OK, so I promised that in this one, we'd find out a little about our mysterious kid. She just has to pluck up enough courage first. Don't worry. I'm pretty sure it will happen. Probably…

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did… don't even go there. Anyway, Belongs to JK Rowling, not me. I do however, own… erm… nothing. I own squat. Whoops.

Concrit is ALWAYS welcome. ALWAYS. If you have something to say, you say it.

Chapter 3

Chrissie sighed. She couldn't stay in her circle forever. That much was certain.

Giving the metal object a final stroke, she deposited it back in its hiding place. Rubbing the chalk circle out, she realised that she had reached a decision.

She had to tell them.

Not that she had a choice in the first place, but as her Uncle Remus was so fond of saying, even the inevitable had to be decided at some point. Besides, if she kept this up, she was going to be late.

Heaving the heavy wooden door open and pulling it shut behind her, she left the room.

*……….*

"So if she isn't a werewolf and she isn't normal, what is she?" Hermione had pulled out another book, and was rifling through it. "She couldn't be a shapeshifter, could she?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Hermione, I thought we'd agreed to leave it!"

Hermione 'hmm'ed in a non-committal manner, still flicking through her book at top speed.

"Isn't it you that told us it was her business?" Harry asked

"Who cares about that, she's here for a reason, she has to be!" Hermione's voice was the same determined pitch it always was when she would not stop looking until the answer was found. It was the same voice she'd used in their first year when they were looking for Nicholas Flamel and the same one she happened to use every time they were given research homework.

Ron dragged himself inelegantly to his feet. "Look, Hermione, we're not going to find out what she is without more clues. All we know is that she's moved in here, she goes to Hogwarts and she's in Gryffindor. That's it."

"And I suppose asking her is completely out of the question." Harry, Ron and Hermione all jumped.

"What do you want, Ginny?" Ron asked in irritation.

"Mum said to tell you she want us all in bed in an hour. Long day tomorrow or something."

"It's the summer!" Ron protested. "It's only nine o'clock!"

Ginny shrugged, and turned to leave.

"I really do think you should ask her."

"What are we supposed to say?" Harry demanded, as soon as Ginny had left the room. "'Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but we were wondering what you are.' What's she going to say? She'll never answer truthfully."

"I dunno mate." Ron grumbled, settling himself on Harry's bed. Hermione continued to search, flicking past hags, shapeshifters, and banshees, searching for the answer to the mystery.

*……….*

Chrissie took a deep breath before entering the bedroom she, Ginny and Hermione shared. Ginny was in there, pulling on a jumper over her nightdress.

"Hi." Chrissie fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt.

"Oh, hi. My mum…" She gestured at her nightdress. Seeing the colour of Chrissie's face, she stopped. "Are you alright? You look awful."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Chrissie gulped in another breath. "So…"

"I'm going to get Mum," Ginny looked concerned. "Seriously, you don't look well."

"No! Ginny, I'm fine. I've just got to tell you…"

Ginny began to look suspicious. "Tell me what?"

"I'm kind of… a mage." There was an uncomfortable silence.

*………..*

"Wow." Ron's sarcastic declamation was grumpy. "In half an hour we have found exactly… nothing. Squat. Nada. Zippo." He would have gone on, but Harry interrupted him.

"I think we do what Ginny said."

"Don't be stupid, Harry." Surprisingly, it was not Ron who said this, but Hermione. "If she wanted to tell us she would have by now, wouldn't she?"

"Maybe. We haven't exactly spent much time around her, have we?" Harry pointed out.

"Well, I'm going to get ready for bed." Hermione announced. "It's been a long day, and -" she cut herself off as she saw Chrissie walking down the stairs outside the room, Ginny's arm around her, looking tearful.

There was silence.

"Do you think she heard us?"

*………..*

"I don't care, Chrissie." Chrissie looked up at her, absolutely aghast.

"What?"

Ginny patted her on the back.

"I don't care. And my Mum and Dad won't either. You should tell them. Fred and George will just think it's fantastic, great for more jokes. Bill-"

"I think he already knows." Chrissie mumbled. "Think Uncle R told him."

"One less person to tell." Ginny took Chrissie's hand. "Come on, let's go and tell them now. You won't have time to get all anxious about it."

"I hate the law."

"I know."

As they went down to the kitchen, Chrissie began to shake. She barely heard Hermione say "- would have by now, wouldn't she?" and ignored it.

"It'll be fine." Ginny was reassuring her. "Mum and Dad brought us all up to give everyone a chance. They won't care… well, they might care but not in a bad way."

Chrissie stared at the kitchen door.

"Ok. Let's get this over with. Stupid laws." With a sense of déjà-vu Chrissie took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen.

*………..*

Mrs Weasley had engulfed Chrissie in an enormous hug, practically before she'd stuttered the words out. Mr Weasley had stood by and looked angry.

At first Chrissie had thought it was her, and was mentally preparing to leave and find somewhere else to stay, when he'd blustered out a whole rant about how unfair the system was.

In the end, they'd discussed it and they'd agreed that it could be easier on everyone, if Chrissie were to get everyone together and tell everyone at once. Although Chrissie hated public speaking, the thought of admitting her status as a mage so many times made her cringe.

*………..*

After Harry, Ron and Hermione had been brought downstairs, along with Fred and George, and Sirius had turned up from feeding Buckbeak, Chrissie mumbled it to the floor.

There was silence.

Then Sirius reached over to her and patted her awkwardly on the back.

The twins looked at each other, and said, "Well, show us then!"

Chrissie looked surprised, but showed them how she formed her fingers and a sphere of glass dropped from them. It hit the table, but bounced instead of shattering.

There was a universal intake of breath. Mrs Weasley recovered first.

"Well, I think that's enough excitement for one night. I want you all to go to bed now, we've got a long day tomorrow, I want to start on the drawing room on the third floor, I don't even want to think about the state of it. I couldn't even get through the door, when I went to see how bad it was earlier, but what I could see was dire."

Mrs Weasley bustled around the kitchen, polishing things that did not need it. The Weasley children, Harry and Hermione and Chrissie headed up the stairs to bed, suddenly exhausted.

*………..*

"We know now, then don't we?" Ron yawned, as he climbed into bed a few seconds later. "Mystery solved. Maybe Hermione will stop now."

"Don't think so." Harry took off his glasses and folded them on the bedside table. "She still hasn't answered the question about why she's here." Harry stopped. It had been a long time since he'd had to ask Ron about something in the wizarding world. "Ron? What is a mage?"

Ron sat up. "You don't- well, I suppose you don't… Mages have a different kind of magic. It's not channelled by a wand or anything so it's really unstable. Mages are often prosecuted. Mum and Dad say it's because people don't understand…"

"But I blew up my aunt. I mean… I'm not-"

"Nah." Said Ron, settling down. "Mages go to a special school and everything. But you know what they say. Never be around a mage who is going to loose their temper. It's horrible from what I've heard. All sorts of things happen, weather changes, things break. A person exploded once."

"How could she be dangerous? She's twelve!"

Ron shrugged, as well as he could lying down. "Cos her magic works differently to ours some of our spells don't work. And they can't be disarmed, so it's actually pretty scary if you don't trust one. Anyway, look at how much damage we caused when we were twelve. There was Aragog, and the car… you battled a basilisk…"

"But, Ron, why would she tell us? She doesn't even know us. There's no-"

But there was a rumbling snore and Harry realised that Ron was asleep. Harry lay down, and seconds later he, too was sleeping. He dreamed a strange dream. It was about a door, at the end of a corridor.