After

Poppy cast diagnosis spells the minute Minerva sat down, and shook her head as a quill scribbled out the results on a floating length of parchment. “Dear Merlin, woman, you’re a wreck.” 

“Shock of all shocks,” Minerva answered sarcastically. 

“High heart rate, dehydrated, four broken ribs, low blood sugar, low blood pressure. How are you still up and about? Results like this we might have found you passed out on the floor.” She muttered, looking at the report and shaking her head, one possibility occurred to her and it was not a good one. “First things first, eat something damn it.” She snapped and a small assortment of biscuits and chocolate appeared. “Septimia where’s tea?"

Septimia snapped and a full tea set appeared on the table, it was light blue porcelain with miniature gold leaf vines up the sides. She pulled out her wand to summon up hot water. All skills she had learned from Minerva, who had almost stopped fidgeting as she sat in a summoned-up armchair in the middle of the hospital wing. 

Poppy walked off in the direction of the office, excusing herself by saying, “I’m going to check if I have any skele-repair left, I might have used it all.” She was also forming a medical opinion about what exactly had happened to Minerva and her prognostications were not looking positive. She had to find a way to get her out of the castle and into St. Mungo’s.

Septimia sat across from Minerva and they were quiet for a little while, listening to Poppy rummage around in the office that Minerva had done her best to repair and organise. Then Septimia silently poured two cups of tea and pushed one across the table to Minerva. 

Minerva took it without a word. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, just a quiet that neither of them quite knew how to fill. What can anyone say after what they’d been through? It seemed that there was nothing else to talk about, and simultaneously no topic that they wanted to avoid more. 

“So, you’ve done a lot here, it’s looking almost normal” Septimia ventured to speak, though she wasn’t really saying anything. When Minerva couldn’t think of anything to say Septimia self-chided, saying, “I guess I shouldn’t sound so surprised, you are you.” 

“For better or worse,” Minerva joked half-heartedly, looking at the tea cup in her hand which she found almost impossible to drink from, despite no real impediment. 

They were silent again for a moment, Septimia frequently glancing to the door that Poppy had disappeared behind. After a few minutes, and after a reasonable time had passed for Poppy to have returned, Septimia called out, “Pip? Are you alright?”

They received no reply. Minerva was out of her chair in a split second, Septimia at her heels they hurried to the office door. Minerva stopped in her tracks and Septimia almost ran into her in the doorway. Poppy was sitting on the floor, not appearing injured or harmed in any physical way, just sitting on the floor, sobbing. “I…I’m… I’m sorry. I…” Another sob broke off whatever she meant to say.

Minerva sank down next to her, not easy on 104-year-old knees, but she did it nonetheless and wrapped an arm around her. “Shhhh, that’s alright,” She whispered as Poppy hugged her and buried her head in Minerva’s shoulder. 

Septimia kept her tears at bay, for now, letting Poppy have her moment out loud. They had both comforted each other, but being back in the building was stirring up feelings in both of them. Apparently more than Poppy could handle. Septimia decided that meant she had to handle it for a bit longer. She didn’t want to lay her burdens on Minerva who refused to put her own down.

Eventually, after a few moments of unrestrained tears, Poppy Pomfrey pulled herself back together. She let go of Minerva and drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. She turned away from them and, producing a handkerchief from mid-air, dried her eyes, nevertheless when she turned back it was still obvious that she had been crying. She felt guilty for falling apart like that when she knew that Minerva and Septimia were hurting too and didn’t need any more pain than they already had. But she hadn’t been able to help it or hide it.

Minerva was still on the floor beside her, not so much out of wanting to be but because she wasn’t able to stand back up from that position. Moments before she had been unable to touch either of them, not wanting to, fearing causing any more pain than she already had. She was starting to realise how foolish that was. She felt a responsibility for both of these younger staff members, and she had for all the decades they’d worked together. In truth, she loved them dearly, despite not being very good at saying such things out loud. She ran her hand along Poppy’s shoulder, silently asking if she was alright for now. 

Poppy nodded and started to stand up again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall to pieces like that.” She managed to get to her feet and reached down to help Minerva up. 

After they were both back on their feet Minerva silently drew Poppy into another hug. Poppy was stiff at first as if she was surprised by the action, but quickly released the tension in her shoulders and wrapped both arms around her surrogate mum’s waist. She didn’t cry again, but closed her eyes and just caught her breath for a moment. Minerva pulled back slightly and gestured to Septimia, who had been hanging around the doorway, and she was quickly enveloped in the embrace as well. 

Poppy pulled back with a sniff and wiped away a stray tear. “What would the students think of this?” 

“Oh dear, they might even begin to think that we’re human,” Septimia responded sarcastically, one arm still around Minerva. 

“I found this, that’s what did it,” Poppy explained, not making eye contact. It was a note, a birthday card from Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher from the year before everything went to hell. “I had hoped she’d gone into hiding, but she’d be back by now if she had,” Poppy said, holding back another wave of tears. She and Septimia were both very fond of Charity, in the way that Minerva was fond of them. 

Charity was dear to Minerva as well, but she knew the truth, she knew where Charity was, and she’d kept it from them for months. She hesitated before speaking, they knew she was dead, why did she have to tell them exactly how? They deserved to know the truth about the death of their brave colleague and dear friend. How much more pain would this cause? How much worse would it be if she lied any longer? 

“There’s something you should know,” She said before she could stop herself. 

That simple sentence, in the present context, got their full attention. “What? What do you know?” Poppy asked, frightfully. 

“I think we’ll all want to sit down for this,” Minerva said, leading the way out of the room, she had begun to feel a little shaky.

They followed her, sharing terrified glances between the two of them. When they settled on the edge of their seats Minerva confirmed what they already suspected, “Charity is dead.” And they both sank into themselves on either side of her, a new flood of tears threatening to spill over. “Severus told me. He was there,” Minerva added sourly, sneering at the thought of that greasy fiend.

“Dear Merlin, what did he do to her?” Septimia asked, horrified and furious, tears shining in her eyes. 

Minerva realised that she should be gentler about this, but there was no easy way to break this kind of news. “Nothing. He didn’t do anything. She was a…demonstration… of sorts as he made it sound.” 

Simultaneously the other two turned away in their chairs, looking nauseous, tears escaping their resolve. 

“I am so sorry I have to tell you this,” Minerva said, sighing deeply, feeling the tears behind her eyes. “She was killed by Voldemort himself, in front of an assembly of Death Eaters, including young Draco Malfoy,” She said, wishing there was another way to say it, and more so wishing that she didn’t have to say it at all. Still, it was a far better way to find out than how she had, Severus’s cool, unbothered, almost gloating voice was ringing now in her ears with the words ‘Charity is already dead’. 

“Did he manage to get her body out of there? He was still on our side at some point, wasn’t he? Did he tell you where her body was?” Poppy asked, choking on her tears. “We have to bring her home if we can.” 

Her voice shook Minerva from her reverie, but she hesitated to tell them this part, she should have known that Poppy would ask. “He didn’t say,” She lied, “I’m sorry, I should have pressed him on that point.” There was no use in hurting them with what had really happened, it hadn’t hurt Charity any. It was only her corpse that Nagini ate, she was already dead, thank Merlin for small mercies. That was just another thing that Minerva would have to carry alone.

“What did he say about it? Did he care at all?” Septimia asked. Having gone numb, she was no longer crying, but her eyes were devoid of all emotion, expressing a pain that goes beyond words. 

“He told me that Voldemort was hunting all the muggle-borns and blood traitors out of Hogwarts,” She left out the part where he directly threatened to get her killed, “and I told him that if he so much as touched Charity or either of you, I would kill him myself,” Minerva replied. What she had actually said was ‘Severus if you so much as look at Poppy, Septimia, or Charity I will rip out whatever remains of your cold, dead, heart with my bare hands’. But they didn’t need such violent imagery now. “He told me then that she was already dead. At one of their meetings, in July.”

“And you kept that from us for nearly a year?” Poppy asked, sounding half upset and half admiring her ability to hide that fact. She was angrier when she said, “You let me go on all year hoping that she’d gotten away and that she’d be back? You just let me believe that I’d get her back after all of this was done?”

Minerva didn’t meet her gaze, but sighed and said, “I didn’t even really believe him at first. I thought surely he was bluffing to get to me, but that was just wishful thinking. After it hit me, all the students were already here, we were all preoccupied with doing what we could to keep them all safe, and preoccupied with losing them and missing others and the roll call of the dead outside of Hogwarts, I didn’t want to add another name to that list.” The truth was that she didn’t want to say it because to say it out loud would mean that it was real, that she was really gone. If they knew that she was dead then she really was dead and Minerva couldn’t go on with her own delusions. Delusions were the only thing keeping her sane. 

Minerva still didn’t look at either of them when she said honestly, “I won’t blame you for being angry with me, I would be.” 

The younger witches felt all the anger leave their bodies when they looked at the woman in front of them. She hardly looked like herself, there was no sharpness left to her as if all the edges had been dulled. There was hardly an emotion behind her expression at all. Septimia swore that her hair was three shades lighter than it had been, Poppy would testify that there were more lines on her face than she remembered ever seeing before. She looked older now, and although the evidence to the contrary was all around them, she looked weak. Yes, she had lied, but nothing would have changed if she hadn’t, nothing would have been better and it might have been considerably worse. 

They were silent for some time. The three of them thought about Charity, her bright, bubbly personality, eagerness to teach, willingness to learn, and how careful and thoughtful she had been. What a crime it was that such a wonderful person should meet such a tragic end. 

“I don’t like to hold grudges,” Septimia said, finally breaking the silence. “Besides, it’s not like it changes anything.” 

“She’s dead either way,” Poppy said, harshly. She didn’t mean to be so blunt but it felt a bit like there was a knife in her heart.