"Do you think death is enough to separate people, dear Bastet?"
Newt walked through the thin mist, past the trees, across the open fields, along the lakeshore.
Cold, transparent, glittering specks drifted through the white expanse.
It had started snowing in the Borderland.
The black cat paused up ahead.
It turned around, leapt onto Newt's shoulder, and settled there. The path ahead was clear now. All they had to do was follow the winding trail forward. A wooden cottage ringed with Gabriel flowers was waiting at the end.
"So do the people we love really leave us? Or when we're forced to make certain choices, do we just remember them more clearly than ever?"
Newt liked talking to the black cat. It was not only because he was nervous and awkward now.
"Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe death draws wizards closer together… especially those who were separated in life."
The black cat's whiskers twitched as it spoke.
Newt smiled, almost shyly.
Bastet looked like a student reciting an answer, but he couldn't stop the deep sense of satisfaction rising in him.
A being that ruled over dreams and walked between life and death was willing to understand a wizard's feelings. What could be more moving than that?
"We're almost there, Mr. Scamander."
The black cat's emerald eyes seemed able to cut through the mist. In the middle of that swirl of colors and haze, it spoke quietly.
"Ah…"
At that, Newt hurriedly looked ahead. In the middle of that endless white world, a small cottage had suddenly appeared, smoke curling from its chimney.
It stood beside a wide, gentle shore, with lush Gabriel flowers blooming all along the bank.
The cottage sat right in the middle of them, wrapped in layer after layer of pale golden blossoms.
The crisp scent of flowers and greenery drifted into the black cat's nose, and Newt found himself dazed again.
Leta seemed to have just returned from some long journey. The black cat could sense that she had only recently come back to this house.
At the door, Newt carefully stepped over the soft flowers. He lifted a hand to knock, then pulled it back again.
The black cat stayed on his shoulder, watching him repeat that tiny, hesitant motion over and over.
"Cowardly Mr. Scamander. Even getting close to happiness makes you afraid you'll hurt it…"
the black cat whispered.
"Forgive me, dear Bastet. Please don't rush an ordinary human heart."
Newt said it with an awkward little smile.
The black cat felt embarrassed enough to hop down from his shoulder, which somehow made timid Mr. Scamander even more nervous.
Until the black cat started examining the little door built into the wooden one, until it realized that door had been left there specifically for it, Newt still didn't move.
"When does happiness feel stronger than when you're just about to reach it?"
The black cat understood that well enough, but their time wasn't exactly abundant.
Guiding a soul into the Borderland took effort, and so did making a Pensieve real there, not to mention using the Resurrection Stone.
"I really do have to hurry you along, Mr. Scamander."
the black cat said.
As it perched on a drifting clump of mist, it casually noticed a small peephole in the wooden door. Behind it was a pair of bright, amused eyes.
"I understand."
As if summoning up every scrap of courage he had, Newt finally knocked three times.
The door creaked open.
On the other side was a face blooming like a flower in full smile, and Newt froze instantly.
"So the stories of the Borderland are true. The lucky black cat really does come knocking."
Leta reached through the mist as naturally as if this were something she'd done before and scooped the black cat up in her arms.
"Even dead, you still manage to be loved by magical creatures."
"Please put me down."
the black cat said, struggling.
"Sorry."
Startled, Leta immediately let go, and the black cat retreated straight back to Newt's shoulder.
"Leta…"
Old Newt only managed to repeat her name. The friend standing in front of him looked exactly like the photograph he kept in his case.
"No, that's not right. You're not dead—"
Leta's eyes widened.
"It was… you?"
She turned toward the black cat.
The black cat sat elegantly on Newt's shoulder and nodded like a person.
"Yes. Dear Bastet brought me here."
Newt smiled shyly.
"That's impossible…"
Leta fell silent for a moment.
Crossing the boundary between life and death, letting a living wizard speak to a soul in the Borderland—there had never been such a story in all the centuries before.
While she stood there speechless, snow drifted down around them.
It landed on the Gabriel petals carpeting the ground, on the warm smoke curling from the cottage chimney, on the hair of those who had been reunited.
A chill ran through Leta. She suddenly realized how improper her earlier behavior had been. They might well be facing a magical creature so powerful it defied imagination.
Bastet, the ancient guardian of war and family. Could all those old wizard legends really be true?
"You…"
She pulled Newt behind her first, then fixed the black cat with a hard, searching gaze.
She had never believed in luck. Leaving a little door for it had only been because of a friend's request.
A witch like her, one the world had never shown even the slightest kindness to, believed everything had to be bought with a price.
She was a monster, a freak in the eyes of everyone else. Only monsters could rely on each other, the way she and Newt had.
No… Newt was far more worthy of being loved than she was. Only her sins were truly unforgivable.
"What did you give up?"
Leta asked Newt in a low, guarded voice.
"Embarrassingly enough, nothing at all."
Newt knew her too well. He understood exactly what she was worried about.
"A cat that asks for nothing in return?"
Leta was genuinely stunned now.
"That's exactly what dear Bastet is."
Newt answered, still bashful.
Leta believed Newt, and she believed the black cat.
And once she did, there was no escaping the truth of it.
They had met again.
Because of the magic of a black cat, they were standing here together once more.
Only then did that blurry, aching feeling begin to rise in her. She looked at Newt's aged face, then lowered her head.
"Please come inside."
she said to the black cat.
"Thank you for inviting me."
The black cat stepped inside.
Leta decided it was a very polite cat.
Inside, the rug reflected the firelight from the hearth. Far off, a faint red glow had begun to color the horizon. Beyond the window lay the endless sea of the Borderland. Inside the room there was a lively fire crackling in the grate, butterbeer frothing in mugs, and Newt smiling faintly without daring to look straight at anyone.
Snow was falling across the entire Borderland.
It drifted over every inch of the dark central plains, over the treeless hills, over the marshes by the lake.
They listened to the snow falling slowly through heaven and earth,
falling just as gently as their own fate now had, over both the living and the dead in the Borderland.
"I never believed in luck."
Leta said.
"But it always comes anyway."
Newt smiled.
The Borderland had three fundamental directions.
Soul, mist, and eternity.
Here, the distance between one heart and another was at its shortest.
~~~
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