A/N Thanks to the reviewer who corrected my German! Fixed the mistake :)

A few days after the magicians had left with Auntie Rosie's book collection divided up and packed away, Zinnia was getting close to finishing packing up the house.

Her mother was going to show up in three days, and Zinnia was already looking forward to seeing her, whilst also feeling a little melancholy. Auntie Rosie's house was really starting to grow on her, there were always new and interesting things to find.

Just yesterday she had found a box full of moving photographs of Auntie Rosie and a woman who had to be Auntie Acacia, Rosemary Fawcett's wife. They looked really happy together, and they waved to Zinnia when they saw her peeking at them.

Zinnia thought then and there that she would try to keep this box at least, even if she had to carefully hide it from everyone forever after.

As she finished going through her great aunt's clothes and tried to work out what she was going to do with all of the knickknacks, though, the intrusive thought continued to rattle around in Zinnia's mind.

Why were the magicians all confiding in her?

At first she had just assumed that they all needed a sympathetic ear, but that didn't feel like a sufficient explanation anymore.

Even the ones who seemed suspicious of her at first seemed to warm up within a quarter of an hour of spending time in the house.

Now that Zinnia had figured out that magic was apparently indeed real, she was wondering if that might somehow be a factor.

Molly, Charlie, George, Angelina, Harry, Hermione… the only people who had visited her recently and not spilled out repressed feelings were the two magic cops (who barely counted because they hadn't entered the front door) and Luna and Ron.

What made those two different, Zinnia wondered.

Well actually, on reflection… Was it simply that they didn't have any feelings they were particularly repressing?

Luna was cryptic, but Zinnia got the impression that offbeat sense of humour aside, Luna was the type of person who practically embodied the maxim: knowledge is power, so know thyself.

Ron on the other hand Zinnia had had less of an opportunity to get to know, but regardless, the boy was practically an open book. He was tactless, easily frustrated and a bit immature, but he similarly seemed almost entirely unselfconscious. Simply because he wasn't particularly introspective, and apparently saw no reason to hide his feelings, he was honest and upfront in a way that someone with an iota more self-reflection might not be.

All of the others though, had apparently been in desperate need of a confidante, and for some reason, Zinnia had fit the bill.

Was it as simple as the fact that she was there and impartial?

Perhaps for one or two of them. But all of them? When they had collectively known her for less than a fortnight? It just seemed so unlikely.

There was only one thing Zinnia could think of doing, and it was enlisting help, but she hardly knew where to start.

I think my great aunt's house is making people confide in me against their better judgement.

That sounded mad, right?

But assuming there was something going on that was more than Zinnia just having a trustworthy kind of face and a convenient listening ear, it seemed like a terrible idea to not investigate.

Zinnia sat on the front step stroking Ichabod, a cup of her so-called Calming Tea in hand, and fretted about what to do.

"Alright there Zinnia?"

Zinnia looked up, and saw Charlie Weasley coming up the driveway.

She smiled wanly, and Ichabod chirruped a welcome.

"I have a suspicion, and I don't know how to go about proving it one way or another," she said, not bothering to dither.

Charlie raised both eyebrows. "Huh. Is that why you're sitting out here in the cold?"

Zinnia shrugged. "It's not that bad," and then shivered as a light breeze hit her. Adding insult to injury, Ichabod leapt off her lap leaving her bereft of his warmth as he darted back inside.

Rude cat.

"Sure," said Charlie agreeably, sitting down beside her.

The two of them looked out over the garden, watching as the shadows slowly lengthened. Zinnia tried and failed to not register the small hole in the middle of the vegetable patch where the living scarecrow's stake had been anchored.

"Want to talk about it?" Charlie said eventually.

Zinnia huffed a laugh. "Ironically, sitting out here might mean that's a bit more in my control, but yes, I guess I do want to talk about it, if only because I could use some advice."

Charlie turned to look Zinnia in the eyes.

"What's going on?" he asked. "You didn't find any more transfigured Death Eaters did you?" he joked weakly.

Zinnia shook her head and leaned back against the doorframe. "No, thank goddess, but I think I've figured out something about Auntie Rosie's house and I don't yet know what to do about it." She inhaled slowly, and tried to figure out how to explain it.

"Sounds serious," prompted Charlie.

"We've known each other, what, fifteen hours collectively, spread over a bit less than a fortnight, yeah?" Zinnia said finally.

Charlie tipped his head to one side, considering. "Yeah, mostly on that night where we got drunk on your Great Auntie's brandy with George. That sounds about right though."

Zinnia's hands tightened around her teacup. "Have you noticed anything… weird about the way we've been confiding in one another?"

Charlie blinked. "Uhhh," he said. "I hadn't really thought about it that way, but now that you mention it, we have had some pretty…" he trailed off, brow wrinkling.

Zinnia nodded. "Some pretty intense conversations involving a lot of emotion and catharsis, right? And that wouldn't necessarily be weird, except… it keeps happening. With almost everyone who has come to visit me. The only real exceptions have been Luna and your brother Ron, and I have a theory about why that might be." She wrinkled her nose. "And we could chalk that up to everyone needing someone to talk to who isn't emotionally invested in whatever hell you've all had to crawl through that's left you all actively grieving, but I think I'm being a lot more open than normal too. I'm not normally unfriendly, but I think I'm usually more reserved and self-reliant than this?" To her own ears she sounded a little lost.

Charlie lifted one arm, as though he meant to put it around her, and then paused, looking at it as though it had… not so much betrayed him, but more gone on ahead without his permission.

"Huh," he said after a moment. "You know, I think you're onto something. You're great Zinnia, and I don't tend to be much of a hugger with people I've known for less than two weeks, but…"

For a moment there, it had felt right, and if Zinnia had not brought up her suspicion, she thought that neither of them would have questioned it.

"Right?" Zinnia agreed when he trailed off. "And I have no idea why. I'm starting to suspect some kind of… magic," she stumbled a little over the word, uncomfortable with the fact that most people she knew would have thought her to have lost the plot entirely if she said that to them, "might have something to do with it. Somehow."

Charlie frowned. "Like a curse?"

Zinnia shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea. It hasn't felt… bad? Has anything felt bad to you?"

Charlie shook his head, relieving Zinnia somewhat, but he looked troubled.

"But I've got no real frame of reference for this sort of thing," Zinnia admitted, (without admitting the extent of that lack,) "and at the very least, I think we're all being… nudged I suppose?" She pulled a face. "And I've never really appreciated being pushed into things before I was ready for them."

Charlie pressed his lips together, clearly mulling this over. "Well if I learned anything in the war, it's that you always listen to your gut instinct." He said finally.

Zinnia felt both vindicated and disappointed. She had mostly hoped he would tell her it was nothing, that she was just being paranoid.

"So what do I do?" she asked, spreading her hands a little helplessly and hating it.

"Fortunately, if we want to rule out curses, I know a bloke," Charlie replied.

"Does he do house calls?" Zinnia asked, half joking.

Charlie smirked. "He does for his favourite little brother." He pulled out his wand, and muttered "Expecto Patronum" and a silvery iguana skittered out into being.

"Oh my goddess that's amazing!" Zinnia exclaimed.

It was so pretty! And detailed! Zinnia wondered how it worked.

Charlie's smirk broadened into a grin, and he whispered something to the iguana, which quickly vanished. "It's a more popular trick than it used to be. Patronus messengers are dead useful, and unlike owls, you don't have to feed them." He winced. "Took me a lot longer to pick it up than I'd ever admit to my younger siblings though. Harry apparently taught them and most of his classmates how to do the base spell in a couple of weeks."

"Will we have to wait a long time for-" Zinnia started to ask, when suddenly there was a cracking sound, and two figures popped into being.

Zinnia blinked, and stood up to greet the newcomers. "Damn Charlie, what did you say to make them show up this quick?"

"I was wondering where you'd escaped to," said the taller of the two figures. Zinnia assumed that this must be Charlie's brother. He was a little taller than Charlie, had some kind of fang earring dangling from one of his ears, and were it not for the livid claw marks on his face, Zinnia would have classified him as uncomplicatedly drop-dead gorgeous. As it was, the scars looked livid enough that she hoped he had a good Vitamin E cream to rub into them, but they didn't stop him from being attractive, especially with the way his shoulders filled out that leather jacket.

The other figure though… "Wow, you're like, supernaturally gorgeous," Zinnia said, staring a little dazedly. The woman looked like a statue of Aphrodite come to life to do modelling for a Country Life Magazine, wearing slightly dowdy clothes like they were a cutting edge fashion statement.

The obvious dressing down was clearly deliberate though, and Zinnia was not ignorant to the message they were trying to communicate. Zinnia swallowed slightly, and reined in her libido. "Are people incredibly annoying about it?"

The woman blinked for a moment, and then chuckled throatily. "Oh, you are doing quite well," she said, her accent distinctly French. "I did not realise Charlie's friend would be, how do you say, sapphically inclined."

Zinnia blinked again. That was blunt. "Yeah, I'm equal opportunity," she admitted. "But like, I suspect you get offers from people who think they aren't even into women."

The woman sighed, her expression somewhere between amusement and frustration. "You have no idea."

Zinnia nodded. "Right. Well I'm Zinnia," she said. She turned with a little effort towards the unfamiliar redhead. "And I'm guessing that you're Charlie's brother?"

The man looked thoroughly amused. "Yes, I'm Bill. And that's my wife, Fleur, that you've just been drooling over."

Zinnia unselfconsciously wiped a hand across her mouth. "Yeah, sorry not sorry. If it's any consolation I'd also crack onto you in a heartbeat if I thought it was a good idea."

Charlie, who had been watching this byplay with a surprisingly sympathetic look in his eyes, started spluttering while Bill blushed.

Fleur on the other hand, laughed.

"Well that just shows you have the good taste," she said. "Really though, for someone without occlumency barriers who hasn't had time to become used to my allure, you're truly doing very good to be so…" she paused, brow wrinkling as she searched for the word she wanted.

"Coherent?" Bill offered. Fleur smiled up at her husband, touching his arm lightly in thanks.

"Yes, cohérente," she said, her accent thickening slightly over the word that was clearly shared between French and English.

Oh, ooooh Fleur was literally supernaturally mind-bendingly hot, Zinnia realised. Well that was just fucking unfair.

She and Bill seemed like a sweet couple though. Zinnia was genuinely a little moved watching how they unconsciously leaned into each other's space.

Charlie, clearly a lot more used to this sight, cleared his throat after the couple's look into each others' eyes threatened to become extended basking.

Bill sighed and rolled his shoulders.

"Right," he said. "You said something about needing a cursebreaker?"

Zinnia grimaced. "I'm not entirely sure 'curse' is the right word for it," she hazarded. "I don't think it's specifically hurting anyone? But… well, I guess you'll see if this isn't just me being paranoid." She sighed, and then straightened. "Right, I'm being a terrible hostess. I'll make us some tea and you… let me know if you notice anything?"

Bill and Fleur exchanged a look.

Bill murmured, "Allons-y, Chérie 1 ," in a truly deplorable French accent.

"Après toi2," Fleur replied with a cheeky smile, and then everyone trooped inside.

Zinnia went straight through to the kitchen, pointing the others to the lounge room, but Bill followed her.

"Mind if I…?" he said, pulling his wand out.

Zinnia nodded. "Oh of course, go for it. Do your or Fleur have any particular preferences for herbal teas or did you want to try my newest blend?"

"What's in it?" Bill asked absently, waving his wand along the lintel of the door. "Definitely nothing with yurpleroot though, Fleur's allergic."

"No, it's just sage and a bit of ginger, cinnamon and cardamom," Zinnia said, pulling the jar from the cupboard. "I've been making it with lemon and honey."

"Huh," said Bill, turning to face her. "Mum mentioned that you made really stripped-down teas but that's practically muggle," he said. "What's it supposed to do?"

Zinnia wrinkled her nose at the word 'muggle'. "Warm you up, fill you with a light sense of wellbeing and taste good?" she said. "I know some people go on about tea extending your lifespan but honestly I just like playing with flavours. I am not to be held responsible for what other people read into the experience."

Bill grinned at her nettled tone. "Fair enough," he said, and went back to examining the corners of the room.

Soon enough the kettle whistled, and Bill paused. "Huh, interesting," he said.

Zinnia looked up from where she was putting biscuits on a tray. "What's interesting?" she asked as she crossed over to the kettle and lifted it off the hob.

Bill shook his head. "I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but I think you're onto something, there was a mild aetheric shiver when the kettle whistled and those only tend to happen when there's passive magic about. The good news though is I haven't sensed anything dark yet."

Zinnia poured the boiling water from the kettle into the teapot, put the pot on the tray alongside the biscuits and cups, and picked it up.

"I'll just take this to the others, I don't know, take your time," she said.

Bill nodded, and she left him to it.

Entering the loungeroom, Zinnia found Charlie and Fleur mid-conversation.

"-really do not see why you English wizards are so bamboozled by a simple party," Fleur said. "Dominic just wishes to share his new self with his friends and family."

Charlie shrugged. "Look, I went to school with a metamorphmagus, if we had held a party every time Tonks changed her pronouns before she decided she preferred being known as a woman then we never would have gotten anything done."

Fleur sighed in obvious exasperation. "Yes, but you know that is different. Metamorphmagi are more what is the word, like water oh… fluid, and can experiment more freely without outside help. Dominic used his first paycheck for the permanent transfigurations, and because he's a half-blood Veela like me there were people being stupid about it. Just because it's more common for the allure to manifest in girls does not mean that it never happens in boys!" She shook her head. "The Rosalind potion was a fantastic innovation, but it doesn't work for everyone, and unfortunately Veela heritage is one such case."

Charlie nodded. "Okay, when you put it like that, I suppose I get why he wants the party. I guess I am more used to people going the potions route when they want to fix their gender presentation. And here in the UK most of us went to Hogwarts anyway, so the 'party' was usually only if the kid was over eleven when they got sorted out and whoever it was was welcomed into the right dorm, rather than when they got rid of their breasts or whatever. Mostly muggleborns from what I could tell, but there's always people who take a bit longer to work themselves out, Elia Jenkins from my year didn't confirm until OWLs. But even in those cases it was usually kept pretty low-key, just because it really wasn't seen as the broader school's business."

Fleur smiled. "Yes well, what do they say, different strokes for the different folks?"

Charlie chuckled. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Zinnia blinked. "...Huh," she said. Magicians did that? Her old next door neighbour Melody would have killed for a magical solution. (Though the things she could do with clever tailoring had left Zinnia in awe.) "Good for him then?" she hazarded.

Fleur beamed at her, (causing Zinnia's easily bewitched hormones to try and deepen the incipient crush she was heroically ignoring,) and then spotted the tray and her beam widened. "Oh, is that your famous tea? Everyone at the dinner was talking about it!"

Zinnia blushed. "Hardly famous," she said. "I swear, you'd think none of you had ever had decent tasting herbal tea before."

Charlie snorted. "Honestly? Most Wizards and Witches can't help but add magical ingredients for various effects, and very few of them improve the flavour. And those that do tend to have effects like turning your teeth blue or making your nose hair curl."

Zinnia burst out laughing. "Oh how absurd. Well here it is anyway, and I added some biscuits I picked up in town earlier, in case you didn't all fill up at… dinner?" she asked.

Fleur reached for a biscuit. "Molly's cooking is generally excellent, but I must say, the conversation was making me lose my appetite," she said to Charlie.

Charlie shuddered. "I know exactly what you mean. I am sorry that my mother and sister are being such… so hostile. I really don't understand it, you're good for Bill. You knocked him out of the funk he was in after Fenrir's attack." He shook his head. "In between that and the usual 'when are you going to come back home and settle down?' routine," he shuddered. "Do you think she's ever going to notice that every one of her children has either gotten out from under her thumb as fast as humanly possible, become conniving sneaks or both because she's so overbearing? I mean, I love her, obviously, Mum tries her best, but she is so bad at listening to any of us if we don't follow the plan of what she wants for us." He shook his head sadly. "Even Percy, her favourite gave up, though to be fair to Mum none of us expected him to be dumb enough to think Dumbledore was given to exaggeration. Theatre, yes. But if anything the crazy old coot preferred befuddling with as much of the truth as humanly possible. I still don't believe he wasn't nearly Slytherin."

Fleur looked a little taken aback at his frankness.

Zinnia on the other hand had lost the thread of the conversation somewhere around the reference to Dumble-whoface, and wasn't sure if it was a good idea to ask.

"Huh," said Bill, standing in the doorway, wand out. "I see exactly what you mean."

All three of them startled.

"Wait, you mean Zinnia was right? There is a curse?" Charlie said.

Bill strode over to the centre of the room, carefully removed the tray to sit on the couch next to Fleur, and flipped the table over.

On the underside of the table was a series of odd symbols arranged in concentric circles scratched deeply into the wood.

"Well shit," said Zinnia, suddenly remembering the books that Hermione and Luna had been especially excited by. "Is that runes?"

"Yup," said Bill, and pulled a crystal from his pocket. He dropped it in the exact centre of the table, and it started glowing a soft purple shade.

Fleur stood up and leaned over the array, pulling back her skirt so that she didn't brush against it by accident.

"Ah," she said, "that is most magnifique! I have not seen so elegant an array since I left France!"

"Remind me to show you the latest Syrian arrays, but you're right, this is exceptional," Bill said.

"A translation for those of us not fluent in runes that aren't for fireproofing?" Charlie asked plaintively.

"What he said, but assume I know nothing," Zinnia added.

"One last test first," said Bill. "Fleur, do you still have the..."

Fleur pulled a small velvet bag from her pocket and passed it to her husband. "Thank you darling," he said, before opening it and sprinkling the contents on the array.

There was a soft fizzing sound, and then a plume of daffodil-yellow smoke rose into the air, making everyone sneeze.

"Alright," said Bill, wiping his nose. "Well the good news is that's not a curse."

The smoke circled the room, and then seemed to pool around the pendant that Zinnia was wearing.

"Yes, that would be an amplifier," Fleur said with a knowing nod.

Zinnia went to reach for her great-aunt's moonstone pendant she had put on based on a whim and worn ever since, but paused, hand hovering, unsure if she should touch it.

"Should I… take this off?" she asked.

Bill leaned over and made an esoteric shape in the air over the pendant with his wand.

There was a small chiming sound, and Bill shook his head. "It's not dangerous to you. The array is keyed into the moonstone's setting as a focus, but the actual effect it's emitting is a mild empathic amplifier."

"A what?" Charlie asked, saving Zinnia the trouble. "Remember not all of us worked for Gringotts."

Bill raked a hand through his hair. "I could tell that it wasn't dark magic when I stepped in here because my scars didn't twinge, but as you all should know, magic doesn't need to be dark to cause havoc. Dad's job would have probably actually been properly resourced if that was true, because it's not just muggles he was protecting in the Misuse Office. The effect radiates through most of the house, but it centres in this room, as you can see, because of the array being on the bottom of the tea table." He picked up one of the teacups from the tray, and took a swig. "Everyone is right, this tastes pretty good for a herbal tea," he said in an aside to Zinnia.

"And?" Charlie asked after a pause. "What's the effect?"

Bill smirked. "I was getting to that. But honestly this is more Fleur's speciality than mine."

Fleur smiled. "Thank you, but you are hardly, how do you say, shabby at it yourself, mon cher." She sat back down on the sofa. "It is very subtle work, but the intent is fairly clear. Anyone who has some… big feelings, something that they want to get off their chest, they are… how do you say, a light push."

"Nudged?" suggested Bill.

"Yes, thank you, they are nudged, to divulge those feelings in front of someone they trust. And whoever is wearing that pendant," said Fleur, gesturing towards the moonstone hanging around Zinnia's neck, "is… three times more likely to be that person if they are projecting... trustworthiness. Nothing that someone would be holding back on purpose," she clarified when Zinnia paled. "No tightly held secrets. But it is a little like… elfwine, loosening the lips amongst those you see as friends."

Zinnia sank back into a chair. "Oh goddess," she said. "That was not quite as bad as I thought it might have been, but people have been confiding in me so much, and…" she wrapped her arms around herself. "This sounds… manipulative? But at least not coercive?"

Fleur nodded sympathetically. "It is very similar to an array that I have seen Healers use to encourage patients when they are reticent to talk about something that is hurting them. The effect does not make them talk, it merely facilitates conversation so that the poison can be more efficiently drawn from the mind wounds." She looked again towards the array. "Interestingly, this one is charged whenever something warm is placed on the top of the table. A teapot, for example."

"Can I borrow this table Zinnia?" asked Bill. "I'll give it back, but I know some people who would love to study the array. It's a masterwork, your great-aunt, or whoever did this, must have been a mad genius at runes."

Zinnia shook her head. "Keep it. I would rather get to know people on their own terms, and I get the impression that your rune nerd friends would get a lot more out of it than I ever could."

Charlie started laughing. "She's got you pegged Bill," he chortled. "Considering how well you get on with the other swots I was always surprised you weren't a Ravenclaw."

Bill rolled his eyes, and did something with his wand that made the teatable shrink to the size of something that might have been used for a doll's house, before he pocketed it.

(Zinnia tried not to goggle too obviously.)

"Ravenclaws prefer to do their cursebreaking in lab conditions rather than in the field," he said in a tone of exaggerated patience, as though this was old ground they were treading over.

Zinnia looked down at her pendant. "Should I… hand this over too?" she asked a little reluctantly. She had grown rather attached to the piece.

"Nah," said Bill. "Honestly by itself all it's doing is projecting your intent to be a good friend at people. You have to be sincere for that kind of magic to work, so you must have genuinely wanted to listen to everyone's problems and help them, at least a bit."

Zinnia buried her face in her hands. "Dad always said I take on other people's problems too readily." She looked back up. "Seriously though? I'm projecting 'trust me' beams?"

Bill nodded towards Fleur. "It's a little like the Veela allure, really, but based on the power level I'm detecting it's not a hundredth as powerful. I'd say in your hands it's basically a glorified good luck charm."

Zinnia considered the fact that the magical artifact around her neck was supposed to be some kind of amplifier, added the fact that she had no magical power to amplify , and decided that that equation equalled her really not wanting to think too deeply about what Auntie Rosie had been doing with the kind of tool confidence tricksters would have killed for.

She closed her hand around the pendant. Maybe it was for the best that she kept this with her. At least Zinnia apparently couldn't do any damage with it.

She wondered if she should say something, but then remembered her conversation with her mother about what the magicians had done to her father when he learned too much despite being non-magical.

Zinnia liked to think that she wasn't an idiot.

She kept her mouth emphatically shut.

...

A/N:

French Translation:
1. Let's go, darling.
2. After you.