my next-door neighbour, Mr Loutine, is awful fond of. You know exactly what cards the other party has, and you use that to try and flatten him. You can’t bluff your way out with this one, which is why it never got popular on the block, but I like the sound of it.
Horsefeathers!– Something you say when you won’t buy none of what the other party’s saying. Newt loves that one. Dunno how you’d Latinize it, though.
Here’s hoping they will be up to scratch. I don’t reckon I’ll be staying in New York forever, sir, but here or there, or anywhere, you know I’m in.
Yours sincerely, Jacob Kowalski
----------------------
My dear boy,
Galumphin’ Godric! That Rappaport lady was a clever one. It took us six pots of tea dosed with Pepperup to find the chink in her law – and Albus was no help at all. Yes, I was. No, you weren’t. All you did was utter cryptic hogwash about knots and not-knots, and distract me by demonstrating with your beard. Well, he did help once around page 420. But the main point, dear lad, is we’ve found the knot chink. The yes-chink, I mean.
Now, the Rappaport Law is much more than a mere you-this-way-and-we-that-way. It was written to protect, secure and fortify the American wizarding community against all odds. And – because the past is never Obliviated, but keeps haunting the present indeed– it was written with the Salem horrors still fresh in the writer’s mind. Therefore, one of the first items you will find is that no wizard or witch shall again be taken from their rightfully wedded spouse. Mistress Emily meant "rightfully magical and magically wedded spouse" but – as Albus helpfully remarked – she did not write it.
So here’s the trick. You can’t marry your young man in wizarding America. That is, you cannot, enter and stay there if your purpose is to marry a No-Maj. But if you and Jacob tie the knot here in England, then return to America as a newlyweds, well… then, to part you would be to sever a wizard from his rightfully wedded American spouse. Ha! Take that, little Emmy! I think I’d better keep custody of the teapot, Miss Bagshot.
So here’s our gift to you, Newt. Now up from the dumbs with you, and go get your man so we old geezers may have a new excuse to celebrate. Love et cetera, Auntie Batty. There! Now give me your arm, Albus, I think I’m too peppered-up to – wait, is that quill still writing?
Fill - When the Clouds Roll By (14/?)
Newt has finally come home and to his senses, and told me all about you. Once started, he simply couldn’t stop, as is his wont, and spent all of Sunday waving his arms about and saying ‘Bugger!’ when the door bell rang. I feel as if I knew you already! He’s also told me of your plans to marry. Well, Jacob, you’ll find us a plain English, plain wizard, plain-speaking lot, but plain is as plain does, and so let me plainly say: welcome to the family.
Now, my dear man, let’s have none of this stuff and nonsense about class. I was a farmer's daughter when I married Ned Scamander, and, believe me, he was glad enough to have a fiancée who could call a spade a shovel and didn’t dawdle in bed waiting for her morning pumpkin juice. There is an open-armed market here for young men of an active persuasion. Bakers, too. Especially bakers. Why, when my elder boy went to Hogwarts, he was offered moldy bread at his very first meal. Moldy bread, I ask you! Really, a man could invest in a sweet, cosy little shop at Hogsmeade – such a nice picturesque spot, too, only four inches of snow at winter – and live like King Arthur on his revenues. Only a gobstone’s throw from here, too, now we have upgraded our chimney.
But more of that when you come to visit. Now, Newt has a four day’s live on Beltane, three weeks from today. If you can see your way to booking your passage, he will make certain to fetch you at the Muggle dock and bring you here. Do say yes, and make a mother’s heart glad.
With all best wishes,
Demeter Scamander
(We also need to have a word about the American Muggle banks.)
------------------------
Mr Graves,
Here are this month’s words. I’ve tried to keep them short and punchy, like you said. Also 100 per cent pure No-Maj. Except that Grindelfella spent his three months here investigating the Bronx, they’ll mean jack to him and his gang.
Chrusciki - that’s one of mine. Knot pastry, batter fried in oil, light as air. Would go nicely with a levitating spell.
Jukebox – I don’t think your kind has them as of yet. It’s a music box you kinda feed nickels to, so it puts out the swing. Perhaps that jinx you spoke of, that makes the adversary’s ears go kah-boom.
Svoyi Kodziri – a card game my next-door neighbour, Mr Loutine, is awful fond of. You know exactly what cards the other party has, and you use that to try and flatten him. You can’t bluff your way out with this one, which is why it never got popular on the block, but I like the sound of it.
Horsefeathers!– Something you say when you won’t buy none of what the other party’s saying. Newt loves that one. Dunno how you’d Latinize it, though.
Here’s hoping they will be up to scratch. I don’t reckon I’ll be staying in New York forever, sir, but here or there, or anywhere, you know I’m in.
Yours sincerely,
Jacob Kowalski
----------------------
My dear boy,
Galumphin’ Godric! That Rappaport lady was a clever one. It took us six pots of tea dosed with Pepperup to find the chink in her law – and Albus was no help at all. Yes, I was. No, you weren’t. All you did was utter cryptic hogwash about knots and not-knots, and distract me by demonstrating with your beard. Well, he did help once around page 420. But the main point, dear lad, is we’ve found the knot chink. The yes-chink, I mean.
Now, the Rappaport Law is much more than a mere you-this-way-and-we-that-way. It was written to protect, secure and fortify the American wizarding community against all odds. And – because the past is never Obliviated, but keeps haunting the present indeed– it was written with the Salem horrors still fresh in the writer’s mind. Therefore, one of the first items you will find is that no wizard or witch shall again be taken from their rightfully wedded spouse. Mistress Emily meant "rightfully magical and magically wedded spouse" but – as Albus helpfully remarked – she did not write it.
So here’s the trick. You can’t marry your young man in wizarding America. That is, you cannot, enter and stay there if your purpose is to marry a No-Maj. But if you and Jacob tie the knot here in England, then return to America as a newlyweds, well… then, to part you would be to sever a wizard from his rightfully wedded American spouse. Ha! Take that, little Emmy! I think I’d better keep custody of the teapot, Miss Bagshot.
So here’s our gift to you, Newt. Now up from the dumbs with you, and go get your man so we old geezers may have a new excuse to celebrate. Love et cetera, Auntie Batty. There! Now give me your arm, Albus, I think I’m too peppered-up to – wait, is that quill still writing?
--------------