A/N: And this is it - the final chapter of OWN! Hope you all enjoyed this just as much as I did. Thanks for reading, reviewing, and all the rest.
Chapter Eight: In which the problem is solved, there is a group hug, Chaubauxdeux is cloned, and Katie returns to work.
Meagan jumped back in alarm and Jaylene dropped her phone with a clatter as George and Katie appeared with a slight pop at their side.
"You're back! You're alive!" Meagan exclaimed as she jumped forward to embrace her friend. Jaylene joined them, and just as they were about to pull apart, George joined in too.
"What?" he asked innocently as everyone cast him funny looks. "I love group hugs. Now where're the files?"
Meagan ran over to the counter where the red book was waiting, and brought it back triumphantly. "This is it, right?"
"Absolutely!" George confirmed with a grin. He accepted the book almost reverently and then held it aloft in triumph. "I didn't steal it! It was Chaubauxdeux all along. Ha!"
Jaylene and Meagan performed a victory dance, complete with hand-movements, facial expressions, and a loud "WHOOP!" at the end.
Katie turned to George. "So - you're leaving now, then, right?" She looked away quickly, and then remembered something. "Hey, you never explained what a Muggle was!"
"Didn't I?" George responded weakly. "I guess I'll have to come back and visit you sometime, then."
"Absolutely," Katie replied. "And don't you forget that, either. Hey - do you have a cell number?"
"A what?"
Katie remembered how George had acted towards her cell and deduced that he did not. "How about facebook? E-mail? Twitter?"
George's expression remained blank.
"Don't you have anything to keep in touch?"
Realization crossed his face. "I have Chaubauxdeux. He's one fast little owl."
"You really use your owl for communications?"
He frowned. "Is there something wrong with that?"
Katie twisted her fingers together, trying to come up a way to say what was on her mind without sounding incredibly awkward. "I, uh, don't have any owls."
"Oh."
There was a pause before George's face brightened again, and he cast a surreptitious glance around them. Meagan and Jaylene were the only ones nearby, and they were still wrapped up repeating in their victory dance. With a murmured spell, George flicked his wand, and a little miniature version of Chaubauxdeux appeared in the air between them.
Instantly Meagan and Jaylene stopped dancing, mouths dropping open in twin expressions of horror at the sight of duplicate owls.
"You can talk to mini-Chaubauxdeux and it will record a message from you to me. Works in the opposite direction, too," George explained. "Doesn't need food or water, doesn't make a mess, and sleeps most of the time. Practically like an action figure."
"An action figure that can move," Katie commented in amazement, and George belatedly remembered that Muggle action figures were stiff pieces of wood or plastic. "Wow. What's its name? Mini-Chaubauxdeux?" George nodded. "I'll call him Chaubi for short, because he's smaller," Katie decided, and carefully slipped the owl into her pocket.
"See you around then," George said lightly.
"Yup," Katie replied. "See you soon." She hesitated, watching him. Funny, the cute ones were always completely insane. He grinned, thinking something along the lines of the same thing.
Turning back to the doors, George sighed. "Guess I'd better get this back to Archie before he blows a gasket. See you soon, Katie," he said, and, with a pop, George was gone.
Meagan and Jaylene still wore near-identical expressions of shock and terror.
"Are you - are you keeping that thing? It's d-dangerous!" Meagan asked, unsteadily. Jaylene raised a hand to shield her already bruised eye. Katie, on the other hand, couldn't remember ever smiling so hard.
"Yup."
FIN
