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Chapter Text

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"You can't cure a special ability, ma'am".

Petrification, contrary to common belief, was not as similar to a typical coma as it was to the muggle condition known as "locked in syndrome".
The world around the patient continues on, sounds and sights clear, smells just as strong, tastes just as vivid. Everything is the same, except for the patient's complete inability to move even the smallest muscle. The condition renders one completely unable to interact with the world around them, forcing them to merely perceive it. For someone whose whole purpose in life had been to help, to heal, and protect, it was torture to be rendered so useless.

Beyond an itchiness or soreness, Poppy Pomfrey's entire body felt as though it was constantly alight with some form of irritation or another. Her nerves felt as though they were overreacting to every minute form of stimulus and triggering her brain's urge to send her limbs responding in any way. When said limbs would remain frozen, her nerves, confused, interpreted the resulting signals as a sharp disembodied pain.
The feedback loop between her senses, her tense body, and her overactive brain was maddening.

Even knowing how it worked, knowing how her body was just repeating signals, not understanding why it was stuck in one position, why her skin and muscles felt like fire ants, it did nothing to make the raw agitation go away. All of her medical knowledge, hell, all the knowledge in the world, was worthless to keep the physical sensations from dominating her conscious mind.

On top of the burning stillness, being unable to respond to visitors, or admonish the attending physicians that had been sent from St. Mungo's to fill the matron's position in her absence... It was infuriating. It was exhausting. It made her want to cry and scream and swear until her voice gave out. However, try as she might, she couldn't make her petrified body muster so much as a whimper.

In her entire life, Poppy had never been more frustrated.

Despite all the physical suffering that was weighing on her, however, the Hogwarts matron was plagued even more heavily by her own spiraling thoughts.

"You can't cure a special ability, ma'am".

Rather than having the peace of an empty blackness, Hogwarts Matron Poppy Pomfrey had been chained in her mind, subjecting herself to a constant repetition of those last words her problem child, Dazai Osamu, had spoken to her before her petrification.

After she'd discovered the boy, ghostly white, dripping blood into a gleaming pool in the middle of her infirmary.

Before Dazai had stepped aside, eyes dead, revealing that horrible slithering beast behind him.

"You can't cure a special ability, ma'am".

Confusion, concern, horror, then hurt.

The same feelings she'd been cycling through for days on end came to mind once more as she continued to replay the memory.

For the first week, she'd been in denial. Figuring that it must have been due to the child's own craftiness and luck that he was able to escape the gaze of the basilisk while she, a woman well past her teens, could not. With the boy's incredible sense for magic, he must have felt the creature approaching and had known not to look behind him.
Perhaps he'd come to her for help after a self harm episode, like she'd been encouraging him to for nigh on two years now, and had been just as taken by surprise as she was by the snake's emergence!

Then, the Hogwarts Matron was angry.
A hot, searing anger that glowed beneath her skin, making her petrified body itch and tremble under the weight of the emotion.

She was angry at herself, for being so caught off guard by a child, even though she knew he was from a different, deadlier background than any of the other students at the school. She had known Dazai was - himself or by association - dangerous by now, and that he would be put in a dangerous position if her little visit to his home town were to be discovered.
She was angry at Dazai, for waiting so long to seek help, for not letting her help him when she first returned, for ignoring all of the times she'd insisted he come for a check up or speak with her when his thoughts led him to such horrific self harm.
She thought that if only she'd been more insistent, been more direct, more forceful, more delicate, more commanding, more earnest, more this, more that, if something had been different, then none of this would have ever happened.
Wouldn't have had to happen.

She was angry at Albus. God, she was so angry at that man. How many times had he ignored the boy's obvious suffering before this? He had repeatedly ignored both her and Severus when they directly brought to his attention their suspicions of abuse.
Had the arrogant old man listened to her once, she would have been able to save that boy before he was forced to dirty his hands further. If Dumbledore had even an ounce of respect for the Hogwarts matron, none of this would be happening. She felt dirty at the thought, but in her mind the fault lay heavily with Albus.

She was angry at that disgusting man Mori, Dazai's apparently adopted father who she was beginning to hate more and more as time passed. Had she known she would be immediately paralyzed upon returning to Hogwarts, she probably would have tried to track the man down in Yokohama and introduce him to the business end of her wand before returning. Then at least she could feel like she'd actually done something.

The thoughts continued on like that for days. The burning anger turning her stomach and making her head ache as she harbored the emotion, holding it with no means of expressing it.
Without relief from the fury, her thoughts began morphing into an almost manic pendulum between furious self criticism and fantasizing about punching several men in the face.

For all her wrath, however, Poppy knew that this situation was much more complicated than she had initially been treating it as.
There was never just a single person to blame for Dazai's condition before, and the contexts and players were now becoming even more convoluted after learning of the Port Mafia.

Even if it was indulgent to imagine assaulting her coworkers, boss, and then parents of her students, doing so would not actually help remove Dazai from his position.
A position that was becoming more and more dangerous by the day.

After so many hours spent redrawing lines and connections, Poppy was no longer under any misgivings about her problem child and his criminal history, nor his allegiances.

No, by now she had made peace with the fact that Dazai Osamu had lured the basilisk to the infirmary specifically to petrify her.
As punishment, surely, for her audacious trip to Yokohama.

While she was certainly no magical beast master, Poppy was at least aware that the massive reptiles were attracted to the scent of fresh blood.
If the beast had been planted in the castle by a criminal organization, it would make sense to have a boy with a self harm habit be the one to control it.

Speaking of said habit...
Visions of scattered lines crisscrossing the thin arms forced themselves into her memory. The recklessness and depth of the cuts had made her knees weak.

The thought that the boy had injured himself to such an extent, all alone in the quiet of her infirmary, save for the bodies of the petrified, it made her nauseous and heartbroken to think about.

It was all she thought about.

She had put so much effort into making the boy as comfortable as possible in her space, having picked up pretty quickly how uncomfortable Dazai was around the medical environment. She had hoped it would have won her some favor by now with the boy she had been planning on adopting. She had thought, perhaps naively, that he had come with some touching reunion, had decided for himself to trust her at last. To accept her help.

Once more, his final words to her rang in her head

"Since this is the last time we'll talk, I'll tell you a secret."

Poppy felt tears blossoming behind her petrified eyes at the memory, unable to resist indulging the cycling thought process that was beginning anew.

"I didn't really mind you as a doctor," he'd said softly, like it was a confession.

Sad. He'd looked so sad.

"But you can't cure a Special Ability, ma'am"

Chapter Text

During her time as a young nurse, Poppy Pomfrey had trained under and alongside many different practitioners, and had seen innumerable conditions and afflictions that could befall a witch or warlock. She had always prided herself on her bedside manner, something so many in her profession seemed to sorely lack.
If asked to describe her care style, she'd assign herself as empathetic, gentle, and reassuring to those under her care.
She'd faced criticism before for her habit of speaking with comatose patients, those unlucky or reckless magicians who fell ill from exposure to hazardous flora and fauna, or who became cursed, and were put into medically induced comas while cures brewed.

Her first negative interaction with a particularly nasty older surgeon came in the first year working at a new hospital in Belgium. An elderly woman whose head barely made it to chest height had come barging in whilst Poppy was eating her lunch in the same room as one of her frequent visits - a young witch who'd been turned to stone by a Naga, or some other horrific beast. She had been passively reading a newly published medical journal and sharing her, admittedly boring, insights and thoughts with the girl while she lay stone still on the hospital bed.
The head surgeon had seemed red-faced furious, calling Poppy a time thieving wench when she'd discovered Poppy had added an extra patient to her hospital rounds - a young student who'd been cursed to form a cocoon around themselves for a year, in some transmutation spell gone awry.

Poppy was so baffled she forgot to even argue her case, settling for just watching wide-eyed as the elder witch stomped off, presumably to yell at another poor unsuspecting nurse. She'd shared a couple choice remarks with the young witch before wrapping up her lunch and article to finish later, and getting back to work.

Poppy, to a degree, understood where the little old woman was coming from. But she couldn't help but feel that, were she in the same position, unable to speak or move, she would want someone to keep her in the loop. Even having someone nearby to talk about random topics and current events in the world, she thought, could potentially mean the world for someone in such a position.

After her brief time at that hospital, after the student emerged a strange new winged creature, but still the same goofy teenage mage, Poppy decided she too could use a change.

Her acceptance letter to intern under the Medicine Matron of the Hogwarts School of Magic turned a new page in Pomfrey's life.

- - -

Being a school nurse had been just as chaotic as it had been fulfilling. Poppy found herself constantly overbooking her time, shuffling between studying new books, spells, medical journals, and potions that were considered essentials to keep on hand. That, and learning to navigate the surprisingly political social environment of such a prestigious school! It had all been so new and exciting, and Poppy absorbed it all like she was made for it.
With a supportive new boss and peers whose works were renowned in the wizarding world, Poppy felt as though she had finally found her calling. She felt, for the first time in her life, that she was actually improving herself at the same rate she was focusing on improving. Rather than having to slow her pace to allow for her fellow peers to catch on to lessons before moving on to new, more complex information, Pomfrey was allowed to push as hard as she wanted, and was never admonished for going above and beyond! To the contrary, the headmaster and staff seemed to admire her drive to develop her mastery of medicine.

Of course, as with every job, there came a moment of disillusionment.

As she had learned over the course of her career in medicine, those who care the most are rarely ever the ones who get to make the big decisions.
Her new boss, a wise yet headstrong wizard with more than a century of experience over her, was a man known as Albus Dumbledore. 
Overall, Poppy held the man in high regard. He was, after all, something of a symbol among wizard kind; having foiled the plans of more than a few dark wizards whose plans would have shaken the magical community had they succeeded.

He was an exceptional conversationalis, if a bit... eerie, at times. There was always something of a glow behind the man's eyes, a light that glimmered with an intelligence that far surpassed Poppy's. While the man seemed to enjoy the council of his professors, there was always a strange sense that there was more happening in a conversation than the simple exchange of words. The man moved through conversations like an experienced ballroom dancer, leading people to conclusions they would have perhaps not met alone. Poppy thought that type of charisma would be very dangerous if not wielded by a man such as Albus, who kept himself checked and balanced by utilizing the various personalities in his round table, so to speak.

For all that she respected and admired Albus Dumbledore, though, the man also had his faults. Primary among them, she thought, was his elevated opinion of the "bigger picture" mindset.

She understood that being a major player on a world stage required one to have shifting stances. She knew on some level that people could change their priorities based on who they were with, but she herself could never quite master the art. Being intentionally misleading about how she felt about certain topics left a rancid taste in her mouth.
She supposed she lacked the mindset.

In Poppy's experience, nobody lived their lives using the "bigger picture" as their metric. As a medical professional, she had seen people on the worst days of their lives, and could guaranteeably say that none of them had the "bigger picture" on their minds at the time.

People, their safety, and their comfort - those were the priorities of Madam Pomfrey as she took the mantle as the Matron of the School's Infirmary.

She'd initially been surprised Dumbledore had approved of her promotion so easily, but had found reassurance when Minerva praised her sympathetic nature, and shared her opinion that the headmaster likely chose her for the position precisely because she was bold enough to advocate for her patients, her students, until her dying breath. Albus valued her drive and found it refreshing to have a more lawful-good aligned member of his council, which now consisted of various new professors, staff members, and Poppy herself.


Poppy knew she was headstrong, as one has to be to be a school's matron, but she never knew how truly set in her ways she was until she met Dazai Osamu.

When she'd first set eyes on the young man, he had seemed so much younger than 12 years old. He practically drowned in his standard Hogwarts robes, and held himself in an almost cagey posture whenever he found himself forced into the infirmary by his growing little friend group.

Poppy didn't miss the way the boy's eyes watched her every move at first, as though he were expecting the Matron to pull a knife from nowhere and take a jab at him, or something! Throwing on her motherly Matron persona, she'd attempted to get to know the child, to build rapport and pave the way for natural trust, as her textbooks and experience knew worked best. It had always worked in the past, even in cases of abuse or unhealthy living conditions.
However, her attempts to smooth things over with him and express that she merely wanted to help, only seemed to make Dazai even further distrustful and avoidant.

Poppy spent dozens of hours thinking of ways to bridge the gap between them, even putting extra effort into researching magical sensitivity and associated illnesses.
She had heard from Minerva's little spy that Dazai and the Griffindoor girl, Hermione, were often seen together, knee deep in complex magical tomes she doubted had seen the light of day in decades.
How the boy seemed to grasp such high level concepts, while simultaneously failing every single class... it actually baffled Poppy. She herself had been near the top of her class all throughout her academic career, pulling her hair out and losing sleep over texts that Dazai seemed to consume and understand without taking so much as a page of notes.
She was woman enough to admit she was more than a little jealous of the boy's abilities.

She just wished he would apply those abilities to his magic studies.



The first time she felt as though the boy was even remotely opening up to her was when she had presented him with the Sensing Stone, a rare magical artifact that she hypothesized would significantly help in understanding Dazai's confusing relationship with magic and casting. Even if his response to which color he saw was confounding - white and black?
The look of genuine interest and appreciation had been enough to warm the matron's heart for weeks. It seemed to have a similar effect on the boy and his friend group as well, as Dazai's confidence and casting ability seemed to skyrocket once he had a solid foundation to build off of. Severus and Minerva had listened to her rabble on about his growth for hours as Dazai became more and more proficient with magic.

Everything had been going so well.

In her focus on her career, her studies, and her new passion project in understanding Dazai's complicated relationship with magic, Madam Pomfrey was consequently quite out of the loop when it came to the socialite scene. While even Snape was invited to the annual Malfoy ball, Pomfrey herself had never attended such an event that was not specifically held at Hogwarts. Her work simply required her to be more dedicated than the average witch, something she had never had issue with before.
The most she knew about Dazai came directly from knowing and working with the boy. She knew he was underweight, likely had some sort of nervous or post traumatic disorder, that his hands were always cold, and he liked honey in his tea.

What she didn't know, was precisely how true everything else people said about the boy was. After a year and a half of knowing Dazai, she could safely say that he was not the bloodthirsty demon rumors made him out to be. However, she couldn't say for certain just how innocent he was in the face of all that had happened since his first year.
It didn't help that the boy had an extremely well developed mask, and could derail a conversation or line of thought with such passive mastery, it reminded Pomfrey of the headmaster's convoluted conversation tempo. It was as though the boy was constantly checking to make sure he was saying and posturing in exactly the right way for every conversation. The slight pause he exhibited during any serious conversation told of a whirring mind behind that coy smile, of constantly shifting thoughts and inner monologue.

Poppy knew, she recognized the quiet emotions flitting across his eyes during the lulls in conversation that indicated an inner battle. It was a look she'd seen in her own eyes many times before. It spoke of an internal conflict that persisted beyond any one interaction. Whatever was on Dazai's mind was significant and chronic.

Knowing what she knew now about the boy's childhood and mafia associations, Poppy feared that she had failed Dazai even more than she initially thought. How many times had the boy gone quiet mid-conversation, or whose mein closed off ever so subtly whenever the petrifications or the newsletters were discussed. How many tells had she missed, because she was so focused on making a student trust her?
It was times like this that Poppy hated her personality type the most, and wished she could channel just a bit of Dumbledore's investigative tact, or Minerva's cool-headed certainty in the proper course of action.

After so much time confined to this bloody bed, Poppy had played the moments leading up to her petrification again and again, agonizing over every little moment, trying to break down Dazai's micro expressions, searching her memory for any tips the boy might have let slip. She just knew she had to be missing something still.

The cold, hollow look she'd seen in his eyes as soon as she'd run across the infirmary to catch him, before he could ruin his robes falling into all that blood...

Her brain had all but shut off at the sight, focusing solely on finding the source of whatever was hurting her child so badly.
She'd admittedly barely heard the boy when he murmured the words at the time, too focused on examining the horrific slashing lines drawn up and across Dazai's wrists and forearms.
She remembers the hot, pulsating ebb of his blood slipping between her fingers as she desperately pinched at the skin, trying to staunch the bleeding. She remembers the thick, pungent scent of iron as it soaked her skin and clothes. She had never felt so uneasy around blood as she did in that moment.

All the while, her medical brain launched into a rapid list of spells and supplies she'd need to respond best to the situation.

'When was the last time I restocked..?'

'Did I ever get those muggle butterfly bandaids..?'

Her mind was frantic as she tried to do and process too many things at once.
She thought she had a potion or two on hand that would help...

"Wingardium Leviosa!" She waved her wand haphazardly towards the case where she stored her muggle medical supplies she'd reserved specifically for Dazai.

She remembers the heavy fear that had rooted itself in her chest and spread to her brain as she remembered the boy's disastrous history with magical overexposure, and that any healing magic that had been used on him prior had had the opposite effect. She wouldn't be able to cast anything more complicated than an Episkey, maybe, for fear of making Dazai sick. He'd already lost so much blood, casting any spell may well send his body into shock.

There had been a spike of panic at how pale and light the boy was when she'd dragged him into her arms, responding to the boy without much conscious thought, trying to do something, anything, to comfort the child. She had to be useful.


She remembers begging that he not die.


Something she fumed at herself for doing now.
Who had she even been begging?
Dazai? Herself? Fate? Some sort of god?

The case of medical supplies failed to appear beside her, and Pomfrey cursed herself for her own frantic mind. How embarrassing, for her magic to fail her now of all times. Now, when the child she promised to protect needed her the most.

Dazai asked her another question, one she missed, drowned out by her own spiraling thoughts.

Brows furrowed, she swept her arm out again,
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
A perfect cast, she knew it. She had made sure to twist and flick precisely, and had spoken the spell loud and clearly.
But... Nothing happened.


"Ah..." Dazai murmured. "Please stop doing that, or I'll get a headache."

... A headache?

Poppy's mouth dropped open as those words washed over her. Had she somehow cast it on Dazai? No, that wouldn't make sense. As far as she was aware, he shouldn't be impacted by such a low tier spell. Perhaps he was worse off than she'd initially estimated?
Still dripping with his blood, Pomfrey shook herself to focus. Another cast, hand movements precise, breath even and controlled, a perfect cast.
Nothing happens.
Nothing -
No feeling of a spell forming at the tip of her wand, no surge of energy connecting her to the case of supplies.
Nothing.

Her wand hand, rendered useless. The other hand, dripping with blood.

Why... why couldn't she cast?

As her focus waned, Dazai's grievous cuts had begun to weep harder, deep red blood gushing down his thin arms and pattering on the floor of the Infirmary. With all her haste and frantic movements, her wand slipped from her bloody hands, clattering to the floor and rolling away uselessly.


"So that's how much blood you want, huh?"

Dazai said lowly, barely loud enough for Poppy to catch the words.
A cold feeling had spread through her chest when she took in the size of the pool growing beneath the boy's shoes. It was too much blood.
She had to -

She stepped away from Dazai for just a moment, intending to dart across the room for her case of bandages before the boy lost consciousness, or worse.

Before she'd made it even a full two steps, Dazai swayed to the side, lurching like someone had grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him to the left, revealing a crumbling crack that was beginning to form in the stone wall behind him. A glimmer of silver and a deep hiss came from behind the widening crevice. Poppy felt her heart constrict at the sight, as the puzzle pieces in her mind began to come together, forming an ugly, ugly picture.

"Since this is the last time we'll talk," Dazai said in a hollow tone, not looking her in the eyes, "I'll tell you a secret."


She had been too forward, too conspicuous, she thought as eyes the size of dinner plates met hers from above the boy's head.
As a horrible chill overtook her entire body, Poppy's mind, too, was overcome with a trembling fear that coated her thoughts like a layer of thick, crackling frost.


"I didn't really mind you as a doctor. But you can't cure a Special Ability, Ma'am."



The fear she'd felt spreading across her mind since she first saw the boy worsened, soaked her conscious mind with renewed aggression. It was  all-consuming; devolving her from an esteemed school matron back into a mere animal, trembling in the face of death.
Her heart raced in her chest, sending blood to her limbs - meant to improve their ability to respond to such a predator, allowing her to run away as fast as possible.
To flee like the prey animal she was.
Biologically, she knew what was happening, but her mind was receding too quickly to understand the implications. The feeling was just too strong to focus on anything else.
When her body's muscles and tendons instinctively tensed and strained to launch her into action, however, Poppy was met with a feeling akin to slamming against a concrete wall, spread across her entire body. It felt as though she had fallen, or had been slammed by some large unseen force at full speed. The force constricting her movement felt heavy and hard, as impossible to shove away as the wall of a cave.
Her mind couldn't handle the additional stress from the failed dodge, and her vision swam as the heavy feeling in her skull depended to an almost bludgeoning pain. Pomfrey wanted to gasp for breath, but found that she could not so much as twitch her lips. Panic spread as she realized she-
She couldn't breathe!

Her respiratory tract seized at the realization, her brain sending signals again and again, demanding that her lungs draw air so her blood could filter away some of this overwhelming fear. Each signal sent a new wave of pulsing, irradiated pain through her torso, as her spasming organs rattled one another viciously.

The massive amount of physical feedback drove Poppy's mind into a frenzied panic that she was helpless to stop.

"Dammit. I got blood everywhere. Who's going to clean all this up?"

Chapter Text

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Chapter 3



Poppy didn't know how long she was unaware for, her sense of time completely failing her as she fought her way back from the trembling fear that had saturated her after seeing the basilisk.
The radiating aftereffects of the unreleased emotion still colored her thoughts for several hours afterward, staining her mind like an errant black drop on a watercolor painting.

Poppy found herself standing exactly where she had been, her hands held delicately out from where she had begun to turn towards her case of muggle medical supplies. A case that, now that she was looking at it, was significantly more depleted than it had been when she'd attempted and subsequently failed to cast Wingardium Leviosa to summon it. Nearly all of her gauze and wrapping adhesive bandages had been pilfered, and a substantial number of cloths, towels, sheets, and sanitizing agent had been yanked from their positions.
The chemicals and rags now littered the floor haphazardly, mixing with the ungodly amount of blood that had at some point begun to dry and crisp away.

Without the mercy of being knocked unconscious, Poppy was made to watch in trembling silence for hours after her petrification, as the boy shakily forced himself to mop up his own blood from the infirmary floor.
Every staggered movement and near slip sent a spike of anxiety through the medic's mind. Every shallow breath and muted gasp of pain was like nails on a chalkboard to her trained ears.

His respiratory tract sounded wet and weak, his breaths coming out light and almost dog-like as he panted through the labor. His arms, which had previously been exposed up to his bicep, were bird thin and criss-crossed with scarring where the thick new layer of bandages failed to cover. There were so, so many scars. The bandages had obviously been weakly applied by Dazai himself, as she could see the gaps and too heavy layering across the limbs. His hands had to be so weak after losing as much blood, it was a miracle he'd managed to wrap them at all.

It had been horrific, seeing this boy, this child, doing something so grueling while so egregiously hurt. The surge of compassion, of fear, of dismay, it had all flushed through her system, creaking below the surface of her face and bubbling in her chest. The feeling settled heavily there and refused to budge.

She had no way of escaping any of it; so she watched.

Her eyes ached when she thought she heard the sound of nearly silent, sniffling sobs just beyond her line of sight. No tears adorned the matron's face, regardless of how they wanted to in response.

After hours of torturous labor, the infirmary was the same sterile, cold atmosphere it had been the night before. There was no evidence of the massive pool of blood that had dominated the floor, nor the splashes and droplets from Dazai's jerking movements. It was shocking, really, how perfect the clean-up job was. This degree of sterility is something that you learn to achieve after years of beratement under doctors; similar to how military men tuck their sheets tight before they see their drill instructors. Pomfrey herself had always found pride in her standard of cleanliness, but seeing it now, matched so exactly, made her feel nothing short of sick.

More ugly puzzle pieces were sliding into place.

The boy reeked still of blood and the eye-watering harshness of medical grade sanitizer. His robes were wet and heavy with a muddy crust that was weeping pink liquid where the cleaning agent had splashed back on him.

Where the wet cloth of his uniform stuck to his body, Pomfrey could see the boy's frame was shockingly slim. She felt disgust at herself for thinking
'He looks like a cadaver.'

Eyes dead, Dazai had taken one last long look over the infirmary as the first rays of dawn began reaching through the windows. Pomfrey felt the moment the boy's gaze landed on her, and her breath caught in her throat at the raw emotion she saw there. It was a look she knew intimately, as she'd borne it herself. She hated seeing it on the face of a boy who already had so little in life. It was the look of total and complete resentment, and she knew from experience that it was all directed at Dazai himself.

The pain of not being able to help as, exhausted, Dazai withered into a sniffling crouch on the floor...
It was unbearable.
Yet, petrified as she was, Pomfrey would bear it.

It was torture to watch this boy, so young still, too young to be having feelings this big, shove them all behind closed-off eyes and pick himself up.
Her brain screamed at her arms to reach out and support him as Dazai immediately stumbled over his first attempt at steps on weak, faun-like legs.
Her body remained frozen as he slipped.
Barely more than a quiet whimper left the boy as he fell like a ragdoll to the cold stone floor.

She felt the spasm of pain deep within her chest at the sight.
She could see it in his furrowed brow and puffy eyes, the type of deep hatred some unlucky people can only truly feel for themselves. It broke her heart to pieces to see the guilt, self loathing, and complete disgust on such a young face.

She wondered if his eye was hurting beneath his bandages since she'd reapplied them.

The pain of not being able to help as an exhausted Dazai withered into a crying crouch on the floor, it was unbearable.
Yet, petrified as she was, Pomfrey would bear it.
It was torture to watch this boy, so young still, too young to be having feelings this big, shove them all behind closed-off eyes and pick himself up. Her brain screamed at her arms to reach out and support him as Dazai immediately stumbled over his first steps on faun-like legs, but her body remained frozen as he fell. She felt the same impacting pain as the boy likely felt as he his little frame slammed into the floor.
She remained frozen in reverberating pain as the poor boy tried again, this time keeping his shaking legs beneath him through sheer force of will, it seemed. His entire frame shook and trembled in a way that was... pathetic. For all the boy seemed to think himself invincible, he looked like nothing more than a starving and beaten stray as he fled the infirmary in the early morning light.
On the floor, the petrified body of Madam Pomfrey had wept. Or, rather, she wished that she did. Aching pain reverberated across her face where the urge to cry was being suppressed mercilessly by the basilisk's curse.

Until her body was found hours later, Poppy's only company was her cycle of regret and the intermittent thundering of phantom pain across her body.

- - -

Poppy didn't know how long she had been in this state, her sense of time completely failing her. Reflecting back, the moments between finding Dazai and making eye contact with the giant reptile had felt so fleeting at the time, and yet Poppy had thought about it for hours upon hours at this point.

She had long since berated herself for not being more actively attentive to Dazai in the moments immediately after finding him. Had she kept her wits about her, instead of panicking herself backward into a first-year nurse's mindset, she might have been able to see the intent or anticipation in the boy's eyes. Had she stayed present in the moment instead of reacting like some sort of resident trainee, some sort of half-witted, fight or flight driven animal, she may have noticed the regret, the fear, the ... anything!

Maybe she could have handled the situation like an adult, and saved the one boy who needed her help most of all.

Instead, she was paying the price of her inaction by being frozen still, unable to do a damn thing for anyone. She felt useless. Worthless.
What was the point of her if she couldn't help even one boy? Why had she even bothered coming back?

She had played through her memory of when she'd returned to Hogwarts over a hundred times by now.

- - -

She could feel the difference in the atmosphere as soon as she returned, having been greeted by nearly empty halls and classrooms.
Poppy immediately made for Severus' potions class, hoping to share what she'd learned as quickly as possible. By the time she saw the door to the potions class, Madam Pomfrey was nearly on the verge of a panic attack. Usually, she could manage to get herself out of these unhealthy spirals, but the weight of what she knew now was just stronger than that, she supposed.
She'd felt frantic, almost blind with stress. She hadn't even bothered changing out of the restrictive Muggle pantsuit she'd worn as a disguise in Yokohama.

She noticed two things upon opening the door. First was Severus meeting her eyes with a surprised look of his own. Her friend had taken one look at the disheveled state of the matron and immediately dismissed the class for the day. She barely noticed the swarm of children scurrying around her to escape the tense new atmosphere.

The second -

Poppy was across the room before she knew what was happening, gripping Dazai firmly in place so she could inspect the horrific mass of bandages wrapped tightly around his head.

His - his eye!

Unbidden, Pomfrey's mind raced, and she instantly recalled the words written in  flowy foreign writing on a charred scrap of paper Snape had found the year prior.

‘You won’t be returning home if you don’t do this, understand?’

Poppy felt her ears pop as she reflexively gulped. She hoped she wasn't letting the horror show on her face.

'Not in one piece, at least.'

She felt a deep pang of guilt as the boy took a stuttering step backwards at her sudden approach, eyes widening in a rare display of earnest fear. The guilt was overpowered by her instinct as a matron, however. Her need to care for this wounded child overwhelming her usual level-headed and considerate demeanor.

After grasping his chin and turning the boy's head to and fro, Poppy at last managed to make her mouth form words.

"Oh dear,” she gasped, hands moving to cup his face. Dazai squirmed under her touch, but when she didn’t let up and it became clear the matron wasn’t backing down, he gave up fighting. She could almost see the wave of resignation that overtook the boy's limbs, like a captured and sedated monster assuming it's life is over. Dazai’s shoulders remained tense, tremoring just the tiniest bit, but his face had gone purposely slack. Doll-like.

“What happened? How fresh is this?” Poppy tried to mimic her usual bedside manner voice, her fingers trembling slightly as she pulled them away from the boy's face, giving Dazai some breathing room back.
He immediately retreated a step or two,  nearly wilting into young Mr. Zabini as the taller boy caught him by the shoulders.

“Apparently,” Severus crossed his arms, skepticism obvious, “he was mugged.”

“I was! They took all my money, or whatever.” Dazai piped up from beside a cauldron of what seemed to be a surprisingly non-lethal potion. His friend, Blaise, who muttered a low "Or whatever...” unenthusiastically from his position behind him.

Perhaps Dazai wasn't actually as bad off as he looked..? Maybe he had just been hit with something close to the eye or had somehow sustained a scratch to the eye's surface. If it was just a black eye or blunt force trauma, he would not be bound in so many bandages. Whatever was hiding beneath those bandages, it had to be monstrous.
The matron really couldn't imagine how in the world the boy could get such a wound that didn't explicitly involve abuse.

She lost herself in thought while Snape and the boy engaged in what sounded like a snarky back-and-forth.

"And even though it only bled a little this morning—”

Poppy's mind ground to a halt. “It was bleeding today?” she asked, jarred.

Dazai smiled cheekily and nodded. Poppy scanned his face for any signs of discomfort. She found only what he was closing to show.

Poppy paled. “If a cut you got over break is still bleeding—”

“It was really more of a gouging,” Dazai chirped helpfully.

"G- gouging?"

If Poppy was pale before, she was white as bone now. She couldn't feel her legs or hands. If she were a lesser woman, she fears she may have passed out at the admission. As it was, she had to take a steadying breath just to avoid vomiting right then and there.
This was just too much.
Her mind and heart had both already been racing before even entering the potions class, and the shock of learning the severity of the boy's mutilation was more than Poppy could bear.

Severus’ face had soured deeply at the boy's gory description and airy tone.
His eyes flicked between Poppy and Dazai several times before he seemed to make some sort of decision.

"Poppy,” he tried gently, “whatever you need to tell me is clearly an emergency. I’m sure Mr. Dazai can wait a few minutes.”

Madam Pomfrey very barely avoided snarling at her long-time friend over his suggestion. Stating sternly, "This is more important," with a stiff shake of her head.

Severus looked like he wanted to argue, but a sudden *clap!* startled both adults out of their exchange.

“Great! If that’s the case, I’ll be getting out of my next class, won’t I?” Dazai smiled up at the matron with a plastic grin. Were it not for the shocking amount of bandages marring the expression, it would have fooled her completely.

Poppy’s returning smile was strained.

“Come along then, Mr. Dazai. Let’s get you looked at, shall we?”

Dazai nodded along. “That’d be great! You know, Snape doesn’t have half the bedside manner you have, Ma’am.”

That one stung.

She tutted at the boy —not at all chastising—and lead Dazai out of the room. Dazai spun around to wave a chipper goodbye. When he did so, that strange, new coat of his flared out in a grand arc behind him.

Dazai had completely dodged her every inquiry during her subsequent checkup on his eye, or rather,  the fleshy chasm where his eye was. The wound itself looked a bit inflamed, but thankfully it had been thoroughly cleaned and expertly stitched up at the back of the socket.
How she had felt, holding the boy's skull in place while she peered through the gaping new hole in his head, it was something she would never forget in her entire life. Dazai, for his part, seemed to find her shaken demeanor amusing. He kept sending wide smiles her way. The plastered expressions were interspersed, like he'd forgotten to keep the expression equipped during lulls in the conversation. The one bit of his facade that she believed to be genuine were his eyes.
His eyes glittered with a coy and defensive intelligence, sending her the silent message that she would find no luck in getting the boy to open up. At least not right now.

The boy almost reminded her of Albus, in that regard. He practically talked circles around her, baiting her to change topics and using her own guilt against her. She hadn't gotten a single bit of helpful information out of the kid, and worse, she'd completely lost her train of thought that she had been trying to maintain since leaving Yokohama.

Reflecting on her blundering behavior en post, Poppy felt a deep irritation at herself. Would it have killed her to take a few hours to decompress, truly? Why hadn't she simply written down everything she saw while she was actually in Yokohama? In addition to that, had she taken some time to get her thoughts in order, she would have been much more prepared with how specifically to share her findings with Severus and Minerva.
She was sure there were things she had neglected to share that she had specifically been trying to avoid forgetting.
She just -

Ugh!

Another wave of boiling hot anger rose up from beneath the matron's bones, taking its place just under her skin and simmering there. Poppy forced her thoughts to a sharp halt and desperately tried focusing on counting backwards from 100 in her head.
After so many weeks, she wasn't even sure how many anymore, she had developed a number of tactics to distract herself from the near constant phantom pain and destructive thought spirals.

She started by trying to mentally mimic the 4-6-8 method, envisioning herself somewhere peaceful, and imagining herself taking a smooth inhale for 4 seconds, holding the breath in her chest for 6, and slowly blowing the air out through pursed lips for 8 seconds. It worked... somewhat. Sometimes, however, the reminder of her inability to breathe panicked her animalistic brain, and began the frantic thought spirals all over again.

One of the most effective methods she had found was simple mental mathematics. Poppy alternated between counting up by 3 at a time, 4 at a time, then backwards from 1,000 by 5's, 6's, 8's, et cetera, until she lost focus entirely or she was interrupted by an invisible spasm rocking through her limbs.

The matron envisioned herself exhaling deeply, as though blowing out a candle, and slowly her mind returned to a state that was becoming her new normal.

Presently, and since the day of her petrification, she was laying on her back on one of the infirmary cots. The curtains around her bed were drawn closed for the night, and often remained so during the daylight hours as well. The sheets and bedside tables were white, even if she couldn't see them now. The light had completely faded from the windows.
Poppy wasn't aware at all of how long the sky had been like that. Being the only changing thing she could see, you'd think Poppy could manage to keep track of the time at least somewhat, but you'd be wrong, she supposed.

A brief tremor of irritation and self-loathing sizzled at her mind. To combat the impending downward spiral, she imagined the waves of an ocean lapping at a long shoreline. She focused on imagining the sights and sounds and smells of various environments she had been, until the heavy weight of the emotions finally passed. Masterfully ignoring the temptation of another episode, the matron tried to gather her thoughts back.

While Pomfrey was appreciative to be under the care of fellow staff and medics, she sort of wished they'd left her petrified body standing up somewhere, even if it was just the corner of the room or something! It would just be nice to see something other than the cold stone ceiling and empty windows all the time. If she had even one or two new things to look at, she likely wouldn't be spiraling so often.

Then again, maybe that too would become another variable in the torture.

The sensation of having her eyes open all the time was hard to get used to at first. The biggest problem she had was that any shift in light, any movement in the corner of her eye, immediately caught her attention, even if she was asleep. On top of that, even the tiniest of sounds could yank her from whatever light sleep Poppy could manage. Her brain simply never stopped receiving visual or auditory input.
If she had to guess, she'd say she was averaging two or three REM cycles a week, tops.
The closest she really got to a dreaming state was when her thoughts ran wild, ranging from self-deprecating, to bitter, then to hopeful, dreamy, regretful, and eventually back to self-deprecating again.


She imagined a life for herself and Dazai in a small cottage, somewhere far away from Yokohama; away from any criminal organizations or corrupt media outlets. Just her and her son. Perhaps Snape would join them, too. She imagined he'd choose to live in a shack a kilometer away or so, far enough to claim impartiality, but close enough to still come over for tea.

She imagined a world where Dazai would come into her office after classes and practice his spell casting, or ask for her help with an essay while sitting with all of the friends in his little gang. She imagined doing the mundane and domestic things parents do with their children, like taking the boy fishing, foraging, to fly a kite, or to the zoos of magical beasts.
Well, maybe not that one...


The best nights were the ones where Poppy could fall asleep thinking of such a peaceful life. A life where she lives happily ever after with a son she earned the trust of, a son she managed to save.

Nights like these were, uh, not common.

After about a week of such chronically poor sleep, the urge to rub her tired eyes was added to the list of unignorable sensations plaguing her.

After a month, she felt as though she were becoming perhaps a touch feral due to the lack of sleep.

She understood why long-term victims of petrification so often emerged from their frozen state on the brink of madness. If this is what the experience was like for anyone caught in the beast's ire, she too would prefer that the basilisk eat her right away instead of having to suffer so constantly and for so many days on end. Perhaps a swift death by giant fangs would be better than continuing on like this.

Such thought processes had to be nipped at the bud swiftly.

If she let herself start thinking along that line, she wouldn't be able to return to her position healthy and stable enough to take responsibility for Dazai's adoption process right away. She had to stay okay for his sake. She couldn't afford to let herself become genuinely depressed and suicidal, she would never be allowed to take custody of a troubled child like that. The Ministry was likely already going to fight her tooth and nail about her adoption proposal, she couldn't give them any leverage on her.

She could not, would not, let that boy continue to struggle alone.



Whatever weight was on the boy's shoulders this year was something she would not let him deal with without adult support. His little friend group was obviously trying their best, but Dazai needed an actual medical and behavioral intervention and direction. She could see him fraying a little more every time she saw him.

She was particularly alarmed by the young man's increasing number of jokes about ending his life. To make light and banter about such a topic so often, it pointed towards the fact that suicideal ideations popped up in his head with alarming frequency. Just because he could don a convincing smile did not mean there were not red flags stamped all over his actions. Poppy had seen several families who'd lost a young witch or wizard to their own inner struggles during her time working in magical hospitals. She had seen the looks of regret and self-loathing that painted the faces of friends and family. People who'd ignored warning signs like this. She refused to be one of them.

The moment she was out of this damn frozen state, she was going to mother the hell out of that boy, until his life was so fulfilled and full of joy that he forgot about the suicide jokes entirely.

She wanted to be the driving force for change in his life. She wanted to be the one to pat him on the head and tell him that she sees him, that she's proud of him. She wanted, more than anything, to help this child while he still had some childhood left to enjoy.

She had seen the way this year's turn of events weighed on the boy. He was less sassy, less bold and irritating. He reminded Poppy of a dangerous circus beast, mimicking a human activity whenever he donned the impishly mischievous mask he wore around gawking students, and that idiot, Lockheart. He reminded Poppy of a wild, toothy creature held in line by threats of violence and regular beatings that the crowd doesn't have to see.
The audience just gets to enjoy the monster perform.

The matron wasn't sure if the boy she knew last year was a more or less genuine version of himself than the one she'd come to know this year, but she knew one thing: he definitely had more on his plate now than he did last year.
Whoever was dictating his little 'demon student' persona's actions - she suspected it was this 'Mori' she'd heard so much about - this person did not have much concern for Dazai's safety or comfort. The last stunt she'd seen - the dragon delivering mail to the boy at dinner - was obviously meant to instill fear and further corrupt his public image in front of all his peers.
She should have known that the whole day was cursed just from the events at dinner. From the moment she'd come in through the Great Hall doors, she'd been taken aback at the tense atmosphere. More than half of the student body had apparently elected not to return for the second semester, leaving a large number of vacant seats among the house tables. Dazai and his Griffindoor friends were sat clustered together, isolated from the rest of the students in a way that pointed more towards xenophobia and prejudice than the simple cliquishness that children of their age usually displayed.
She thought about that dinner a lot, specifically, recalling the young black dragon bursting into the Great Hall while all of the remaining staff and student body were already tense, rearing up and landing before Dazai like the boy was her whole world. Hagrid seemed to think the beast was bonded to the boy, whatever that entailed.
One thing never left Poppy's mind, however.
That it had all seemed so... scripted. So purposeful.
The beast's appearance had been timed and executed in such a way that seemed almost theatrical in its presentation. The whole situation glaringly eye catching. Something practically designed to draw more attention to Dazai and make the newsletter authors drool over, as they seemed to do with anything regarding this 'demon student' character they'd invented.

She remembers how cornered Dazai had looked, after the house prefects had led the remaining students to safety, and the headmaster and staff rallied around him to investigate interrogate him. Without the lifeline of the Weasley siblings and the Granger girl sitting around him at the Griffindoor table, Dazai looked incredibly small, like a skinny stray dog crouched in the corner of it's kennel, just waiting for the hit to fall.
The plate in front of him was largely empty, save for the ashy remains of the letter dropped by the dragon. She hadn't even seen what happened to the letter, honestly. She'd been too busy running through the possibilities of why this was all happening now. She cursed her lack of knowledge about the most recent current events. Her trip to Yokohama had been both a blessing and a curse so far.

She remembers feeling queasy as her coworkers questioned the boy. The new DADA professor, Gilderoy, seemed particularly delighted to lord his authority over the child.
Her own face closed off to avoid showing her distaste at the situation, hoping to avoid drawing suspicion onto herself before she got a chance to debrief thoroughly with Severus and Minerva. She had to focus to avoid staring at Dazai, to avoid letting what she knew show even a little bit.
Thankfully, with how preoccupied the boy had been at the time, he'd barely spared her more than a lingering glance. A glance that simultaneously held no weight at all, yet also quietly asked 'what do you know?'

It broke Poppy's heart to not be able to defend him from the suspicions of her peers. Staying silent had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but it was something she sorely regretted now.
Perhaps if she'd shown herself to be even the least bit helpful or supportive to Dazai, he wouldn't have made the choices he had. He should have seen her as a lifeline, someone to rely on to protect him.

Instead, she'd simply watched as the boy bottled up everything that made Dazai the troublesome, snarky, brilliant Hogwarts Student, and vanished it. Every perceived weakness he saw in himself swept beneath a rug.
Poppy assumed it gave the boy security and comfort when it came to anything relating to this 'job' of his.
Choosing to rely on cold eyes and hushed words, to behave like a criminal.
A mafioso.

The heavy lurch of regret and sadness that came forth at the thought pressed hard against Poppy's chest and throat. The accompanying pain pulsated through her blood like a war drum. There wasn't much she could to to banish this feeling. No amount of counting or meditation had yet been able to distract her from her guilt. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps she was meant to experience it in its entirety. Maybe she earned this hell.


But, even if that were so, beyond the anguish and frustration, Pomfrey's heart ached for Dazai now more than it ever had before.

To her, it was plain as day that the boy was suffering, but he wasn't letting anyone really help him. With so few even trying to help him to begin with, things could go downhill for the boy very significantly at any time.

It was obvious by now that Dazai found comfort in the fact that everyone kept him at a ten foot distance, that everyone villainized him. Poppy imagined it made doing the things he was forced to do as a preteen mafia member easier, the fact that the entire wizarding world seemed to be against him must make justifying stealing and lying like child's play.

It seemed like a good way to ensure the boy's loyalty, too. How are you going to make allies in a world where you're the new Dark Lord in the making? Who would help a "villain" escape "justice"? Dazai would have no one to turn to or fall back on, except his boss in Yokohama.

'After all I’ve given you, it would be such a bother for you to fail me now.’

Poppy felt a wave of electric heat strike across her jaw as she reflexively went to grind her teeth in anger.

She hated, hated being stuck here. She needed to be useful. She needed to help Dazai, before it was too late. As far as she was concerned, it could be "too late" at any time. The boy's mental health was obviously at an all-time low after leading the basilisk to eliminate Pomfrey from the equation. Since she was out of commission, she was positive the slashes across Dazai's arms hadn't all been new, and she was certain that the new ones were something only she knew about.

She hoped to God the boy knew how to keep his wounds clean to prevent infection. With how thin and weak his body had seemed, an untreated infection or even a bad fever could very well kill the boy.


A reverberating shock of pain shoved her train of thought right back into the traumatic events she'd specifically been trying to avoid thinking about. The chronic sleep deprivation weighed on her like a heavy second skin .
Her mind once again summoned her back to the grim pool on the tile floor that night.


When she'd first seen him in the infirmary, surrounded by so much red, her immediate assumption was that he'd attempted suicide because of the events at dinner. That he'd been pushed too hard by her and her peers. She, perhaps narcissistically, assumed she was somehow responsible for his condition.
She was technically right, but, still. She should have been more focused on the bigger picture. She should have taken her recent return into account when interpreting his actions.

She indulged herself in the cycle of "should have"s for an unknown amount of time. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. In the moments not pock-marked by pain, Poppy found herself slipping into seemingly random episodes of dissociation.

Sometimes she thought of nothing at all, but more often she thought of that one day, over and over. Some parts were easier to think about than others. Some parts she thought about so often, it tainted her sleep - giving her unholy, half-waking nightmares of animalistic fear. Of failure. Of stillness.
The basilisk..

She cut the thought off hurriedly.

Since the beast's attack, her position as the head of medicine for the school had been temporarily allocated to a sneaky looking doctor and his tittering assistant, who seemed to be more of a doormat than a partner or aide to the man. The two lacked any kind of bedside manner, often electing to ignore Pomfrey for days on end without so much as a sheet check.


She wishes someone would come read the  news to her, or a medical journal, or even sit down and talk about the weather to her. Poppy's brain had never been too kind to her, and having her only sources of stimulus be physical pain or indulging an inner monologue... It was beginning to wear her down mentally. Without the satisfaction of work, or the freedom of movement, or the liveliness of company, Poppy found herself floating in a timeless gray hell.

There couldn't possibly be too much time left before the potions to cure their petrification would be completed.

It had to be finished quickly, right?

Poppy just had to keep herself sane until then.