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Chapter 1: The Bird

Poppy Pomfrey was born someplace in Oxfordshire on the 25th February 1931, much to the delight of her parents and extended family. As an only child she was the apple of her parents eyes, and especially so of her Grandmother. She first displayed signs of magic from just 4 months, where a particularly long and loud fit of crying had sent the family cat flying off of the sofa, which immediately sent her into a fit of tiny giggles.

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Poppy’s father worked as the regional Owl PostMaster, and whilst she was far too young to understand the full extent of the magical world she knew to leave the Owl part out of conversations with her friends at the local nursery. She certainly couldn’t tell them that her mother worked at the Ministry of Magic, and had been told on several occasions not to tell fibs. In fact, it was after a particularly harsh telling off from her nursery teacher when she spotted the little bird. It was hopping around on the pavement in front of her and she yanked her Grandmothers arm with a surprising amount of strength for a three year old towards the little thing. She scooped it up into her hands and held it out to her grandmother.
“Oh deary me, what a sorry looking thing”
“It hurted” Poppy stretched her hands out even further, expecting her Grandmother to do something about it. After much persuasion, and a small tantrum, Poppy’s Grandmother gave up suggesting they leave it behind and let her carry it with her

Poppy immediately ran to her father’s study and showed the little bird to him. She watched as he looked at it closely, turning it over gently in his hands before drawing his wand and pointing it at the little thing. A spark and a pop seemed to set the little bird right again and Poppy’s father led them both back to the kitchen. Her grandmother helped her feed the bird watered down cat food, much to the dismay of the cat, who had to be shut outside. For weeks and weeks Poppy fed the little bird, until it seemed to be back to full strength.

After much tearful pleading Poppy was told by her Grandmother that she had to let the bird go. She stood there in the back garden, heaving sobs as she watched it fly away, and refused to acknowledge her Grandmother for two days afterwards. All this upset “was over nothing” as her grandmother would put it as the little bird visited the garden everyday anyway, hopping about playfully and nibbling at the fat balls left out for it.

So it was, at the ripe old age of three that Poppy knew for a fact what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Though her mother seemed more interested in some witch flying her broom a really long way than her incessant babbling about becoming a “helping people”.

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Chapter 2: Grandma Eddie

After the bird incident, Poppy’s father started bringing home any Owls on his service which had seen better days. Though she had tried on multiple occasions to sneak off with her mother or father’s wand and practice healing spells, she was still a dab hand at conventional healing practices. And, through intense observation of her father at work, she possessed the most comprehensive knowledge of healing magic ever held by a five year old.

Poppy’s grandma wasn’t magical, and neither was her grandpa or her uncle Charlie. Even at 5 she knew she didn’t see her other grandparents because her father was "muggle born". And this just made her even more aware of the need to hide magic from her friends at school. It took four weeks before she could convince her parents to let her invite Betty round to play. She watched her parents spend the whole morning tidying away the brooms and the magic books as she sat playing with her sock monkey her grandmother had made her. When the doorbell rang her mother suddenly jumped up and rushed over to the dishes, which were washing themselves in the sink.
They danced to the radio for a little while before running around in the wet and muddy garden. Poppy watched her father clutch her mothers hand when she reached for her wand to clear off the mud, which meant that she had to stand in the kitchen damp and shivering until Betty’s mother came to collect her.

That same afternoon Grandma Eddie and her Grandfather arrived at the house for afternoon tea. It was rare for her Grandfather to visit these days, on account of his bad knees and his bad hips and just about every other joint too. Her Grandfather had always been less spritely than her more formidable Grandma Eddie but she had begun to notice the way that the adults treated him had become even more cautious. Ever the carer, Poppy helped him sit down, and made him an imaginary cup of tea with her favourite china tea set. He was muttering something about the new King letting his little brother be King instead, Poppy would have loved a little brother, or a little sister but she made do with the cat. A week later, her father returned home very late from work, Poppy had been expecting him to bring another Owl home, but instead he walked in empty handed. She was shooed out of the kitchen by her mother and the door was closed on her way out. She stood with her ear to the door, something she knew was absolutely not allowed (but did frequently) and listened. She couldn’t hear a thing, until a big wailing cry echoed through the house. That day was the first, and one of the only times Poppy ever heard her father cry. He had always been a very no-nonsense man when it came to crying “there’s always something to be happy about!” He would tell her earnestly, so hearing him cry made a very small part of her twist and swirl around. She pulled her ear from the door, but his cries still echoed around the hallway. She cried too then, she didn’t yet know why but she sat in that hallway and cried with her father.

She sat on the tiled floor with her knees pulled into her chest and waited for someone to come and get her, to tell her what to do. Her Grandma opened the front door then, walked straight over to her and scooped her into her arms, as if Poppy's very thoughts had summoned her. They sat on the sofa together, her grandma stroking her hair and rocking her gently. “Oh pet, oh dear, I’m sorry, but your Grandpa was very poorly”. She sat up then and wiped her eyes, suddenly aware of why her father had a reason to cry. A thought crossed her mind and she burst into the kitchen, suddenly very, very angry. Her father looked at her, his eyes red, but his face already turning stoic. “Why didn’t you fix him? Like the Owls, it not fair!” She wanted to run away, or hit him or both. He crouched down, and held her hand tightly. “Sometimes nothing can be done, we have to let him rest now darling”

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Chapter 3: Christmas 1938

It had been just over two years since her grandfather had passed, her Grandma Eddie had moved in with them, and subsequently the Christmas gathering was being hosted at Poppy's family home. This meant strictly no magic, and Christmas Quidditch game, which had become a tradition between the three of them. Poppy wasn’t particularly upset about this, she was especially terrible at Quidditch and it was pretty difficult to play a game which ideally needed fourteen people with just three. Still, traditions were traditions and she knew her father wouldn’t be able to bring any owls home over the Christmas period either, which upset her to a considerably higher amount. She was getting very good at helping to fix them, and by now had "Magical Care of Feathered Animals" memorised from cover to cover.

Poppy knew this Christmas wasn’t going to be a normal one either way. She may have only been seven but she knew when adults were very tense, both her muggle grandmother and her magic parents seemed to be in a constant state of waiting. There were mutterings of something happening in America in the wizarding community, and of course no one could dismiss the threat of a second great war when the muggle government had already started handing out gas masks to civilians. Either way, Poppy knew this Christmas would involve all the adults pretending everything was fine then muttering in hushed tones behind closed doors. She had become well practiced at listening in on hushed conversations through closed doors.

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She stood elbow deep in the sink, next to her Grandmother scrubbing at the roast potato pan, full of Christmas dinner and more than ready for a good long afternoon nap. With her father having always been work-driven, and her mother seemingly spending more and more time at the Ministry, Poppy spent most of her time outside of school with her Grandma Eddie. She looked up at her then, and in that moment recognised just how old she was becoming, how much more like her Grandfather she looked. Her moment of thought was broken when her three cousins came barrelling in, and dragged her off to help them construct their new train set. Her oldest cousin, Mary, was almost fifteen but still seemed to embrace the Christmas spirit more than Poppy ever did. Perhaps she got it from her father, Uncle Charlie, who was currently humming along to the radio and sipping on his fifth glass of mulled wine.

Poppy had just sat down to start connecting the pieces of track together when the doorbell rang. Mary hopped up and ran to the door, she had invited her good friend Ruth around for a couple hours. They immediately ran up the stairs and Poppy was left to build the train track with her other cousins, both considerably more boisterous than Mary. Between them they had managed to stage a multi-train pile-up that had sent the little people that sat in them all across the living room floor.

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About two hours, and two more glasses of mulled wine later, her Uncle finally decided it was time for them to leave, and he sent Poppy up to get Mary. She walked up the stairs slowly, burdened by two helpings of Christmas pudding, and opened the door to her fathers study where she could hear the girls giggling. She opened the door, and then stood in the doorway for what felt like an age. Mary had pulled away from Ruth very fast, but it was clear they had been kissing. Mary immediately started rambling about best friends, and practicing for their boyfriends before running down the stairs. But Poppy knew. Mary and Ruth shared the same look in their eyes has her own parents did, as her grandparents had. It had just never occurred to her that it could work that way around. She didn't understand why Mary had been so defensive at first. Then, in that moment, Poppy suddenly understood a great many things about love, and a great many things about herself that she could never tell.

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Chapter 4: War on Both Sides

On September the 3rd 1939, Poppy sat in front of the radio with her father, and even more frail Grandma and waited. She knew what it meant when Chamberlain uttered the words, her parents had already been caught up in a magical war, one that had seemed so far away in America until now. At least she had had her Grandma, who was mostly oblivious to the more detailed politics of the wizarding world. Now everyone in her life was troubled by war, and Poppy knew this was far from the end of things. Her mother was currently at the Ministry, with some new threat from Grindelwald looming over them. All she wanted was to run very far away, perhaps to the Scottish Highlands, to Hogwarts, her parents talked about it so often that she knew she’d be safe there.

Poppy stood and watched as her father put protection spell after protection spell on the house, and thought about how unfair it was that muggles were left unprotected. She had asked time and time again why he couldn’t protect every house, and she had just been told that she wouldn’t understand. It had been during a particularly boring Maths lesson with her year 4 teacher that she made up her own mind about the whole thing. Betty had been telling her about the, albeit false, air raid, and how her closest Anderson shelter was right at the other end of the very long street she lived on. Even as Betty was speaking Poppy had already formulated a personal plan of action.

The same evening she waited for her parents to fall asleep, reading the latest Anne of Green Gables her Grandma had given to her to stay awake. It was well past dark before she crept out of her room and across the landing. She opened the door as quietly as possible and slipped through before the door was wide enough to creak on its hinges. There it lay, on the nightstand, her fathers wand. She didn’t really know how to use it, but she knew if she got angry enough she could try very hard to make something happen, her mothers favourite vase had been a testament to that. She had listened to her father casting protection spells enough recently that she knew what words to say. She crept down the stairs slowly and quietly, stepping around the elderly cat and avoiding the creaky stair. She stopped at the bottom, listening for any noise, before making her way to the door.

She was halfway to Betty’s house, and regretting wearing her nightdress out in the chilly night air. She had to duck behind a bush when a Home Guard patroller rounded the corner, and sat there quietly until he moved on. She stepped out of the bush, and straight into her father, looking down on her very sternly.

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She sat very quietly and very still in the living room. Her father was shaking his head and grasping his hair muttering under his breath. Her mother just watched her. She knew it was best not to say anything and take whatever punishment was coming to her. After some deliberation her father had clearly decided that shouting was the best course of action, and he shouted and shouted and shouted until her little face dropped and she started to cry. Her father didn’t notice just how upset she was until the tap in the kitchen started spraying out water. He ran to turn it off, and when he returned he seemed decidedly calmer.

He explained that ‘we’ had our own wars to fight, and interfering could make things very messy. And then went on to tell Poppy that she shouldn’t try to intentionally display magic in front of muggles. She knew all this of course, but sat and nodded, as this was the best thing she could do. Her father didn’t let her go to school for the rest of the week, and she had to clean the house from top to bottom, which, as punishment went, wasn’t too bad. Poppy liked cleaning and cleanliness, she felt a sense of calm as she worked her way around a space, getting rid of the dust and the dirt, and transforming each section into a little oasis of tidy.

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By the end of the week her father seemed to have forgotten all about the incident, and he even let her watch him mend an owl's broken wing. His happy mood was short-lived however, when her Uncle Charlie arrived at their door, with Mary, Thomas and Henry. He had enlisted again, as Poppy’s father had guessed he would. Poppy and her cousins were sent to play, but all four of them listened intently outside the kitchen door. They sounded angry at each other, uncle Charlie was shaming her father for not “being a man” and signing up. Uncle Charlie didn't know about magic and therefore didn’t know about her father’s rule about not meddling. She could here both of them going back and fourth at each other, her Grandmother occasionally butting in. Eventually, a decision was made, as the talking stopped.

Her Uncle left for France the next week, and the cousins were left to live with them. It was “the least they could do” according to Uncle Charlie. This left a considerable dilemma between the family, living without using magic for however long the war went on, or telling the truth. It only took a week of her mother hand washing and cooking before the final decision was made. So there all seven of them sat, cosied up in the living room that didn’t feel quite so big anymore.

There were questions of course, lots of them, but they were answered in time. They settled into a routine after that, with both Thomas and Henry transferring to Poppy’s primary school, and Mary still bussing in to her secondary in the next town over. Her Grandma had become much too frail to walk them to school, and her parents never seemed to be at home these days, so Poppy would walk her two younger cousins to school, and back again at the end of the day. She had ended up sharing her bedroom with Mary, and the brothers were given the attic. Mary kept herself to herself, she was either studying, or at Ruth's, so Poppy spent her weekends facilitated her younger cousins, usually violent, games of pretend. Naturally, they both wanted to see her do magic and any chance they got, and she had to explain almost every day that she couldn't yet. At least they understood that they couldn’t tell anyone else, if only because they wouldn’t be believed.

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Chapter 5: When We Have Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil

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“Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream- For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there’s the respect, That makes calamity of so long life.”
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

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On the 29th of May 1940, a telegram arrived at the Pomfrey home. Uncle Charlie was dead. An evacuation mission in Dunkirk, and his naval ship had gone down. For most, the battle of Dunkirk had been a positive turning point in the war, but not for the Pomfrey's. For Poppy, that telegram was a turning point in her childhood, nothing was the same as it had been after it arrived. The day after the telegram arrived Mary packed her bags and left. At 16 she was entitled to leave school, which she did, and moved into a flat somewhere with Ruth. Poppy never saw her again, and aside from the occasional birthday card, never heard from her again either.

Suddenly the house now permanently had two more boys, who both needed tiptoeing around at the mention of their father. That was a big change, in Poppy's mind their stay had only ever been temporary. But for Poppy, it was the events that happened two weeks later which truly changed things.

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She held her Grandma’s hand very tightly as she lay in the bed, Poppy knew what was happening, and she knew there was nothing to be done. It was 3pm when her Grandma Eddie died, and the house was still. Her father stood over her, squeezing her shoulder tightly. Ever since the telegram arrived her Grandmother had gone rapidly downhill, as if she suddenly had nothing to fight for anymore. Poppy didn’t cry, she just shut herself in her room and read, and pretended nothing had happened. She had no idea what to do, she could fix almost every physical pain out there now, even without any magic, but this. Poppy had no remedy or poultice for this pain, and her father had no spell.

Nothing was ever the same, and Poppy believed that at 9 years old she would never feel happiness like she once had again. Her father changed too, he was suddenly quiet, he no longer brought owls home with him, and he didn’t eat dinner with the rest of the family any more. He spent all of his time in his study, and eventually quit his job altogether. It was no surprise when he finally walked out the door. He had enlisted to fight, to fight in a war he had told Poppy they couldn’t meddle with. He left his wand in his study. And walked out the door. And Poppy knew even if he survived, she wouldn’t see that man again.

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The two years that followed were a difficult ones, her mother refused to quit her job, and instead bought in a house elf to care for the children. It cooked and it cleaned, but it was no parental figure. Poppy became very fond of her cousins, thrust into a strange world of magic and quiet, with no father or sister in sight. She played with them, and walked them to school, and patched up their knees when they fell. So when her letter finally arrived, a letter she had wished to receive every day since she knew about it, she didn’t want to go. Her mother was delighted, of course, and that same weekend she took her to Diagon Alley, and left the boys at home.

Poppy had been to Diagon Alley a few times when she was little, and it had always filled her with awe. The huge shop display windows and magic in full view, with Gringotts bank towering above it all. It was different now, something had changed, the fantasy land it housed had changed. She suddenly saw the grime on the pavements, and the beggars on the corner. And she saw the leering face of Grindelwald staring back at her in posters. For her, the magic had died, and she wasn't interested in stepping into this world anymore.

Her mother always seemed uncomfortable in highly populated magical areas. Poppy had always seen this as a side effect of marrying a ‘muggle-born’ as a pure blood, but she suddenly saw what her mother did. She bought the school books off of her list, and got fitted for robes, but she did not step foot into Olivander's. She carried it everywhere with her now, her father’s wand, and it only seemed right that she used it. It felt very different in her hands than it had done when she stole it all those years ago, more familiar, more willing perhaps.

They had secured everything on her list and Poppy was more than ready to leave. She signalled to her mother that she was ready to go, but was told to stay put. A few moments later, her mother appeared again, with a brown and white tawny owl in a cage. She handed it over to Poppy, silently, and then apparated them both home without so much as a smile.

Poppy stared at the little owl in the bird cage, and all it did was remind her of her father. She hadn’t heard from him for almost two years, but no yellow telegram had arrived either. She decided then, that she wouldn’t give up on Hogwarts, or her dream. She decided that she would do it all for him, and for the man he was. There was no use in sulking for eternity and letting life pass her by.

So, as it was, in September of 1942 Poppy found herself standing on the far side of platform 9 and ¾ waving goodbye to her mother and cousins.

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Chapter 6: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Poppy was determined to leave her old life behind so she settled into a train compartment with a book, and tried her best to fantasise about her life at Hogwarts. This was short lived, as a rather chubby older girl sat opposite her with an interesting looking plant and a very shiny Prefect Badge. She smiled at the girl, before trying to return to her book. She clearly didn’t take the hint.
“I’m Pomona, Pomona Sprout. Are you a first year? I’m a 5th Year, but I can’t convince my friends to let me sit with them with this.” The girl gestured at the fat looking cactus type plant.
“It’s a Mimbulus Mimbletonia, it’s very rare. did you know?”
Poppy just shook her head and looked at the plant, which seemed to be wobbling about inside its pot as if it were dancing to a song with a very odd tempo.

Pomona spent the next two hour train journey recounting everything about Hogwarts Poppy should know. Of course, she knew most of the basics already, but at least she didn’t have to sit by herself. Once the conversation turned to plants Poppy actually took some interest, especially to one’s that possessed healing properties, which sent Pomona down a whole other tangent. Aside from briefly excusing herself to change into her robes, Poppy didn’t utter a word.

Even Pomona fell silent as the first glimpse of the turrets of Hogwarts came into view. Poppy watched as Hogwarts drew nearer, the castle was just as magnificent as it had seemed in photographs, and she forgot why she had ever considered not coming. The whole thing felt as if it had been pulled straight from a fairytale, she understood why her parents had loved the place so much.

When the train finally pulled into the station she was led away from Pomona and towards a set of boats, she was seated next to a snide looking girl with round glasses and a slicked back ponytail, who briefly remarked that her name was Olive and then turned her nose up. Poppy sat quietly and watched the castle come into view again. It was somehow even more magical from this angle, looking up at it from the placid lake. She smiled quietly to herself, knowing she would never have to worry about her quiet house in Oxfordshire again.

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Poppy stood patiently at the door to the great hall, secretly wishing that Professor Dumbledore would hurry up and open the doors already. He was the head of Gryffindor house and Poppy could already tell he was a formidable man who could get what he wanted. Not that this was any fault of his of course, his eyes seemed kindly, and they reminded her of her own father’s. The doors swung open then and Poppy stepped into the vast hall, the tables were lined with students, and the teachers were seated around a stool, with the sorting hat perched atop. She walked down the hall with the rest of the students, her eyes resting momentarily on a boy who seemed to be twice the height of everyone around him, who gave her an encouraging smile.

She stood and waited as names were called one by one. Olive Hornby was sorted into Gryffindor, though Poppy would have personally placed her in Slytherin, as she seemed to have an air of entitlement that was emanating from that table. Before she knew it she was sat on the stool, with the hat perched on her head, falling slightly in front of her eyes.

“Let's see… hmm… yes, I remember your father. I see great loyalty here, but also… interesting, very interesting… better be RAVENCLAW!”

Poppy jumped a little at the sudden change in the hat’s tone and scurried off to the Ravenclaw table, where she was being cheered and patted on the back. She was later joined by a pure blood named Florean Fortescue, and a timid looking muggle-born named Skye Ibis, which Poppy remembered thinking was a wonderful name, and a flurry of other first years who seemed to ignore her entirely. Florean appeared to have a never-ending mess of wild black hair, and a fair skinned complexion, a stark contrast to Skye's tight and neat curls, and warm brown face. They sat through more names and more Ravenclaw first years started filling the seats around them. After the final name was called, Phillip Zanzibar, a Hufflepuff, Headmaster Armando Dippett rose from his chair to say a few words.

Poppy hardly listened, knowing from enough tales of her parents what came next. Sure enough, at the clap of Dippetts’ hands the table was suddenly filled with a veritable feast. Clearly rationing wasn’t a concern of Hogwarts, and you could tell the muggle-borns apart by how wide their eyes grew as the food sprang up before them. Poppy had to admit, she hadn’t ever seen this much food before, and she had once attended her mother’s work Christmas dinner with as many witches and wizards as there were at Hogwarts.

After the feast, a very full Poppy was escorted to her dormitory by the Ravenclaw Prefects. Their trunks had already been unpacked and placed neatly at the foot of their beds. Skye’s bed was next to Poppy’s, which she was glad of, as she seemed like a nice girl. Being so full from the feast, and exhausted from a day of trains and excitement, Poppy fell asleep almost immediately.

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The first month at Hogwarts was a happy one, aside from a few run-ins with Olive, who seemed to be out for almost everyone, Poppy was enjoying herself immensely. Florean and Skye were excellent company, and she found herself enjoying almost every lesson she attended, aside from flying lessons, naturally. Surprisingly though, she found that she was enjoying Herbology the most, whether this was down to the subtle influence of Pomona Sprout, or the surprising amount of crossover it had with healing she did not know. Florean was only ever interested in whether or not he could turn a particular plant into a new flavour of ice cream. She envied him somewhat, he already knew he was set to take on his family’s ice cream parlor once he finished Hogwarts, Poppy envied the security that he held. But equally found a bit of excitement in the mystery of an uncertain future.

The herbology professor was a surprisingly spritely man for a 98 year old, and described everything in a way that meant Poppy couldn’t not be interested. She supposed had healing been a core class that would have been her favourite but something about Professor Beery contributed to her enjoyment of herbology.

It was after a particularly exciting herbology lesson involving the best way to pot a bouncing bulb that Poppy first ran into the gang of Slytherins. Quite literally. She had been running to get a decent seat at lunch and had planted herself into a tall and slender Slytherin. She knew who he was, everyone did. Tom Riddle, he practically ruled the school, and was one of those boys who appeared angelic in front of any adult but once their backs were turned could be the most horrible person you ever encountered. He was a fifth year, with a prefect badge shinier than Pomona's. Poppy froze and let out a sort of confused squeal as she realized exactly who she had run into. Standing next to him were second cousins, Walburga and Orion Black. Poppy accepted her fate there and then and decided to just accept whatever hex was coming her way, already planning out the fastest route to the hospital wing in her head.

However, to her luck, the very tall student she had seen on her first day at Hogwarts rounded the corner at that very moment. Riddle scowled at him and stalked off, she seemingly wasn’t worth his time anymore. The boy introduced himself as Rubeus Hagrid, a third year student. She smiled politely at him and muttered a squeak of thanks before hurrying off to study hall.

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Chapter 7: Halloween, 1942

Poppy had just finished the most lavish feast she had enjoyed since starting Hogwarts, even if they had overdone the amount of pumpkin-related items. They were allowed some free time, it being a Saturday and all, so she, Skye and Florean decided to spend a quiet evening by the lake. Skye was wearing a t-shirt so left to gather a scarf and jumper from their Ravenclaw dormitory, and they agreed to meet her under the tree. Florean spent the walk describing how to make pumpkin ice-cream without any milk, and she listened as if she cared a lot more than she actually did.

By the time they reached the lake it was almost dark, with the clocks going back not helping matters. They sat under the tree and waited, Skye wouldn’t be long, she was a faster walker than both of them combined. Another half hour later and Poppy realised she wasn’t coming, she lit her wand, something Florean still hadn’t managed to master. Despite his extensive knowledge on any subject you could conjure, his wand work left something to be desired. They walked back slowly, half expecting to bump into Skye on their way, but they didn't. In fact the only person they saw was Tom Riddle hurrying past them, she kept her head pointed at her shoes until he went past and Florean gave her a funny look. She shot one back that said 'I'll tell you later'.

They made it all the way back to Ravenclaw common room, with its mezzanine and huge arches bathed in warm candlelight. Skye still hadn’t appeared, but her scarf was gone from her dormitory. Poppy had a sick feeling, and could picture Skye arriving at the lake, in the dark, and neither of them would be there. Despite generally being a rule follower, and it being just after curfew, she put on her own scarf and left the common room. She had given Florean strict instructions to cover for her, not that she particularly expected anything to happen, the professors were pretty lenient on weekends.

She left the common room quietly and started heading back down towards the lake. She slipped in a puddle of water and almost went flying onto her back, only managing to right herself by flailing and scraping her hands along the large stone wall. As she regained her balance she heard a faint sobbing coming from the bathroom down the corridor. Poppy ran over, expecting to find Skye crying in the stalls. Instead, she found a girl slightly older than she was, with big round glasses and pig tails. Crying, with all the bathroom taps running. Poppy stood there awkwardly, half thinking of leaving, when the girl noticed her.
“Come to gloat, have you, to make fun of poor Myrtle and her baby pigtails?”
Poppy just shook her head, and the girl told her to. “Go Away.”
She obliged, but made a mental note to check in with Myrtle the next time she saw her. She stepped back out of the bathroom and tried not to get her shoes wet. The water seemed to be filling the entire corridor, and round the corner too. Had she not been out of bed after dark then she would have found Filch or somebody to sort out the veritable flood before her. Poppy carried on walking down the hall, giving up any hope of keeping her ankles dry after only a few steps. Most in Ravenclaw tower had heard of Myrtle Warren's tantrums, but this was the first time Poppy had seen one in action.

She made it all the way to the curve at the end of the corridor before she spotted anything. At first she thought it was a discarded cloak, forgotten in a hurry to somewhere or other. On a second look it was a cloak, but it wasn’t discarded. It was far too rigid, and was filled out in a way that meant something was in it. She knew before she got close, the deep blue lapels of the Ravenclaw uniform meaning only one thing. Her dark curly hair spooled on the floor even though she was face down. She suddenly thought of her father telling her how he had found an owl who had almost drowned in a puddle and adrenaline alone made her roll Skye’s stiff body over. She must have run out of bravery after that, as all she could think to do was sit there and stroke her hair.

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She wasn’t sure how long it was before she had the sense to do anything else. She tried a few of the healing spells she had secretly been working on but knew they wouldn’t work, even from a quick glance she could tell the poor girl had been petrified. From what she could remember from the many library books she had checked out and read in her first month at Hogwarts, there were all kinds of ways that someone could become petrified. If she was lucky it would be a simple spell, but Poppy had yet to learn the counter. She made a mental note to try as soon as she resolved things.

Instead, Poppy found herself running down the corridor towards the nearest Professor’s office she could find. As it was, Professor Dumbledore’s office was where she ended up. She thanked both Merlin and her lucky stars that he stayed late most evenings in his office. She wondered what a sight she must have been, she was drenched with water below her ankles and the knees of her pyjama bottoms were wet too, her hair was a mess and she had been crying the whole way to the office. He peered at her over his spectacles, puzzled at the girl he saw before him. She couldn’t even speak, she just somehow managed to get him to follow her.

----

She wasn’t sure how late it must have been at this point, but she was sitting on a bed in the hospital wing, with a mug of hot chocolate and a blanket wrapped around her. She had been trying to listen to the teachers muttering inside Madame Soranus’ office, and the only thing she could gather was that it wasn’t a simple fix for Skye. She thought about pulling back the bed curtains to go and see her, but realised that probably wouldn’t help anyone. Someone knocked on the curtain partition, and Professor Beery poked his head around the curtain. He was holding a second cup of hot chocolate. When he saw that she hadn’t started her current one, he began sipping on it himself.
“Now Poppy, can you tell me the primary medicinal value of powdered mandrake root?”
She looked at him confused, she didn’t know why he was suddenly intent on quizzing her herbology knowledge.
“Nevermind, that’s Second year content anyway.”
She remembered something she had read then, about mandrakes and petrifyings, and about dealing with people in shock. And looked up at him, he gave her a wry but gentle smile and patted her on the shoulder.
"It'll work out right eventually, and if it doesn't, then you can blame me alright?"

----

Despite having sat awake all night, and given ample excuse to take the day off, she still attended breakfast, with a plan to head up to the library and study any bad feelings away. Headmaster Dippett stood at the head of the tables, and informed the entire school that “there had been an incident last night.”. Florean looked at her reassuringly, he knew everything of course. An eruption of murmurs broke out across the hall, a ripple caused by lobbing a particularly large stone of information into a sea of students. Only Professor Dumbledore managed to calm the silence in the end.

Chapter Text

Poppy had settled into a weird routine of waking up, doing homework over breakfast, going to her lessons and then skipping study time in the great hall to sit with Skye. Florean came with her occasionally but he was usually busy managing his lucrative underground business doing other people’s homework. He charged 7 sickles per inch, or 5 if the buyer was prepared for him to enlarge the writing a little, something some professors were better at picking up on than others. It somewhat went against Poppy’s moral code, but Florean provided what he described as ‘hush money’ in the form of the occasional ice cream.

It was on one such visit to Skye that Poppy once again bumped into Myrtle Warren, in an even more sorry state than the last time.
“They’ve done it again, Madam Soranus, they’ve done it again”
Poppy wasn’t one to pry into people’s personal medical problems but it was hard to ignore the ruckus coming from Myrtle as she wobbled into the hospital room, her legs shaking and dancing uncontrollably. It didn’t take an expert to know a jelly leg jinx when they saw one. Madam Soranus had just popped out, and without thinking Poppy hopped up and straightened out the whole affair. Poppy had read up enough on counter-jinxes to know what she was doing.

“My, wherever did you learn that child?” Madam Soranus was now standing directly behind her, in an almost pantomime fashion.
“Oh I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, I wasn’t thinking” She stammered.
“Relax you silly girl, you’re not in trouble, but that counter-jinx is fifth year stuff, and to be honest with you, most of the current fifth years wouldn’t manage it with quite as much prowess.”
“Oh. Just something I read.”

Madam Soranus gave her a quizzical half smile and Poppy blushed sheepishly and turned to sit back down next to Skye. She went back to just watching Skye when she heard someone clear their throat by her ear.
“Thank you, I’m sorry about the other day, I saw you slip in all that water, but it did cheer me up a little”
The meek and mopey voice of Myrtle Warren was unmistakable, and without knowing what else to say Poppy just gestured for her to sit.
“Was it Olive, that you know” Poppy gestured vaguely at Myrtles legs, which were still twitching a little.
“No. It was those awful Slytherins, that Riddle and all his little friends.” Myrtle sighed.
“You should tell Headmaster Dippett, they can’t get away with that”
“I’ve tried, but he’s had me marked as an ‘attention seeker’ since my first day here” Myrtle did those little air quotation marks as she spoke.
“Professor Dumbledore then, I’m sure he could help.”
Myrtle shrugged, mumbling about his lack of authority.
“Myrtle… How many times has this happened.”
But Myrtle was done talking, she just smiled sadly, nodded her head at Poppy and slunked out of the Hospital Wing, a leg twitch almost sending her stumbling down the steps.

---

She recounted the whole thing to Florean, who seemed half interested, and much more excited about something a third year Hufflepuff had let slip in exchange for a chocolate flavoured, never-melt ice cream, Florean’s latest development in his ice cream making.

To be fair to him, the secret door to the castle kitchens was a very good find, and a treacle tart went down more than nicely sitting on the plush blue velvet sofas in the common room. She made a mental note to pick something up for Myrtle the next time she was down there. Everyone had the poor girl down for a sad doom and gloom type of person, but this was hardly her fault. She went up to bed early that night, but spent the whole night laying on her back, staring at the charmed twinkling stars on the underside of her four poster.

Poppy was still exhausted by morning, and almost fell asleep in her porridge. She struggled through the morning, and by lunch time she was a little bit more awake. After lunch she had herbology, and at the end of the lesson Professor Beery pulled her aside to check on her. She explained how she couldn’t sleep, and Beery reminded her that his office was always open, and that he lived on site, and he had a rather extensive hot chocolate collection. Poppy smiled at him, then, as he was letting her know, for a third time, that she could always talk to him, a rowdy pack of Gryffindor boys ran past the greenhouses, attempting to hex each other, and narrowly missing Professor Beery’s prized snarling hedgerows. He moved his head to indicate that he had to go, and went running across the front lawn after the boys. She gathered up her things into her little brown satchel, which had been her father’s, and thought of her family and home for the first time since she had started Hogwarts.

She received letters from her mother, and one scrawled one from her cousins, and they all seemed well. But she knew both the muggle and wizarding war still raged on, and that it was likely her mother was still a very busy woman. The tall third year, Rubeus, she thought, remembering her name, walked in then. She smiled at him, and he nodded his head politely, indicating that he didn't mind her staying. She left anyway, watching as he starting taking cuttings of bushy spider plants and placing them into his pockets.

---

She dragged herself through potions, and then stumbled to her dormitory, deciding to skip out on study hall, and visiting Skye, in exchange for a late afternoon nap. She woke some time later, her pyjama bottoms hitched up past her knees, her hair wild and tangled, and her bed covers somehow strewn across the floor. The others were asleep, and she tiptoed out, Fariha Patel stirred slightly, smiling to herself before dozing off again.

Poppy tiptoed out and made her way to the dormitory, to her luck, she still had fifteen minutes before curfew, which was just enough time to quickly stop off and see Skye. She hurried through the corridors, she still couldn’t go past that hallway, and had just consigned herself to take the long way round for the rest of her time at the school.

Madam Soranus tapped her watch as she walked in, indicating that she didn’t have very long. Poppy livened up the flowers in the vase by Skye’s bed, using a spell Beery had shown her after another of Florean’s cultivation tasks had failed. She was about to stand up and leave again when hushed voices and hurried footsteps from the corridor alerted her to stay put. Professor Dumbledore hurried in, closely followed by Beery and Slughorn, who was floating a stretcher above the ground.
“Another?” Whispered Soranus. “This is hardly a coincidence”
“Quite,” replied Dumbledore “I'd better fill in Dippet, Herbert, perhaps you could escort Miss Pomfrey back to her dormitory”
He had turned his head to look at her and her cheeks flushed. Beery nodded and she followed him quietly out the Hospital Wing.

“Perhaps a hot chocolate? I know I need one.”
Poppy nodded quietly, but as she realised which way they were heading, she drew back more and more. She stopped dead just short of the turning and her feet wouldn’t let her move any further forward. Beery turned to look at her.
“Ah, oh dear Poppy, you could have told me.”
He turned the corner, then poked his head round, as if to tell her it was okay, still her feet would not move. The image of Skye crumpled on the floor burned into her mind.
“Perhaps tonight isn’t the best time, but you can’t carry on avoiding this forever”
She nodded quietly, and, after taking three extra flights of stairs, found herself sat in one of Beery’s armchairs, with a bright yellow blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and a steaming mug of hot chocolate in her hands

Chapter Text

Poppy received a letter, by owl, two days after her most recent ordeal. A letter from her mother. It read ‘do not come home for Christmas, I’m working, and rations are scarce. You’ll have a better time at Hogwarts. Mum x’
She sighed and folded the letter, making a mental note to add herself to the rather short list of students staying for Christmas. Florean read the letter over her shoulder, and immediately offered for her to stay with his family. She declined politely, indicating that they should get back to their game of gob stones, which she was sorely losing. It wasn’t so much that Florean was better than her at the game, just that he had a knack for distracting her with useless facts about them. Luckily she was good at dodging the little pellets of putrid liquid that so frequently came her way. Their game was interrupted by a loud noise from the Gryffindor table, one of the many red-headed Weasley had managed to set fire to one of the many benches that spanned the great hall. She sighed as she watched professor Dumbledore douse a large amount of water over the table and the boy, the latter of which she assumed had been no accident.

Having somehow lost another game, a satisfied gobstone sent a glob of liquid straight into her ear. Despite its featureless appearance she could have sworn it was smirking at her triumphantly. Florean had clearly had enough of their game too and they set off down to the lake. It was the last evening before the Christmas break and the air was bitterly cold. A thin layer of snow was sprinkled as far as she could see and Florean had almost slipped on about ten different patches of ice. In fact the lake had frozen over around the edges, and the whole scene was much more barren than the luscious green scenery which had greeted them when they first arrived in September.

They sat there, on the frosted grass for a moment. And then Florean broke that moment by lobbing a snowball straight at her. She squealed, and had already sent a counter strike as the cold water trickled down her neck. Before long it seemed half the castle had joined the jolly fray, and everyone almost forgot about the petrifyings and the war. Poppy was sprinting away from a rather large snowball, aimed at her by a particularly burly Hufflepuff when she skidded and slipped over onto her back. This sent both her and Florean into a fit of giggles so raucous they were still chuckling away in the common room way after dark.

---

Poppy realised very quickly just how little students had remained for the holidays. She supposed that Hogwarts probably didn’t seem as safe as it used to nowadays. Skye had been moved to St. Mungo’s over Christmas, so her parents could visit her under the supervision of the muggle escort team. This meant that Poppy had absolutely nothing to do. At breakfast that morning there had been two other Ravenclaws, both 7th years and already quizzing each other over their breakfast. Aside from them there was a small gathering of Hufflepuffs, and both Rubeus Hagrid and Tom Riddle held the solo spots on their respective house tables.

She wandered down to the greenhouses after a lazy morning reading. She and Florean had been given a plant to cultivate as their latest homework. In fairness to him, Florean had offered to help, but given his track record she knew she wouldn’t have seen it again had he taken it with him over Christmas. They were supposed to guess what they were growing by the end of their project but Poppy could already tell by the shape of its wrinkly bulb that it was a mandrake. According to the Hogwarts curriculum, a document which, aside from the Professors, had only ever been read cover to cover by Poppy, dealing with mandrakes was a second year task. It made sense, however, that Beery would be giving them this particular task, given the recent circumstances.

---

She spent the rest of her week split between the Ravenclaw common room, the library and the greenhouse. Avoiding the near-empty great hall at all costs, and utilising Florean's secret kitchen cheats to sustain herself.

On Christmas morning, three parcels lay at the end of her bed, and a thin envelope. The first parcel was a heavy medical textbook, with ‘mum x’ attached with a label. She smiled, mostly glad to have something new to read. She had finished her holiday homework already, and was in desperate need of something to keep her busy. The second parcel contained a neatly wrapped wedge of unmelting-ice cream, which Poppy would later discover was roast turkey flavoured, which surprisingly didn’t taste half bad. The final parcel was smaller, and she didn’t need to read the label to know who the hot chocolate powder was from.

She walked down the spiral staircase to an empty common room and carefully opened the envelope with the silver letter opener which lay on the mantelpiece of the fireplace. She half-froze as she pried the letter out of its casing, the unmistakable swirling letters staring back at her.

‘My Darling Poppy,
I was so pleased to hear you were accepted into Hogwarts. And a Ravenclaw too, I couldn't be prouder. I have been reassigned by the Ministry to America, I suppose they weren’t too happy having me fight in the muggle war. I visited your mother and cousins last week. They are doing well.
Merry Christmas.
Much love,
Dad ‘

She read the letter again, and again, until she could recite it from memory. It was short, and it was choppy, but she hadn’t ever expected to hear from him again. She was woken from her trance by the seventh years, inviting her to walk with them to Christmas lunch.

---

The great hall had been rearranged into one table, sitting in the middle of the room, the rest of them pushed back against either wall. The teachers and students that remained all listened to one of Dippett’s notoriously drawn out Christmas speeches, and every single one of them tried to seem vaguely interested whilst willing the food to appear on the table. It was worth the wait however, Poppy half thought the house elves must not have been told the small number of them present at the table. One goose and one turkey took pride of place at either end of the table and reems of potatoes, stuffing and veg littered the table. Everyone seemed to make it their mission to fill themselves with as much as they could, and even the mountain of mince pies, Christmas pudding and chocolate log was more than cleared.

Poppy slogged back to her dormitory slowly, already daydreaming of the absolute food coma she was about to slip into. She rounded a corner and saw Rubeus, hunkered down in a window and looking worried. She walked over to him quizzically, wondering if all the food had got to him, and saw the thing he was cradling in his arms. It was almost surreal, seeing his big hairy hands clutching an equally big and hairy spider as if it were a tiny puppy. She could see one of its eight long legs was awkwardly bent.
‘Oh, er ‘ello there.’ Hagrid mumbled, clearly trying to hide the spider behind his back.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell.’
They stood there awkwardly for a moment.
‘Do you want me to have a look at him? I’ve never worked with a spider before but it can’t be much different from an owl's
He nodded and held out the hairy thing for her to look at. She almost recoiled, but reminded herself that it was no different to any other animal. In fact, spiders probably deserved extra care, given the bad rep they held. It reminded her of an owl’s broken wing, and she hoped the spell would be the same.

She was right of course, and a smile and a merry Christmas for Hagrid gave her the cue to finally crash on her bed, and dream of mince pies shaped like spiders.

Chapter Text

Poppy spent the tail end of the Christmas break in the library, mostly trying to make sense of a particularly confusing diagram in her new textbook. It was a muggle textbook, but wizards and muggles all had the same biology, a fact many people seemed to forget.

“What’ya looking at?” A quizzical voice came from over her shoulder.
Poppy jumped so hard she dropped the heavy textbook onto her feet and winced. One of the Hufflepuffs had apparently been hovering over her shoulder for some time.
“Oops, sorry. I think I have a habit of accidently sneaking up on people.”
“You don’t say.”
“Here, let me.”, the rather small looking Hufflepuff managed to pick up the textbook with surprising ease and balanced it precariously on the side table. “Pear drop?”
Poppy nodded, realising she hadn’t eaten for some hours.
“I’m Ally by the way, well actually it’s Allyra, but everyone calls me Ally for some reason. Sorry, I talk too much. Who are you? Wait no I think that was rude, possibly? What’s your name?”
“Poppy, though it isn’t short for anything.”
Ally plonked herself down next to Poppy and thrust the bag of pear drops at her.
“Here, have another, my mum thinks I should cut down on these anyway” She patted her slightly soft stomach as if that was meant to be any indication as to why.

And, as it was, Poppy and this round featured curly-haired smiley girl started an unlikely friendship. The last days of Christmas went by a little quicker with Ally sat next to her, peering at her text book and asking questions after question. Many would have found her innately quizzical nature annoying but Poppy actually found that it helped her tremendously in assessing her own understanding of something. At this rate, both of them would be proficient in every part of anatomy by the Spring.

On the last day, before the rest of the students once again cluttered up the castle corridors, they collectively decided to give the books a break. With not much else to do other than the library Poppy showed her around the greenhouses. Despite being a first year who also attended the usual amount of lessons, Ally had a surprising penchant for being completely oblivious to everything around her. And was amazed to see the bouncing bulbs dancing around on a tray, despite having been in a string of lessons about potting them just weeks prior. Poppy secretly suspected that the ditziness was at least in part an act. The surface level naivety allowed Ally an uncanny ability to find joy in just about anything you sent her way.

It was in the greenhouse in fact, that Poppy learnt an incredibly valuable lesson about Hufflepuffs, and about Ally. It was as if the universe had decided that she had been enjoying herself for far too long. Just as they were leaving the greenhouse, what seemed like every single Slytherin she had ever laid eyes on rounded the corner, they had obviously arrived home early from the holidays. Orion and Walburga stood side by side, a scowl and a new shiny ring sitting perfectly on her ring finger. Next to them stood, another member of the formidable Black family, the Carrow sisters and a smattering of other menacing looking greasy haired lackeys. And of course, heading the charge, the perfect-hair, perfect-smile Tom Riddle.

Poppy literally deflated, and felt herself sinking closer to the floor as she attempted to make herself as small and unthreatening as possible. If she was lucky she could get away with a few harsh insults and a mild hex.
“Well, what have we got here? A half-blood, and a mud blood.” Riddle effectively spat the words at Ally. Poppy eyeballed her, and gave her a look she hoped said ‘keep quiet and accept it’. Unfortunately for Poppy, it appeared that she wasn’t fluent in subtle looks and before she knew it, Ally had sent a badly aimed jinx directly into the pack of Slytherins.

Poppy cursed, she wasn’t one for swearing but ‘ah shit’ seemed to be the only appropriate response she could think of. She sized up the pack of Slytherins, which had seemingly gotten bigger since the last time she checked. It took less than a second for Poppy to consider her options and yelled “Lumos Maxima!’ , pointing her wand in their general direction, and using the temporary flash of blinding white light to grab onto Ally’s arm and drag her through the courtyard and into the first narrow stairwell she could find.

“What in Merlin’s name were you thinking!” Poppy huffed, half angry, half in awe of the girl looking back at her. They were both most definitely on the Slytherin’s radar now, and Poppy’s efforts at avoiding them for the whole of the first term were already rapidly fading. With no reply from the slightly stunned Ally, her hair frizzy from running, Poppy continued.
“Are you sure you aren’t a Gryffindor? That was the kind of stupid thing you’d see Prewett doing.”
With still no reply Poppy just pulled Ally into a tight hug, and mumbled ‘Thank you anyway’ into her ear. Ally had a habit of carrying a small yellow stuffed bunny around in her pocket, and Poppy had begun to notice she would pull it out and give it a squeeze whenever she was tense. The poor rabbit looked as if it would suffocate at this exact moment in time.

---

Florean arrived that very afternoon, and Poppy introduced him to Ally, and recounted everything that had happened whilst he’d been gone. Of course the pair of them immediately got along, and Florean had already earmarked her for flavour tasting by the time they had finished their dinner.

---

The rest of January went by quickly, the Professors deciding that a two and a half week break gave them cause to give them enough homework to cover at least twice that length of time. The professors also seemed somewhat relieved, it had been over two months since the last petrifying, and though they were no closer to discovering how exactly it had happened, they were all secretly hoping it had stopped on its own.

Poppy found herself heading into the last week of February all too soon and wondered just where the time had got to. She, Florean and Ally had become a tight trio, and between them had the combined knowledge of the rest of the year group, with Ally acting as a gentle buffer, preventing them slipping into the complete nerd category. Poppy had even found herself taking a cut of Florean’s ever popular homework when Professor Binns set a seemingly impossible 25" essay on the history of Gringotts bank. The old fellow was seemingly unaware that his students had any other class besides his own, and had the tendency to make most in his class fall half asleep as he talked.

Ally had also introduced the Ravenclaw pair to a previously untapped aspect of Hogwarts life. Quidditch. Poppy had little interest in people flying around purposefully trying to injure each other and throw balls through hoops. But Florean and Ally seemed to enjoy it immensely, so she tolerated the games she suddenly found herself attending every other weekend.

As for the Slytherin's, the three of them steered well clear, which was made all the easier after Poppy had obtained a copy of Tom Riddles class time table, by means she was not proud of, and refused to tell either Florean or Ally about. The only tricky point was when the three of them had to get from potions to defence against the dark arts, at the same time Riddle needed to be in his anrithmency studies. The discovery of a small passageway hidden behind a tapestry solved this dilemma.

Chapter Text

Just as everything seemed to be settling down, another incident occurred. It was almost as if whatever it was was waiting, and lulling everyone into a false sense of cozy security. It was the first incident that Poppy hadn’t been at least somewhat involved in, and she only found out about it a few days later. A pattern was emerging, the victims all being muggleborns, and none of them being from Slytherin.

Some students were being taken out of Hogwarts, but not many. Most muggleborns didn’t want to worry their parents. But the teachers were talking, and there were mutterings about the future of Hogwarts across the whole school. It seemed to be one of the few topics of conversation everyone agreed on. No one wanted Hogwarts to close. Least of all Ally, who, Poppy discovered, lived with just her mum, who, as a secretary at a low level firm, wasn’t exactly rolling in it. Ally was at Hogwarts on a charitable scholarship which meant that her mother was spending a lot less money. But between the three of them they decided not to discuss it any further.

----

It was after an unusually boring double herbology lesson that Professor Beery approached the trio with a proposition. He looked first to Ally.
“You are failing Herbology, which is a shame but I know you aren’t completely incapable. If you help me out I’ll bump up your scores. As for you Poppy, I hope you will help me purely on your love for herbology. And Mr Fortescue, the three of you seem to be inseparable, so you might as well tag along.”

So there they were, in the greenhouses after curfew, cultivating mandrakes and reading up on how to prepare a cure for petrification. They had been the ideal candidates, since the older years were busy with exams, and frankly no one else had seemed interested. Poppy had somehow convinced Myrtle to help out, who was also dangerously close to failing herbology, and the four of them spent almost every evening out in the greenhouses. This particular evening they were repotting the newly adolescent mandrakes and by the end, despite the earmuffs all of their ears were ringing.

As they were walking back, Myrtle stopped dead, and announced that she had left her wand behind. Poppy volunteered to go back with her, and they trudged back out into the brisk March evening. It was dark out but the lights shining out of the castle windows was enough to see by, and they got back to the greenhouses without incident.

Poppy could see a faint wand light coming from the far corner of the smallest greenhouse, she assumed Beery must still be working, and they walked in. Instead, they saw a familiar, dark haired student, pulling the mandrakes out of their pots at random, spraying soil across the greenhouse floor and causing an almighty uproar from the squealing mandrakes. Poppy was lucky she'd kept her earmuffs on to fight against the cold. Myrtle hadn’t been so fortunate. The noise of her dropping to the floor was enough for Riddle to hear, and he whipped round. He had a crazed look in his eyes, more reminiscent of a wild animal than a human being. She instinctively stepped back a few paces, hoping by some weird miracle that she had suddenly turned invisible, or into a plant, she wasn't fussy. Alas, no sudden change in appearance had occurred and Riddle was now staring right at her, his eyes boring so menacingly she could have sworn he was searching about for her soul. He stalked forward and grabbed her wrist tightly, Poppy closed her eyes and braced for some kind of horrible pain. He squeezed her wrist so hard she thought it would snap in two, he leaned in, whispering a horrible, snyde voice right into her ear.
“No one will believe you.”
And he stalked out, carefully studying Myrtle’s face as he stepped over her, as if he needed to describe her in detail to someone later. No doubt another of his Slytherin lackies. Poppy rubbed her wrist gently, and set about repotting the mandrakes, waiting for Myrtle to wake up. He was right of course, no one would believe her over the perfect model of a student, a prefect and a shoe-in for head boy, she was on her own. Aside from Beery, he seemed to trust her outright, but that wouldn’t do any good. He had no particular power, aside from issuing a detention, but she doubted that would solve anything.

Poppy was almost certain of a hunch she had had all along, that Riddle was behind the whole thing. It was hardly implausible. She now knew that it couldn't be a simple spell causing all this trouble, otherwise he would have petrified her and gone on his merry way. Unfortunately for Poppy, this meant she had just secured herself the number one spot on Riddle’s watchlist. Which by all accounts wasn’t a good place to be. The walk back from the greenhouses was silent, and Myrtle was covered almost head to to in soil, thanks to Riddle’s haphazard efforts and her fall.

----

The Ravenclaw washrooms were completely empty. Each cubicle housed a primitive shower head, and a contrastingly elegant bath. Poppy stood outside one such cubicle and waited for Myrtle to clean herself up. She watched as the steam rose up to the high, deep blue ceiling and spread across it like a low-density blanket. Poppy was dressed for the night air and had to remove her scarf and hat as she stood there, the whole room slowly heating up. Myrtle stepped out, a towel wrapped around her, and hair hanging limply on her shoulders. When it was out of its usual pigtails, it was actually quite beautiful, a sleek and shiny black that came just past her shoulders.

Poppy turned her back as Myrtle changed, and they both headed up to bed, exhausted and shaken. It took her far too long to fall asleep, and she once again found herself staring up at the curtain on her four poster. Surprisingly, however, it wasn’t Riddle who occupied her mind that evening.

Chapter Text

Poppy, Florean, Ally and Myrtle had just spent some considerable hours in he library going over a particularly confusing potions essay. Of course Myrtle had done this already, but she had spent the time trying to see if she could find her copy of said essay in her stack of mismanaged first year work. Since she had begun spending time with the group in the greenhouses, they had formed a solid quartet, and the infamous tantrums had all but ceased.
“It’s impossible, I don’t even understand the question, let alone writing 10” about it.”

They finally cobbled together three essays that looked just about different enough to not be suspicious and that sounded as if they understood the topic being discussed (they did not). As they were walking back to the Ravenclaw common room they began to pick up mutterings. Another petrifying. It had been just three weeks since the previous one, and you could almost reach out and grab the tension in the air. They quickly diverted towards the kitchens. The Hufflepuff common room was the only one which freely allowed entry to students with other houses, and they needed a full conversational debrief after this news, Ally included. The Hufflepuff common room was a wonderfully cosy place. The whole thing was reminiscent of a badgers burrow, with rounded, soft brown ceilings, and a number of plants decorating every crevice. The plant aspect could have been the input of Professor Beery, and the urns of hot chocolate sitting in the centre of the cavernous room certainly bore his marks.

They each settled into the soft yellow sofas, positioned in a huge semi-circle around the fireplace. The Hufflepuff common room was by far the largest of the four, and it certainly felt less clinical and studious than its Ravenclaw counterpart. They sat there and discussed the situation, on the walk down to the common rooms they had managed to piece together all the information. A second year, Humphrey Holloway, a Muggle born, had been found at the top of the astronomy tower, still peering through one of the smaller portable telescopes.
“It has to be Riddle.”
“It can’t be, I heard Ogg, the groundskeeper talking, apparently he was with Professor Slughorn all evening.”
Before they knew it, almost the entire Hufflepuff common room seemed to be discussing their theories along with them. In fact, it was Pomona Sprout who brought up the most interesting topic of all.
“Have none of you read Hogwarts: A History. What about the Chamber of Secrets?”

Of course Poppy had read Hogwarts: A History, she had read it at age nine, and then again just before arriving at Hogwarts. It was described as a secret chamber, that only a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin could open, the contents within having the ability to ‘purify the sanctity of Hogwarts, and the students it educates’ But she had clean forgotten about the Chamber of Secrets, dismissing it as fictional tale, written by purists who wanted to dissuade muggle borns and half bloods from ever stepping foot in Hogwarts. And, even if the Chamber really was real, it still left Riddle as the number one suspect, if anyone was directly related to Salazar, it would be him. Almost everyone knew he could speak parseltongue, it was how he had aced his second year Care of Magical Creatures exam after all.

----

They called it a day just before curfew hit, and left Ally animatedly discussing theories with her fellow Hufflepuffs, they had begun to slip into the realm of complete absurdity, with one particularly over excited student suggesting that they were all suffering from collective hysteria, and that no one had been petrified. She shook her head as she climbed back out of the barrel that concealed the entrance to the common rooms, and trudged back along the corridor.

They made a quick stop by the kitchens, Florean began tickling the pear on the portrait, and then used the door handle that appeared to step into the kitchens. Florean had developed a kind of business deal with the elves, since first years weren’t allowed to visit Hogsmeade, he needed to collect his ice cream supplies from somewhere. This evening, however, they were after a particularly delicious looking treacle tart that Florean had exchanged for a healthy amount of ice cream earlier in the day. They carried the tray back up the stairs, hoping they didn’t have to explain their unusual luggage to any Professor doing a final sweep before curfew.

At the moving staircases they had to wait almost three full rotations before finally ending up on the right corridor. This put them dangerously close to being caught out of bed, and at the sound of a pair of shoes making their way around the corner the three of them broke out into a casual but speedy walk, which made them all look like they were in desperate need of the loo. Once they were safely in Poppy’s dorm room, the treacle tart was shared amongst them all, with the addition of her roommates, the tart didn’t stretch as far as initially though, but Poppy still had a healthy portion before getting into her pyjamas and slumping into her bed.

----

The next morning, Poppy found herself in a particularly dull History of Magic lesson, which they shared with the Gryffindors, who seemed equally as bored. Just as she found herself silently hoping the lesson would miraculously end forty minutes before it was meant too, Professor Dumbledore walked in, mumbled in Professor Binns’ ear, and then gestured to both her and Florean to follow him out of the classroom. He had a look in his eyes that told her it wasn’t good news, and their steady approach to the Hospital Wing simply confirmed that. Ally lay in the hospital bed next to Skye, her face fixed in a twisted sort of confusion, and both her arms stretched out. Poppy went over to her quickly,clasping her hand in her own and squeezing it tight. Professor Dumbledore was speaking to her, but she could not hear him over the roar of rage rushing through her ears. There was no doubt about it now. Riddle was responsible, and he would pay. She could already sense that sooner or later she would do something very rash, something which would pin her more as a Gryffindor than a Ravenclaw. Something bone dead stupid, but possibly a little bit brave.

Chapter Text

Poppy spent the whole of the next week, up in the library, researching. She skipped almost 20 hours of classes that week, and only stopped to sleep. She was simply waiting for the next time she came across Riddle. Of course she had spotted him, across the great hall during meals, but she couldn’t exactly stride up to him and start throwing jinxes around. She still went to help Beery in the greenhouses in the evening. The mandrakes were almost ready, but they wouldn’t be that much use if students were still being petrified seemingly every other day.

If she was being honest with herself the likelihood she would ever actually do anything to Riddle was incredibly slim, but she was just desperate to feel that she was doing something. None of the teachers seemed to even be investigating the pertrifyngs, most of them were either ignoring it entirely, or brushing off the subject with an offhand comment about mysterious illness and the like. The only Professor who truthfully answered any questions, in fact who answered them with enthusiasm, was Professor Slughorn. He was an unusual representation of a member of the Slytherin house. When someone said Slytherin to you, a picture of snarky grins, and slicked back hair and pure blood ideologies clouded the vision. But Slughorn, he seemed genuinely interested in helping others, and, even if it was clearly so he could claim an excellent level of bragging rights about any mildly famous, or infamous, student he had ever encountered, he still cared. In fact, it was about halfway through a particularly boring potions lesson, all theory, and therefore no potions or ‘wand waving’, as Slughorn described, was occurring, that the topic was finally breached.

An unknown Hufflepuff slowly raised their hand and suddenly the whole classroom was abuzz with conversation. There was an apparent divide in opinions and Slughorn began fielding the argument, as it was a professional political debate. All thought of writing was quickly abandoned, and the most meaningful conversation anyone had had in a long time about the entire situation was had. Despite appearances, Slughorn made it apparent that the professors were more worried than they were letting on. Another thing about Professor Slughorn was the amount of things he let slip that he definitely wasn’t meant to reveal.

----

As she headed down to dinner that evening, she found herself considering the fact that she could be wrong about Riddle. But only momentarily, even if he wasn’t the one actively going round and targeting muggle borns, there was no way he didn’t have some kind of influence over it. Tom Riddle had influence over most of the goings on at Hogwarts, thanks to Slughorn's inability not to share any fact he could about Tom ‘an exceptional student with an alarming amount of potential, and believe me I know about potential’ Riddle, Poppy had learnt that Riddle was already fairly well acting as head boy, which wasn’t as nearly as impressive as Slughorn thought it was, just scary. He had lots of people wrapped very tightly around his pale and unsettlingly long and slender fingers. These kinds of people were everywhere, on the muggle news, in both the daily prophet and the daily mail, and plastered on war propaganda posters around her hometown. And despite some being earmarked as ‘the enemy’ and some as ‘the leaders’, every single one of them was the same. Unfortunately for Poppy, most people didn’t see people in this light until it was far too late, and also unfortunately for Poppy, she had little influence on the level of trust people put in Riddle.

She made it to the great hall, and seated herself in her usual position between Florean and Myrtle. The two of them were discussing the possibility of a beef stew flavoured icecream, which reverted back to its original texture once in the mouth. Poppy almost argued that this would surely just be frozen stew rather than an ice cream, but she didn’t have the brain power to debate what constitutes ‘the definition of an ice cream’. Florean had recently dipped his toe into the prospect of savoury ice cream flavours, ‘a completely untapped market’ of ice creams. She found the whole idea of savoury ice cream a little strange, but people still willingly bought enough Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans to keep them on the shelves, so she supposed she had little knowledge of sweet-but-savoury consumerism.

After the conversation finally moved on from ice cream, it moved, as it often did, to whatever new topic that Florean had decided to hyper focus on in that week. Florean had exactly two hobbies, ice cream, and knowing an unsettling amount of facts about an incredibly niche, and entirely useless topic. This week, he had checked out a huge tome on Goblin uprisings from the library and had already read it cover to cover, even though it was only wednesday. The facts and speed reading ability alone were impressive enough. But the fact that if Poppy bought up this particular topic three months down the line he’d still be able to tell her exactly how Aethelred the Ugly had sent his fellow goblins on an attack mission, only to direct them to a completely different country than they had been aiming for was truly impressive. The only topic he never researched was anything healing based, he had explained that he already had his personal encyclopedia on that topic, and there was no need to bother himself learning it all.

----

After the feast, the three Ravenclaws found themselves walking back to the common room the long way round. They had somehow ended up in a head turning fit of giggles during the middle of dinner, and needed to cool themselves off before they could even think of settling into bed. They rounded a corner, not far from the Girl’s toilets on the second floor when they saw him. Riddle. In fact, it was the aforementioned bathroom that he ducked into, but, importantly to Poppy he was alone. All three of them made eye contact, in a split second decision to follow him. They crept into the bathroom after him, and he was stood, upright by the sinks. He clearly hadn’t been hit with a sudden need to wash his hands since he was standing by the tap that everyone knew didn’t work. Unfortunately for the group, he had heard them and whipped his head around so sharply that the average person would have given themselves a bad case of whiplash.

Poppy stepped back a couple feet, suddenly realising the sheer stupidity they had just committed. She looked at her fellow Ravenclaws and gave them the ‘run away, and hope he never sees us again’, which they did. Except Poppy. She found herself rooted to the spot, Myrtle and Florean already long gone down the corridor, in opposite directions, both assuming Poppy had gone with the other. She suddenly forgot everything she had ever read about magic. Riddle stalked towards her, sneering. She just hoped he would have the sense to just wipe her memories or something, in fact, she had wondered momentarily if this was exactly what he had done. She felt a considerable lack of bravery, and suddenly generated a new theory that all those petrifyings had just been out of pure terror. She doubted anyone wouldn’t feel very small and vulnerable after looking into his scarily snake-like black eyes. She thought back to the tale of Medusa, and wondered if Riddle possessed some kind of special curse, perhaps there was a whole army of snakes in his hair. If there were they had been slicked back so much by gel it would be a wonder if they hadn't suffocated. She was snapped out of her little reverie by a cracking of light, a stream trailing out of Riddle's wand. She dodged it just in time. Well, less dodged more slipped on the floor in panic and thudded on her arse just as the spell whipped past where she had been standing. She cast the only spell that she could remember in that moment.
‘Expelliarmus!’ she yelled.
She took the opportunity of Riddle’s stunned face that she had actually fought back, even if it was with a defensive spell, and began crawling down the corridor, her feet and brain not connecting to each other to allow the luxury of standing up and running away. Her skirt was slowly riding up her back and she wondered what she looked like from Riddle’s angle, her black tights slowly laddering at the knees, an unhelpful thought given her current situation, but she made a mental note not to wear a skirt if she ever found herself under attack. Not that she could particularly pan for that however. She realised that Riddle wasn’t actually sending a counter attack her way, and risked a glance over her shoulder. Mistake. He had just bent down to pick up his wand, which had flown further than Poppy had expected it to, but the calmness of Riddle's actions troubled her. He stood up slowly, and Poppy froze up again. Had anyone happened upon the pair of them in that moment, they wouldn’t have imagined what was genuinely happening, with Poppy still on her hands and knees and Riddle slowly ambling in her direction.

A spell finally came her way, she didn’t know the ins and outs of spell colours, but decided fairly quickly she didn’t want to get hit by any of them, least of all the angry red one that had landed half a pace short of her head, and left a huge scorch mark in the floor. Her legs found their footing then, and she managed to scramble to her feet, a spell hitting her in the back as she did so, and sending a shockwave not dissimilar to the feeling of accidentally touching an electric fence. Her adrenaline had finally mustered itself, and it was the only thing from stopping her reverting to her position on the floor. She sent a panicked jinx in Riddle’s general direction, which he defended too easily, but at least it stopped him firing spells at her long enough to run a few more paces towards the row of Professor’s offices that she knew were just down the stairs at the end of the corridor. Another scary looking spell grazed her ear, for all of the spells he had in his arsenal, Riddle definitely needed to practice his aim, or not, she would rather he didn’t if she was being honest.

She was finally hit by a particularly horrible feeling spell, her whole body ricocheting with the force of it, her body shaking in ripples from her right shoulder like the epicenter of an earthquake. She let herself crumple, and lay very very still, hoping that she could develop a sudden ability to either turn invisible or vanish into another, less scary universe. She curled herself small, thinking of hedgehogs all of a sudden, and wishing she had spikes. In fact, just about anything apart from the current state she was in would have satisfied Poppy. Another angry coloured spell struck her, Riddle’s aim was much better up close. She could only let out a little squeak, before her mind went completely blank.

----

She came to mere moments later, but was evidently out for enough time for Riddle to stalk away, muttering ‘You’ll pay, I’ll make sure of it' as he went. She reverted once again to crawling, or at the moment, dragging herself in a sort of army crawl whilst she waited for her legs to get with the program and wake up. Once they decided to join the rest of her again, she stumbled down the corridor, and towards the stairs. Her legs gave up on her again, and she ended up half rolling, half crawling down them. In any other situation she would have been beside herself with giggles over the way her legs and arms were flailing around. She felt very much like a ragdoll as she fell at a comical level of slow down the flights of steps. Eventually, she found herself in a neatly crumpled heap at the bottom of them, her skirt once again hitched up around her hips.

She looked up to see Professor Dumbledore peering down at her, momentarily bemused by the pile of girl on the floor in front of him, before realising something more serious had occurred than a simple misstep and tumble down the staircase. He muttered something under his breath whilst waving his wand, and Poppy momentarily braced herself, her body forgetting that not all spells equaled pain. When all that happened was her body lifting gently off the floor, and began floating towards the hospital wing (an incredibly uncanny feeling) with Dumbledore close behind, her body relaxed, and the adrenaline subsided, and the pain came flooding in.

Chapter Text

Poppy spent a week in the hospital wing. Unsurprisingly, no one aside from Professor Beery and Dumbledore (and the two Ravenclaws who had been with her to begin with) believed her. Tom Riddle was seemingly completely untouchable. After apologising more times than she could count for leaving her behind, including an abundance of apology ice creams, Florean animatedly told her how Riddle had been walking with a limp ever since the ordeal. This did make her smile a little, but she was more worried about the fact that there was still no one to stop him. She was sure it had something to do with that bathroom, why else would he have the need to visit the girls bathroom on the second floor? She said as much to Myrtle as she sat next to her bedside one afternoon. At this point all of the petrified students had been transferred to St Mungo’s, awaiting the almost mature mandrakes, which left the hospital wing almost completely empty.

Myrtle was nodding as Poppy detailed her theories, she had become less talkative since Poppy’s run-in with Riddle. At first she thought it had been a symptom of guilt for, albeit accidentally, leaving Poppy behind to fend for herself. However, the badly concealed bruise on her wrist, and the appearance that she had just stopped crying which she bore that afternoon suggested that was not the case. She tried to pry without causing too much distress, Myrtle was one of those people who could very easily withdraw from a conversation and put up a defensive wall.

After many carefully placed questions within a normal conversation about all the lessons she was missing, she had only managed to ascertain one thing: it wasn’t Riddle. She guessed it could be the second most malicious student Poppy knew of, a certain pious Gryffindor, Olive. Olive she could deal with, once she was out of the hospital wing, which, if Madame Soranus held her word, would be tomorrow evening. Poppy had to admit, after holding her own against Riddle she had grown a little bit of an ego, fuelled by a confidence, however, even without this she could probably resolve the Olive situation, if she was lucky she wouldn’t even have to raise her wand. As a general rule healers, much like muggles, were meant to ‘do no harm’, but sometimes that actually meant ‘don’t do harm for no reason, but, do a little harm, to avoid an even bigger harm’ or at least that was how Poppy interpreted it. She did hope that she could resolve it by talking to the right people, she still wanted to avoid wand waving if she had to, and the professors were a lot more likely to believe that Olive Hornby, a well known stuck up individual, was mean spirited over a perfect depiction of head boy material.

Myrtle eventually got up to leave, in order to head down to dinner. Poppy received hers on a plate, which included a selection of items, normally including a mysteriously flavoured ice cream, in a little tub, Florean must have used more than a few favours with the house elves. Her meal was delivered by one of the house elves, a particularly smiley elf called Pukwik. She had offered Pukwik an item of clothing more than once, just in case, but she had flatly refused. Poppy would test the ice cream first, and, if she didn’t like it, which was fairly common, since Florean was still obsessing over savoury ice cream, then she would hand the tub to Pukwik, who had only ever agreed with Poppy’s hatred over a particularly horrific pickled herring flavour. She braced herself, and popped the spoon into her mouth. A classic vanilla. It was more than just ‘classic’ vanilla though, that didn’t do it justice. She saw the hopeful look in Pukwik’s bulging eyes and passed the tub to her. The little house elf sidled off happily, smiling to herself as she left the hospital wing.

----

Florean came to see her as she was packing up and leaving, she didn’t mark the lack of Myrtle but knew she should check on her soon. Florean offered to carry her little bag back to the Ravenclaw common room, whilst she waited for Soranus to give her the final once over. She was given the all clear and she left hurriedly, eager, for once, to see the back of the pristine medical environment. She felt a little stiff but she’d been given more forced walks around the halls by Soranus than she’d probably normally do. She made a beeline for Professor Beery’s study, hoping to sort out the Olive problem before it got any more out of hand. A string of detentions would probably give her enough warning to back off. Beery was sat at his untidy desk in his office, he smiled as Poppy walked in and gestured for her to sit.
“It’s nice to see you up and at it. What can I do you for Mistress Pomfrey?” Beery smiled.
She tried to explain the Olive situation, and Beery was up and out of his office door, signed detention slip in hand before she could even finish her sentence.

As if the universe wasn’t allowing her any good moment without repercussions, a neatly folded envelope sat on her pillow, in the unmistakable spidery writing of Riddle. A final kick in the teeth, a warning for her to back right off, or possibly, simply an insult to her character. Officially, he wasn’t meant to issue detentions to those not in his house, but the official paper meant the detention was binding, Riddle got away with far too much. She sighed, dumping her pyjamas onto the bed, she was planning on washing the clinical smell of the hospital wing off of them, but the slip indicated she was needed, right now. So much for the continuous rest she had been advised. As detentions went it wasn’t the worst, reshelving library books for Madam Pince was practically at the bottom of hers and Florean’s list of worst detentions, a product of a particularly mind numbing study session. Florean seemed to be in detention every other week, but this was Poppy’s first, and she was determined it would also be her last.

----

As Poppy would discover, reshelving library books leapt significantly higher up the list when Olive Hornby was involved, only trumped by an evening Florean had spent grooming Bundiums, incredibly vile looking creatures which gave out a stench of death. Florean still wouldn’t tell her exactly what he had done to garner that particular cruel and unusual punishment, he had stank for days, and she had refused to sit anywhere near him for a week and a half. Walking into the library and seeing Olive’s scowling face made Poppy’s heart literally feel as if it had dropped al the way down through her feet and scuttled off to hide in a dark corner. She attempted to steer clear, and not engage, which was exceedingly difficult, since a whole group of sixth years had just returned seemingly every addition of every Arithmancy text book out there, which, inevitably, drew Poppy and Olive shoulder to shoulder in between two bookshelves, both with a towering stack of books.

Olive set right off into a mean spirited rant about Poppy, and Myrtle, and every person she had so much as glanced at in a kind way. Some Gryffindors could be notoriously nasty, the arrogance paired with the stupid bravery to say exactly what they thought could be a bad pairing with certain individuals. In an attempt at self-preservation, Poppy scurried off to suggest to Madam Pince that she could finish up, and Olive could go. Luckily, Pince was in a slightly less egregious than normal mood, and she just waved her hand. Olive stalked off with a glare of a thousand suns blasing out of her eyes, and Poppy turned to face the books that she very much wasn’t ‘nearly done with’.

----

Chapter Text

The second half of Poppy’s evening would be filled with events she could never quite describe to anyone, and could certainly never forget. Every detail was permanently etched into her memory, as if her hippocampus had etched every detail directly into the grey matter of her brain.

----

Poppy spent almost another hour shelving books, and reshelving all the ones that had been misplaced. By the time she was done it was well into the evening, and long after curfew. Madam Pince handed her an excuse slip, signed in her neat and spidery writing. Pince was young for a librarian, she was most likely fresh out of Hogwarts, but there was no denying that she held the very fear of god himself in a stare, a look that all librarians seemed to be gifted with once they took upon the position. She smiled at Pince and thanked her for the note, with as little as a curt nod in response. Despite the time Poppy wasn’t tired, in fact, marching around the library carrying heavy books all evening had done wonders in getting her to be riled up and not a bit sleepy. She elected to take the long route, going via the moving staircases and the professor’s offices.

Despite her note permissing her from being out after curfew, she shied away from the Prefect shaped shadow looming in the corridor to her left, any other prefect would have been no bother, but the shadow’s slicked smooth hair gave her at least a one in three chance she would bump into Riddle should she turn that particular corridor. She doubled back on herself and came to heads with a significantly more friendly face. Pomona gave her a confused look, before glancing over Poppy’s note and wishing her a good evening. She carried on, making her way down a side staircase and onto the second floor. A familiar feeling graced her feet as she felt her shoes plunge into water, at least fifteen or so centimeters deep, her socks were soaked through before she could step back onto the safety of the bottom step.

She waded as quickly as she could through the water, cursing herself for thinking a mere detention would solve the Olive problem. She was already planning exactly which jinx would suit her best, and the most crowded place she could perform it for maximum humiliation. She hoped Myrtle was still in a consolable state, if she had gotten back to flooding-the-bathroom level of meltdown then it may be incredibly difficult to talk her out of it. She watched as the water rippled and rushed down the stairs with every step closer to the bathroom door she took, at this point the water must have been seeping under all the doors of the Professor’s offices. Surely at least the late workers would surface from their dingy offices soon, if at least to prevent the wetting of their own socks. She stopped three paces short of the girl’s bathroom door, her brain registering something unusual she hadn’t picked up on until that moment.

Myrtle Warren, the notorious ‘wailing Warren’, ‘moaning Myrtle' and other similar names, was completely silent. The only noises in the corridor were that of the back ripple of the water where Poppy had waded through, and the faint gushing of taps coming from inside the bathroom. A cold dread filled her body, and her heart not only sank through her chest, but carried straight on down to the floor below. Panic flooded her body, causing her breath to hitch, her body to shake, and her thoughts to crumble. She felt a similar sensation to going a whole day and forgetting to eat, and hitting the point where the body had to remind itself that its blood sugar needed to be much higher than its current state. She forced herself to take just one more step, then another, and a final one to the bathroom door.

Myrtle Warren wasn’t crying because she had left, Poppy was sure of it, she’d let her feelings out, pulled herself together and gone back to the Ravenclaw common room. That was where Poppy would find her, she didn’t need to go into the bathroom, she just needed to go back to the common room and she would be safe, Myrtle would be sitting there, making a fuss over Poppy’s naive worries.
But her feet didn’t let her.
And her mind knew.
There was a reason Riddle had been heading away from this particular corridor, and there was a reason the corridor was so quiet. In fact, even the noises of the water, and the usual groans of the castle were gone. Poppy stood in a personal vacuum of silence, her ears rushing and her stomach sick.

She gave a gentle push on the door, the water sloshing angrily as she pried it open. It took her a moment to see her. Myrtle.

Laying face down in the water.

Her hair tangled and flayed about her head, floating a few inches off the slate bathroom floor.

There was no blood, no dramatic scene of a fight. Just a silent little girl. Face down in the water. A flash of Skye’s body flashed across her mind.

But Poppy knew this was no petrifying.

Myrtle’s limbs weren’t stiff and straight. Her hands cradled her face, and her knees were tucked into her chest, one lolling slightly to the side as a result of gravity. And she was face down in the water

She forced her feet forward, almost physically dragging them towards Myrtle, who was face down in the water.

She heard hurried footsteps coming up the stairs. She made it to Myrtle and sat beside her, she didn’t even notice as the cold water began to seep through her clothes and chill her to the bone.

She heaved Myrtle's head into her lap, her hair was surprisingly heavy, full of water as it was. She cradled her tightly in her arms, trying to ignore just how cold her skin was.

She looked down at Myrtle’s face, into her eyes. Her glasses still lay in the water beside them both, but her eyes. They were glassy and clouded over, staring straight through Poppy, and much beyond the ceiling.

What seemed like every Professor who had graced Hogwarts fine walls seemed to be standing around her. She didn’t know how long they had been there, or in fact how long she had been there, cradling Myrtle.

Their mouths were moving, but she couldn’t hear anything. She was still stuck in the vacuum of silence, the only thing passing her ears being the noise of her fingers gently raking through Myrtle's wet hair. A hand reached for her shoulder and she shrank away from it, further into Myrtle, and the flooded ground.

She blocked them out, blocked everything out. Her sole purpose was to hook very tightly to Myrtle. She couldn’t let go of her because then it would be real. Then it would be true, and nothing would be the same.

They must have been getting desperate, because she felt someone trying to pry her hands from Myrtle. She lashed out, her hand striking soft face, before returning to Myrtle’s cold, hard skin. Myrtle’s dead skin.

Her eyes. She wasn’t holding Myrtle anymore. Myrtle wasn't in the room anymore. This strange, lifesize model was all wrong. Her face was too grey, her eyes, and she had no glasses, surely the cruel master of this prank would have remembered her glasses.

But her glasses were there, they were lying in the water. Where Myrtle had been. Face down in the water.

She let go of the thing. The thing that wasn’t Myrtle, gently laying it to the ground, the dry ground, where there was no water.

She positioned the Myrtle doll face up, gently closing her eyes, and positioning her glasses back onto her face. It looked a little bit more like her now.

She sat back, onto her knees. She didn’t know what to do. She just watched as they lifted the thing that wasn’t Myrtle onto a fabric stretcher and took her away.

Poppy sank to the floor, clutching at her own robes in an attempt to find a source of comfort. She wove its fabric between her fingertips and squeezed tightly, the sensation of being held giving her brief respite.

She knew little else of what happened to her from that point.

She found herself staring blankly at the walls of the hospital wing over an hour later, her eyes sore, and the continuing plethora of Professors hurrying around.

She didn't look in the far corner, where the edge of her vision was creeping. Where she could see a sheet, and a figure underneath it.

Myrtle Warren had been laying face down in the water.

And Myrtle Warren had been dead.

Chapter Text

Poppy glared defiantly at Headmaster Dippett, his dingy office doing nothing but prove to her just how callow he really was. She was almost the only student currently still residing in Hogwarts walls. But she had the rage and the spite to fill the castle ten fold. He just couldn’t get it into his stupid, tiny brain that the culprit of Myrtle's murder was standing three feet across from her, acting out his best bemused look.

“I can assure you, Miss Pomfrey, that the culprit of Myrtle Warren’s death is-”
“-already known to us.” Poppy cut off Professor Dippett, he and most of the other professors had been spewing the same nonsense ever since the events of last week.
“But you're wrong, and you know it. Rubeus would never-” Poppy tried her best to stay calm as Riddle cut her off.
“Rubeus Hagrid didn’t intend for this to happen I’m sure, but his creature did, and Rubeus knew the dangers of keeping an acromantula captive” he spoke, in his slimy, yet raspy voice, in his usual tone which fell on borderline boredom and apathetic tedium.
“FUCK YOU! You know that's not true! You’re a psychotic, fucking murderer who has everyone wrapped around you’re bony fucking fingers!”
Poppy allowed Professor Dumbledore to drag her away by the elbow, and she glared directly into Riddle’s soulless, pitch black snake eyes all the way out.

----

She flat out ignored Professor Dumbledore, who was trying to explain the current situation to her yet again. She couldn’t recount how many times she’d done this circle by now. It would start by a professor prompting her to pack her things to go home for the Summer, followed by a string of angry (often curse) words, followed by a visit to Dippet, who would nearly always have Riddle by his side, followed by more swearing, and then finally either Dumbledore or Beery would drag her away to calm down.

It had been over a month since she had found Myrtle, lying face down in the water. A blurry month of rage and adults blatantly lying to her. She could see that almost all of the Professors didn’t truly believe Rubeus and his spider were responsible, save for Dippett, who wholeheartedly believed that he was, and Dumbledore and Beery who wholeheartedly believed a certain slimy Prefect may have had something to do with the whole affair after all. Professor Dumbledore had wrongly taken the angle that Poppy was upset that Hagrid had been blamed, which of course she was, but that wasn’t the point. He reassured her, again, that Hagrid, whilst non-negotiably expelled from Hogwarts, had already been offered a permanent position as assistant groundskeeper. He seemed to be entirely ignorant to, or deliberately ignore, the real crux of the matter, something that only Beery could see.

It was such an event, after having been allowed to go on her longest rant yet (almost thirty minutes), before finally being pulled away, that Poppy found herself in Beery’s office, for the third time that week.
“Poppy, in three days Hogwarts will officially be closed for the Summer.” Beery started. He cut her off before she even spoke “I know ‘you’re not going anywhere until something is done’ but you can’t stay any longer than that.” He used little air quotes when repeating the phrase that she had so often uttered, and somehow it hadn’t come across as patronising.
“You have to see that you aren’t, and you won’t be, getting anywhere with this. I know you mean well, and I believe you. But the more times you repeat this repetitive spiral, and the more angry you get, the less likely you are to be believed.”

It made sense, what Professor Beery was saying, she had been angry at everyone for everything for so long, and it was exhausting. Ally and Skye (who had been revived by Beery’s newly matured mandrakes just a few days after Myrtle had died) had stuck by her for the first week, before giving in and heading home to their respective families. Florean had stuck it out for much longer, but even he had returned home almost a week ago. She stood there, in complete silence, mulling over Beery’s words, and the situation she found herself in.

She was silent for another few moments, before bursting into tears. Noisy, wailing tears, not the silent grief stricken type, but frustrated, angry tears. Beery’s face melted into sympathy, squashing his features into a concerned blob.

----

Poppy finally managed to get her over-full trunk closed, it had taken her sitting on it, and a stack of books balanced on her lap to allow it to be squashed down all the way. She was pretty much the last student left who hadn't yet gone for the Summer, almost all of the students had left on the carriages on the official last day, and even the stragglers had since departed. It suddenly dawned on her that she hadn’t been home for almost eleven months. She had no idea what she would be going home to, her cousins would no doubt have grown taller yet again, and her mother was most likely still busy with work. She had written and received letters, but they were worldly different from communicating face-to-face.

Just as she was about to start the walk into Hogsmeade and towards the train station, Beery came strolling in, his face looked odd, he was badly hiding a sort of conflicting grin. She followed him down the corridors as he had asked. As she approached she realised where she was being taken and she stopped dead.

“No. I’m not going in there. Ever.”
“Please, trust me?”

And she did, she wasn't sure why, perhaps the curiosity of that grin, which he had now given up concealing had gotten the better of her. She forced herself forwards, forced herself through the moment where she entered the doorway, and her chest collapsed in on itself and started trying to suffocate itself.

Her breath then stopped for an entirely different reason.

There, standing directly in front of her, the grey-toned, mildly unsettling, transparent face of Myrtle Warren.

Chapter Text

Poppy spent most of her first Hogwarts summer holidays reading books (both Muggle and magical) and taking care of her cousins. Whilst her year at Hogwarts had been extremely eventful, the day she got home in late July had felt the same as the day she had left in early September. Her mother was not home, and the house elf carried her things to her room. She found Thomas sitting in the attic, playing with Dinky cars, the only change she could perceive in the two boys was the inches that had been added to their height.

She was only two years older than Thomas, and had three on Henry, but both had almost immediately latched on to her vaguely maternal position. She tried to fulfill the role as best she could, permitting them to go out on the street to play with their friends, and scolding them if they were out too long, but her heart wasn’t truly in it. As much as Poppy felt for the boys, and their unfortunate predicament, her heart really belonged at Hogwarts. She was literally counting down the days to the beginning of her second year.

---

On the morning of t-minus 8 days, her list of items arrived via owl. The boys had both been tremendously excited by the appearance of an owl on their window ledge in broad daylight, despite knowing that this was how witches and wizards received their post. Thomas had even fetched his boyscout binoculars (a programme Poppy had enrolled her cousins into over the summer) to give the owl a good look as it flew away. They poured over the letter, tracing intricate red wax-seal and spidery handwriting of the address. Poppy shooed them both away and slipped the letter from the envelope. It contained a list of books and supplies, some of which she already had lying around, and some she would need to purchase. Poppy had also followed quickly behind her cousin's determination to grow, and had grown at least an inch and a half over the last six weeks. This would mean a new robe, and a trip into Diagon Alley.

---

When her mother came home late that evening, long after the boys had gone to bed, Poppy mentioned the letter to her. She looked over it quickly, nodded, and told Poppy she would be more than fine to attend Diagon Alley unaccompanied. Before Poppy could even broach the subject of spending some time with her, her mother had already begun a forwarding letter to the floo station, and informed them of Poppy’s arrival. She spoke to Poppy as she was scrawling
“9:15 tomorrow. Make sure you’re on time, I’d imagine there won’t be a lot of scope for missing your slot. Lots of students this time of year.” Her mother spoke, and then turned and headed upstairs.
Poppy slumped in her chair and considered the fact that that was probably the longest sentence her mother had said to her the whole summer.

---

The next morning, at approximately 8:55, Poppy was standing at the fireplace in their living room, wearing her robes and holding a bag with more than enough galleons to cover the items on the list. She was early, as she often was. Poppy was peering at the clock when Thomas and Henry appeared in the doorway. The looks on their faces were so curious, and just sad enough that Poppy folded before they even opened their mouths with their request. She was already digging out an old set of her robes for each of them. Thomas's was far too short on the arms, and Henry’s dragged on the floor a little, but they worked as well as they needed to.

Muggle-borns weren’t supposed to travel to Diagon Alley until their Hogwarts letter arrived. At least Poppy supposed this was the case, as muggle-borns didn't usually know that Diagon Alley even existed. She supposed that, in a way, her cousins were technically her adopted brothers, but just to be sure she briefed them both on this fact. They had more than enough knowledge of the magical world to not appear out of place as children of magical parents, but still she knew she was definitely breaking some kind of rule, if only her mothers.

She described clearly exactly what to do and say, stressing the importance of pronunciation. She had read of one-to-many mishaps with floo pronunciation, and Diagon Alley was one of the most common of those. She went through first, and the boys quickly followed. She was met by a floo guard tutting and tapping his watch, clearly showing it to be almost half past nine. She apologised, quickly told him their return time, and hurried the boys out of the smoky building and onto the streets of Diagon Alley.

---

She let the boys watch a few witches and wizards entering through the Leaky Cauldron’s entrance. It was a busy time of year and the wall barely had time to close itself off again before the next set of people would open it back again and come through. The first stop was nothing to do with her shopping list, and, to the excitement of the boys involved entering the Fortescue ice cream parlour. The man behind the counter looked as Florean did, if he had a beard and was more than a few years older. The boys had already rushed off to press their faces into the rows-upon-rows of flavours, much to the bemusement of the man behind the counter. Just then, Florean stepped out from the back with a huge tub of a shocking-pink ice-cream and a cheesy grin.
“Look. Pa. I think it actually worked this time!” Florean beamed, before the pink substance promptly made a rumbling sound, and then exploded all over Florean’s face, the floor, and the wall behind him. The man, who was presumably Florean’s father idly waved his wand, giving a little sigh at the same time, the ice cream promptly vanished and Poppy could tell this wasn’t the first time that had happened this summer.

Unperturbed, Florean was just about to head into the back room again, when he spotted her and came bounding over.
“Poppy, I didn’t know you would be coming.” He beamed.
“It was short notice I guess.” She replied.
Her cousins had rejoined her again, excitedly discussing exactly which flavour they wanted. Poppy could see the gears turning in Florean’s head so she intervened.
“These are my younger brothers Thomas, and Henry.” She said, mostly to Florean’s father, whilst simultaneously giving Florean her best ‘I know you know who they are, but, please, keep quiet’. He appeared to get the message and launched into a discussion with the boys about their ice cream selection. By the time Florean was done with them, both boys had huge teetering bowls of just about every ice cream flavour you could think of. Thankfully, Florean’s savoury inventions didn’t appear to have made it to the shop yet. Poppy settled on a small vanilla cone, and thought she could see Florean physically recoil in disgust at such a basic choice. She fumbled in her bag for some coins but Florean’s father waved her away.
“A friend of one Fortescue is a friend of all Fortescue’s.”

---

After waiting for the boys to finish their ice creams, or as much of it as they could cram into their stomachs without literally exploding anyway, Poppy set off with Florean to tick off her list. The books were easy enough, all of them were eventually found in Flourish and Bott’s many shelves, she picked up some new quills and an inkwell as well, and then headed to get her robes fitted. The seamstress quickly sized her up and got to work on a new set of Ravenclaw robes for herself, tutting quietly when she saw the state of her cousins and their poorly tailored garb. The lady muttered something about boys growing faster than anyone could sew, before shuffling off to find some extra pins.

Poppy was awkwardly standing with her arms straight in front of her, as the seamstress pinned up the underside of her sleeves when she caught sight of a very interesting girl. Well officially when she first caught sound of her, the commanding Scottish voice seemed to enter the room first, followed by a short but fierce looking thing, who didn’t look remotely capable of owning such a voice. Her father was trying to convince her against the purchase of some sort of new quidditch-specific broom. Poppy rolled her eyes at the comment, quidditch was still a sport that was completely lost on her.

---

After lots more traipsing in and out of various shops Poppy said goodbye to Florean, who handed Thomas and Henry a block of never-melt each, giving them a friendly wink and feigning innocence and Poppy’s mock glare. With fear of sounding like a kill-joy, if either boy had even one more lick of ice cream they were in for a sugar high that would quite possibly see them through most of their adolescent lives. They went into the floo station, and one-at-a-time through the allotted fireplace. Poppy went through last, and was met with her mothers incredibly stern face on return to her living-room.

---

The boys were sent immediately to their rooms, whilst Poppy engaged in damage control that involved vigorously brushing soot out of the cream carpet. Her mother looked positively furious, and Poppy waited for the telling off of the century. Instead, her mother looked at her sadly and pulled her into a tight embrace. She stood awkwardly for a moment, her hands planted at her sides, before hugging back. This moment between mother and daughter lasted approximately thirty seconds, before her mother launched into a tirade about Muggle-borns, and laws, and respecting authority.

Chapter Text

Poppy walked calmly through King’s Cross Station, her battered trunk and owl cage teetered precariously on the trolley she was pushing. Poppy hadn’t really regarded her owl at all for the majority of the last year. Up until her Christmas letter from her father, she had found it painful to look at, now she was rather fond of the thing. She stopped short of the gap between platform 9 and 10 and looked around for any unsuspecting muggles who were about to watch her running into a wall, and out the other side. Last year her mother and her cousins had come with her all the way to the platform, and waved her goodbye as the Hogwarts express left the station. This year, her mother had apparated Poppy into an alleyway a road down from the train station, and had then left for work. She waited patiently for a Muggle to rush by, his tie hanging loose around his collar and he had clearly spilled a large amount of coffee down his neatly pressed shirt. Poppy thought she was probably the only student who actually diligently avoided any Muggle sightings when entering platform 9 and ¾. Her mother had spent the entire previous week complaining about the fact that every year the ministry had to assign its own set of obliviators to hang around King’s Cross all morning.

Poppy took one last quick look and then pushed her trolley as fast as she could towards the wall. She instinctively shut her eyes as she neared the wall, and opened them again when the smells of platform 9 ¾ hit her nostrils. A familiar mix of smoke, sweet smelling food and just the vaguest hint of owl pellets wafted around. She had sent as many letters as she could over the summer to her friends, but had spent more time complaining about her cousins constantly using up the sugar ration to buy themselves sweets, and hadn’t actually organised anything with her friends. She hauled her trunk and owl cage into the train, and slumped down into the empty compartment in front of her. There weren’t many students on the train yet, the train wasn’t due to leave for another fifteen minutes, and most of them were still saying their goodbyes.

Poppy was staring out of the window, not looking at anything in particular, when she saw Skye and Florean chatting with each other on the platform. She waved her hand at them and they both waved back. She watched them say their goodbyes, Skye’s mother looked as if she was going to try and drag her back into King’s Cross with her and into the streets of London, but she did eventually let go of her hand. The all-aboard whistle blew and Poppy saw another familiar individual. Ally was sprinting down the platform to the carriage they were on, unaware that her trunk hinge had popped open and she was leaving bits of clothes all along the floor. Ally turned around to see her mother rushing behind her and gathering all her items up, she shoved them into a bundle in Ally’s arms and hurried her onto the train.

Ally plopped herself down onto the chair opposite Poppy, red faced and huffing. The Hogwarts Express began pulling away from the station, parents, siblings and grandparents were all waving goodbye. Ally’s mother wasn’t waving goodbye, but a yellow and black striped tie. Ally slumped down in her chair and slapped herself in the forehead, listening as her mother shouted about sending it by owl.

---

The four second years shuffled into the great hall in their uniforms and robes, Ally sans tie. They waved a quick goodbye to her as she joined her fellow Hufflepuffs and waited for the sorting ceremony to begin. Poppy half listened to the names as they were called, smiling and clapping politely at any new Ravenclaws joining the table, but she was mostly waiting for the feast to begin. She hadn't had much excitement in the food department over the summer (aside from the occasional parcel from Florean) on account of the rationing, and had daydreamed more than once about the Hogwarts feast. Poppy’s stomach was already threatening to eat itself, when she spotted the same fiery Scottish girl from the robe shop in Diagon Alley. Poppy found herself hoping, for whatever reason, that ‘McGonogall, Minerva’ would find her way to the Ravenclaws table. She waited for the sorting hat to shout its decision, but it sat atop Minerva's black hair, which was hanging wild and loose about her shoulders. Even Poppy was bored of looking at the girl’s green eyes after another four minutes went by. If the sorting hat didn’t make its mind up soon, she was going to go feral at the thought of food, and pry it from the girls head.

It was only after five and a half minutes that the hat finally shouted out ‘GRYFFINDOR’. The announcement shocked more than a few people who had gotten bored and glazed over, or who were chatting amongst themselves. Poppy thanked Merlin that the rest of the students were sorted acceptably quickly, and soon, after he said a few words about Myrtle, Dippett was clapping his hands to reveal the feast spread out along the four tables.

---

Poppy, Florean, Skye and Ally rushed off to the girls bathroom on the second floor straight after the feast. They found Myrtle moping about around the sink, spinning the taps on and off idly.
“Oh! Is it September? Hello.” Myrtle wailed.
Poppy had discovered at the end of last year that, despite Myrtle sometimes being genuinely happy, she always had an outward appearance of despair. Poppy had spent some of her quieter days reading the veritable tome on ghosts that she had checked out from the library from cover to cover. From what she could understand, it was hard for ghosts to stray far from whatever state they had been in whilst alive, be it having most of their head removed, or feeling incredibly upset.
“Hello Myrtle. How have you been?” Poppy responded.

---

The five of them talked for a good while, but, at risk of being caught out of bed on their first night back, they had to head back to the Ravenclaw dormitory. Despite Myrtle having the capacity to move anywhere in the castle, Poppy had yet to coax her out of the bathroom. Even though it was the place she had died, Myrtle seemed to find some sort of safety in it, perhaps because it was where she had gone in life to let out her frustrations.

---

Poppy sat quietly with her feet up on one of the plush velvet sofas, watching Florean entertaining the first years with his collection of ice cream. She watched him, quietly giggling to herself when he started offhandedly mentioning his ‘Homework Help Club' and doing a big, over-dramatic wink. She watched his performative display for a while longer, before heading up the staircase and flopping into her soft four-poster bed. She slept on a twin bed at home, so the luxury wasn’t lost on her. Fahira (who always seemed to be in bed) waved a sleepy hello at her before rolling over and going back to sleep. Poppy drew her curtains, and got into her nightgown. It was a deep shade of blue that matched the curtains almost perfectly.

---

Poppy's first lesson of the year was potions, alongside her fellow Ravenclaws and the 2nd Year Gryfindoors. She gave Olive the dirtiest look she could muster for 9am on a Monday morning, and made a point of seating herself as far away from her as possible. Olive seemed to be lacking her usual posse of snide-faced girls, word had got out that she had been, albeit indirectly, involved with Myrtle’s death. Slughorn swanned into the room, rattling off the content they would be covering in their first term. He reached the blackboard with a swish and used his wand to lift the chalk and begin writing.

---

Poppy’s hair-raising potion was successful enough, and she felt fairly confident with herself leaving the lesson. She was on her way alone to her Transfiguration lesson, having rushed to the toilet in the gap she had to get between classes. An oversight which wasn’t lost on her the minute she saw his slicked back hair - and the rest of him- talking towards her down the corridor. Walburga black had graduated over the summer, Florean had discovered, through an overheard conversation at Fortescue’s Ice Cream, Parlour, that she was, in fact, engaged to Orion, who stood tall and proud to the left hand side of Riddle. A Slytherin girl with platinum blonde hair stood to the right of him. Poppy didn’t even bother trying to ignore them, she just stood still as the three Slytherin’s approached her. Riddle motioned his head, and Orion and Blondie turned and walked away. Poppy found herself inadvertently backed into an empty corridor. She braced her wand, ready to fight back if she needed, but he simply gave her a sly grin which lay grotesquely on his face.
“I was so sorry to hear about your friend.” He spat. “Such a tragic accident”
He said the word accident so sarcastically that Poppy was in the right mind to punch him on his perfect nose and suffer the consequences. Instead, she didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response, and simply turned, and walked away, hoping he wouldn’t fire a spell into her back

Chapter Text

With all the goings on at Hogwarts, and having spent a summer mostly in the Muggle world, Poppy had fallen behind on information about the wizarding war. It was hard to stay behind for long though, the tension was clear. Grindelwald had been making his way around Europe and the Americas, leaving chaos behind him. The interlinking of the Muggle and wizarding wars were on a scale that hadn’t occurred since before the Statute of Secrecy was set in place, and, whilst Hogwarts was still considered to be just about the safest place on the planet, people were still scared. Of course, everyone knew that Dumbledore was Grindelwald’s number one target, it didn’t help that they had previously duelled on Hogwart’s grounds. None of this concerned Ally or Skye, who were both planning on trying out for the house Quidditch teams this year. All they talked about was tactics and training exercises, the whole affair was driving Poppy positively mad.

The four of them were sat at breakfast, tucking in to a full English, and Poppy found herself wondering how she was friends with people who were such opposites to her. Skye and Ally were both discussing exactly what they needed to do to get spotted at the tryouts that afternoon, and quidditch was a sport that Poppy disagreed with on a fundamental level. And Florean, well, he was currently staring intently into his plate of beans, forming a thought that was most definitely ‘I am going to make a baked bean flavoured ice cream.’

---

They spent the rest of the Saturday morning lounging around the grounds, before heading down to the quidditch pitch. The Gryffindors were hosting their trails first, so all four of them settled into the stands surrounding the pitch and watched the red-clothed players warm up. Ally and Skye began animatedly discussing who they thought had the best chance, and Poppy winced as a bludger flew dangerously close to a Gryffindor chaser, Lyall something, she couldn’t remember his last name. Poppy recognised another familiar face among the Gryffindor crowd, and found it remarkable watching the tiny Scottish girl darting around bludgers, and eventually, catching the snitch in her hand, whilst being impressively upside down. Poppy remarked on this feat, but Skye made it clear that no first years ever made it onto the team, gesturing to a 4th year who was also clad in seekers stripes, “Fleamont Potter has been seeker for Gryffindor two years running, even someone with skills like that…” Skye said, clearly gesturing to the girl, who Poppy was now remembering was called Minerva. “... Wouldn't replace someone already on the team, perhaps they’ll bench her…” Skye began waffling about various quidditch tactics, and Poppy zoned out, watching Minerva’s hair flying in the wind.

---

Poppy watched on with Florean as first Ally, and then Skye tried out for their own teams. As much as Poppy disliked quidditch she still wanted her friends to do well and she did find herself cheering a few times. Of course she understood why watching and playing sports was important for the body and mind, but she didn’t quite get why those sports had to be quite so violent. Perhaps, if the bludger was removed the danger level would decrease somewhat, but then Ally wouldn’t be particularly pleased, since she was trying out for the open beater spot on the Hufflepuff team.

---

It was getting dark by the time the two girls emerged from the changing rooms, already washed and changed out of their sweaty clothes. They all trudged back up the hill to the castle, a killer on the calf muscles, especially since Poppy’s legs had fallen asleep from sitting down for so long. They made a well-deserved pit stop at the kitchens on the way to the Hufflepuff common room, Florean bartered for a whole stack of treacle tarts, in exchange for the promise of a ridiculous amount of pumpkin ice cream in time for the Halloween feast. The four of them carried the teetering pile of boxes towards the common room, the Hufflepuff 5th years had organised a post-tryouts party. The teachers were supposedly in the dark about it, but multiple professors had already made comments about not using ‘weekend affairs’ as an excuse for not handing in their homework.

The Hufflepuff celebrations were near-legend at Hogwarts, any excuse for a get together and a party would get even the 1st years riled up and organising. Ally had informed them that just about the most important role you could get as a Hufflepuff was becoming a member of the ‘Organising Committee’. Poppy was the only individual in their squad with a spare hand, so she drew her wand and tapped the rhythm on the huge 6ft x 5ft barrel. The front swung open in an oval shaped door, and they walked in, carefully setting the treacle tarts onto the big trestle table in the middle of the cavernous space. Despite the spread of snacks on the table, a cheer went up at the sight of the tarts and a couple older-looking Hufflepuffs began slapping them on the back and asking Florean all his secrets to winning over the kitchen elves.

Poppy left Florean to animatedly chat with the Hufflepuffs and Ally, and wandered further into the common room with Skye. They plopped down into one of the deep-cushioned yellow sofas and watched as the Gryffindor seeker from earlier, a shiny prefect badge now pinned to his lapel, and an incredibly gorgeous girl, who was holding tightly to his elbow, approached them. They gestured to the space next to them and Poppy nodded that it was free, subtly nudging Skye to pull herself together, who, at that moment, looked as if she may pounce on him.
“Hey, I’m-”
“-Fleamont! I know you, I watched all the Gryffindor games last year! Can I just say-” Skye had cut poor Fleamont off before he’d even had a chance to introduce himself, so Poppy stepped in.
“Sorry, she’s still riled up from tryouts I think.” Poppy said, whilst giving Skye a hard stare.
“Hmm, I should think so. You looked great out there, the team would be lucky to have you.” Fleamont smiled. Skye looked as if she might jump up and hug Fleamont right there and then. He must have registered this too as he quickly moved on to introducing the girl he was with.
“This is Euphemia!” Fleamont beamed from ear to ear, as if showing off a championship trophy.
“Please, Effy is fine, thank you.” Effy smiled, giving Fleamont a mock offended look. That was about all Poppy got before Skye began rambling off paragraphs about quidditch, and the season last year, and what the season would be like this year. Fleamont was no better, and between the both of them, Poppy and Effy stood no chance. They exchanged a knowing glance before letting the information wash over them.

Poppy watched on as the Gryffindor player who had narrowly escaped a bludger- Lyall something drew his wand and attempted to transfigure a barrel of butter beer into what Poppy could only assume was fire whiskey. Instead the barrel exploded, showering Lyall and the dark-haired boy next to him.
“Lupin you idiot!” Shouted the boy, over laughter from everyone watching the scene. Lupin, that was it, Lyall Lupin, a rather weedy boy for a quidditch player, with mousy brown hair, now completely soaking wet and covering his eyes. Skye elbowed Poppy and gave her a knowing look. Poppy had accidentally figured out how to convert almost any liquid beverage into strong firewhisky when trying to make her butterbeer taste a little more sweet. She sighed and looked at Skye.
“Fine, but you're not to touch the stuff, okay? It can cause all sorts of problems, you’ve only just turned twelve and all.”
“But-”
Poppy gave her a hard stare.
“Fine.”
Poppy nodded and walked over to Lyall and the dark haired boy. She gently pushed him aside, in a playful way of course, and raised her wand to the barrel. First she drew all the butterbeer out of the carpets, and Lyall’s hair, and performed a quick cleaning spell before depositing back into the now-fixed barrel. She waved her wand a second time, and the butterscotch smell of butterbeer was quickly replaced by the harsher stench of firewhisky. A cheer rose up from the group around her and the boy who was hanging around with Lyall, who appeared to be one of the few Slytherin’s having a good time, actually shook her hand.
“Please. Teach me everything you know, oh wise one.” The boy said, bowing his head slightly and looking up at her as if she were some kind of god. Lupin gave him a smack over the head.
“Stop. Stop being an idiot Alphard.” Lyall said to him.
“Alphard-” Poppy began.
“Yes, Alphard Black, yes that crazy bitch Walburga is my big sister. But I suppose every family’s got one, don’t they Lupin-” Alphard interjected, giving Lyall a good poke.
“Shut up. If anyone’s the ‘Black sheep’ in the Black family it’s definitely you-”
Now it was Alphard’s turn to give Lyall a healthy punch in the gut. Poppy left the two of them to squabble, both of them were doing a good show at proving to her that class clowns had in no way died off over the summer. She’d lost her spot on the sofa to another Gryffindor quidditch player, who was now chatting animatedly to Skye and Fleamont, so she plonked herself down on the bottom step of the spiral staircase and watched, bemused, at the goings on of the party.

---

Much later than curfew, Poppy, Skye, Florean and a gaggle of other Ravenclaws found themselves trudging up the long staircase and back to the Ravenclaw common room. She watched as Skye stumbled slightly, as if she’d had a sneaky drink of firewhisky. This was funny only to Poppy, as she had charmed the drink to have no effect on anyone under the age of sixteen. Poppy knew how to have a good time, but she had also looked at one too many pictures of liver cirrhosis in various medical textbooks, and she wasn’t about to let her friends inflict that on themselves.

---

The next morning, Poppy was awoken, bleary eyed, after maybe four hours sleep, to Skye. She was hovering about an inch from Poppy’s face, and, had Poppy not stirred at her approach, would have probably given Poppy enough of a shock to sock her in the face. As it was, Skye’s energetic face was staring back at her, punch-free and eager. Poppy grumbled, and rolled out of bed, literally, she landed with a thud on the carpet and then used her bed frame to pull herself up. It was six. 6am on a Sunday morning. Poppy was not best pleased. Skye dragged her by her arm down the stairs to the common room and all the way to the great hall. A veritable torrent of students were crowded round four small bits of paper hung to the notice board. Poppy didn’t even attempt to get a look at them. A moment later, and Ally and Skye were both bouncing up and down in a circle holding hands and cheering.
‘Good. They got in.’ Poppy thought, before turning on her heel and heading straight back up to bed.

Chapter Text

Before Poppy knew it, the year had headed into early-October, the Scottish air was getting colder and she was spending more time than usual drinking hot chocolate in the Hufflepuff common room with her friends. She dropped her now-empty mug into a pile of self washing dishes and stretched her foot out, giving it a wiggle to get rid of the pins and needles. She gathered up her parchment, quills and inkwells, placing them neatly into her satchel, and draped her scarf around her neck. There was only so much that magic could do when it came out heating an ancient stone castle, and Poppy felt the cold more than most.

She had left the others to discuss the herbology essay that was due the next morning. Only Poppy had succeeded in completing it so far, mainly because it involved discussing plants with healing properties at great lengths. She had gotten frustrated explaining the same concept over and over, even to Florean (who usually understood something after a quick explanation), and had elected to let them figure it out for themselves. She ran to catch a moving staircase before it got to the wrong level, and stepped off just in time to make it to the second floor. She paused to compose herself and then headed towards the bathroom.

Poppy had been slowly coaxing Myrtle out for the dingy toilets, after making a breakthrough discovery that it was easier for her to travel through the plumbing than out in the corridors. Poppy didn’t know if this was down to some rule about Myrtle's corporeal form, or if it was simply because she preferred not to be stared at in busy corridors. Either way it was somewhat working, even if Myrtle had only briefly popped up in the sinks in the Ravenclaw common room, before heading straight back.

Poppy walked into the toilets, expecting to find Myrtle waiting for her. Instead, she saw a figure with long, deep brown hair leaning over one of the sinks and swivelling the tap that didn’t work.
“That one doesn’t work-”
“-Fuck me!”
The figure swivelled, already pointing her wand straight between Poppy’s eyes. The girl’s eyes softened when she realised she wasn’t under attack. Poppy had to pretend not to recognise Minerva McGonogall, or that she knew her name already. She didn’t want to come across as weird.
“Sorry. Um, that tap hasn’t worked for centuries, try the next one along” Poppy mumbled, slightly intimidated and also awestruck.
“No, I should be sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.” Minerva responded. Her accent was Scottish, but also held an air of grace that Poppy couldn’t place in anything else she’d heard before. Minerva swiveled to the next sink along and this time got the tap going. Poppy saw then the long, deep gash on her forearm that she was now rinsing under a stream of water.

“May I?” Poppy asked, gently lifting Minerva’s arm to get a closer look. Minerva nodded in response. It looked extremely painful and Poppy tried to be as gentle as she could. There were pieces of grit and grass stuck to the coagulated pieces of blood so Poppy guided Minerva’s arm back to the sink.
“I’m Poppy by the way, sorry this is going to hurt” Poppy gave Minerva a sympathetic look before plunging her arm back into the sink. She took her hands and used them to gently brush at the dirt. Minerva just watched her. When she was satisfied that the wound was clean, she let Minerva's hand rest in the water and rooted through her bag.
“I’m Minnie.” Minerva said quietly.
Poppy looked up at her recognising that a single tear had swelled up in her eye. Poppy had assumed that Minnie would be tough, having seen her on the quidditch pitch, but she suddenly recognised the eleven year old under the fire.

Poppy extracted the small and intricate bottle from her bag and pulled the stopper. She tipped the bottle over Minnie’s cut, a puff of glittery steam billowed up from her arm, and when it cleared the cut looked much better. Had Poppy been better at potions, her essence of dittany probably would have fixed the wound completely, but she still needed more practice. Poppy quietly wrapped Minnie’s arm in a soft bandage. Poppy’s hands were usually as steady as anything, but something was causing them to shake as she secured the end of the bandage with a safety pin.

“There. All done.” Poppy smiled. “But I don’t understand why you didn’t go straight to the infirmary with an injury like that.”
“Oh.” Minnie grinned, “I got it practicing quidditch, but I’ve already been told, uh, maybe three times that I shouldn’t practice without supervision.”
“So you thought you’d practice anyway.” Poppy replied, suddenly annoyed at Minerva’s clear lack of concern for safety. Minerva looked sheepish and was about to reply when Myrtle surfaced from a toilet.
“That’s how I died, you know.” Myrtle said, before giggling, and diving back into the toilet bowl.
“It’s not.” Poppy said, glaring in the direction Myrtle had just gone.
“I know.”
There was an awkward pause before Minerva spoke again:

“She was your friend, wasn’t she? I heard all about it last year, father thought for sure that Hogwarts would close for good. My mother was pleased, she wanted to send me to a Muggle secondary school closer to home.”
“You’re a half-”
“Half-blood, yeah. We’re more common than you think.”
“Oh I know I-”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I like your-”

Their conversation was interrupted yet again by the bathroom door, swinging open, its handle slamming into the wall. Pomona didn’t even make eye contact with them, she just ran straight to the sink adjacent to theirs and began frantically filling up a soil pot with water. The plant inside the pot looked brown, and wilted and not particularly happy.

“That damn Riddle, I told him! I told him he had to water it! Did he listen? No. Of course not, He’s far too busy being a pompous brat. If he wasn’t such a teacher's favourite why I’d- Oh. Hello.” Pomona was muttering under her breath before jumping slightly when she finally clocked the two younger girls looking quizzically at her.
“Trouble with herbology?” Poppy asked.
“No! I have no trouble with herbology whatsoever! I do have trouble with Beery saddling me with Riddle. And Riddle's content to let damn plants die!” Pomona seethed, she had gone as red as the piping on Minerva’s robes at this point.
“Honestly! The man has top marks in everything bar herbology. Who are you?” Pomona had turned to look at Minnie, who was giving Pomona a bemused look.
“Uh, Minerva. Is there anything we can help you with?”
“No.” Pomona responded curtly, before finding her manners. “Sorry, but it just ruins the whole subject for me. All the 6th years have to take the basics in Herbology class, and they pair up the useless ones with those of us taking it for NEWTS.” Pomona responded again. For some inexplicable reason, Minnie pulled a small seed out of her robes pocket.
“Want this?”
Poppy gave Minnie a confused side eye, but she just grinned back at Poppy, as if to say that this would fix all of Pomona’s problems.
“Some bairn called Gerald gave it to me. I don’t want it.”
“It’s a fanged geranium seed, these are quite rare at the moment”
“I know.” Minnie gave Poppy a wink as Pomona seemed to significantly perk up once the seed was in her hand. Poppy tried her best to ignore the particular feeling that followed in the wake of the wink, and turned her attention back to the plant.
“It looks a lot better.” Poppy said, pointing at it.
“It should do, I used just about every re-hydrating spell I could think of on that blasted thing-” Pomona replied.

For the third time that evening the conversation was interrupted. The door to the bathroom had once again swung open, and this time Professor Slughorn was standing in the doorway. He was tapping the non-existent watch on his left wrist and tutting.
“Out of bed. Sprout, you really should know better.”
Poppy waited for the bollocking of her short life, but instead Professor Slughorn continued chatting away to Sprout.
“I hope to see you tomorrow. Can I count on it? In fact, bring the Gryffindor with you too. I saw her performance at the tryouts. Marvellous.” Slughorn clapped his hands together and grinned.
Poppy was sure she was going completely insane.
“Ah, girl. What have you done to your hand?” Minnie didn’t even have time to respond before Slughorn carried on.
“Excellent bandaging skills however.” Slughorn pondered on this for a moment before pointing at Poppy.
“You did this? Right. Better bring her to Pomona.”
Slughorn dug around in his robe pocket before extracting two small business cards, handing them to Minnie and Poppy and walking out. The cards were a deep emerald green, embossed with a gold trim, and silvery calligraphy writing, which read:
‘You are cordially invited to: The Slug Club’
Poppy turned it over in her hand, it was blank on the back.
“Uh-”
Pomona sighed:
“Let me explain.”

Chapter Text

A week after the strange gathering in the bathroom, Poppy was pulling on her dress robes. She tucked her wand into the inside pocket and tried her best to escape the common room without being noticed, not because she cared if people knew she was going to the infamous ‘Slug Club’, but because she was pretty sure her dress robes belonged to her mothers Grandmother, and they were by no means ‘in fashion’ any more. Though, that being said, Poppy couldn’t see them ever having been in fashion. But, she had nothing else to wear aside from her usual robes, and Pomona had explicitly stated that it was ‘a dress ups affair. Pomona had also told her that the ‘Slug Club’ was a horrendous affair, and that she would “rather spend a week camping out in the forbidden forest” because, according to Pomona, at least the creatures that supposedly resided in the woods “wouldn’t be quite so far up their own arses” as the members of the Slug Club. Poppy was only going out of sheer curiosity. And because Minnie was going too. Her attempts at a swift exit were foiled when Florean spotted her and came bounding over from across the common room. She groaned internally.

Florean reached up and straightened her dress robes violet collar, trying his best to stifle a giggle. She had debriefed him about the events in the bathroom the night before, and he was desperate to know what it was like at Slughorn's ‘little soirée’. Apparently, everyone but Poppy had heard about it before yesterday. She poked Florean as he finally let go of a giggle.
“Ow! I’m sorry but-” Florean gestured at Poppy’s outfit, and let out another giggle.
“That’s it! I’m changing, I don’t care about etiquette. I’m not going anywhere wearing this.” Poppy picked up the corner of the robe and watched it flop back down to her side. Skye had joined them at this point and gave Florean a knowing look (Poppy had long suspected that Skye’s position in Ravenclaw had rather a lot to do with her emotional intelligence, rather than her academic feats). Florean sighed and held up a hand, he walked over to a girl Poppy had never seen before, said a few words, disappeared up the stairs, and reappeared again moments later.
“Here, she said you can borrow this.” Florean said, gesturing at the girl.
“Who is she?”
“Dunno.” Florean shrugged. “But she knows me. I owe her a fair amount of ice cream for this one, and a History of Magic essay. So don’t say I do nothing for you”
Florean gave her a wry smile then shooed his hand at her.
“Go, fair maiden, for you wouldn’t want to be late. His highness Professor Slughorn patiently awaits your arrival!”
Poppy gave him another poke in the ribs, but did make a dash up the steps to change.

---

The dress robe was a gorgeous deep purple colour, it was velvety to the touch, and smelled like vanilla. It was a pretty decent fit too, if a little long at the arms. Poppy came back down the stairs again, and gave Florean another shove as he began slow-clapping, drawing the attention of the entire common room. She walked quickly out of the Ravenclaw tower, not liking the attention. Though she had had her fair share of being out of bed, the castle still felt eery. The moonlight lit the corridors in a strange way thanks to the pattern of the old windows, and the stone floors echoed louder when there was only one set of footsteps to bounce off of the walls.

She reached Slughorn’s classroom, and had a peek round the door to prepare herself. The classroom tables had been pushed together, and draped with intricate black and gold table cloths, and neatly placed candle holders, one representing each house colour on the respective tables. He had somehow selected the most regal version of each house colour, even the usually bright Hufflepuff yellow. Poppy looked around at the students already sitting at the table. She was surprised at how few students there were, she hadn’t realised that it was genuinely as exclusive as Pomona had said it would be. Of the eight students in attendance, she recognised three faces. Pomona, wearing a mellow yellow ensemble, and who looked mildly disgusted at the whole affair, Lyall (Poppy was interested how he had got himself a spot at the table), in a slightly worn but still smart Muggle tuxedo, and of course, Tom fucking Riddle. Poppy should have known he would be at an event like this, especially an event like this run by the head of Slytherin house himself. Poppy was just about to turn and leave before being noticed, when she felt a hand resting on her shoulder.

Minnie guided her into the room, whilst whispering praise at her dress robes. Minerva had scrubbed up well for an individual who seemingly only concerned herself with Quidditch and getting herself injured. Slughorn clapped his hands in greeting and rose from his position at the head of the table. His outfit bore the same emerald and gold colours that had been on the invitation card, but still couldn’t do much to disguise his rather heavy-set frame.
“Aha, my newest members. Have a seat, have a seat. Welcome, welcome.”
Poppy did her best not to look in Riddle’s direction, but she could feel his glare, even though her back was turned. She sat between Sprout and McGonogall quickly, smoothing out her dress once she was seated.

“Come, come. Now, introductions I suppose. Yes.”
Slughorn proceeded to rattle off the names of the students surrounding her, and mention, rather proudly, what exactly he thought they were excelling in. Poppy tried her best to keep track, but could only note a few.
“... Yes, thank you, Lucretia. Now, who else. Ah yes. Mr Lupin. Lyall here, already working with his father, and the ministry to combat the rise in those pesky werewolves, and only a fourth year!”
Slughorn seemed particularly proud of Lyall, as if he were a prized collectible on his shelf of students. None of course, could outshine Riddle.
“... And Tom. My, my. Never have I met such a student. A prefect, sure to be head boy-” Slughorn just dramatically threw his hands out towards Riddle, as this gave all the explanation needed.
“Excellence in academia across the board-” Slughorn continued.
“Clearly, old Horace hasn’t seen Perfect Perfect Riddle in a Herbology lesson” Pomona muttered into Poppy’s ear. She stifled a giggle, disguising it pretty effectively as a cough. As if Poppy had reminded the Professor that she was in fact, in the room he turned his attention to her.
“And, of course, the newcomers. Welcome, welcome. Well, come on, welcome them please”
The rest of the group muttered a welcome, bar Riddle, who was still stony faced. She felt as if she was intruding on a private meeting, with only Riddle approved students allowed.
“Miss McGonogall my dear, what an excellent performance at those tryouts. And a certain transfiguration Professor tells me you’re quite the whizz in that department too.”
Slughorn gave a performative clap and the rest of the students followed suit.
“And, of course, Miss Pomfrey, talent across the board, though, maybe your friend could give you some help with the flying-” Slughorn heartily guffawed at his own joke before continuing.
“But, who could ignore your talent in all things medicine. Even before yesterday, I’d heard your name a few times in Madame Soranus’ mouth. You will most certainly be the best Mediwitch of the century”
Slughorn said this last line in a way that sounded more like he was assuring himself of his selection, rather than extending praise to Poppy. Either way she blushed a little, she wasn’t used to compliments. Academic praise came few and far between for Ravenclaws, and despite her skill, she certainly wasn’t the brightest witch in 2nd year.

---

The rest of the evening consisted of politely nibbling on food, and making agonising small talk with the students around the table. The majority of the ‘Slug Club’ were, unsurprisingly, Slytherin. There were a couple other Ravenclaws, who Poppy vaguely recognised, Minnie and Lyall were holding the Gryfindors position, and Pomona was the lone Hufflepuff at the table. The four aforementioned students and Poppy mostly kept the conversation between themselves, but there were a few times when they would have to pause as Slughorn went on another monologue about one of the students, which was usually (perhaps nine times out of ten) Riddle.

---

They were finally ushered out by Slughorn, who gave them each a slip excusing them from curfew. Pomona, Lyall, Minnie and Poppy hurried out quickly, but the others seemed to take their time leaving. The Hufflepuff common room was only down the way from the potions classroom, so they departed from Pomona and continued up the stairs and out of the dungeon. Lyall offered to walk Poppy back to the Ravenclaw tower before heading over to the Gryffindor one with Minnie. She accepted the offer gratefully, and they debriefed along the way about the whole affair. Most of this debrief consisted of all the ways Slughorn had been completely wrong about Riddle, and all of the excuses they could use to get out of ever returning to the ‘Slug Club’.

Chapter Text

Autumn, and the beginning of winter had gone by quickly. Poppy had thankfully avoided any more obligations to attend the Slug Club, and none of the professors wanted any homework to mark over the Christmas holidays, so she had, for once, been struggling to find anything to fill her time. She was currently perched on a window ledge in the Ravenclaw common room, looking out onto the quidditch pitch and the forbidden forest. It looked wild and formidable at the best of times, and the Scottish winter rain shower pelting down outside made her cherish her apple and cinnamon tea even more. She could hear the choir practicing in one of the rooms of the tower. They were cycling through a repertoire of incredibly festive songs, and, as much as she enjoyed Christmas, she was getting a little sick of the music. She hauled herself up and went up to her dormitory. She grabbed her fleece-lined robes, pulled on a hat and wrapped a scarf around her neck. The Ravenclaw common room itself was cozy and warm but, even despite the extra layers, the cold hit her once she stepped out into the corridor.

She plodded around the castle slowly, enjoying the movement and the time to herself. This only lasted so long before the boredom started to creep in, so she went to go chat to her favourite ghost.

---

Poppy was perched on the step that led up to the sinks, and Myrtle was floating slightly above the ground, when Poppy finally broached the subject. She had tried her best to give Myrtle time to process that fact that she had, in fact, died. It can’t have been easy to be alive one minute and then a ghost the next. Although many would disagree, Poppy rather hoped when her time came, that she wouldn’t come back. In a medical sense, dead was dead, and the medical sense was what Poppy knew and trusted to be true. She couldn’t escape the thought about how horrible being a ghost must be, hovering in a limbo between the land of the living, and whatever the place beyond may be. She would much rather be one or the other. Though Myrtle talked about being a ghost, and how it made her feel, it was the circumstances surrounding her death that Poppy had been trying her best to politely pry about.

The general narrative, at least the one emblazoned across the Daily Prophet headlines for several editions, was definitely skewed, but Poppy wanted to know by how much. In that version, an unruly student (Hagrid) had been keeping increasingly dangerous Magical Creatures on the grounds, with no knowledge or training on how to care for them. And that, on the unfortunate day of Myrtle’s death, one of them had escaped and she was tragically killed. Dippett had assured the masses that Hagrid had been ‘dealt with’ by the school body, which was short hand for ‘we expelled him, but kept him on as an apprentice groundskeeper, because we sort of know in our heart of hearts- that he didn’t actually do anything wrong.’ This had, unfortunately, set the media and the masses into a frenzied rhetoric on the danger of allowing ‘half-breeds’ coexist with ‘proper wizards’. These sort of pro-Grindelwald ideologies only made the war seem every closer to finding its way into the walls of Hogwarts. The headline of the most recent Daily Prophet had made it clear what stance they were taking, the paper that had plopped into Poppy’s lap that morning read ‘Half-Breeds and Half-Bloods: Are They Really All That Different?’.

Of course, none of this was true at all. Poppy knew, and so did her gut, that Riddle was the cause -even if indirectly- of the events of last year. There were far too many coincidences for him not to be involved. Least of all the fact that he openly despised Poppy, and that Myrtle had been (or I suppose you could say still was) one of Poppy’s closest friends. The only person who knew for certain was Myrtle. Until now, she would shut down, or run away if Poppy even came close to mentioning that day. But, for whatever reason, when Poppy began to gently pry, she opened up a little.

“Well, I was here because that dreadful, dreadful Olive had just been so rude about my glasses, and I wanted to. Oh I wanted to.”

Poppy let Myrtle pause for a moment of quiet, not wanting to interrupt her or her emotional process. Though, Myrtle looked like she was seething with rage more than anything else.

“I’m going to haunt her, you know. Just once I get better at leaving this bathroom. I'm going to follow her around, and get in her way. I will haunt that Hornby girl, all the way up to the day she dies, And then I’ll haunt her grave!”

Poppy looked at Myrtle bopping up and down, in an angry motion, and shaking her hands as if wringing and invisible Olive's neck. Poppy didn’t think it was her place to say anything, but she thought Myrtle was being a bit excessive. She supposed, had Olive not been so rude, Myrtle may not have been in the bathroom, and may have therefore not been murdered. But still. As if Myrtle had been reading Poppy’s mind, she spoke again, though the angry bobbing had stopped, and she spoke in a much softer tone.

“She found me, did you know? Walked right in, and made a quip about how I was still sulking. Even after an hour.”

An hour? Thought Poppy, she hadn’t realised that Myrtle had been left for quite so long without being found.

“Then she realised. I watched her, she just stood looking at me. She was crying and everything, I almost felt sorry for her but then she walked out on me. I think she thought I’d done it to myself, and that she would get all sorts of trouble her way for being horrible to me. So the. The little bitch walked out. And left me on the cold stone floor. Then, I got bored of waiting so I turned on all the taps. And I waited. And then you found my body. I hid, I’m sorry, I thought it would be better not to be there while you said goodbye”

Poppy looked at Myrtle, trying to understand how she must be feeling about all of this. She was barely fourteen when she died, it can’t have been easy. Especially since she was probably alone the entire Summer.

“But, despite what that idiot may have thought, I didn’t kill myself. But I’m glad that's what she thought, even if only for a little bit. Because I was crying when it happened. Crying because of her. That’s when I heard someone come into the bathroom. I thought maybe you had come to check on me. But then, someone, a boy, spoke in a really weird language, maybe, it could have been Russian. But I opened the door, to tell him to go away- and I died. All I remember-”
Myrtle pointing at the space next to Poppy
“-a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. Almost exactly where you’re sitting. I think it was some kind of creature.”

“The male voice, was it Riddle?”

“I’m not sure. That’s what I told the Ministry people when they asked. Of course, they heard me say a male voice, and describe a creature with big yellow eyes, and thought I was basically confirming it was Hagrid. They didn’t even care about Riddle. Or Olive. I don’t think they cared about me either. No one does- except you.”

“I’m sure lots of people care-”

But Myrtle just shook her head quietly and disappeared up the spout of a tap.

Chapter Text

Poppy was expecting to once again stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, so she was incredibly surprised to receive a letter otherwise from her mother, two days before the last day. Suddenly she had to start thinking about what to pack with her, and also if she wanted to return home. The summer hadn’t exactly been full of excitement, and she wasn’t particularly eager to return. But, her mother had supposedly changed, at least according to the letter, and Poppy didn’t want to disappoint her cousins. She finally penned a short reply, and handed it to Owl. She informed her mother to keep him at home when he arrived, which saved Poppy from thinking about another thing to pack. She hadn’t had much use for Owl during her time at Hogwarts, she didn’t really have anyone to send letters to outside of the grounds, and Owl was still young. She was just watching him fly away from the owlery, when she turned, slipped in owl poo, and went skidding across the floor. She ended up in an impressive but embarrassing half-folded stance before righting herself. She looked around, and was glad to see that there was no one to see that little displayed. She smoothed her skirt and took the remaining steps down from the owlery with caution.

The air was bitter cold, and a light smattering of snow powdered the whole castle white. She bumped into Professor Beery on her way back into the castle, he was presumably heading out to the greenhouses.
“Afternoon Miss Pomfrey.” He nodded her a greeting. She smiled back at him.
“Good afternoon sir.”
“Will I be seeing you at the Christmas day feast this year?”
“No, I’m going home for Christmas this time.”
“Oh how delightful.” He smiled and clapped his hands together, and Poppy just smiled and nodded. As much as she trusted Beery, she didn’t want to put a dampener on his mood by describing her family situation, and all the ways that Christmas at Hogwarts would be so much better. He gestured a goodbye and pootled off in the direction of the greenhouses. She wasn’t actually sure if Beery had any family, he spent all of his time at Hogwarts, and she had never heard him discuss it. Though, by the looks of things, it didn’t seem to bother him one bit.

---

Despite the odds, Poppy had managed to pack what she needed over the last two days, and by the time she had walked up to her dormitory on the Friday afternoon, her trunk had already been moved out, and presumably down to the train. She hoped she hadn’t packed anything that she would suddenly discover she needed before the Hogwarts Express left on the Saturday, as she’d be hard pushed to receive it. Poppy had gone up to retrieve her Ravenclaw robes before the end-of-term feast; she had abandoned it for the majority of the winter in favour of her much warmer coat. She put it on quickly, and headed back to the common room where Florean and Skye were both waiting for her. The three of them then made their way down to the great hall, but only after Florean had gone back to his dormitory twice- he kept forgetting things.

The great hall was decked out from floor to ceiling, a huge Christmas tree stood at the head of the hall, behind the teachers table, and it was beautifully strung with ornaments of all four house colours. The long tables had huge table cloths laid over them, but the food had not appeared yet. They would have to wait for that until after various speeches were said.

They seated themselves towards the middle of the Ravenclaw table, adorned with an ornate blue table cloth that was littered with bronze eagles. She spotted Ally from across the hall and gave her a little wave, before losing her face to a crowd of students in yellow piped robes. She allowed herself to zone out as Dippett launched into his latest, and notoriously long speeches. Even Professor Dumbledore seemed bored, and he usually at least tried to look engaged at any given moment. She felt the entire hall let out an inaudible sigh of relief as Dippett finally waved his wand and the food appeared on the tables- one of the aspects of Hogwarts life that never failed to lose its magic for her. She looked at the huge feast of meats, and roasted potatoes, and vegetables, and wondered how she could possibly want to eat another meal again after this one. Of course, despite the huge pile on her plate that Poppy had demolished, she still had room for the sea of desserts that had just appeared in front of them. Florean commented on the ice-cream, a plain vanilla, distastefully, describing all of the different flavours he would have presented, had he been in charge. Poppy just stuck a huge spoonful in her mouth defiantly, and immediately gave herself a brain-freeze.
“You can’t get brainfreezes from Fortescue’s” Florean muttered as Poppy grimaced and held onto her head. She swatted him with the spoon, and he poked her with his cake fork. They both fell into fits of giggles, and Skye clipped them both on the hand with the blunt side of a cheese knife. However, this just made things worse, and almost the whole Ravenclaw table had erupted into laughter before long.

---

Poppy had slept well, having been so full of food and joy, but it was still difficult to drag herself from her nice warm bed and pull on her clothes. She skipped the step of getting changed out of her robes on the train by putting on Muggle clothes before setting off. She pulled on a red-knit jumper and tailored brown trousers, and topped off the outfit with a cosy overcoat. She joined Florean and Skye in the common room and they went to find Ally. She was waiting for them under the bell tower, next to a rather impressive snowman.
“I got bored. It’s pretty easy to make one with a wand. A lot less hassle.”
Ally smiled longingly at her wand as she tucked it away. Clearly Ally was going to miss using magic whilst at Florean’s. He had offered for Ally to stay at his during the Christmas break and she had jumped at the opportunity. Last year she had Poppy to keep her company, and Poppy could tell Ally was excited at the prospect of staying at an ice-cream parlour for three weeks.

They followed the growing sea of students down the main path to the Hogwarts gates and clambered into an empty cart. Poppy slipped both the Thestrals pulling theirs a mint as she got on. The rest of her friends couldn’t see them of course, they just assumed, like most of the students, that the carts were magically propelled all the way to Hogsmeade station. The group had done their best to get to the station early, but clearly it wasn’t enough. Almost every compartment was completely full, and Poppy was worried they’d have to split up to find a seat. As it was, in the last carriage but one they found one, occupied by two familiar faces. Alphard and Lyall looked up from the box they had both just been peering into and smiled, gesturing for the group to sit down. Poppy tried to have a peek at the box, but Lyall had already stuffed it into a duffel bag and shoved it under the seat.

---

The train journey was long but enjoyable. Alphard had bought all of them sweets from the trolley. He had detailed how he was intent to try and spend the Black’s money he physically could, but that he hadn’t even made a dent in his own allowance yet. It was clear that, despite his antics at Hogwarts, he still tried to present himself as a model Black, as, about five minutes before the train got into London, he left their compartment and awkwardly stood with a group of Slytherin's. He exited the train before the rest of them, and Poppy quickly said goodbye to her friends before rushing out into King’s Cross. She boarded the train on Platform 5 just as it was about to leave and settled in for the leg of her journey to Oxfordshire.

---

She got into her village station in the late afternoon. She was expecting to have to walk from there to her home, about fifteen minutes away, so she hauled her trunk from the overhead storage and carried it out onto the platform. It wasn’t particularly heavy, at least not as heavy as it was at the beginning of the year, but it was still inconvenient to transport around. So Poppy was pleasantly surprised to see the family car, a slightly battered Austin 12, stopped by the train station. It was garnering a few looks from passers-by, cars weren’t particularly common since fuel had been one of the most heavily rationed items since the beginning of the war. What the muggles didn’t realise was that this particular car had a modified engine. Poppy then realised something unusual. Her mother couldn’t drive the car, and it hadn’t left the spot outside the cottage where her dad had parked it since the day he left.

And suddenly there he was.

Her father stepped out from the driver's side and stood waiting for her. She dropped her trunk on the cobbled pavement and ran to him. Embracing him tightly before pulling away and studying his features. His face was less rounded than the last time she had seen him, and it was three and a half years older, but it was almost definitely her father. He must have returned from America, where he had been sent by the ministry after they tracked him down to a Muggle army camp. They must have decided they didn't need him.

---

As it turned out, the ministry did need her father. He had been underestimated as a regional owl post master for a long time. Apparently, after spending a couple years in America, they had wanted him back in England. This was because Grindelwald had started to pop up in Europe, having lost many supporters over in America after he had duelled with Dumbledore a few years ago. This suited Poppy fine, she had her father back, and everything was going to be okay. Her family was whole again, she had a mother, and father, and two wonderful cousins. Christmas was shaping out to be better than Poppy had ever hoped it would be.

Chapter Text

Poppy woke on Christmas morning to squeals of delight from her younger cousins, as they jumped onto her bed, and promptly knocked the wind out of her. She had been home for a week, and everything felt as happy as it had once been, before her father left. Her cousins’ innocent joy permeated through the entire house. Even her mother, who was usually rather uptight, couldn’t help but smile on occasion. Though this wasn’t entirely to the credit of Henry and Thomas, it seemed that ever since her father had returned her spark had come back. When he left she had dulled and faded away, burying her sorrow in her job, and taking all the overtime she was offered. But now, she had been returning from work on time, and had even taken the entire Christmas week off. She could see why her parents had fallen for one another, fifteen years ago, they brought out the happiness in each other.

She had very mixed feelings about the whole affair. Her father had left, almost understandably, to fight in the muggle war, as most Muggle fathers and husbands had done. It wasn’t unusual to head off to war, but, to head off to a war you weren’t supposed to fight in had different connotations. He then had no choice but to work in America, as a form of punishment, until, ‘the whole thing blew over, and people forgot’, as Leonard Spencer-Moon (the Minister of Magic) had put it.

She didn’t resent her father, but she did wish he had just told them what he was doing, instead of walking out on them. Poppy had got some payback for that; however, she still welded his rather beautiful wand, and he had had to make a trip to an American wand maker, who, he told Poppy, 'was no patch on Ollivander’. The problem was, neither of her parents seemed to particularly acknowledge the events of the past few years. Apart from a brief discussion with her father on the car ride from the station, they had both picked up from where they left off, and pretended that nothing had changed.

But things had changed, in small ways at least, maybe only in ways that Poppy could see. Her father’s hands shook, near constantly, it was only a slight tremor, but it was visible. And the sadness behind her mother’s eyes hadn’t disappeared, even despite her father’s return. She tried not to let herself notice this though, Poppy wanted to enjoy her Christmas, and analysing her parents' deeper feelings did nothing to help.

Poppy smiled, sitting in the living room in her nightdress and watching the boys excitedly unwrap their Christmas presents. They seemed most excited by the package Florean had insisted she pass on to them, and the contents were no surprise. They seemed a lot less enthused by the books Poppy had bought them. She wasn’t good at choosing gifts for people. Thomas was a lot better at hiding his indifference towards the gift than Henry, thanking her before placing it neatly next to him and pulling the tin soldiers her mother had bought him out of the box.

Once the boys had finished ripping at paper and taking stock of their spoils Poppy, and her mother began opening their much smaller pile of gifts. She looked apologetically at her father as he unwrapped a box of chocolates from the village sweetshop, in her defence, she hadn’t had much time to think about a gift for him. He handed her an envelope next, which she assumed was from him. She slipped a letter from the envelope, it was clearly hand-made, with a lavender pressed into the front of the card. The note inside was written in neat cursive, and bore a simple ‘Happy Christmas Message’. At the bottom the names ‘Mary and Ruth's' were signed, and a return address for an apartment block in London was listed on the back of the card. She made a note of it in her little address book, and wrote a note next to it to remind herself not to send any correspondence by Owl. Her father gave her a knowing smile, and then moved on to the next present in the pile.

----

After opening the last of the presents, and spending some time listening to the radio, they settled down at the table for Christmas dinner. Poppy had helped her mother and Fishfinger (the house elf) prepare some of it, but had been shooed away for the most part. Her mother had tried to get Fishfinger to change her name on more than one occasion, insisting there were more suitable names for a house elf, but Fishfinger had flatly refused every time. She had once worked for her mother’s parents, and had started working for the Pomfrey’s when Poppy’s father first left. Poppy had never met her mother’s family, they had disapproved of her marrying a muggle-born wizard, and when she did, they cut ties completely. Poppy didn’t mind, when her mother did talk of them, they didn’t come across as particularly nice people. Poppy tried to clear her mind of family troubles, and tucked into the food in front of her. It was no Hogwarts feast, but there was something about sharing it with her- albeit strange- family, that meant the food didn’t matter to her at all.

----

Much later, when she was full to bursting, and her cousins had gone to bed, Poppy’s father launched himself into the living room, gestured at Poppy and her mother to follow him, and produced three brooms from the depths of the hallway cupboard. He was grinning from ear to ear, looking not dissimilar from the boys when they had been opening their presents. The three of them went out into their back garden, which had become significantly more overgrown since the last time they had tried to play three-person quidditch. Poppy had completely despised this little tradition in the past, but either her time at Hogwarts with friends who were obsessed with the sport, or simply the joy of having her family back in one piece, expelled the hatred from her entirely.

According to her dad, their version of quidditch was more like a penalty shoot-out on brooms, but Poppy wasn’t a big follower of football, so she didn’t really know what that meant. She knew her attitude had really changed when her father knocked her flying and she didn’t even care about the grass stain on her shirt, or the bruise that was likely to develop. She could suddenly understand why her friends loved the thrill of the sport, and why people like Minnie would risk getting injured just to play. She wasn’t going to be a quidditch pro overnight or anything though, she had fun, but she in no way had any skill. After her father had decided he had beaten her and her mother enough times to be declared the winner, all three of them traipsed inside and got themselves cleaned up. The night had already crawled into boxing day by the time Poppy finally slumped down into bed. She thought about her friends, and what their Christmases might look like. Then she pulled the card from her night stand and looked at it again, tracing the heart that encased Mary and Ruth’s names with her finger, and wondering if she would ever find something like they had.

Chapter Text

They had been back at Hogwarts for about a week and a half when Florean Frist laid out what he called his ‘evil plan’, a name which he insisted everyone involved used. They were yet to iron out the finer details, but it primarily consisted of an assault on as many Slytherin's as they could in a non-violent way (Poppy had insisted on this). She had been skeptical at first, Poppy didn’t like breaking the rules much, even if it was for ‘ a good laugh’ as Florean put it. Skye and Ally had spent the next three days trying to convince Poppy to get involved, ultimately winning her over by mentioning that Riddle would be their main target. They had deduced between them that the best time to achieve maximum Slytherin humiliation would be during dinner time at the great hall, so their plans floated around something food-based. Florean was eager to recruit as many people as he could or ‘the cause’, and when Poppy heard he wanted insider information on the Slytherin’s she knew exactly who to talk to.

Lupin and Black were harder to find than Poppy had been anticipating, they seemed to never be where they were expected to be when Poppy went looking. Not in fourth year study hall, or any of the classes they were supposedly taking, and she knew not to bother looking in the library. Eventually she came across them by complete accident down at the great lake. She had taken herself on a quiet afternoon walk after being cooped up in lessons all morning, and found the pair tossing a snitch someone had pulled the wings off of at each other. When they saw that she wanted to talk they gestured for her to sit under a small tree that sat just up the bank from the lake.
“We planted this in first year, did you know?” Lyall said, gesturing at the tree as they sat.
“I did not.” Poppy replied.
“Anyway, what can we do you for Miss Pomfrey?” Alphard asked.
Poppy hadn’t even got a third of the way through explaining the plan before both the boys agreed, they were already brainstorming all of the things they had that they could use.
“Come join us at breakfast tomorrow, Florean wants to get this in motion as soon as possible” Poppy said, once the boys had finally stopped talking to one another. They smiled at her and gave her a knowing nod, before walking back to the castle, telling Poppy to ‘wait here a few as if they were planning to rob Gringotts and not a stupid prank.

----

They finalised the plans over breakfast the next morning, at this point they had become quite a group, each of them pitching in to some part of the plan. Aside from being the ‘mastermind’ (as he liked to call himself) Florean also had to do a lot of bribery, mostly in the form of ice-cream. Which is how Poppy found herself helping to make ice-cream in a disused classroom, alongside Florean, Skye, Ally, Alphard, Lyall, Minnie, and the occasional appearance from Myrtle, who made a rather handy lookout. The whole affair made her feel more like she was operating in a class A potions lab than batch-making ice-cream. With everything set in motion, and enough ice-cream to feed the entire castle, including the portraits, for at least a week, they decided it was best to carry out the whole affair the very next morning. Which was how Poppy found herself crouched underneath the far end of the Slytherin table with Minnie sitting opposite her, underneath the bench where Alphard Black was sitting. The two of them waited for the signal in anticipation. Poppy risked a peek round the table cloth, and caught the look of confusion on everyone’s faces as the only thing that rose for breakfast along the tables were rows upon rows of boiled eggs.

Poppy and Minnie eyeballed each other as people began muttering about this unusual breakfast arrangement. She waited, and heard as the first Slytherin picked up an egg and decided to dig in. Slowly, up and down the Slytherin table, Poppy heard the sound of eggs exploding in faces, occasionally two went off at once, before a brief pause, when suddenly, another one further up the table would explode. This had the desired reaction and the Slytherins started dropping their eggs back onto the table, and jumping up, out of the way, to avoid stray bits of egg getting onto their robes. This was Poppy and Minerva’s clue to enact stage two of the plan. They worked their way down the rows of benches, Poppy taking the left side and Minnie the right. Wherever there was a stray satchel, and a lack of Slytherin, which, at this point was all of them bar Alphard’s, who was still sitting quietly at the table, they pointed their wands and muttered a spell that Minnie herself had adapted from a transfiguration lesson she had had just a week ago.

Poppy was surprised that they made it the entire length of the table without being spotted, but then again, she wasn’t surprised considering the ruckus. A few delayed eggs were still exploding at the table, and the entire great hall was now filled with textbook birds. A couple Slytherin’s were just beginning to clock exactly who the textbooks belonged to as Poppy crawled out from underneath the table, and Alphard and Lyall began to execute the final stage of the plan. A few wand wavings and mutterings from the Lupin and Black duo and suddenly the birds were dive bombing the Slytherin's. A few began picking up eggs from the other tables and dropping them onto the heads of Riddle and his creepy gang. Some of them began pointing their wands at the papery birds, attempting to transfigure them back. Poppy genuinely nearly wet herself with laughter when Orion Black was actually successful, and the textbook bird turned textbook again dropped out of the sky and slammed into his head.

Poppy looked on in fits of giggles as the Slytherin's finally realised there was no hope and turned to leave out the doors. Riddle was pushing other students out of the way, and was the first to the huge wooden doors. He pulled them open and was met with an entire barrage of exploding eggs, mostly aimed at his perfect hair, from Myrtle herself. She screamed and giggled delightedly, even after they made it out of the hall and into the corridor. The textbook birds simply followed them out into the hallway, they had been enchanted to follow their owners around. This, alongside the dozens of places that Ally and Skye had hidden exploding eggs around the castle, led to the entire morning of lessons being derailed.

By lunchtime the entire castle stank of eggs and a few elusive textbook birds were still flapping around the heads of their victims. Poppy was pleased to see a particularly heavy Defence Against the Dark Arts book was persistently dive-bombing Riddle's head, the pages generating a static that made his usual pristine, sleek hair stand on end as if someone had just rubbed a balloon against it. Some of the professors were helping to transfigure the birds back into text books, but Poppy noticed both Professor Dumbledore and Professor Beery sat at the teachers table tucking into ham and cheese sandwiches and chuckling between themselves.

----

It was almost three by the time the last stash of exploding eggs had been discovered by an unlucky Olive Hornby (Poppy had high suspicions a certain adolescent ghost may have lead her to them), and the final bird was a textbook once more. The entire school was called into the great hall for early dinner and ‘a talk’. The cherry on top of the five tier wedding cake that was the day came from watching all the Slytherin's suspiciously eyeing their mashed potatoes, as if it was start exploding in their faces at any moment. The entire house was covered in eggs, and textbook pages, and were generally dishevelled. Alphard stuck out like a sore thumb, his shoulder length hair eggless and his robes still pristinely pressed and flat. Poppy also knew at least a dozen Slytherin's had watched her and Minnie crawl out from under the table at breakfast, and she knew there would be no denying her involvement in the affair. After a general bollocking from Dippett on the ‘dangers of insensitive pranks’, and once the dining tables were cleared, he began reading from a list that Riddle had handed him moments previously.
“Alphard Black, Lyall Lupin, Minerva McGonogall and-” Dippett adjusted his glasses.
“up here, now!”
A huge raucous cheer rose from the Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables as the four of them made their way to the front of the great hall. People she had never met before patted her on the back and shook her hand as she walked. Fleamont Potter even slipped a whole sack of galleons into her robe pocket before standing up and grabbing her hand to raise it above her hand. He used his other to make up and down gestures, prompting the entire Gryffindor table to explode into another set of cheers. Her cheeks flushed pink and she grinned, she wasn’t particularly fond of the attention, but it was all worth it to see the scowl etched across Riddle’s face.
“OUT! All of you!” Dippett boomed, but his commands fell on deaf ears, and the cheering continued. Students only started leaving after Dippett started threatening to reset all of the house cup points aside from Slytherin's, and soon, Poppy, Minnie, Alphard and Lyall were the only students left in the great hall.

“Never, in all my years as Headmaster-” Dippett was cut off by a squelchy pop that came from his robe pocket. He dipped his hand inside, and withdrew his hand in disgust, it was covered in mushy, exploded egg. Poppy genuinely thought that Dippett would explode himself, or at least send a few curses his way, but, to his credit, he remained mostly even tempered. He escorted them all to his office, Poppy had never been in the headmasters office before. He took them in, one at a time, no doubt to try and worm out the other people who had been involved in planning the whole affair. Of course, he got no information out of any of them, and brought all four of them together to rattle off a list of all the punishments they would be receiving. Letters home, deducted house points, and detentions every single night for the entire term still didn’t seem to give Dippett enough satisfaction. Caning was something to be expected for misbehaviour in a Muggle school, but Poppy had never once heard of it being used in a magical school such as Hogwarts. Clearly, Dippett had been devising what to do with them all day, as his desk was strewn with papers from old school rules, and ministry advice on student punishment. He lined them up, one by one, and produced a wooden stick he had clearly procured from the forest. In other circumstances Poppy would have found it bemusing for an impressive wizard as himself to be welding about a normal stick, but the sting on her knuckles and across her palm quashed any pleasure she may have been able to pull from the situation. After he was satisfied, Dippett sent them all out without a word. The four of them were still ecstatic about their accomplishments that day, but they walked back to their respective dormitories quietly, rubbing their hands.