January 2004
Audrey was heading upstairs to check on Lucy, who was beginning to make whimpering noises through the baby monitor as she woke from her nap. Audrey hastened her pace as she heard the noises increase in volume, she'd only put her down to sleep ten minutes ago. At five months old Lucy still needed at least one nap a day despite her difficulty in settling down for them.
Audrey reached the nursery, her old bedroom her parents had repurposed for when their grandchildren visited, quietly she slid into the room. Leaning over the cot, she gently soothed Lucy until she slipped back under again. Just as she was leaving the room, pulling the door closed behind her, her mother's voice rang out in panic from downstairs.
"Audrey! Audrey! Oh, Christ!"
"Mum!? Mum?" Audrey ran down the stairs and back into the sitting room where she'd left Maggie and her Mum watching a DVD on TV.
Lizzy was standing by Maggie, arms outstretched as if to snatch her up, but fear held her frozen in place.
All around Maggie, the plastic tea set she had been playing with danced in a parody of the animation on the television screen.
Audrey didn't think, she crossed the room and swept Maggie up in her arms. Maggie turned to her a bright delighted smile on her face.
"Look, Mummy!"
"I see Maggie. I do, but love, can you stop it now, please. Can you put them down?"
Maggie looked at her sadly. "Stop?"
"Yes, love, let it go, make them sit on the table again, please. Can you do that?"
Maggie looked sadly at the dancing tea set and slumped a little. The plastic dishes clattered to the tabletop.
"Good girl," Audrey said, giving her a cuddle. "Are you a bit tired now? Shall we sit down and watch the video? You can have a nap if you want one. Mummy will stay here and talk to Grandma."
"Audrey," Lizzy interrupted shakily. "Is this something she can do? I mean, does? A lot?"
"Yes," Audrey said calmly sitting on the sofa, letting Maggie sit next to her. She stroked Maggie's hair, allowing her to lean upon her chest. She knew that Maggie would be tired, it was more magic than she'd seen her daughter display before and she'd always been tired and grumpy afterwards. Percy had reassured her it as just a little magical exhaustion, and a nap would set her right. After the second display that was. The first time, he'd been shocked then near panic as Maggie had slept nearly four hours solid. Only the second and third opinions of Arthur and Fleur had calmed him down.
"There's nothing wrong with her Mum," Audrey explained, keeping her voice calm so as not to upset her daughter. She gave her mother a warning look purposely, dropping her eyes to Maggie's head then back to her mum. Ted had been clear that no kind of censure was to be given for Maggie's accidental magic, it was something to be treated as standard so that problems didn't arise later.
"But," Lizzy said with a helpless gesture to the tea set on the coffee table
"Look, I can explain everything. Shall I get us a drink, and I'll answer everything."
"Your dad still keeps whiskey behind the spaghetti jar," Lizzy replied.
"I was going to offer tea."
"Audrey, I do love you, but does this strike you as a tea sort of conversation?"
Audrey started to get up, but Lizzy waved her back. "You stay, she's nearly asleep. I'll get the drinks."
"Water please, Mum. Without alcohol."
I'm not going to water whiskey." Lizzy muttered as she left the room. She returned in short order with a tumbler of whiskey and a glass of water for Audrey. Audrey shot the tumble an assessing look, was it the first or second?
"Less of that thank you," Lizzy said sharply. "So, she has ESP? She's like one of those kids on the science fiction shows that the government always locks up?"
"No, she's not," Audrey said, slightly appalled.
"How long have you known? How long has all this been happening? Why haven't you said anything? Well, alright, ignore that, but how are you even coping?" Lizzy paused to sip at the whisky pulling a face at the taste. "I really do prefer gin, but I can't take it neat."
Audrey rolled her eyes at her mother but forged on to answer her questions. "We've known since she came home from the hospital."
"Since she was born?" Lizzy interrupted. "She's been able to do that? How have we never seen it before?"
"No, Mum, let me explain! This is going to sound a bit mad, but Maggie is a witch. No, look, I know what you are thinking. I do. I really do, but the thing is magic is real. What Maggie just did was magic. A wandless levitation charm with an animation charm. Not that she knows that, or she has any control over it. It's called accidental magic when they are young like she is. She can't help it. It's not a bad thing, it's normal for her, she's not doing anything wrong. If she gets upset or overly tired or stressed or just happy and excited, things happen around her, and it's her magic responding to her."
"Audrey, love."
"Yeah," Audrey nodded at the hugely sceptical look on her mum's face. "I am aware it sounds nuts. That I'm probably giving you lots of reasons to book me into a padded room on the looney ward, but I'm telling you the truth. She's only two, as she gets older, these episodes will stop as she learns to control it. I'm not, by the way, magical. Not at all, none of our family are or ever has been. She got it from Percy."
"Percy? It's heredity?"
"Yeah, Percy is a wizard, and he was born into a magical family, one of the oldest magical families in the country. He went to a magical school, he has a magical job, and is actually on track to become the Minister for Magic."
"As in a Government Minister?"
"Yeah."
"And you believe him?"
"Yes." Audrey gave her a lopsided look and gestured at Maggie, who was now dozing against her chest. "The thing is, I've known for years. Since we got engaged. Percy told me everything before he proposed. And I promise you I took it about as well as you are. But I accepted it, him, knowing that Percy is a wizard. He wasn't supposed to tell me, but he didn't want to lie and ꟷ."
"Oh, Audrey…"
"Mum, it wasn't like that. You know Percy, he's the same person you happily watched me marry."
"Yes, but Maggie was born exactly nine months later, dear."
Audrey bristled. "I was not pregnant on my wedding day! We were engaged for years before we got married! You've just seen Maggie surrounded by a floating, dancing tea set. Which stopped when I asked her to stop. Why is this so difficult?"
"Audrey, magic? Really? I just… No."
"What if, well, let me call Percy. Can he come into the house? It's considered rude usually, but you need proof, and he can provide it."
"I'm not going to refuse him entry," Lizzy replied. "I'd like this all explained properly, but he's still your husband and the father of my grandchildren."
Audrey groped for her handbag from where she had left it by the side of the sofa, pulling it onto the half of her lap that wasn't covered in a toddler. She fished her mirror out of her bag and flipped it open one-handed. "Percy Weasley," she said clearly.
"What are you doing?" Lizzy asked.
The mirror connected, showing Percy's face. "Audrey?"
"Daddy," Maggie roused at the sound of her father's voice.
"Yes, it's Daddy," Audrey said, smoothing her head back down. "Mummy just needs to talk to Daddy."
"Is everything alright? Is Maggie OK? Is something wrong with your Mum?" Percy asked in a concerned rush.
"Percy, I need you to come to my Mum's."
"Why what's wrong?"
"Maggie levitated her tea set and made it dance along with the video she and my Mum were watching."
"Shit," Percy swore. "She's alright? Nothing broke?"
"She's fine. She stopped when I asked her to, but Mum…"
"Oh. Oh yeah, give me five minutes to tell Kingsley and move a couple of things, and I'll be right there."
"Can you come directly into the front room?"
"Yes, if that's alright with your Mum," Percy agreed hesitantly.
"It's fine, I asked. I appreciate your difficulties, and I don't have a rabbit handy."
Percy smiled at the reference. "I'll be right there. Tell Maggie, I'm proud of her."
Audrey nodded then snapped the compact closed, cutting off the connection. She chucked it back into her handbag and put the bag back on the floor by the sofa.
"Video conferencing on a compact mirror?"
"Not quite, but yes. It doesn't use telephony, it runs on magic. It is linked to a select number of similar mirrors that other people have. Percy wanted me to always be able to ask for magical help should I need it or if anything happened to him. He's going to appear in a minute."
"What did you mean when you said you didn't have a rabbit?"
"When Percy told me he was a wizard, I didn't believe him. For much the same reasons you don't believe me. He turned his wine glass into a rabbit. It was just a wine glass out of the cupboard, he put it on my lap and turned it into a real-life rabbit. I think I screamed a little. I can't remember, but yeah, it was a moment."
"Audrey, I don't understand. How can you believe in magic? That Maggie is a witch of all things? It's just not…"
There was a muffled crack that made Lizzy jump and heralded Percy's appearance.
"Daddy?" Maggie's head popped up, on seeing her father, she wiggled out of Audrey's lap and ran across the room to him.
Percy scooped her up. "Hello, lovely, Mummy tells me you've been a clever girl."
Maggie nodded her head her smile bright she pointed to the tea set. "Dancing, Daddy."
"Yes, the plates were dancing. Mummy told me."
"Again, Daddy?"
"No, not right now lovely, maybe when we get home. I've come to talk to Grandma. May I sit?" Percy asked of Lizzy.
"What? Oh, yes," Lizzy said. She'd been eyeing Percy's robes and not paying a lot of attention to the conversation between him and Maggie.
Percy sat beside Audrey, shifting Maggie on to his lap where she promptly wrapped herself up in the drape of his robes.
"You weren't hiding outside or something?" Lizzy asked abruptly.
"No. Wizards can apparateꟷ."
"Teleport," Audrey broke in, at Percy's look, she shrugged. "Our word is better."
"I was at work when Audrey called on the mirror. I ap-teleported here as I said I would once I had told my boss I needed to leave. I've got an hour before I need to be back at the office."
"And teleporting is normal?"
"Yes," Percy said. "All magical people are given lessons on how to do it at seventeen. It is considered rude to teleport into someone's house without direct permission, which is why Audrey asked if I might."
"Right, I'm just. Lost. Really, really, lost."
"It's alright," Percy reassured her. "The first thing is that magic is real, and there is nothing wrong with you or Maggie. Maggie is a witch. It is likely that if it is genetic, then she got it from me. However, very little is understood how magic manifests. There are magical children born of non-magical families who have no history of any magical child in their ancestry. It could be that Audrey would have always had a magical child, but her chances of doing so greatly increased when she agreed to have a family with me."
"And that's it? Magic is real, and I'm supposed to accept that? Carry on as if nothing has happened?"
Percy exchanged a glance with Audrey. "There are very few options open to you at this point."
"Options?"
"Well, I could have a team come in and take the memory of Maggie's magic from you. You wouldn't remember her doing it nor any of the conversation afterwards. Then every time she displayed magic around you, the process would be repeated. This would continue until Maggie could control her magic. Or, because we don't know how many times Maggie might display her magic, we can take the memory from you and reduce the amount of time Maggie spends with you to decrease the risk of repeat displays and repeated memory loss. Or you can accept that Maggie did something you aren't comfortable with and stop seeing her without the memory being taken. Or you can accept that Maggie is a witch and that this is part of her life."
"You'd take my grandchild away from me?"
Percy looked calmly at his mother-in-law. "Lizzy, I do not want Maggie to grow up without her Grandmother, but her happiness goes before everything else. She will realise that her magic is what you are afraid of, and she will respond to that. How I don't know yet, but I will not stand to see her hurt. If it is too much for you, then I'd prefer we made the break when she is young enough to get over it."
"Or I just accept it? Accept that you are some sort of wizard, my granddaughter is a witch, and my daughter kept it all a secret from me."
"To put it baldly, yes."
"This is insane. Have you seen a doctor? Has Maggie? If she's been able to do this from birth?"
"She's not ill, neither am I. I do understand that this is difficult for you. It's not part of your world and adjusting to this is challenging, especially when you can't talk about it to anyone who doesn't already know. Audrey and I will always answer any questions you might have, and we have some books that might explain the differences in raising magical and non-magical children should you wish to read them."
Percy withdrew his wand, keeping his eyes on Lizzy. Maggie made an encouraging noise at the sight of his wand. "Daddy, do magic?" She reached for the wand, but Percy deftly moved it out of her reach catching hold of her hands and blowing raspberries on them to make her giggle.
Audrey held out her arms. "Come here, love. Daddy is going to show Grandma some magic. You don't want to get in the way."
Maggie obligingly crawled over to Audrey and settled on her lap her eyes on Percy.
Percy waved his wand, and the tea set tidied itself up, laying itself out for five to take tea. Cups sat on saucers with spoons, the sugar bowl and small milk jug placed in the middle of the ring. Another flick and the cleaning charm whisked around the room, making the room notably cleaner in its wake. The box of toys kept for Maggie, who had emptied them all over the floor, packed itself away neatly and closed with a thump making Lizzy jump.
Lizzy looked over to Audrey. Audrey smiled encouragingly. "It's big, I know, but it's not that bad."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
Audrey bit her lip. "Because I wasn't supposed to know. Magical people are governed separately, they have different laws. The Statue of Secrecy is what keeps us muggles finding out about magic."
"Muggles?"
"Non-magical people."
"Right."
"Magical people aren't supposed to tell muggles about magic. Breaking that law is a lifetime prison sentence with no parole. If they had discovered that Percy had told me he would have been sent to prison. I couldn't risk that, so I didn't tell anyone. Honestly, it wasn't exactly difficult not to say anything, you wouldn't have believed me without proof, and I couldn't give it to you. Just before the wedding the current Minister of Magic, Percy's boss, gave us, well, me, a document that grants me Informed Muggle status going back to ninety-eight. Basically, it's a legitimate way of getting around the law without Percy getting into trouble for having told me. Once Maggie was born, and she was magical, the rules change slightly anyway."
Percy picked up the thread of the conversation. "Because Maggie can't control her magic, it is expected that muggle parents will discover that magic is real. In a mixed marriage like ours, it means that I could tell Audrey I was a wizard. In a non-magical marriage, most of the time from what I understand, the parents just cope as well as they can until Hogwarts – the magical school, sends out the letters and the teachers go around to all the Muggle-born and explain to their parents."
"So, it's common then, these mixed marriages?"
"No," Percy said. "They are the opposite. That isn't to say they don't happen, but due to the necessary secrecy most magical folk look for relationships within the community."
"How big is the magical community?"
"About one per cent of the population in the UK," Percy replied. "We haven't had a consensus in some years, so the numbers are approximate. We've had two major conflicts in the last thirty, which hurt our population numbers."
"Conflicts?"
"Yes, a wizard tried to seize control of the government back in the seventies. It was a rather dark time. A lot of people died before he was stopped in eighty-one. Then at the beginning of the nineties, he resurfaced and started to rebuild his power base to try again. He was killed, and his group of followers were arrested or killed alongside him in February ninety-eight. A number escaped justice, and we have been largely successful in rounding them up."
"You got engaged in February ninety-eight."
"Yes. The decisive action against Riddle was drawing closer. My future was uncertain, it wasn't perhaps the best course of action for Audrey's sake to ask her to marry me then. Explain magic was real, then have her find out that the magical world was at war and I might be killed in the final confrontation, but I have to say she took it very well."
Lizzy looked appalled.
"Percy," Audrey hissed. "It wasn't that dramatic Mum," Audrey said. "I was never in danger. And the final fight was over in five or six hours. I spent the entire time at a safe house in Scotland well away from the action which was taking place in Devon."
"Your family, they are like this too?"
"Yes, my brothers, sister, parents."
"Everyone that came to the wedding on Percy's side was magical, Mum. The dress, you know how we didn't think it could be fixed? I had it mended by magic."
Lizzy sat back in her chair. "I don't know what to say. No offence, Percy, but I've always thought some of your family were a little odd, but I didn't expect this."
"Some of my family, my twin brothers for example, spend more time in the muggle world than others. They are more familiar with it."
"Mum, do you want to go?"
"Go? Go where?"
"To Diagon Alley, we can go if you like. You can't go without Percy or someone else magical, but you could see it then. See that it's not that different."
"You've been?"
"Yes. Percy, would you do me a favour? Nip home and get the wedding album."
"Of course," Percy said. "Do you mind if I leave from the hall?" he asked Lizzy
"You're going to teleport? Yes, it's fine."
Percy stood up and left the room the crack of his disapparation reverberating in the hall.
"How long?" Lizzy asked. "How long before you got used to it because I'll be honest Audrey, this is all really strange to me, and you're sat there as calm as can be."
"Do you remember the Grangers at the wedding? The dentist that went to live in America?"
"Vaguely."
The pop of Percy reappearing came from the hall.
"Come sit here, Mum. The Grangers are non-magical like us. But their daughter Hermione is a witch. They didn't know that when she was young, all the things that happened around her were because she was a witch. She pulled books from shelves, mended favourite toys that were broken by accident. Made clothes she didn't like tear or shrink. Helen and John took her to doctors like you suggested because they were worried. The doctors found nothing wrong with her and the episodes became fewer. Then when she was eleven, they found out she was a witch and all that that entailed. It's normal for you to struggle with this. I struggled with it, but it's part of Percy, who he is, and it's part of Maggie too."
"Why have you got your wedding album? I've seen it before." Lizzy asked as Percy handed over the book and scooped Maggie up from Audrey's lap. She went willingly, cuddling into his chest, her eyes drooping with tiredness.
"You haven't seen this one," Audrey said. "Magical photographs are different from ours."
Audrey lifted the cover of the album showing the first picture which was of Audrey and Percy walking down the aisle together towards the photographer.
"We hired a young photographer who was also muggle-born so he could do both sets of pictures."
Lizzy was struck by the image, the two of them arm in arm radiantly happy, walking towards the edge of the picture. Audrey turned the page. The wedding pictures all moved, the photographs of Audrey getting ready with her mother. Percy talking to his family. The guests arriving. Audrey arriving. Percy fidgeting at the top of the aisle. The moment that Audrey entered, and Percy turned to her was captured. Audrey ran a finger over the image, smiling softly at Percy, who smiled back.
Lizzy took the album flicking through them until she stopped once more with a sharp intake of breath. "I remember this, it was so perfect. We couldn't believe that you'd managed to choreograph it and keep it quiet."
Lizzy was looking at the picture of their first dance. Percy waltzing Audrey around the floor then joined by Harry and Hermione, Mr and Mrs Granger, Severus and Minerva, Kingsley and Tonks, Andromeda and Ted. They had all come on to the dance floor at the same time. Percy had brought Audrey to a pause then each couple had resumed dancing each moving off at the exact same time as the others. The picture showed the swirling couples rotating around the dance floor for a minute before it started again.
"It wasn't choreographed per se," Audrey confessed. "Percy's brothers make a product called Dancing Shoes. This was the first mass test run before they moved into production. This image is actually now quite famous," Audrey said with a smile. "They used it for their marketing."
"Dancing shoes? But you were wearing your wedding shoes."
"The shoes come as two pairs a practice pair that makes your feet move in the steps until you get them memorised. Then you can put the 'going out' pair on, and as long as you take the right steps at the right time once the enchantment is started, they are just like regular shoes. If you try to make a misstep, they correct you. That's why we all looked so perfect; the spell starts on the same step for everyone."
"So, you can't dance like that?"
"Well I probably could," Audrey said. "I practised a lot, it's probably embedded into my muscle memory, but that's what the shoes aim to do you see. The enchantments wear off by which point you should have it memorised."
"That's, that's quite clever." Lizzy looked at her empty glass. "I think I need another." She made to get up, but Audrey put a hand on her arm as Percy summoned the bottle from the kitchen. It floated over to the sofa where Audrey plucked it out of the air and unscrewed the cap pouring her mother another measure.
"Did that,"
"Yes," Audrey said. "It makes you a little bit lazy being able to summon things from around the house, but it's amazingly convenient when you lose your keys or Maggie's hidden the TV remote."
Lizzy tasted the whisky cautiously as if she wasn't sure it was safe. She pulled a face at the taste again then slumped back into the sofa. "What am I going to tell your father? I can tell him, can't I? because I don't want to keep secrets from him, in fact, I won't."
"You can tell him," Audrey soothed. "He would find out much the same way as you have anyway."
"You said its heredity," Lizzy said carefully. "Does that mean…?"
"Yes, in this case, Lucy is also a witch. She probably won't display any magic until she is about Maggie's age or later, but it has been confirmed that she is also magical," Percy replied, answering the unfinished question.
"Right, so both of them."
"Yes," Audrey agreed. "Both of them."
"Your Mum, this is the reason, isn't it, because Audrey isn't magical. That's why isn't it? Why she won't have anything to do with you."
"Yes. I cannot explain to you how extensively her behaviour hurts both of us. Audrey has done nothing to deserve her censure, and I cannot reconcile her behaviour with the woman who raised seven children to not discriminate," Percy said his expression solemn.
"Arthur is struggling with it. He's at a loss with her. We've tried to get her to talk to us, to work it out. It's torn the family apart really. Fred and George won't speak to her, Ron avoids going home. Ginny moved to the States and uses the distance as a reason not to speak to her. There's only Bill who is still trying, and Fleur thinks its residual guilt," Audrey told her mother.
"Well, that's just ridiculous. Why should it matter if you can do this magic stuff or not? You love each other, you're both responsible people, you've got a good life together, and both your children are happy and healthy. Does she know? About Maggie and Lucy being magical?"
"She is aware that we have children, but it was made abundantly clear when Maggie was born that unless she accepted Audrey fully, she would not be welcome to see her granddaughters. It is likely that she is aware they are both magical, it hasn't been kept a secret from my family," Percy explained.
"She isn't willing to come around at all? Not even a little bit? That seems almost unreal. Is her attitude so unusual though, I mean, you said your situation wasn't common, although that doesn't excuse her in any way."
"The magical society has always suffered some discrimination against those from a muggle background by those from a magical one. Children from pure muggle families only find out about magic at the age of eleven when they are invited to attend the magical school. They enter the magical world with as much information as they can glean from books and the like, it can make the transition quite jarring. The Statue of Secrecy ensures our separation, which means there is a lot of ignorance on the magical side when it comes to the muggle world and the people who live in it." Percy hugged Maggie to him as he explained. He kissed the top of her head before continuing. "The magical world as it were, could be considered by the muggle-born as behind the times, antiquated if you like. We use candlelight, quills and ink. We have nothing that resembles the internet. We don't have electricity, so many of the modern conveniences that come with it are unheard of. Magic can do so much, so it is unsurprising that our paths have diverted as much as they have. Both Maggie and Lucy will have the advantage of straddling both worlds. Like those of similar family make up before them, they will have the option of which world they live in, or if they too may live in a world like mine and Audrey's, where they have the advantages of both. If they choose to, they will be able to take their GCSE's while studying at Hogwarts and they will have the option if taking their A-Levels as well as their magical qualifications."
"Maggie and Lucy, will they go to this magical school?" Lizzy asked.
"Yes, their names went down for it at birth, that's how we knew they are both witches. The Headmaster informed us, you've met him, Mum, Severus. Minerva is the Deputy Headmistress. It's a boarding school in Scotland."
"Boarding school? In Scotland? Isn't there something closer to home?"
"The magical community is not so large, and Hogwarts is one of the preeminent schools in Europe. Legally, they are required to attend a magical school as citizens of magical Britain."
"There's a school in France as well Mum, it's the one Fleur went to. They don't teach subjects that you need to take your muggle exams though."
"Fleur? She's a witch too?"
"Yes,"
"How many other people have I met that are like this?
Well, as I said, everyone that Percy invited to the wedding was magical, so you've met quite a lot really."
"So, Fleur's children, they are witches too."
"Yes."
Lizzy sighed heavily. "Well I suppose, if you're sure, I'll just have to wrap my head around it all. I think you might have to help me tell your father though. Can Rachel know?"
"It, it might be best if we wait till Maggie does something in front of her. When the muggle-born do the unexplained in front of their family, the urge is not to talk about it, which feeds into keeping the magical world a secret. I'm honestly not sure where we stand and crossing the line with the Statute of Secrecy is not something to be brushed off lightly," Percy said hesitantly.
"So if Maggie does something, you can explain to the family, but otherwise it's a trick of the light, and there's nothing to see here?"
"Yes," Audrey said. "That's pretty much what I've been planning on doing."
"What about nursery? Primary school?"
Audrey shrugged. "We roll the dice and see what happens. She might never have an accident. It might be fine. Or she'll do something, and everyone will scramble to find an answer that isn't Maggie is a witch. We'll tell her when she starts school, she's not to tell anyone. It's a lot to ask, but with a bit of luck they'll think she's an over-imaginative child."
"Well, there's a few of those about so I suppose it's not the worst idea."