skipping in a ring
“Who is that?” Poppy asks, sitting rather straight suddenly.
“Oh?” Pomona glanced up. “Oh. That’s Minerva McGonagall.”
“Which house is she in?” The strict looking girl was sitting down at the table on the far end of the library, far enough from the rest of the room that Poppy didn’t need to glance down to know that the girl was probably trying to tackle some terribly complex Ancient Rune translation. She’s seen the slightly crazed look before. She’d never seen it on a face that was somehow both regal and utterly fine-lined before. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“Gryffindor.” Pomona is giving her a strange look. “You must have heard of her.”
“What? Why?”
“She’s a Prefect. She’s the best at Transfiguration and her OWL grades are legendary. She’s the Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Hogwarts’ finest prodigy. She’s kind of a celebrity, P.”
“You know as well as I do that I’ve never paid much attention to Quidditch,” Poppy rolls her eyes. “And why on Earth would I know about any of the above?”
“You, my dear, beloved friend, live under a rock.” Pomona says, fondly.
She sticks her tongue out at her. “Do you know her?”
“Not really. She keeps to herself. Now, if you did want to get to know her, I heard she’s doing some tutoring…” Pomona trails off, and Poppy snaps her attention back to her friend only to find her friend wiggling her eyebrows at her.
“Shut up.” Poppy rolls her eyes, not able to stop her cheeks from burning. “I just think she’s interesting, that’s all. A celebrity that I didn’t even know about!”
“Sure. That’s why you, Miss I-Only-See-Patients, are taking such a personal interest in her. What do you take me for, a blithering idiot?”
“I’m-” She cuts herself off. “I’m just intrigued!”
“Sure, sure.”
“I am!”
“So if I told you she was often in the greenhouse, I wouldn’t start seeing you there more?”
Poppy flushes even more. “Shut up.”
“You know,” Sybill slides into the chair next to Pomona with practised ease. “There’s a cat lapping at your legs, flower.”
“What?” Poppy looks down, but sees nothing there.
“Just a silvery one. I think it rather matches your aura.”
“For Merlin’s sake, Sybill, your aura bollocks has never worked.” Pomona cuts in, rolling her eyes at their friend.
“Except for that one time I told you to stay away from Winifred Haywood because your auras were clashing that one day. You didn’t, and then you lost your Potions homework.” Sybill retorts lightly.
“That-” Pomona just glares, and Poppy has to laugh. Pomona glares at her, too.
“Are you ever going to do something about that crush of yours?” Pomona asks, sending a shock of deja vu through Poppy. They’re sitting in the library, again, and she is sneaking glances at Minerva sitting a few desks away, again.
“No.” She returns her attention to the table to give Pomona a glare.
Pomona sighs. “You don’t come along when I invite you to our tutoring sessions, which, you should, considering your last paper nearly gave old Dumbledore a heart attack.”
“I can’t intrude when you two are tutoring each other!”
Pomona continues as though Poppy didn’t interrupt her. “You don’t ask for help for Ancient Runes. You haven’t even talked to her.”
“I- She’s- Well.”
The look Pomona gives her is shrewd. “You know Minerva is just another witch, right? She’s not that scary. For Merlin’s sake, she’s,” Pomona lowers her voice, like she’s telling her a secret, “obsessed with tartan.”
“She’s Scottish. You can hardly blame her. You’re the one who drinks more beer than is good for you.”
“Oi! You shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.”
She gives Pomona a look. “See?”
Pomona sighs, a sigh that is nearly as familiar as Poppy’s own whenever they start talking about this. “If you don’t hurry up, she’s going to graduate. Then you might never see her again, you bumbling fool.”
There’s a sharp pang in Poppy’s heart at the thought of losing her, however scarce, treasured glances at Minerva’s stern profile, but outwardly she just says, indignantly. “I’m doing my best!”
“You know just going to watch her Quidditch matches isn’t wooing, right?”
“Wooing,” she repeats, snorting. “Pom, you talk like an old lady.”
“Who talks like an old lady?” Sybill floated down into her seat. Her voice is breathless, soft and misty. “Are you doing the Transfiguration essay?”
“Pom,” Poppy replies, sliding her essay over. “Where have you been?”
“In the Tower,” Sybill replies, pulling out her quill. The bangles on her wrist tinkled against the wooden desk, and for a moment Sybill seemed distracted by the sound, before her attention refocused back on the table. “The future is… Misty.”
“The future’s always misty, S.” Pomona replies. “I don’t think you’ve ever said it was clear.”
“Have you been eating?” Poppy asks, looking at her friend critically. “You’re spending too much time up there. You’re going to waste away if you keep missing meals.”
“I’ll ask the House Elves to send me something up before I go to bed,” Sybill dismisses, airily. “Although I don’t doubt that they won’t have anything that I want to eat.”
Pomona and Poppy share a look. As much as Sybill is often off-kilter and dramatic, her instincts tend to be correct when it comes to small things. When it comes to bigger things, though, Sybill has yet to get a prediction correct. Poppy still remembers the time Sybill had assured her that the spell “that removes objects” wouldn’t be on their OWLs, and thank Merlin Poppy had studied Expelliarmus anyway. “Do you want me to brew you some tea after we get back?” Poppy offers. “I think we might still have some tea. Unless you and Dorcas drank all of it last time.”
Sybill shakes her head. “We should turn in early tonight. There’s supposed to be a surprise party in the Common Room, and you won’t be able to fall asleep after it. Do you have Potions tomorrow, Pom-Pom?”
Pomona shakes her head. “I can pick you something up from the greenhouse if you need something to nibble on before.”
“Thank you,” Sybill’s look, magnified by the glasses that she wears, is grateful. “Can you–”
“Don’t worry. I know what you like.” Pomona gives Sybill’s hand a fond pat, and in return Sybill lifts her hand to her mouth and presses a kiss. Poppy and Pomona share a look, Poppy of the vague amusement that she never managed to shake despite how long the three of them had been friends, and Pomona of long suffering.
“I do think you should speak to Minerva, flower,” Sybill says, oblivious to their looks. She is, as always, scarily clairvoyant. “Venus is bright for you. Normally I’d be worried, but…” She trails off mid-sentence.
Poppy pushes down the scepticism that always rises in her whenever her friend begins to speak about the Inner Eye. “But?”
“Oh, what was I saying?”
“Something about Venus.”
“Oh. Yes. Venus. Your Venus has always been bright, flower. You will have a great love.”
“Will she, now?” Pomona’s voice is gently teasing. She’s already given Poppy the look that means she’s about to head out if there is any more talk about the Inner Eye, but Pomona is nothing if not kind. “Sybill, I don’t think Dumbledore is going to understand your paper if most of your essay is covered in cat prints.”
Sybill looks down, horrified, and Poppy has to choke back a laugh at the pages that she sees covered in cat prints. “I predict you will have a cat in your future,” she tells Sybill drily, and Sybill rolls her eyes at her. She rolls her own right back.
“Kill me.” Poppy says, entirely serious and completely sincere. “Please kill me.”
“I’m not going to Azkaban for you,” Pomona replies, marking down another sentence. “Besides, you don’t have to be so worried. This is almost perfect. You’re going to do fine, P.”
“Will I?” She’s beginning to feel hysterical, and she doesn’t like the laugh that bubbles out of her. “I’m this close to just giving up. I’m sure I don’t need any NEWTs to be a patient at St. Mungos.”
“You’ll be fine,” Pomona insists in that steadfastly calm way of hers. “Your grades are fine, you’re going to get an O in all of the subjects that you care about, and the subjects that you don’t care about don’t matter anyways. You’re a Ravenclaw, for Merlin’s sake. You couldn’t fail a test if you tried.”
“Easy for you to say,” she retorts, knowing that she’s irritable but unable to stop herself. “You’re set. There’s no way you’re not getting an O in Herbology, and that’s all you need to go off with Beery and do your research!”
“And you could do the same if you wanted to.”
“But I don’t want to!”
“Which is why you’re doing more subjects than I am. You got this. You know you do. This is just pre-NEWT nerves. You know that.”
She puts her head down on the desk and groans. “I hate this. I need a drink.”
“Where’s Sybill, do you think?” Pomona wonders, distantly. “I heard–”
Sybill appears, out of nowhere as usual. “Minvera’s coming back to Hogwarts,” she says without preamble. “And Pom-Pom is right, flower. You’re going to be fine. Oh, and please don’t drink, you know I hate the smell of alcohol.”
Sybill’s head flies up. “What?”
“She’s coming back to Hogwarts. I know it.”
Sybill exchanges a look with Pomona and lets her head slump back down. “Oh. So you haven’t heard it from anywhere?”
“I Saw it.”
“What’s she coming back for, S?” Pomona replies, distantly, still distracted by the paper she has in front of her.
“She’s going to be a teacher. Charms, perhaps? A subject that changes. Defence Against the Dark Arts?”
“How do you know?” Poppy gives her a look.
“The voices told me.” Sybill shrugs, and gives one of her purposefully mysterious looks. Poppy sticks her tongue out at her, and Sybill replies, certainty in her tone and voice, “Just wait and see.”
They do. It is after NEWTs that Dippet announces Minerva’s return, and Poppy can’t help but shoot Sybill an unimpressed look when she is announced as a Transfiguration teacher. Still, even though Poppy only catches a glimpse of the hair pulled back into a bun so tight it must, her heart clenches. Minerva is in an emerald green robe that falls to her ankles. She is still tall, proud, and despite the rumours that Sybill had told her about Minerva getting her heart broken the year after she graduated, Poppy can’t help but wishfully hope that Minerva might look at her. They’ve never spoken, but Poppy is still disappointed when Minerva’s sharp, dark eyes sweep past her and never linger for a moment.