Chapter One - Wings and Blood
Poppy Pomfrey loved mornings in the wing. The sun would rise and stream its orange light through the windows as she busied herself with making beds, brewing potions for common sicknesses and readying herself for whatever adolescent drama the day would bring. Students of Hogwarts were unlike any she had found before, able to injure themselves and each other in a variety of ways which never ceased to surprise and amaze her. No hospital in the world could give her the experience she'd received in those initial years, and still to this day she thanked the sunrise for blessing her with the job at the school. If she'd known what that morning was going to bring, perhaps she wouldn't have been so quick to give her thanks.
The wing was just opening when they burst in, leaving streaks of soil and blood in their wake. The nurse pulled away from the candle she had been about to light and dropped a hand to her chest as her heart sputtered to life. It took her a few, precious seconds to register the intrusion. Too long. Time didn't pause in its efforts to turn a body into a corpse.
"Quick!" one of the boys yelped as he hobbled to a bed, dragging his limp companion behind him.
"Right," she muttered and shook her head, embarrassed by her own incompetence. She hurried over and shooed the four boys away from their friend, recognising their faces but not wasting energy by pulling memories of them from her brain.
The patient was crumpled to one side, dark hair matted to their cheek and arms coiled around their navel. Blood was not something Poppy could always smell but that morning, its bitter tang engulfed her nostrils and pooled across her tongue. She tried to ease the girl onto one side but she resisted, groaning like a hunk of metal being folded in two.
"Well help me then," she snapped at the others, who'd done nothing but gawp at her. Immediately, they grabbed any part of the patient they could get their soiled hands on and heaved her over, ignoring more cries of complaint.
That was when Poppy saw it, the gash. It stretched from her right hip to the left side of her ribcage in a crimson river, weaving across her stomach. Poppy's eyes darted to the others and for the first time, she let herself know their terrified faces: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.
Poppy looked at the girl on the brink of death but couldn't fathom who she was or why she was with them. The nurse must not have treated her for anything serious enough to warrant a memory.
Questions exploded like fireworks inside of her but none of them were going to help. So instead, she let them die and swore she wouldn't do the same to the girl. She drew her wand and began to whisper spells, urging each frayed muscle to find its way home. It wouldn't be enough, the wound was deep and she'd already lost so much blood, it was a wonder she had a pulse at all.
"Dumbledore," she said between chants.
"What?" James said.
"Dumbledore! Now," she ordered and he jolted, understanding dawning on him before he tumbled out of the wing, slipping again on the soaked floor.
The patient whimpered but she took it as a good sign, it meant that something was happening. Encouraged, she picked up her pace, wand dancing across the incision. It was a violent wound made from what could only be an animal. It was tidy too so the claws must have been razor sharp, at least the scar would be neat.
She shuddered at her dark mind and glanced at the others, wondering what they themselves were thinking as blood dripped steadily down their faces. Peter was shaking like a child about to be scolded and his eyes were scrunched closed as if the very sight of the girl was too much for him to handle. He certainly didn't fit the usual mould for a Gryffindor male.
She moved on and concern pinched at her forehead. If she hadn't been so busy, Remus would have been her next focus. He always looked ghastly of course, from the sunken depths of his eyes to the way his skeleton protruded from his skin as if it might rip through it at any moment. However, that morning he was worse than she'd ever seen him. He looked like he would drop at any moment and she noted the tears on his clothes and dried blood on his knuckles. She'd tried to raise her concerns about him with Albus in the past but he didn't appear to be doing much about it. He'd give her this knowing look, silently asking her to trust him and she did, without question. That in itself was the headmaster's greatest gift; everyone who knew him, even if they didn't like him, trusted him on his word. Perhaps that would someday be their downfall – she doubted it but perhaps.
"Stop," the girl begged and Poppy winced, loathing this part the most. The agony of repairing an injury this severe was parallel to when it occurred. The pain was matched but slower. She imagined it was as if the girl was carefully being sliced in half by Poppy's very hands.
"Remus, you'd better hold her," she said grimly.
"I…I can't," he stumbled and shook his head, backing away slightly.
"She's going to fight this and if I break the spell she'll never heal. Hold the girl."
Again, Remus took a step back and sputtered wordlessly. Refusing. If he'd been Poppy's son, she may have struck him for his cowardice. When it came to matters of life, the woman could be quite cold. The hospital wing was no place for a soft touch.
"I'll do it," Sirius volunteered and clambered onto the pillow, lifting the girl's head and shoulders onto his lap. His hands gripped her wrists and her torso was wedged between his knees, restraining the majority of her squirms.
"Don't let her go," Poppy warned, to which Sirius nodded once, his jaw locking to hold back what she assumed was panic or bile. Maybe both.
She raised her voice and the girl let out a terrible scream, loud enough to rattle the windows and send shivers fleeing down the nurse's spine. The girl's back arched and her feet kicked as she tried to escape the spell.
"Hold her still!"
"I'm trying," Sirius grumbled and wrapped his arms around her like a straitjacket. It wasn't good enough, the girl was flailing too fiercely and soon it would be too late. The pool of blood had dribbled onto the stone floor and was tickling Poppy's shoes. She couldn't let the girl die. The girl whose name she didn't even know. It was too awful, too sick and twisted.
Fingers appeared, coiling around the girl's ankles and pinning her to the mattress. The spell strengthened and Poppy gasped in relief. In front of her, James Potter appeared and took hold of the girl's knees, assisting the man he must have sprinted to find.
"Poppy," Albus said calmly, his gaze not leaving the patient, "can you do this?"
Could she? Four sets of eyes now stared at her and asked that same question. She knew that only one answer would be accepted.
In reply, she waved her wand and the girl's voice broke in rage and agony. Poppy ignored it all and watched the wound ripple. The skin crept together and began to stitch itself shut, too slow but working at least. She would make it, she'd heal.
"The girl, Albus," she whispered. "I don't know her face."
"No," the headmaster breathed, "nor do I." He frowned in a way that told Poppy he was as worried as he could get without breaking out of his constant composure. She turned to the girl, whose cries had dulled to a choked whimper, and swept aside a wave of concern. This was not her business to worry herself about. But it did seem peculiar and two final questions burrowed into her like a worm in a hole, nuzzling in her chest. Who was the stranger and, more importantly from the look of her curdled wound, what on earth had she brought with her?