SPOILER ALERT!
Thoughts running through the head of Madam Pomfrey at Dumbledore's funeral
Everybody suffers in war-time. This was the one true statement that Poppy Pomfery found always to be true in her life-time as a healer.
She graduated from Hogwarts in 1938 with sufficient NEWT grades to enter a highly-regarded nursing course in Germany. For two years she was blissfully ignorant of Muggle and Wizarding Politics and then World War Two was initiated the same day as her third year in college began. It was not a time of her life she enjoyed remembering and only that she could prove her grand father was born in Prussia it could have been a lot worse for her as a British citizen.
The war split Poppy's views on Muggle/Magic segregation. She had, at her fingertips, potions enough to cure every dying man's ailment or to fix any child's mangled limb but she couldn't use them and it infuriated her. On the other hand, had wizards been involved in the bloody mess the injuries could have been much worse and harder to cure.
Of course, it was a dark time for wizards too. The Dark Warlock Grindelwald was wreaking havoc in the magical community and the vast majority of witches and wizards were hidden. Poppy lost one of her four brothers in that war. Robert was his name. She hadn't thought of young Robert in years…
Her course finished in 1942 but she didn't return to England. Instead she worked in the local ambulance corps. Some patients were too badly injured to save, some were dead already. Occasionally she would slip a war-wounded civilian something to mend them but mostly it was muggle first aid only. Young Madam Pomfery did the best she could for her patients and got through the horrific years by keeping her nose clear of all funny business.
Like most people in Germany she only found out about concentration camps after the war was ended. Like the rest of the world she was horrified when images of the living skeletons who survived and bodies that didn't were released. If Muggles could still do that to other Muggles, what might they have done to the wizarding community? Events of World War Two re-instated belief in Poppy that they were perhaps better off separated from the Muggles after all…
Poppy Pomfrey went home in 1947 and spent several years working in a potions lab. She became good friends with the women later to mother Servus Snape. She was a lovely person, full of sprite and always up for a laugh even if she wasn't the prettiest of girls. Eileen Prince told Madam Pomfrey that her family had always considered her an oddbod and had kicked her out of their home when she was 16. They shared quarters for several years and Poppy had actually introduced Ms.Prince to Howard Snape at a muggle-do. Eileen asked her to be bridesmaid at their wedding two years later and Poppy gladly accepted. How could such a lovely woman's son turn out so wrong?
In 1958 she moved into Hogwarts as school nurse. All was well for many years with nothing more serious than bitten-off fingers and broken skulls occasionally interrupting bouts of dragon-pox and the yearly dose of colds. Her routine changed slightly with the arrival of young werewolf Remus Lupin to the school but she had discussed its implications thoroughly with Dumbledore and felt confident that they could handle it. For what was a young Werewolf to the man who defeated Grindelwald? Then on in she always made sure she knew when the full moon was and had a partitioned bed ready at the end of it in case he did himself serious harm.
Remus was a charming but quiet boy whom she had come to know quite well over the course of his time in Hogwarts. He was hopelessly smitten by that Evans girl if her memory served her rightly. Yeah, and she married that bad Potter fellow, got her killed too didn't it. Poppy left Hogwarts temporarily in his third year to research anti-lunar potions when whispers of a new Dark Lord started to fly abound. Dumbledore asked her to return to Hogwarts as soon as it was found that their new nurse had been placed under the imperius curse. It was only then that Madam Pomfrey saw the true horrors of magical war.
Their first casualty was a boy by the surname Roderick. He was in his sixth year at Hogwarts and crept out of the school grounds via a secret passage to meet a man dealing in protective amulets. Roderick was a half-blood wizard from Gryffindor too stupid to run when he insulted a death-eater and so overconfident in his own abilities that expected to win the following duel. Madam Pomfrey could still remember his limp face and staring, half-open eyes when villagers carried him into the hospital wing. She could do nothing but summon his parents. The helplessness brought back unpleasant memories from her time in the Muggle Ambulance Corps. It was the worst feeling in the world sitting there, waiting for the bereaved to arrive and knowing there would be many long waits like this one ahead of her.
Luckily, if you could call it lucky, there were no more student deaths until the summer holidays when a family of three were killed. Then in November a second-year Hufflepuff girl was found floating fully-dressed in the lake. Murders became more frequent and more targeted. Blood-traitors, muggle-borns and squibs seemed to be the highest risk group but even a pure-blood was killed when she refused to join up. Madam Pomfrey could no longer name all the students who died at the hands of Lord Voldemort. That shamed her. 'A life is a life and all life is precious' was the healer motto. And some lives are worth more than others. Hagrid walked past carrying the body of their beloved Dumbledore.
A good man was Dumbledore. Always looking out for others before himself. She had heard from someone who had got it from somebody else that Dumbledore had thrown himself in front of a fatal curse meant by Professor Snape for Harry Potter, the boy who lived. The boy who always lives. Harry lived when the lovely Evans girl Lupin had been so fond of sacrificed herself for him. Harry lived when he was four-years old and a fame-seeking lunatic sought to kill him. Yes and several good men died to stop the madman didn' they. Harry lived in his first year when Quirrel died. In second year he had become quite the young hero saving Ginerva Weasley from the clutches of Tom Riddles diary, (if the grapevine was to be trusted). And in third year Snape saved Potter from Lupin and the boy didn't even so much as thank him. Much as she liked Remus Lupin, werewolves were highly dangerous creatures and it wouldn't have hurt "the boy who lived" to show some appreciation. The list of living went on and on. Right up to the death of the wizarding world's only real hope, Dumbledore.
Dumbledore couldn't be dead. No way, not now, not ever.
Flames rose from the body and Poppy Pomfrey shrieked. Towering flames, twelve foot high, gave off plumes of smoke she was sure were visible in Hogsmeade. For a moment she could have sworn she saw a phoenix rising through the blaze, then she blinked and it was gone. Dumbledore was gone; Dumbledore was encased in that cold marble tomb forever. And to think, Eileen Prince's son was the one who killed him… Yes, and you were the fool who introduced his parents. Couldn't be my fault, could it?