Chapter 12

A few days after the Scarecrow incident, Zinnia bought herself a new phonecard, and settled in to have a long chat with her mother on the payphone located behind the Tesco off the Ottery St Catchpole village square.

It was extremely validating.

"If I had had any inkling of how bad it got over there, I swear I would have let you know, Zinny," her mother said after Zinnia ranted to her for almost a solid twenty minutes. "The Wizarding World as they call it (patriarchal fucks) has always been backwards, but if I'd known there were still Death Eaters walking free, I would have told you, Statute of Secrecy be damned."

Zinnia had slid down to sit in the phone booth. Well. That answered that question.

"I know Mum," she said, only mostly honest, as she had had her doubts, "but seriously, did Auntie Rose tell you anything about what had been happening recently?"

"Not enough," came the grim response. From the careful diction, Zinnia could hear that her mother was about half a notch off incandescently furious. "Rose had a tendency towards understatement, but this is all really beyond the pale." Her mother made a low growling sound under her breath. "I swear Zinny, I would have done whatever I had to to talk you out of going to the UK if I'd had any idea."

Zinnia winced. "I'm not sorry I came here. The magic people I've met so far for the most part seem alright, albeit severely traumatised."

Her mother sighed loudly over the phone. "I'm glad you've made some new friends Zinny, but be careful okay? If anyone asks, you're my natural daughter. Knowing how magical sorts work, they've probably all assumed you're a half-blood, or worst case scenario a magical-by-birthright-but-not-by-capability squib like me. If they find out that technically you're not even related to Auntie Rose because you're adopted, chances are they'll do their memory erasure trick and frankly I don't trust them to leave you in one piece doing that. They did it to your father once, and honestly, he's never been the same since."

Zinnia blinked. "Seriously? I thought…"

"…that it was the drugs, didn't you," her mother responded with an air of resignation. "He's the same man I married, and the things that made me fall in love with him are mostly still there, but Zinny, he used to be so sharp before the magics played God with his brain because he witnessed the wrong thing."

Zinnia shivered. "Christ Mum. I never knew." An awful thought occurred to her. "Does he know?"

"No," said her mother softly. "He doesn't know, and Zinny, honestly it would do no good to tell him. Honestly, that was the reason why we moved to Australia. Your father was struggling, and I wanted to get your brother as far from the UK bullshit as possible. Then we found our home, and adopted you, and I have no regrets possum, honestly, but," she sighed again. "I am so sorry I didn't warn you better. I should have been able to read between the lines when Auntie Rose got so upset about you going to London."

"Christ," said Zinnia again, and for a moment, the only sound on the line was the static from the long-distance connection.

After a few moments, her mother said, "You can come home if you want? You don't have to stay there. I'm going to have to come over to sign paperwork and whatnot at the Ministry next week anyway, and even though you packing up the place has been great…" she trailed off.

Zinnia studied the graffiti on the inside of the telephone box for a moment, before admitting. "Is it nuts that I think I could actually really like it here? The magic stuff is completely batshit insane, but…"

"Oh stone the bloody crows," her mother complained. "Seriously? It's been what, a fortnight since you went there?"

Zinnia blinked. "What?" She didn't think she deserved that tone.

"Zinnia Honoria Derwent, don't you 'what' me." Zinnia could hear her mother scowling down the phone. "You've gone and got yourself infatuated with one of these wizards or witches, haven't you."

Zinnia cringed. "Uhhh…."

Her mother muttered darkly under her breath. "I knew it. Zinnia…"

"I know!" Zinnia protested hotly, drawing her knees up under her chin miserably. "I know, Mum! We're not anything, and we probably won't be. Charlie's just a friend. Maybe a friend I'd want to keep in touch with, but frankly, he's in the middle of grieving, and I only just broke up with Estelle, and Charlie's also on the rebound, and just… no Mum. Maybe in a different lifetime, or at least at a different time, but right now there's nothing there worth talking about. He's been really nice, but neither of us have made any promises."

There was a long pause. "Alright," Zinnia's mother said finally. "But you be really bloody careful. If things did end up happening so that you and this… Charlie was it? …if you and this Charlie got together, I wouldn't necessarily disapprove if he could prove that he knew how to treat you right, but Zinny…"

"I know Mum," Zinnia sighed. "I'll be careful. I promise."

Just then, an automated voice announced to Zinnia and her mother that her phonecard was just about out of charge. Zinnia winced. International calls were so ridiculously expensive.

"You hear that Mum?" Zinnia said. "I'd better get going."

"Alright possum," her mother said. "Your Dad and Pip send their love. And I'll be seeing you in a week, so I'll be able to give you my love in person. Take care now and be safe."

"Love you too Mum," Zinnia mumbled, and then all she could hear was dial tone.

Zinnia reached up and hung the phone up without rising from her seated position. If it had not been for the impatient local who knocked on the door of the telephone booth a few minutes later, she might have stayed sitting there for some time.

Zinnia was just entering her front gate, when suddenly a girl in her late teens with extremely bushy brown hair literally materialised in front of her accompanied by a sound reminiscent of a gunshot.

Zinnia jumped approximately three feet in the air.

"Bloody fuck!" she swore, clutching her chest with one hand. "Don't scare me like that! Also," she scowled, "who the hell are you?!"

The girl scowled right back, and if Zinnia had to guess, she'd assume that the girl in her carefully and meticulously ironed shirt wanted to chide her for her language. "I'm Hermione Granger," the girl said, with a tone of expecting Zinnia to recognise her.

Zinnia paused. Come to think of it, that name did sound vaguely familiar… "Oh," she realised. "You're Harry's friend. He mentioned you in passing."

Hermione frowned. "Yes," she confirmed, in a tone that suggested that Zinnia was probably missing something.

Zinnia consciously decided to not take her tone personally. She figured that having only figured out that magic was a thing less than a fortnight ago, she had plenty of latitude for not already being across the who's who in the zoo, even if this Hermione chick turned out to be some kind of celebrity. "Well, come in then," she sighed. "I'll put some tea on and you can tell me whatever it is that has you popping in so abruptly."

She strode straight to her door, and as she'd expected, Hermione quickly followed in her wake.

Zinnia unlocked the door, and went straight to the kitchen to drop off her full shopping bags.

"Wait," said Hermione, staring suddenly at the bags. "You shop at Tescos?"

Zinnia rolled her eyes. "Where else would I be able to get cornflakes, 2 minute noodles and Cherry Ripes?" she asked only half-rhetorically. If there was a magical shopping centre she would be almost tempted to check it out.

Hermione was silent for a moment. "So it's true? You were raised muggle?"

"Yeah, and what of it?" Zinnia demanded, a little sensitive after her phonecall with her mother.

"Nothing! Really!" Hermione hurried to explain. "I'm a muggleborn myself, of course."

Zinnia wasn't sure what was 'of course' about it, but decided that asking would probably enter dangerous waters that she was not in the mood to navigate.

"Then you know that magic folks can do a lot of cool stuff," Zinnia guessed, as she honestly had only seen enough to get a proper fright and not enough to get a real handle on the scope of what magic could achieve, "but at the end of the day, sometimes you just want some dry 2 minute noodles to crunch on."

"Jaffa Cakes," Hermione said after a long moment, with a tone of admitting a deep dark secret. "I like them so much better than pumpkin pasties or cauldron cakes honestly, and the Wizarding World has absolutely nothing on them."

Zinnia smiled at her and put the kettle on. "See? You know what I'm talking about."

A few minutes later, and the tea had boiled and the two of them were sitting a little awkwardly in the sitting room, nursing their respective cups of tea. Zinnia was content to let the silence stretch uncomfortably, and noted with no little satisfaction that Hermione was getting cat hair all over her black trousers from sitting on the couch.

Hermione cast her eyes over the bookshelves, obviously in search of some form of small talk, and suddenly exclaimed, "You have a copy of Cuneiform Curiosities by Etta Ching! That book has been out of print for forty years!"

Zinnia shrugged. "Not really my area. These are all Auntie Rosie's books. Most of them are probably about to go into storage to be honest, so feel free to take what you want."

"What!" Hermione's head snapped around from gazing covetously at the bookshelves to staring at Zinnia in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how valuable anything by Ching is? For that matter…" she proceeded to babble about five or six of the books that she had immediately spotted, but Zinnia quickly lost the thread of her conversation in the bombardment of details.

"Look," Zinnia said, raising a hand to silence the enthusiastic teenager. "This house is going to be shut up and probably sold off. I'm heading back to London in the short term, and then most likely back to Australia when my visa runs out. I'm not going to be able to carry all of those books back, and nor do I want to. I'm sure Cuneiform is interesting," she said, forestalling the protests she could already see brewing in Hermione's brown eyes, "but honestly, I'd rather the books all go to people who could get the most out of them."

When Hermione still looked hesitant, Zinnia rolled her eyes. "Look, Hermione, I'll level with you. I'm not just being nice. I honestly need to get rid of these books. Are you willing to help me, or am I going to have to donate them?"

Although where Zinnia would donate magic books she had no idea. She supposed she could lean into the whole being Australian thing and ask Molly. The Weasleys in general seemed completely blind to Zinnia's lack of magic, whereas Hermione had noticed the Tesco bags almost instantly, and from her expert level-sounding lecture on the contents of the bookshelves, was possibly a bit sharper.

Hermione huffed, but she was smiling. "If you're serious, I would be more than happy to take some. But honestly, some of these books are worth tens of galleons, at the very least. Are you sure?"

Zinnia shrugged. "Sure enough." She sipped at her tea. "Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about that you popped in so abruptly?"

Hermione sipped at her own cup of tea, and grimaced. "I came here because I was concerned about what Harry let slip about him confiding in you," she said finally, looking Zinnia straight in the eye, "and I wanted to make sure that you weren't about to cause trouble."

Zinnia blinked. "Cause trouble?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"You know," said Hermione impatiently. "Like selling the story to the Prophet or something."

Zinna put down her teacup with a rough clink. "Excuse me?" she demanded. She was not entirely sure who or what the Prophet was, but she could make a fair guess from Hermione's derisive tone that it was the sort of thing one did when one wanted to be exploitative.

Hermione blushed. "I'm sorry," she admitted. "I jumped to conclusions, and I've been so worried about Harry lately, and he mentioned that he'd opened up to a total stranger and…"

Zinnia sighed. What was it with the witches thinking that she was out to steal their boyfriends?

"Look," said Zinnia, cutting Hermione off mid-babble. "I sincerely promise that I'm not interested in talking to the Prophet. Or anyone else about what Harry divulged to me. That's between me and Harry and Charlie, since he was there too. If Harry wants to talk to you, he will." Seeing Hermione's crestfallen expression, Zinnia relented slightly. "Chances are he will, if you're as close friends as you seem," she said. After all, it would be highly odd for a non-close friend of Harry's to come and interrogate her about her intentions.

She decided to pass on the advice she had had about counselling patients, because it seemed like the sort of common sense that the magic folk seemed to be badly in need of for dealing with other people's trauma. "Just let him know you're there, then give him time, and space, and actually listen if he starts talking. Don't offer advice, don't try to interpret what he's saying as he's saying it, just listen. You can't solve all of his problems, but also until you know the full extent of them, any attempts to do so might backfire."

Hermione smiled mirthlessly. "Merlin," she said after taking a long slow sip of her tea. "Where were you just after the Battle of Hogwarts? We really could have used someone talking sense like that."

Zinnia shrugged. "I'm pretty removed from the situation," she pointed out. (Oh, if only any of these magic folk had any idea to what extent!) "It makes it easier for me to be impartial."

Hermione nodded slowly, and might have said more, but that was when Ichabod decided to make his presence known with an impatient meow.

He then proceeded to jump into Hermione's lap without so much as a by-your-leave.

Zinnia relaxed a little. That was a vote of confidence that she trusted.

"Ichabod, don't be rude," she scolded half-heartedly.

"Oh no, he's not rude, he's gorgeous," Hermione enthused with the sincerity of a true cat-lover. Then she began to babble about her own cat, Crookshanks and their conversation after that was much lighter.