Chapter Text
Poppy had never seen Diagon Alley so empty in all the years she'd visited.
The dull roar of life that usually swelled the streets and streamed in and out of the businesses had died into a stressed whisper. She and Nan passed by storefronts with lights on but entrances tightly sealed. Occasionally, they’d spot a shopkeeper in the window on guard, or a student passing by with their head tucked and their steps rushed, most likely under the orders of their parents to get what they needed and come straight home.
Poppy was familiar with such warnings since The Ministry of Magic had announced the return of You-Know-Who to the entire Wizarding World at the end of that summer. Every new headline The Daily Prophet tagged on their front page was heavy enough to impose new restrictions (‘for safety’ they claimed) such as curfews. The fear mongering had led to many restrictions in her own life at home, too.
Unlike Dean, who walked ahead of them a few paces, but never far enough that they couldn’t see him; his mother still trusted him to make the trip to the magical town alone.
Though, she supposed he wasn’t truly alone, with Nan chaperoning them.
Nan was glued to Poppy’s side as they walked. Phlox Paddington was a lithe woman for her ripe age, with curly, silver hair that she kept tied in a long braid down her back. Where she usually wore a house robe and slippers at home, here she sported deep lilac robes that stopped two inches short of her ankles, and, despite being shorter than Poppy (which was quite short to begin with, and fairly hunchbacked), she still held the air of authority that only a former Hogwarts professor could master. Yet another thing only her Nan could tout.
Back in their first year, Dean and Poppy had made the trip with his mum, Evelyn, too, but Nan had been the one to keep them in line with their hands behind their backs until they fully exited the train station. Then, Dean and Poppy had raced ahead into the thick crowd, away from their guardians, competing with vigour only childhood friends could summon, to see who could find the coolest item first.
Dean had gone straight to ‘Sugarplum’s Sweets Shop’ to claim a chocolate frog with his pocket money while Poppy had veered to ‘Amanuensis’ Quills’ to eye a particularly fancy quill with a dazzling peacock feather slightly out of price range for her own pocket money. She’d settled on buying herself a pot of B grade, cobalt ink instead. Practical and within budget.
Nan had surprised Poppy with the quill at the end of their trip once they’d returned to the station with their parcels.
“Every witch needs a goods quill... And an owls. If you insists on followings your mother’s paths, yous’ll needing both,” Nan had said with a reserved smile when presenting the gift.
Bellamy, her brown and white speckled tawny owl, had been her second gift that day.
There hadn't been a year after that where Poppy went to school without either of the begrudgingly given gifts, though only Bellamy served his true purpose, as she preferred to consider the quill a keepsake and kept it stored like a trophy in a small chest that she hid under her bed.
On their trip to ‘Scrivenshaft’s’ that morning, facing her sixth year, Nan wasted none of her time on frivolities like peacock-feather quills. Instead, she picked up a pre-ordered parcel of parchment and ink that her granddaughter would need for the new school year. Nan muttered curt words of thanks to the store owner, paid over the coins, and returned her iron grip to Poppy’s arm.
Dean had waited for them by the entrance and offered to shoulder the extra parcel.
“No needs,” Nan shrugged him off. “One mores stop and we’ll be done. I promised yous mum I wouldn’t keep yous out too long, yeh?”
“You promised we could go to the new shop, Nan,” Poppy said. “‘Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes’? Don’t you remember?”
Nan sighed, pushing her half moon spectacles up the bridge of her sloping nose. “I dids, didn’t I?”
“I was there when you said it,” Dean agreed weakly, though Poppy could see through his sheepish expression that he was as eager as she was to visit the store.
“We’ll only be a moment, we promise,” Poppy pleaded.
“Fine, ten minutes,” Nan agreed with a deflated wave of her hand. “But I’ll be standing rights outside the exits, and I will Accio your trousers back if yous even a seconds late. Evelyn’s probably already got suppers on the stove.” She loosened her grip on Poppy’s arm with the slightest touch and fixed them with a stern stare. “Am I clear?”
“Fifteen minutes or no trousers. Thank you, Nan!” Poppy pecked her grandmother on the cheek.
“Yous-! Cheeky girl! Fines. Fifteen.”
Despite the successful bargaining, Nan refused to let them speed ahead like they had as kids, and escorted them the length of the road.
They passed by ‘Olivander’s Wand Shop’ on the way, and Poppy came to a sudden halt. Dean nearly stepped on her heels, catching himself on her shoulders.
“What? What’s wrong?” he asked, looking around like something was going to come from around the corner and attack them.
The shop that had housed wands of all woods and cores and had acted as a rite of passage for students of Hogwarts, stood out like a sore thumb on the narrow, cobblestone street. The front door was boarded over, a poster with the words “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE” nailed to it. The wide, arching window was stained with a white film that spread from the outward edges in. She could barely make out the disarray of wand boxes and broken shelves beyond, cobwebs already hanging in the ransacked corners.
The absence of Olivander behind the counter was probably the sorest part of the entire shop.
“Nothing,” Poppy muttered, and forced herself to keep going.
Maybe Nan had a point when she’d told her that she didn’t want her returning to Hogwarts this year. She had a right to be worried. Death Eaters had murdered Poppy’s mother and father, and if You-Know-Who was truly back, she could only imagine how that must make Nan feel.
It was a most welcome relief to see the jumbo Weasley twin statue tipping his hat at the entrance of ‘Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes’ like it was there solely to dismiss the worried thoughts of those entering. Bright, yellow light spilled out from the numerous windows and shed some life into the stuffy village while quiet music undercut muffled conversations which were sprinkled with laughter.
“Fifteen minutes!” Nan warned again as Poppy and Dean rushed through the front entrance to join the fun.
A gaggle of younger students nearly trampled Poppy before she could decide which direction to go. They threw out quick apologies without looking away from the lit bomb their leader held anxiously at his fingertips. Seconds later, an origami crane the size of her palm and the colour of honey whizzed over her head, twisting one of her curls into the air and disappearing into shelves stacked with boxes of Puking Pastilles and other assorted prank candies.
She held back a giggle watching the bird fly through a pair of chattering Gryffindor girls she recognized as Lavender Brown and Parvati Patel, from her year. Their heads were tilted together while they examined a bright pink potion with a heart-shaped label. The charmed paper bird surprised them nearly enough for them to drop it. They recovered the potion in time with cheeks as brightly coloured as the liquid inside, and resumed their tittering at a higher octave than before.
“Are you going to stand there or are you going to come along? Ginny’s waiting for me on the second floor,” Dean said, and Poppy was pulled away from the many revelries in the store.
“Who?” she asked. “Wait... Ginny Weasley? Isn’t she the Gryffindor a year below us?”
“Yeah, what about it? We’ve been seeing each other.”
“Dean Thomas, you lothario!” She gasped, giving him a swift whack to the arm that he dodged with the expert precision of someone who had known her for her entire life. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Lothario? What does that even mean? Why can’t you say something normal for once? And there’s nothing to tell,” he said while they made for the curving stairs. “Everything’s really... New right now.”
Poppy stumbled on her own feet in her distraction watching a boy climb vertically up a wall.
“Quit dragging your feet! Your Nan barely gave us fifteen minutes and we’ve already eaten up five of those,” Dean snapped when he saw her stop again.
“Why are you rushing me when you’re the one who’s going to edge Ginny for ten of those minutes?”
“Poppy!” Dean’s exclamation transformed from one of frustration to one of alarm halfway through. His hand darted out to try and grab her, but there was no saving her from bumping foreheads with Hermione Granger, who was coming down the stairs where they were going up.
“Oh! Sorry!” The two girls sprung in unison.
Poppy rubbed at the sore spot on her forehead, squinting an eye shut until the wave of pain subsided enough for her to think.
Hermione was as much her academic rival as she was her idol.
From their first lesson in Charms with Professor Flitwick, when Hermione had enchanted her feather first and flown it under Poppy’s nose, to their final mark in their O.W.L.’s when Poppy had gotten an ‘Outstanding’ in Potions while Hermione received an ‘Exceeding Expectations’. They’d never spoken, unless they needed to discuss homework, but that was more due to Poppy’s insecurities preventing her from believing they could be anything akin to friends. It didn’t help that they were both curly-haired girls with brains, though Hermione pulled it off better than Poppy ever could.
Being from Hufflepuff was only another strike against her that made her less cool than Hermione Granger.
“Sorry,” they repeated.
“Poppy, we only have nine minutes left,” Dean muttered.
“Oi, what’s taking so long?” Ron Weasley shouted at the same time from where he stood behind Hermione. He had his freckled face scrunched up under his messy fringe like he'd smelt something bad. Over his shoulder, Poppy could make out the curious eyes of Harry Potter, staring right at her through his round eyeglasses.
When their eyes met, she quickly looked away, her ears growing hot.
“Hermione!”
“Alright, Ron! I heard you the first time! Sorry again,” Hermione said, side-stepping Poppy and moving towards the exit. “Oh, hi Dean.”
Dean spared her a wave only for Ron to trudge down and nudge her forward, whining. “Hermioneeee.”
“For crying out loud , Ron!”
They bickered the rest of the way out, Hermione nearly hitting Ron in the face with the door she swung open and stirring up a whole new argument.
Dean shot up the stairs the moment they were cleared, leaving Poppy in his dust so he could spend his precious few minutes with Ginny. She didn’t mind. Right now, she wanted to find something to spend her pocket money on. They only had... She glanced at her watch. Seven minutes!
There was so much variety in the joke shop, Poppy wasn’t even sure she'd have time to find something. She tried to think of where the origami crane might have come from, having found it the most intriguing, when a tap on her shoulder distracted her.
Harry stood to her left with his hands tucked in his pockets.
“Sorry about them,” he said, “I’d like to say they’re not usually like this, but...”
“But they are?” Poppy finished for him.
Their awkward laughter was lost in the tin of a metal cauldron banging on the floor and they both veered to look at the embarrassed first-year student holding empty air with a mess of blue potion at his feet.
Poppy knew who Harry and his friends were. She’d shared classes with all of them since their first year, Hermione especially, and had overheard more than one piece of gossip about the trio. Truly, how could anyone at Hogwarts not know who Harry Potter and his friends were now that You-Know-Who was back? That boy had filled the headlines of The Daily Prophet before he even knew how to speak full sentences.
Though, now that Poppy was this close to him, maybe he wasn’t so much of a boy anymore.
She remembered being sorted into Hufflepuff just two names before Harry got sorted into Gryffindor. She’d looked over his shoulder to see him chattering nervously with Ron. And when he’d been sorted, he’d run to sit between bosom friends in the making while she had sat between strangers and been too overwhelmed to eat.
“I should get going, but I’m sorry again,” Harry said, inching towards the door.
“Sure. Please stop apologising and just go.” Poppy winced and cursed herself internally.
Harry’s eyebrows rose a bit at her bluntness, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he stepped forward until he stood right in front of her. He stuck his hand out halfway, pulled it back, and then jutted it forward again with gusto.
“Harry, Harry Potter.”
Poppy stood there in silent shock for a second, eyeing his hand, then his bright red face, his hand, and his face again. He wouldn’t look her in the eye, but even in her hesitation, he held his hand in the air, awaiting hers.
It’d taken him six years to notice she was there.
She tossed those thoughts to the side, and took his hand in a too-firm grip.
“Poppy Paddington-Prince, and I know.”