Chapter 2
Zinnia looked at the clock at eight minutes to five on Thursday and swore loudly and vehemently. She had been hard at work all day with the cleaning and packing. Her only break from sorting her great aunt's belongings had been when Ichabod had decided to bring her the still-twitching corpse of a rat that he had caught, dumping it right on the kitchen floor she had mopped yesterday.
Ichabod had sat in the middle of the worn terracotta tiles looking extremely smug as Zinnia moaned to him about how she was going to now have to get blood out of the grout.
As unpleasant as that moment had been, Zinnia couldn't say that she was having a bad day.
Going through Aunty Rose's things was fascinating. Zinnia had learned more in the last few days about her great-aunt than she had learned in years of shared family letters and stories from her parents.
Zinnia had known things like the fact that Aunty Rose always wanted to hear about anything creative or interesting that Zinnia and her brother Pippin had been up to, and that she was forever sending her mother advice about strange experimental fertilisers or asking to be sent back seemingly random clippings from the garden that needed to be picked at particular times (it was to this day a mystery to them all how she had known about the time Pip had collected the paperbark at 10 in the morning rather than the stroke of midday, and why it had been so significant), but that wasn't the same as knowing what books that her great aunt liked, that she had an extensive pantry full of things that she had pickled from her garden (that seemed larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside), or that for some inexplicable reason she had no less than 12 ceramic badgers lined up on the mantelpiece.
It also seemed that Aunty Rose had been holding out on her, because she had never mentioned that she collected and (judging by the wear) regularly dressed in fashions that would not have looked out of place at some renaissance faire.
Zinnia had thus far resisted the urge to try things on for the most part, but had hung a particularly pretty moonstone pendant around her neck. It made her feel better somehow, to be wearing it. She was probably going to try and keep at least a few other bits and pieces for herself though – the old fashioned drawers really weren't her thing, but as she went through the wardrobes, Zinnia had found multiple sets of dresses edged with lace that, unless Zinnia had gone blind, was clearly handmade. Some of the dresses were sober black, but the rest of them ranged in all the colours of the rainbow. Zinnia almost could have sworn that the birds of paradise skilfully embroidered onto a shawl in rich forest green actually moved.
Who'd have thought that Aunty Rose would have had such far out taste?
Maybe that was why the conservative-looking Molly Weasley in her handknit cardigan had been unfazed by Zinnia's brightly coloured hair. Maybe she thought that outlandish styles were a family thing?
Regardless of what the reasoning was, Zinnia realised that she now had only barely half an hour to shower and make herself presentable, or she was going to be late.
At least the most modern thing in her great aunt's place was the bathroom. Zinnia would have been less than impressed if she were reduced to using an outhouse like she was camping in the bush.
Twenty minutes later, Zinnia was throwing on a light floaty scarf her brother had given her, her favourite flowing black trenchcoat (picked up from an Oxfam in Kensington when she had discovered that she had severely underestimated the UK winter,) and lacing up her red Doc Martins, barely avoiding tripping over Ichabod as she ran out the door.
She always made her Dad sigh a bit about how she looked like a punk, but at least she was reasonably well-groomed and not covered in dust and cleaning products now.
Zinnia hoped that the dinner wasn't going to be a bust. She had half-considered calling in sick, but had realised quickly that she neither had the Weasley's home telephone number, and that Molly Weasley was absolutely the type to show up at her doorstep with soup just to be "neighbourly".
Also if the scones were any kind of indication, Molly Weasley was probably an incredible cook, and Zinnia was about ready for a homecooked meal cooked by someone else.
Even if she was about 80 percent sure that this was less about Molly being neighbourly and more about Zinnia and Molly's son being set up. Hopefully the son wouldn't be too much of a thuggish troll, but as someone who had spent a significant amount of time working in bars, Zinnia was fairly confident she could handle him if he turned out to be a thug.
Zinnia climbed into the crotchety third-hand Morris Minor she was borrowing from a friend who had gone to spend six months in Malaysia, and drove towards the gate she remembered from Aunty Rose's letters to be labelled as "the Burrow". At least these Weasleys seemed to have a bit of a sense of humour, even if it was unfortunately geared towards puns.
It was late spring, so the sun would not be going down for a few hours yet. Zinnia was somewhat grateful for this, because the driveway that led up to the Burrow did not look at all well maintained.
As she drove through the (fortunately open) gate, she felt an involuntary shiver run down her spine.
Weird. She was a little nervous, but nothing so bad as all that.
She parked the car, and before she was even halfway through getting out, the front door was opening and a man with thinning red hair and slightly stooped shoulders came out to greet her.
"Hello! You must be Zinnia Derwent! Any relation to Dilys?"
Zinnia tilted her head to one side. "No? Maybe? I can't say I've met all of my cousins on Dad's side of the family, so it's not impossible."
The man laughed as though Zinnia had told a joke. "Oh no, you wouldn't have met her, Dilys Derwent was alive in the 1700s. Healer at St Mungos and Headmistress of Hogwarts of course, my son Percy wrote an essay about her back when he was a fourth year and kept talking about her accomplishments…"
Zinnia assumed that meant that 'Hogwarts' was some kind of school. The name was pretty funny, but not the strangest that she had encountered since coming to the UK. A colleague of hers had attended a wedding in Wetwang, East Yorkshire of all unlikely-sounding places a few months back, and she had been almost certain it was a joke on the Aussie until she asked them to point it out to her on a map.
"…but oh, you're Antipodean aren't you," the man continued, "I suppose that explains why you might not have heard of her... oh, is this your car?" he sounded delighted.
Zinnia shrugged. "Nah, I'm borrowing it off a friend while she's out of the country. It's doing me okay for now though." It was enough to get her places without stranding her on the side of the road, which beat the bomb she had learned to drive with when she was 16.
"So, I'm guessing you're Mr Weasley?" Zinnia continued, trying to remember his first name.
The man beamed, and it took years off his face. "Oh, call me Arthur, no need to be formal."
Right. Her guess had been Archibald, so it was lucky she had not gone with that after all.
"Then please, call me Zinnia," she replied, taking a large jar of salted lemons (she had picked them almost at random from Aunty Rose's extensive pantry) and a smaller package of her chamomile tea blend with the contents written on a label on the outside off the passenger seat. "Here, I didn't want to show up empty handed."
Arthur took the jar and package from her. "Oh, this is your Calming Tea? Molly had nothing but praise for it, truly, thank you for your thoughtful gift." The smile dropped and he grew more serious, and said more quietly, "and thank you for being so understanding when she grew upset the other day. It's been very hard since Fred…"
Zinnia, embarrassed, and hoping to forestall the man forcing himself to talk more on a topic that was clearly a raw and open wound, raised one hand and interrupted him, "oh goddess, not at all. Please, don't thank me, I did the least that any decent person would have done."
Arthur shook his head gravely. "If the recent troubles have proven anything to me, it is that the world could always use more decent people doing things at all." He smiled at her, and Zinnia could see that like Molly, there was something subtly exhausted about him. "Do not underestimate how much impact a little kindness can make."
"Arthur? Why are you making our guest stand out in the yard? Come inside the both of you before the food gets cold!" came a familiar voice from the house.
Zinnia turned to see Molly hanging out of the kitchen window to call them.
"Coming Molly dear," Arthur called back, beckoning to Zinnia, who followed him into the house.
"Look Molly, Zinnia brought us some gifts," he continued once they were inside.
Molly bustled out with a tray of bread rolls. "Oh how lovely, though Zinnia dear you really did not have to!"
Zinnia shook her head. "Honestly you'd be doing me a favour to take some of Aunty Rose's pickles off my hands, because I have not the foggiest idea what I'm going to be doing with all of it. I'm not sure how –"
There was a loud cracking sound behind her, and Zinnia jumped, whirling around to see a stocky ginger man who looked as though he had spent a few years in the elements coming through from the hallway.
"Oh, Charlie, you've made it just on time!" his mother exclaimed, setting down her tray at the already overladen table.
Charlie snorted as he shucked his coat off by the door. "I told you I would make it back in time Mum, Oliver has a new baby, so it wasn't like we were going to go out on the town." He spotted Zinnia and paused.
"Hello, I don't believe we've met," he said, his expression going from open to distinctly wary in one fell swoop.
Zinnia winced internally. Oh great, so she was part of an ambush. This was worse than she had thought.
