double-edged knife
Poppy looks at her friend. She barely even recognises her anymore. “Sy.” She says, the nickname familiar on her tongue despite the woman in front of her no longer resembling any of the girl she had once addressed. “I won’t mince words with you. You need to stop drinking.”
“What?” Sybill’s look is bleary. “Why?”
She bites back the harsh words that spring to mind. They are spoken in Pomona’s tone, but she cannot speak them. She remembers the promise she had made Sybill, once. But Pomona had not come around after the war. “You’re a teacher now. You can’t keep showing up to class drunk.”
“You don’t understand, flower.” Her nickname, the one only Sybill had ever used, sounds strange in the air too. Poppy has long since stopped being a flower. She is a weed now, growing and thriving even though the world around her is salted and buried in wounds. “It- Everything is getting worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Potter boy is coming to school.”
Poppy doesn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. “The entire world knows when Harry Potter will enter Hogwarts, Sybill, it’s hardly a secret.”
“But it’s going to get worse. There are snakes in his future, so many snakes… He’s going to die, flower, he’s going to die and the world is going to end.”
“Everyone dies.”
“Not like him. He will die, and with a flash of white light he will return. Don’t you understand, Poppy? The world is going to end! The Boy Who Lived will not live for the third time. The voices… They whisper it. They scream it, Poppy, and what they decree must come to pass.”
Poppy has had enough. She stands, laying her wand to the side and offers her hand to her friend. Sybill’s hand is skeletal when it grasps hers, and it is cold, freezing. Sybill has stopped looking like a person in the past years, the war having eaten away anything human that had been left of her, and it is with great grief that Poppy looks at her old friend and realises that she doesn’t see anything but a shadow of the person Sybill once was. Another name that she adds to the list that has done nothing but grown since the end of the war. “Let me take you back to your rooms.”
“You don’t understand.” Sybill snatches her hand away from Poppy, and the look she gives is betrayed. It is hurt, and it is slowly filling with an anger that does nothing to clear the haziness of Sybill’s big grey eyes. “You don’t believe.”
“What is there to believe, Sybill?” Poppy replies, tired. “You have been saying that the end of the world will happen for years. It’s never happened. We’re still here.”
Sybill laughs, watery, nothing even close to joy. “I knew this was coming,” she murmurs, more to herself than to Poppy. “I Saw it. I didn’t believe it. I thought- Poppy, my dear, dear flower–”
“Don’t call me that,” Poppy snaps, suddenly rubbed raw by the word. “I’m not a flower, Sybill. I’ve seen terrible things. I might not be able to See the way you claim to, but I have seen enough in the war.”
“And you think I have not?”
“Then where were you?” Poppy explodes, turning on the friend that she is no longer sure even exists. “Where were you, Sybill? Where were you when Pomona lost her entire family? Where were you when I had to bandage the Clearwater girl’s leg for the fifth time? Where the fuck were you?” She’s breathing hard, each breath somehow becoming a sob even though she had promised herself when she heard that Albus was bringing Sybill to the staff that she would never ask these questions. She had promised herself she would let old wounds heal. “Why weren’t you here when we needed you?”
“I-”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.” Sybill whispers, miserably.
Poppy’s scoff is cold. “Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t.” Sybill’s voice is desperate. “Poppy, you have to understand. The Sight… It wants to be alone in order to See, and when it is not, the voices, they- they’re overwhelming. They colour everything. I would have done nothing but hurt you if I hadn’t hidden myself away, and if I hadn’t left, he would have come to your door.”
“So I’m supposed to be grateful?” Poppy replies, “Grateful that my oldest friend couldn’t even answer a phone call when I needed her the most?”
“No.” Sybill looks so pitiful that Poppy’s anger only flares more. How dare she. How dare she act this way, when all Poppy has done since Sybill returned to Hogwarts was try to take care of her, when all Poppy had done during the war was wonder where Sybill had been in the few precious moments she had to herself. “I know it’s hard to understand.”
“It’s not hard to understand.” Poppy’s voice is hard. “It’s incomprehensible. I have always been here for you. And yet you disappear on me for a year because of some absolutely asinine idea about your own import.”
Sybill barks out a laugh, so hollow it feels like the skeleton of one. “Have you?”
“What?” Poppy is taken aback.
“Have you, Poppy? Have you really always been there for me? Were you there when our House bullied me? Where were you when Pomona dismissed my visions, told me that all I was hearing and all I was Seeing was fake? You have no idea the weight that falls on my shoulder, and to add insult to injury, you dare claim to care.”
“I didn’t,” Poppy cuts herself off. She takes a deep breath. “I didn’t not believe you.”
“But you neve believed me, either. And that is why, that is why when I explain to you where I’ve been, why I’ve been away, you don't believe me.” There is a terrible finality in the way Sybill looks at her. “You will neve believe, Poppy. I know. I knew, and I still hoped that you would trust me, believe me.” Sybill moves away from her, towards the door, stiffly and with nothing less than utter desolation oozing from her shoulders. “I should have known. You can’t fight fate.”
“Sybill, wait–” But Sybill is already stumbling away, her many shawls and dresses and whatever it is that she wears swaying in the air of the night. Poppy should go after her, but she’s rooted at her spot. She thinks back to the times when she had exchanged looks with Pomona, after Sybill had done one thing or another that they found eccentric. Sybill had always seen more than Poppy has given her credit for, and it isn’t a stretch to imagine that Sybill had seen them, had known what they were thinking, and had continued to love them regardless. It pains her to admit it, but Poppy had thought herself the generous one, for putting up with all of Sybill’s eccentricities and loving her despite them.
Poppy sits down at her desk, hard. She puts her head in her hands. For all the anger she holds for her friend, she is not blind. She is a Healer. She recognises all of the signs on Sybill, and she berates herself for losing her temper. She should have known better.
It’s been a long time since she’s lost her temper. She couldn’t afford to, in the war. There was no time to get angry, no time to talk things out. There was only the next body waiting, the next patient, the next person that she had to wrangle Death for. She had thought that in the year since the war had ended she would have remembered how to be a person again, but here she was.
She laughs, a watery thing, at herself. All of those years of pretending and putting up with Sybill’s belief in the Sight, for nothing more than because she loved her. She loved Sybill, as fiercely as she loved Pomona, because she remembers the Sybill who floated down from the Tower with the wittiest retorts to all of their teasing, the Sybill who wouldn’t hesitate to pull a prank on a bully and who somehow always managed to get away with it. The Sybill she knew would never have hidden herself away, never have let the paranoia of all that are blessed with the Sight tear away at her.
Sybill is wrong about at least one thing. Poppy has never doubted that Sybill is blessed with the Sight. She simply didn’t believe that Sybill was powerful enough as a Seer to go through with all of the Seer nonsense that any Healer worth their wands would know about.
A sharp knock interrupts her thoughts. “Poppy?”
She sighs, sits up, takes a moment to wipe at her cheeks and wonders half-heartedly if she would be able to somehow make the tear tracks she knows are obvious on her face disappear. She doesn’t bother, in the end, just calls out a tired “Come in” to Minerva, who enters with a look of quiet concern on her face.
“Are you alright?”
“Why do you always find me when I look like shite?” Is what she asks, trying to lighten the mood.
“You never look like shite,” Minerva replies, her tone light. Poppy can feel a blush begin at the tips of her ears anyway. “But you do look pale. Are you okay?”
She shrugs. “Just,” she waves a hand. Sighs, because if she doesn’t she might start to cry again. “Sybill.”
“Ah.” Minerva’s mouth flattens into a thin line of disapproval. Minerva has made no secret of her disdain for Divination as a subject, and although she has always treated Sybill with the utmost courtesy, that is all the good favour she holds towards her. “I see. Has she predicted your death?”
Poppy manages a half-hearted glare at her. “Sybill was the first person to tell me you were a cat, you know. And this was before you were an Animagus, even longer before everyone knew.”
Minerva’s eyes narrow slightly behind her glasses. Poppy rarely sees her wearing them when she’s not grading, and the sight is making butterflies do somersaults in her stomach. “Why were you talking about me with Sybill in school?”
Poppy has to bite back a curse. She had forgotten, for a moment, how perceptive Minerva is. The question is innocent enough, but she can feel the flush already starting to colour her. “Hogwarts’ finest prodigy. You can’t tell me you didn’t know people were talking about you.”
Minerva frowns at her. “What do you mean?”
Poppy gapes. “Surely, you’re kidding.” Minerva shakes her head. “You didn’t know how famous you were at school?”
“I was rather focused on my studies.” Minerva replies, stiffly.
“But- You had to have known! You were a campus celebrity!”
“I assure you, I didn’t.”
“That’s-” Poppy has no idea what to make of that. She clears her throat. “So, what did you need me for?”
Minerva looks at her blankly. “It’s Friday.”
“Oh!” Poppy looks around her desk. “Is it that late already?”
“If you’re busy…”
“No.” Poppy is quite firm as she stands. “Let’s go. I need a butterbeer tonight.” Minerva’s smile is fond as she shakes her head.
As they settle in a secluded booth at the Three Broomsticks, Minerva is quiet. Poppy doesn’t probe. Minerva will always speak whenever she wants to. In many ways, she and Pomona are quite similar. “I want you to know,” Minerva says, finally, after many sips of her butterbeer. “That I care for you.”
Poppy blinks at her, the warmth that suddenly fills her to her fingertips having nothing to do with her butterbeer. “Oh.” She says, rather dumbly.
“And because of that, I care for your friends.” Minerva continues, rather stiffly. Her hands are wrapped so tightly around her mug that her knuckles are white, and if Poppy wasn’t so afraid Minerva would stop talking she would laugh at how uncomfortable talking about this Minerva is. “So I hope you feel as though you can talk to me about Sybill, my differences with her aside.”
“Oh,” Poppy repeats, a smile spreading across her face. “Thank you, Minnie.”
Minerva cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing. “Minnie?”
Poppy shrugs. “Like the mouse.”
“I will pretend that you did not just call me Minnie Mouse.”
“If the shoe fits…” Poppy grins wide when Minerva gives her a glare. “And thank you,” she says, sober again. “Sybill… She’ll always be a part of me. I love her like a sister. I can’t…” She frowns down at her butterbeer, tears suddenly threatening to push through her resolve again. “She needs help, and I don’t know how to help her.”
“Is it the sherry?” Minerva’s bluntness still shocks Poppy sometimes. Poppy has half a mind to ask her how she knows, but the smell of alcohol practically emits off of Sybill now.
“More than that, but for now, yes.” She admits.
Minerva hesitates for long enough that Poppy gets her face under control, and looks up in question. Minerva is frowning down at her firewhiskey like it has offended her, and Poppy nearly reaches out before she stops herself. She is just about to open her mouth and tell Minerva that it’s fine, they don’t have to talk about something so depressing, they started meeting weekly to remind each other to be happy, but Minerva speaks before she can. “I might have a few tips.” Her voice is quiet, and Poppy immediately hears the thousand layer story underneath the cool surface.
“You do?” Poppy makes sure to keep her voice and face even.
Minerva nods. “When. After, I suppose. After I left Dougal, I… There was a time. I wasn’t doing very well.”
“Ah.”
“I think I might know what Sybill is going through.” Minerva lifts her cup to her lips. “If you need any help…”
Poppy pours her whole heart into her, “Thank you.” She doesn’t say more. She knows Minerva well enough now to know that any more and Minerva will become embarrassed, ashamed, maybe even stop talking altogether. Instead, she simply takes a sip of her cup and waits for Minerva to look up at her. When she does, Poppy gives her a small smile. “I just miss the person she was before the war.” She shrugs. “Well, I suppose I miss the people that we all were before the war.”
Minerva’s chuckle is dry. “Don’t we all.” She falls into a silence, and Poppy knows without having to ask that Minerva’s mind, too, has a list of all those that she has failed.
She takes a chance. Minerva’s hand is cool despite just being wrapped around her mug when she lays a hand on top of it. “Thank you.”
Minerva’s eyes look up at her from where they had snapped to her hand, and the small smile she gives is sad but sincere. “Of course.”
They sit in companionable silence. Minerva doesn’t move her hand away.
“Minerva,” Poppy needs to stop calling the Snape boy the ‘new professor’ in her mind, but she can’t help it. She wonders if this is how Albus felt when she returned to school to be the Matron. “Dumbledore wanted me to remind you–”
“That the Potter boy is going to be at school next year?” Minerva interrupts, her tone dry. It shocks Poppy, the familiarity with which she speaks to Snape. “I’m surprised you agreed to be his owl, Severus.”
That shocks Poppy enough to turn and look at Minerva, her eyes wide, but they only get wider when she sees the expression on Minerva’s face. “How could I refuse the chance to ask you to do more work?” Snape retorts, his face still set in the grimace that it has been set in since he was a child. Still, his tone is light, and if Poppy hadn’t known better, she would say that he sounds… Friendly?
“I see,” Poppy recognises the glint in Minerva’s eyes, but never in a thousand years did she think it would appear when Minerva is speaking with Snape. “I’ll speak with Albus about that. Potter will surely be in my House, so I will be too busy preparing for what will inevitably be a very distracting year. I’m sure you can take on more duties as Head of House, can’t you?”
“I’ll be sure to inform the Headmaster that you think the boy saviour,” the way Snape’s lip curls at the title makes it clear what he really thinks about it, “will be stupidly rash. We wouldn’t want your, ah, beliefs get in the way of treating the boy the same way as the rest of the students, would we?”
“You jest. You can’t be implying that you think the boy will join your House?”
“Why not?” Snape sneers. “Not that we would want him.”
“Oh, Severus. With that sort of optimism, I do wonder why you never became a gambler. At least then you’d have a reason for your foolishness.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over how loud that pattern you’re wearing is. Are you sure you’re all right, Minerva?”
“All right,” Poppy interrupts, bewildered. “What is happening?”
They both turn to her, eerily in sync, Snape still with an unpleasant expression on his face and Minerva looking amused at her confusion. “We’re speaking,” Snape says.
“I can see that. Since when…” Poppy trails off. She can’t very much ask what they have going on, but at the same time, she very much wants to know. She steadfastly ignores the trickly of what might be jealousy in the very bottom of her stomach, and just raises an eyebrow at Minerva.
Minerva, for her part, only looks more amused. “Are you objecting to a bit of collegial fun, Poppy?”
“No, but I thought…” She gestures at the two of them.
“Yes?” Snape raises an eyebrow. Poppy has the unsettling feeling that he is enjoying this, and a quick glance at Minerva confirms that she, too, is definitely enjoying this.
“The Quidditch Cup?” Poppy finishes weakly.
“Which Gryffindor will win this year.” Minerva continues without a beat.
Snape snorts. Poppy stares. “I’ll be sure to remind you of your confidence when I return the Quidditch Cup to my office at the end of the year.”
“Not if Flint keeps calling plays the way he has been. It is pure luck that you have kept the Cup this year.”
“Attacking students now, are we? Where is your sportsmanship, Minerva?”
Minerva rolls her eyes at him. “Go away.”
Poppy gapes. Snape simply smirks. “Of course, Deputy Headmistress.” He turns, his black robes sweeping behind him like the wings of a bat. “Madam Pomfrey,” he nods at her, still smirking, before he leaves.
“What-” Poppy manages. “What was that?”
“Severus.” Minerva says, simply. “What were you saying again, before he so rudely interrupted, Poppy dear?”
Albus’s blue eyes twinkle in the light as he stands next to Minerva, his return to the school silent and unknown. He is sober, wearing the smell of Death on him, and Poppy can barely look at their distinguished Headmaster. “Well, Poppy?”
“He’s fine.” Poppy glares at him. “No thanks to whatever shenanigans you have sent the poor boy off on again.”
“The fate of the world–”
“He’s a fifteen year old boy. I don’t care if he has seen the rise of You-Know-Who, he should not have been around Dementors for so long and he most certainly should not have been duelling!”
“You’re right.” Albus concedes quietly, his eyes looking past Poppy now as though he could see the boy in the room with them. “He shouldn’t have.”
Poppy sighs, and rubs her eyes tiredly. “Is there anything else you need? St. Mungo’s could probably do a more in-depth check, but for now, he’s fine.”
“No. Thank you, Poppy. I trust he’s in great hands.”
Poppy doesn’t say anything. She just nods, and watches as Albus leaves. Minerva stays behind, though. Though they’ve attempted to continue their tradition of a drink at the Three Broomsticks every week despite the hardships of the last semester and the looming war, this is the first time in years that Minerva has been in the Hospital Wing. In the harsh light, the lines that time has been so kind as to carve into Minerva’s face are exaggerated. There are lines under her eyes that hadn’t been there before this year, and Poppy’s heart clenches at the sight. “Thank you, Poppy.” Minerva says, quietly.
“Remind Albus, will you? Potter’s a boy. He’s a child. He shouldn’t…” Poppy trails off, resisting the urge to rub her eyes again. “He’s in here more than his father was, and you know how difficult that is.”
“I know.”
Poppy sighs again, before she steps a little closer to Minerva. The smell of jasmine bombards her senses. “Are you okay?” She asks, quietly.
“I’m fine,” the taller woman says, equally quietly. They are standing close enough that Poppy only has to reach forward a little before her hands can touch Minerva’s, which she does. The feeling of Minerva, solid and warm and alive, steadies her. “St. Mungo’s discharged me, after all.”
“Don’t.” Poppy closes her eyes and sucks in a breath. “You could have died.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you could have.”
“Poppy.”
“Just…” Poppy opens her eyes, and she doesn’t even try to hide the desperation she feels when she tells Minerva, beseeches her really, “Be careful, alright? I know the world needs you, Minerva, Merlin knows how strong you are. Just… Be careful.”
Minerva searches her eyes. What she finds, Poppy doesn’t want to know. “I will.”
“I was terrified,” Poppy tells her, as much of a confession as she thinks she’ll ever be able to make.
Minerva nods, grasping Poppy’s hands a little tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be careful. Please.”
“I will be.” Minerva gives Poppy’s hands one last squeeze before she drops them. “There is another war brewing.”
The weight of the sky cannot be heavier than the weight of exhaustion that settles into Poppy’s bones at the confirmation she hadn’t needed. “I know.”
“Sybill knew, too.”
“What?”
“You must not tell anyone about this,” Minerva warns. “No one is supposed to know.”
Poppy nods, wordlessly. She searches Minerva’s sharp grey eyes, and she can’t even begin to imagine what Minerva might say.
“There was a prophecy. It’s why Harry Potter was Chosen. Albus said he heard it the year he hired Sybill.”
“What?”
Poppy recognises the exhaustion in Minerva’s eyes like looking into a mirror. “It is fated, apparently, the Potter boy and You-Know-Who.”
“Merlin.”
“When do you think it will be over?” Minerva asks her. There is nothing in her tone that suggests it, but Poppy reads the lines between the words of her friend’s question, and she knows that Minerva, too, is desperate. They have been through one war already, and Merlin if Poppy didn’t wish desperately that she could die before another one erupts.
“I don’t know.”
They’re silent after that, standing close enough that they can share their warmth. Poppy thinks back to the question she asked Minerva, back when the first war ended, and she nearly snorts. She has long since moved past caring whether or not Minerva thinks she looks like shite.
Minerva’s features are just as pointed and graceful as the day that Poppy met her, and it is with a sudden resolve that Poppy promises herself. If they survive this war, this second, bloody, horrific war, she’ll tell Minerva the truth. Poppy knows that there is very little she could do now that would turn Minerva away from her now, but more than that, Minerva deserves to know. “Go to bed, Minnie. Rest.”
“Alright.” Minerva’s nod is small, and even though she hates to do it Poppy lets her go. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”