A Change of Plans

Chapter Seven

Annie recovered first.

She jumped out of her chair, punched the air with her fist, gave out a great whoop, then rushed to Dumbledore and gripped his robes.

"I'm a witch?!" she asked, clutching the blue material rather harder than was necessary, and when he nodded, she screamed again.

"I'm a WITCH!!" she screamed, running in circles with her hands up in the air in a touch-down symbol.

As James and Sirius hurried over to quiet and calm her down, Patsy stayed quiet and frozen. She had gone pale.

"Witch..." she muttered to herself. "Witch...as in magic?" she asked Dumbledore. He nodded as he had done to Annie. He was looking pleased.

"Witches, yes," he said. "But not very powerful ones."

Annie became deathly silent and froze, finally giving her soon-to-be stepfather and his best friend the opportunity to grab her and force her back into her chair.

"Not...not powerful ones?" she said faintly, so upset that she had not even fought James and Sirius and had actually settled into the chair.

Dumbledore smiled at her reaction.

"No," he said. "This is why you have not been admitted into the Salem Institution for Young Witches and Wizards. Your level of magic is very low. It is so miniscule that I doubt that the two of you were born with it. I believe that this magic has come into being due to such knowledge of the magical world from those books, and actually believing in the books. Whether or not you consciously knew it, some part of each of you knew that the magical world inside those pages was real, and this knowledge has turned, over time, to a magical ability."

Both Annie and Patsy stared at him for a moment. Then Patsy, breaking suddenly from her shock, spoke rather loudly.

"I told Mom that those books would come in useful sometime!"

Annie glared at her.

"How much magic can we do?" she asked. She looked very angry at being told that she only had a small amount of magic inside her.

Dumbledore was still looking very calm.

"First, perhaps second year level magic," he told them, and Annie slumped in her seat, looking moody.

"Do we get wands?" Patsy asked eagerly, seeming not to see how upset Annie was looking.

Dumbledore smiled at her.

"I do believe that that could be arranged."

"Yes!" Patsy cried, punching the air.

Annie perked up a bit.

"Really? Well, that's better then."

"Good," said Dumbledore. "Very good. And now that we've decided what needs to be decided, I do believe that we all need to get to bed."

They all nodded, even Annie and Patsy. They were both exhausted, and were the first to get up and head for the door.

"Can you believe it?" Patsy whispered as they started up the stairs to the bedroom. "We've got magic."

"Not strong magic though," Annie grumbled. "How are we supposed to cast a Patronus with so little magic in us?"

"Hey, at least we've got some," Patsy pointed out. "First thing tomorrow, I'm getting on the computer and writing Joanne Kathleen a looong Thank You note."

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"Ooooh," Annie squealed. "I love this picture!"

She and Patsy were huddled around Annie's mother's Windows XP, visiting The Sugar Quill's art section and taking another hundredth look at their old favorites. The one Patsy (who was in control of the mouse, as Annie had slipped on the wooden floor in her socks and fallen in the race to the computer) had pulled up was a family portrait of the Weasleys, titled "It's a Girl" with all six of the Weasley boys crowded around their parents and newborn Ginny.

"They're so adorable," Patsy agreed. "I especially like little one year old Ronniekins. I mean, he's so little, and cute!"

"And Charlie," Annie sighed. "With the spiked hair...oooh, he's so cute!"

Patsy giggled.

"Actually," she corrected, "That's Bill. Oooooh....if I didn't know that that was Percy," she added, pointing to him on the screen, "I would actually think he's pretty cute as well. In a little kid sort of way, though, unlike how you think of Charlie."

Annie threw a pad of sticky notes at her from off her mother's desk.

"Actually," Annie said, acting as though she had not nearly given her friend a serious paper cut, "I would think Arthur would look a little younger, but then he's on his seventh child....it is an excellent drawing."

"Very good. Erm...what is it supposed to be of, exactly?" said a voice from behind them.

Patsy knew who had spoken before she even turned around, but she got excited anyway.

"Oh my God!" she cried, whirling around. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"Wha--" Annie started, and then she saw exactly what. For a moment she was frozen, and then she screamed.

"Yes!"

She jumped up and ran to one of the many red heads standing at the doorway to the office.

"George Weasley!" she cried, and then. "Fred! The Weasley twins! Patsy, have a look at this!"

Patsy had joined her now, and was also gushing over the others.

"You must be Ronniekins," she said to the smallest one, although not by much; he was nearly as tall as the Weasley twins. He wrinkled his nose at being addressed this way, and looked at Patsy as though she were insane, which, it must be admitted, was close enough to the truth at the moment. "Oh, you're one of my favorite characters! 'She really needs to sort out her priorities,'" she sighed. "Brilliant. Great sense of sarcasm."

"Where's Charlie?" Annie asked, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

"And Bill, now that you mention it," Patsy nodded. Neither girl was even thinking about Percy. "Are they still abroad? Or do they, like in the Unbroken Universe, live at home still?"

"No!" cried Annie desperately. "No, I refuse to believe we're trapped in the Unbroken Universe! They're great stories, and that Robin deserves a medal, but in them Charlie's dead."

"And Bill's an Auror, and is taken to Azkaban," Patsy said, nodding. "Okay, so the Unbroken Universe is scratched."

"Uh..." said Ron.

Both girls burst into giggles.

"Yay!" Annie cried. "Ron's as thick as he ever was!"

"Hey!" said Ron defensively. The twins snickered.

"Well," Patsy said, fairly. "Their character would be the same, seeing as they're the same people--"

"What are you two talking about?!" cried Ron. "And who are you, and how do you know our names!?"

"Excuse me," said Annie, trying to look stern but not quite pulling it off. "But seeing as this is my house, I'll be asking the questions here."

"We're Annie and Patsy, resident part-muggles of this place," Patsy said over her. "And we know who you are through our telepathy."

"That's Legilimency," Annie corrected her a bit crossly, not taking all too kindly being talked over. "And that's not how we know who you are, us being just part magic and all."

"Yeah, well," her friend pouted. "Legilimency sounds much more interesting than reading some incredible book."

"Are you saying," inquired Fred. "That there's some book about us?!"

"Not about you," Patsy said, a little nastily. "They're about Harry Potter."

"But you're in them," Annie explained. "Every one of them. You two are bloody brilliant in the fifth book."

"'Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat!'" Patsy laughed, and Annie joined her.

"So, anyway," she said, when she had recovered. "Why are you here?"

"There's a meeting going on, isn't there?" Ron said, looking surprised they didn't know. "I mean, a meeting about...wizarding stuff."

"Excuse me," said Patsy, rather sharply. "Just because we're part muggle, we're not stupid. If the Order's holding a meeting at Annie's house, I think we have a right to know."

"Yeah, I bet we know more about the Order than you do, come to mention it," agreed Annie, trying very hard not to sound nasty. "Although if they are meeting here, I wish Sirius would tell me..."

Patsy snorted, but made no comment.

Something lit up in Ron's eyes.

"Oh, so you're the daughter of the woman Sirius's going to marry!" he said, a look of sudden comprehension on his face. "Yeah, I heard Mum talk about you and your best friend--I suppose that's you, is it?" he asked, turning to Patsy, and when she made no answer, whether verbal or physical, he continued. "Heard you've done him quite a bit of trouble."

Annie rolled her eyes.

"We've done worse."

"Anyhow," Patsy said, hastily changing the subject, as she was afraid that Annie would burst at the next mention of her mother and Sirius. "If there really is an Order meeting, what are you doing here? Why aren't you at the Burrow or something?"

All three Weasleys looked surprised.

"Erm...well, Dad said it's safer here. Mum has kittens each time they leave, she keeps having visions of us being attacked where they're out, I guess," said George, looking at them oddly.

"Oh!" cried Annie, distracted. "Are your parents here, too? Oh, to meet Molly Weasley! I'd--"

"What is that thing?" Fred interrupted her, pointing at the computer.

Patsy snorted.

"A computer. It's a muggle thing. Extremely useful..."

"Hey!" cried Ron. "I recognize that! That thing on the screen, it's hanging up in the kitchen, isn't it?" he asked his brothers.

"Yeah," agreed George, leaning in to get a better look at it. "Yeah, it is. How'd you get it on that...cahmpootair?"

"Computer," said Annie, still a little cross over being interrupted. "And what do you mean it's hanging in your kitchen? It was done by an artist named Kate, who was guessing how you all looked."

"No," said Fred, frowning. "No, that's definitely the one we've got hanging up in the kitchen."

Annie and Patsy exchanged looks.

"Okay," said Patsy. "Well, anyway, if there is going to be a meeting, we best get ready. Do you lot know where it's taking place?"

Ron frowned and tried to think.

"No," he said. "I don't. But I'm guessing either the kitchen or the dining room."

"The kitchen," said Patsy, nodding. "There's only one door into there, not counting the one from outside."

"But if we've got Extendables," said Annie. "We won't need to know for sure where they are, will we?"

"What are 'Extendables'?" asked George.

"There's your answer," sighed Patsy. "But I've got a plan anyway." Her face broke into an evil smile. "I've got to get home and collect some things. We're going to figure out what's going on in that meeting, and for once, we're going to do it muggle style."