When you traced the blame back far enough, this mess could really be laid at Tom's feet after all.
The Ministry's annual budget was only so large. Now, with resources being squeezed from every direction just to restrict his dealings with Grindelwald, the British Ministry of Magic and several others had wrung themselves dry. When money ran short, everything was up for sale.
"Jackal?" Newt asked, tilting his head with mild curiosity. "Why that nickname, of all things?"
"Cold logic. Unforgiving. You have to have a little bite to you, or no one takes you seriously." Tom answered without missing a beat.
Newt smiled faintly and shook his head. "It's not really a serious problem. The Ministry hasn't refused outright. It's just two particular herbs I need urgently."
"You can't let them get away with it," Tom said, a note of genuine disappointment in his voice. Why did Newt have to be so endlessly agreeable about everything? If anyone had ever tried to shortchange Tom like that, they'd have ended up in a worse position than Graves by now.
"I'll mention it to your mother-in-law later." Tom set the candlestick down on the table and rotated it slowly, searching for just the right angle. "What else are you short on?"
Newt listed several ingredients. Tom turned them over in his mind and realized, with mild surprise, that he had all of them tucked away in his private stores.
It wasn't as though he had gone out of his way to collect them, either. That had been Daphne's doing entirely.
She had been trying to win Fawkes over, buying every unusual and obscure herb she could get her hands on. But Fawkes, being Fawkes, would eat whatever she offered and promptly fly off without so much as a backwards glance. After enough cycles of that, the girl had given up, and the entire stockpile had migrated quietly into Tom's personal vault.
Newt accepted without any awkwardness, promising to repay him once the Ministry issued his next stipend.
...
Half an hour later, the dinner preparations were complete and everyone had found their seats. Daphne sat cradling Little Lucy against her chest, the smile on her face unbroken from the moment she had arrived. It was, after all, the first Christmas she had ever spent inside Tom's home.
"Tom, you're the host," Nicolas said, nodding pointedly. "Say something."
The boy scratched the back of his head, visibly uncomfortable. "We're all family here. Do we really need to go through all of that?"
"Of course we do," Mrs. Greengrass said, picking up the thread smoothly. "Nobody's asking for a formal speech. Just a word or two about what you're hoping for in the new year. Keep it simple."
"Fine."
Tom rose from his chair, a glass of orange juice in hand, and let his gaze move across each face at the table in turn.
"In the new year, the most important thing, above everything else, is that everyone stays safe and healthy. I mean that sincerely." He paused, the corner of his mouth curling upward. "As for what I'm personally hoping for, I'd like to make some real progress in alchemy. And maybe earn a bit more money on the side. Any objections?"
"That sounds perfectly reasonable to me," Mrs. Greengrass said warmly, inclining her head.
"Since when do you care so much about money?" Nicolas, for his part, looked faintly disapproving of the second half.
Tom shrugged. "I'm not interested in money itself. I just enjoy the act of making it."
Perenelle shot Nicolas a sideways look that could have curdled milk. "Oh, leave the boy alone. At least he has a hobby. You, if I recall correctly, used to spend your time watching horses and cows mat..."
Nicolas lunged across the table to clap a hand over her mouth. He was too slow. She had already finished the sentence. His palm arrived somewhere near her chin well after the damage was done.
The table went dead silent for exactly one breath.
Then everyone burst out laughing. The two girls managed to contain themselves to somewhat more delicate reactions, though their faces had gone a very telling shade of pink.
"Nicolas," Tom said, barely keeping a straight face, "I had no idea you harboured such a refined taste."
He now had Nicolas's darkest secret under lock and key, and the knowledge sat in him with tremendous satisfaction.
The atmosphere opened up completely after that. The women took over, trading stories back and forth, roasting Newt and Nicolas with their respective histories of embarrassment, and trading tales of the ridiculous things the two sisters had gotten up to as children.
Tom himself was perfectly safe. There was no one at the table who could dig up anything on him. The benefit of being an orphan, he supposed.
He did open the study space long enough to let Grindelwald catch a glimpse of his old acquaintances. The old man watched for perhaps three minutes, directed a three-second tirade at Nicolas, spent a solid ten minutes tearing into Newt and Tina, and then excused himself. He had business of his own, apparently. New recruits to the cause who needed thorough ideological orientation.
Which was, Tom reflected privately, a polished way of saying brainwashing. Finding like-minded allies who shared your path, and when they didn't, bending the path until it aligned with yours.
Ariana, by contrast, stayed close to the edge of the space, watching the scene outside with quiet, unreadable eyes. Something flickered in them, unmistakably. She wanted to be part of this warmth too.
...
Throughout the entire evening, neither Tom nor Nicolas breathed a single word about what had happened in North America. Newt and Tina clearly had no idea yet. If they had, there was no chance either of them would have sat there so calmly and at ease.
More than likely, some of the Aurors who had died, and perhaps people connected to the Graves family, were former students or even colleagues of Tina's. Tom had known that. He hadn't held back anyway.
The wizarding world was full of tangled connections. If he spent his life tiptoeing around every one of them, he would end up offending everyone and protecting no one. The only sensible position was to never make yourself the one who had to accommodate. The person who got accommodated was always the one who came out ahead.
...
They ate well, and drank well, and by the time the evening wound down, snow had begun to fall over the courtyard, thick and unhurried, as though it had been waiting for exactly this moment. Someone brought out the fire brazier onto the terrace. Rocking chairs appeared. The group settled in with the easy, sleepy contentment of people who had nowhere else to be, watching the snow come down and waiting for Christmas to arrive.
It was Nicolas who brought up the idea of moving closer. Newt looked puzzled. "Nicolas, I thought you never wanted to leave Paris?"
The old man gestured wearily at the space behind him. "Tom went and created a living alchemical creature. How am I supposed to stay in Paris after that? Being closer makes everything easier. Going back means doing research alone again, and at my age, that gets rather grim." He leaned forward in his rocking chair. "Help me find a plot of land. I'd like to have the house finished before the month is out."
"Leave it to me," Newt said. "Tom's already picked out his land, as it happens. Right on the hilltop next to mine. There's a fine stretch of hillside just a little lower down that would suit you perfectly."