A/N: ARGH APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE who got the ridiculous html version. Here it is without the garbage.
After Angelina unwittingly stated in unmistakeable terms that magic existed, it took a few days for Zinnia to see another magician.
Well, that's what she was calling them in her head. It wasn't like she could just ask them what their preferred descriptors were without revealing that even though for some reason they all thought she was one of them, and something about that idea made Zinnia instinctually wary.
She didn't think that the Weasleys or even Angelina specifically wished her harm per se, but there was a pretty broad gap between how people treated those who were 'one of them' and those who were 'different'.
(Zinnia had grown up in rural Australia, was openly bisexual and did not look Anglo. Prejudice was something she was frankly always steeled to deal with when meeting new people.)
Also, Zinnia had not missed the fact that Angelina had been seriously considering "cursing" her when she had been storming up the drive. Considering that Zinnia was not magical herself (muggle? Was that what they called it? It sounded almost like a slur, except that George and Charlie had been more than happy to try her "muggle movie" the other day… now that she was alert to what the word meant, she would be paying more attention,) there was little that she could have done to protect herself had her emotional defusing technique not worked.
That was a scary, scary thought, no matter how well Zinnia had managed that confrontation.
Angelina had sent Zinnia an abject apology and incidentally a slight possible solution to that problem. The day after the incident, a huge horned owl had flown through Zinnia's kitchen window, and dropped a package on Zinnia's table. Angelina's apology letter had explained that the contents were a patented Weasley's Wizarding Wheeze Invisible Shield Cloak ("The cloak is invisible so it goes with everything! Good for sixteen dark hexes or money back guarantee, Warning: Limited Help Against Unforgiveables, don't say we didn't warn you").
Apparently all friends of the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes staff were given one, and the outcome of Zinnia encouraging Angelina and George to have what seemed to be a long overdue frank conversation about the state of their relationship made Angelina want to consider Zinnia a friend.
I am so very sorry that I jumped to conclusions… the note had said. Please take this gift for the next time you have to face a possible hexing whilst wandless… if you had gone to Hogwarts you would have been a Gryffindor for sure… (Zinnia had not a single earthly idea what a Gryffindor was supposed to be, but assumed it was some kind of magic school thing).
Zinnia appreciated the gift, and the fact that Angelina was apparently self-aware enough to be belatedly horrified by her impulse to attack a stranger, but on the other hand… Zinnia had had no idea how dangerous that had been, and even though Angelina had turned out to be reasonable once Zinnia had startled her out of her rage, how did Zinnia know that she'd be able to do the same with the next angry magician, and…
Zinnia took a deep breath, counted to ten, and then slowly released it.
No, magic was a new element, but people were just people. She could handle this.
It wasn't any more dangerous than living back home where the long grass was always full of deadly snakes, or living in her old rundown flat back in London with the local toughs running around at all hours armed with knives and guns. A known threat could be planned for.
Zinnia was going to be absolutely fine.
Completely, totally…
Zinnia startled badly enough at the knock at the door that she nearly dropped her cup of tea.
Cautiously, she put the mug down and tiptoed towards the door.
She peered through the spyhole to see a blue-grey eye staring right back at her.
"Gah!" Zinni exclaimed, leaping backwards.
"Hello!" came a cheery voice.
Zinnia sighed inwardly. Well it seemed that she had been rumbled, so she might as well answer the door.
She opened it to see a white girl with a cloud of blonde hair and oddly luminescent-seeming eyes wearing a sun dress in lime green and hot pink zebra stripes with earrings that appeared to be made from corks.
No, Zinnia corrected herself, as she got a better look at those eyes, despite the odd fashion, this was no young girl.
So the question remained, was this someone with an unusual aesthetic, or another magician?
"Uh, hello?" Zinnia said after a moment.
"Hello!" replied the girl with a vague smile. "I'm Luna Lovegood, my father is your neighbour."
"Oh," said Zinnia, remembering what Molly had said in their first conversation. "So you're Xeno's daughter? I don't think I've actually seen him yet, but Molly said he lived over the hedge."
Luna nodded. "Yes. I heard from George Weasley that Daddy had a new neighbour, so I thought I would come warn you about his wrackspurts."
Zinnia tilted her head to one side. Definitely a magician
"Sorry, whose what now?" she said aloud. Then stepped back. Best not to startle the witch. "Come in for tea, and we can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. Any preferences?" she called over her shoulder. "I was just about to try this new spicy mix, so if you want something a bit more conventional, speak now or forever hold your peace."
"That will be fine," Luna replied. "I like trying new things."
Luna glided into her house and by the time Zinnia came back out of the kitchen with the freshly made pot of tea, had arranged herself under a sunbeam coming through the living room window. The effect of the sunbeam hitting Luna's hair was unearthly, and were it not for the fact that Luna was interestedly studying the dust motes floating in the light, Zinnia might have thought it was an aesthetic choice.
Despite the fact that Luna blowing on the dust motes was a slightly odd thing to do, Zinnia felt a sudden frisson of kinship with the young woman.
Zinnia poured the tea and nodded at the swirling dust motes. "If they weren't a sign that this house desperately needs more cleaning, I'd love those motes."
Luna laughed. "Oh I don't know, I think the fillyshubs riding them appreciate their presence. Fillyshubs," Luna continued in a slightly dreamy deadpan, "love to dwell in old houses. I think they're drawn to the smell of camphor and tarnish."
Zinnia wrinkled her nose and decided to take Luna at her word. After all, seeing as she had just figured out that magic was real, there was clearly no point in assuming just because she couldn't see something, didn't mean it wasn't there.
"Yeah, unfortunately I think I'm going to evict them though," Zinnia said. "Fillyshubs was it? I'm guessing that they're not fans of white vinegar and baking soda or copious dusting."
Luna nodded solemnly. "No, but I am sure they will be perfectly happy to relocate to the back shed, there should be plentiful dust motes for them back there."
Zinnia huffed and picked up her tea cup. "Especially around the woodpile," she said. "If they like dust I'm guessing that they love sawdust."
Luna beamed. "I like you," she said.
Zinnia blinked. "Uh, thanks?"
Luna nodded, and took a sip of tea. "Ooh, I like this blend. Tumeric? Cayenne pepper? Ginger?"
Zinnia shrugged. "Pretty sure I've got a cold coming on thanks to all this damp weather. Figured I'd give it a bit of a blast to see if I couldn't catch it before it set in."
Humming to herself, Luna took another sip. "I see what Mrs Weasley was talking about when she came around the other day. I tried what she called your calming tea, it's… subtle. Depends a lot on the belief of the drinker for its level of effect," she said, and despite Luna's general off-with-the-faeries demeanour, Zinnia could tell she was being carefully watched.
"That's the most round about way I've ever heard anyone explain the Placebo Effect," Zinnia admitted. "Look, there's some active ingredients, but yes, you're not wrong that the drinker just liking my tea is going to increase the benefits of it." She took another sip. "I never claimed otherwise. I'm glad Molly seems to feel that it helped her though."
Luna blinked slowly. "Could you explain this Placebo Effect?" she asked. "I'm not familiar with it."
Zinnia paused. Did magicians not keep track of developments in science? Perhaps not.
"Oh, well, it's basically to describe what happens when a patient feels they get benefit from medicine based on what they expect the medicine to do, rather than any benefit that the medicine provides," she explained.
Luna gasped. "Oh! Like when Harry said he gave Ron Felix Felicis before their Quidditch match, even though he hadn't, but Ron was feeling so lucky that he actually did really well that game, but it gave him confidence to use the skills he already had!" she exclaimed.
Zinnia had only understood the verbs and names in the first part of that, but clued into the general context by the time Luna had finished speaking. "That sounds exactly like the Placebo effect," she said.
Luna stood up. "Oh, that's so interesting! Zinnia, could you point me toward any books on the subject? I'd really like to write about this for the Quibbler! Oh, that's the newspaper that Daddy and I edit."
Zinnia paused. "I think I might have some of my nursing textbooks packed up." She paused, and suddenly realised a possible problem. "Uh, this is maybe going to sound a little silly, but your readers are all magic, right?"
Luna shook her head. "Not at all. That may have been true in the past, excepting Squibs of course, but we've increased our marketing campaign and thus our subscription rates with families of muggleborns and halfbloods recently. Turns out that diversifying our writing staff has done wonders for increasing our interesting content," Luna smiled brightly, "We even have a regular House Elf column, dictated of course, with all sorts of tips that are revolutionising how wixen keep their homes!"
Well that confirmed that at least. Zinnia winced inwardly at the way that Luna said 'muggleborns' and 'halfbloods' though. Although Luna did not put any particular negative tone into these words, they sounded suspiciously like 'mulatto' or 'half-caste' to Zinnia, which did not exactly bode well. She wondered what a 'squib' was. It sounded even less flattering than 'muggle'.
"Alright, well, that's good then I suppose," she said. "How across recent popular science do you think your readers are? Fair warning, the explanation from my textbook is a bit dense from memory, it might need some translation… I definitely didn't study magic medicine."
Luna tilted her head to one side. "The Placebo Effect is a muggle idea?" she sounded astonished. Either Zinnia's hint had gone entirely over her head, or Luna had already known that Zinnia was not a magician. Zinnia was not sure which she suspected.
The tone was on the edge of putting Zinnia's back up, but she decided to reserve judgement. "Well, it certainly seems to work on magic people too based on a small sample, so…"
"Oh!" Luna practically bounced in place. "That is so exciting! Mr Weasley always said that muggles were ingenious, but I never knew that they had such an understanding of headology!"
Zinnia frowned. "You mean psychology? Modern psychology has been around for about a century."
Luna beamed. "Do you have Sigh-Collar-Jee in your textbooks too?"
A few hours later, Zinnia ushered Luna outside, with a stack of books and two paper bags of Zinnia's tea mixes tucked into Luna's basket.
"Thank you so much!" Luna exclaimed. "I'll make sure I get these back to you by the end of the week!"
"No worries," Zinnia said a little bemusedly as she watched Luna skip down the drive before she disappeared behind the tree line.
An interesting person, that Luna Lovegood.
Zinnia realised that Luna had never explained about what 'wrackspurts' were.
No matter. Zinnia had a feeling she would be back.
