  The background magnetic-field formalism of Lattice QCD has been used recently
to calculate the magnetic polarizability of the charged pion. These $n_f = 2 +
1$ numerical simulations are electro-quenched, such that the virtual sea-quarks
of the QCD vacuum do not interact with the background field. To understand the
impact of this, we draw on partially quenched chiral perturbation theory. In
this case, the leading term proportional to $1/M_\pi$ arises at tree level from
$\mathcal{L}_4$. To describe the results from lattice QCD, while maintaining
the exact leading terms of chiral perturbation theory, we introduce a Pad\'e
approximant designed to reproduce the slow variation observed in the lattice
QCD results. Two-loop contributions are introduced to assess the systematic
uncertainty associated with higher-order terms of the expansion. Upon
extrapolation, the magnetic polarizability of the charged pion at the physical
pion mass is found to be $\beta_{\pi^\pm}=-1.70\,(14)_{\rm stat}(25)_{\rm
syst}\times 10^{-4}$ fm$^3$, in good agreement with the recent experimental
measurement.
