Chapter 5 - Dragon pox
I stay with Poppy for a couple more days, trying to slowly help her come to terms with living alone, plan her Grandmothers funeral and get all the affairs in order before the day comes.
Going through this reminds me of my own mothers funeral, the smell of roses still lingers in my brain and I will never be able to look at a display of baby breath again, it had been 8 years.
some days it felt like forever and others like a few moments.
She had been subject to an Unbreakable vow spell when I was just a young child, no more than 6 years old.
I had fallen gravely ill with Dragon pox, a sickness that can kill even the strongest people, leaving others with green skin, covered in pus oozing welts for years.
We lived in a little wizarding village high in the north, off shore on a island no bigger than 2 miles around, the only floo flame point available to try and get me to St Mungo’s was on the neighbouring bigger island, just over 7 hours of rowing across.
My mother has heard whispers of a dark witch who preformed blood magic, she was known as a healer who could cure almost anything, for a price.
I remember being wrapped in a shawl and carried through the streets by my mother, too ill to walk by myself she made her way to the small cart shed across the island, the journey took around 2 hours and i remember falling in and out of consciousness while bobbing around like a rag doll with not even enough strength to lift my head.
I don’t recall much after that, the heat off a fire and a vial of purple liquid is clouded in my vision.
I remember the faint voices making a deal, “her life for her hand”, the witch says sternly, my mother sobs quietly.
“Is this the only way?”.
“Yes”.