Chapter 3 - Travelling light
When the letter from poppy arrived late in the night, I knew exactly what it would contain, she confirmed her grandmother had died, she didn’t explicitly tell me to come home, but I knew she needed support as she didn’t have any other family around her.
I had asked Sirona to watch out for her on her visits to the three broomsticks, she was one of the only people Poppy had gotten close to over the years, other than Amit, but I knew he had also headed out of the hogwarts area planning his memoir, so Sirona was the obvious best person.
Even though Poppy was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met, she was not good with social skills, it wasn’t that she didn’t like people or didn’t want to have friends, she was just very anxious and liked to keep her circle close.
She was happier tending to her creatures than speaking to humans, which I can totally respect, sometimes I wish I had been the same way.
After speaking to Natty we decided the best idea might be for me to go back to the cottage and help Poppy, I didn’t want to ask as i knew she would decline but if I just turned up she couldn’t say no, I had an open invitation to come back to Uagadou whenever I liked, but right now all I could think of was leaving as soon as I possibly could.
Travelling internationally through floo flames meant having to make multiple trips, the only connecting points I could use were major wizarding areas, luckily for me I had been stopping within the school grounds so I could be sent straight to Hogwarts as schools all had a link - travelling light as Floo doesn’t come with a extra space for suitcases, Natty assured me that she would send my items via enchantment within a couple of days, which worked perfectly for me.
I packed up my small bag of necessities and said farewell to everyone, I would love to come back at some point, maybe even Poppy would like to come this time.
I was excited to see Ominis, maybe he had heard from Sebastian? I’m sure if he knew where he was he would send an owl but when someone is missing what can you do - I know he misses him as much as I do, even though I wouldn’t admit it.
I throw a small handful of green glistening powder into the main hall fireplace and close my eyes, hoping that I will be at the right place when I open them.
I feel my feet return to the ground with a small thud, “ah Miss Brambleworth, Natty said you would be arriving shortly, I hope your travel was safe” called Professor Weasley from across the Hall.
“Yes thank you Professor, it was definitely a long journey, I’m happy to be going home”.
With that I head out of the main doors and straight to Poppy’s Grandmothers house in Hogsmeade.
It was small and slightly lopsided, the demiguise statue still stood in the window shining in the dark, I remembered that the front door didn’t open so I walked straight round to the steps at the back and lightly knocked on the door, I heard a faint sigh and footsteps before the rattle of a chain and Poppy’s face appeared, she has cherry red eyes from crying, almost too puffy to see out of, she let out a guttural sound and fell into my arms.
“I’m here”, I whispered.