Chapter 2: Old Friends
September 1st, 1993
"Are you absolutely certain you have everything?" Oliver asked his sister, for about the hundreth time, as they were about to get on the Hogwarts Express.
"Ollie, we have five minutes until the train leaves. If I've forgotten something, there's really nothing we can do, is there?" Poppy answered with a sigh. Not only was her older brother being helpful, protective and brotherly, he was also aggravating. She'd been fully packed for a week now and throughout the whole week, everyday, without fail, at least ten times a day, Oliver would ask Poppy to check everything was packed.
"I think I'll just go find Grace, okay?" Poppy asked as they were searching the train for familiar faces and a place to sit.
"Are you completely sure you'll be alright?" Oliver yelled after her and she just turned around and rolled her eyes.
Grace was Poppy's only friend at Hogwarts. They had met by the lake during Poppy's second week at Hogwarts. She was a nearly a year older than Poppy and a Hufflepuff. She had dark brown, short and curly hair that framed her heart-shaped face. Her lightly freckled complexion suited her round blue eyes and her tiny, upturned button nose and small features made Poppy jealous occasionally as she felt her own, straight nose and square jaw looked humongous in comparison.
Poppy had long, blond hair, that she usually just kept down but occasionally tied up just to keep out of the way. Grace had said the color was a light strawberry blond, whatever that meant. She was always bugging Poppy to do something else with her hair and shoving makeup in her face. Poppy had dark green, almond-shaped eyes and just by looking at the two of them, most people never guessed her and Oliver were siblings. Oliver was tall and burly, Poppy was short and slender. He had dark, chocolate brown eyes and short medium brown hair and was always tan from being outside so much where as Poppy could spend all day in the sun and still stay the same milky color.
From the first time Poppy met Grace, it was obvious Grace really liked boys. Poppy had been doing her potions essay under a big tree by the lake at school, when she heard giggling from behind the tree. Poppy was sure it was some of the girls from her dormitory as they had not exactly warmed up to her, so she got up to go check and maybe give them a piece of her mind. But instead, she found Grace and a brown-haired Hufflepuff boy, smooching. Poppy was so taken aback by this that while trying to exit the scene undetected, she tripped over a root and fell to the ground. This startled the boy, who quickly hurried away, leaving Grace there laughing her eyes off. Grace helped Poppy up and explained that she had just been giving the boy the memory of a great first kiss, which Poppy had effectively ruined.
"He'll get over it," Grace said. "When I had my first kiss last year, my dad caught us and accidentally set the curtains on fire. And I'm fine now."
Meeting Grace had surely been an experience and it seemed as if every year she got even wilder. Poppy had never even been kissed, unless you count when Adrian Pucey tried kissing her last year, causing Poppy to swerve and have his lips hit her forehead. She definitely didn't count that. Grace on the other hand had been on a number of dates and had boyfriends, plural.
Poppy ran into Grace halfway through the train and they found an empty compartment near the back of the train.
"So, you must tell me everything!" Grace exclaimed, her eyes glistening. Poppy knew Grace really wanted to talk about herself whenever she seemed overly fascinated with Poppy's life.
"You know, same old, same old," Poppy said. "Oliver got a job at the Quidditch shop in Diagon Alley and I waited tables at the Leaky Cauldron to help pay for our room."
Poppy and Oliver's father had left when she was just four years old and since then they had been living with their mother. Oliver turned seventeen last November and they had moved out as soon as school let out, to the Leaky Cauldron. Their mother wasn't the best mother, Poppy always thought, and sometimes it seemed as if she wasn't even trying. It was as if she wasn't always present in this reality. The first few years without their father weren't bad, they were actually a normal family, but when Poppy was six, something changed. Their mother used to disappear for days, nobody knew where she went. Oliver practically raised Poppy, and he knew by the time Poppy was eight, she'd have to be able to take care of herself while he was at Hogwarts. Sometimes Poppy wished her mother would stop coming back every time and just leave for good. Poppy used to hide in her closet to read and write, even while her mother was home. Occasionally she'd forget Poppy even existed.
"It was a boring summer, trust me," Poppy said and asked, "What about yours?"
She knew Grace would probably spend the rest of the journey talking about her summer, stopping only to buy and eat every sweet off the trolley, and all Poppy had to do was listen. Apparently, Grace had met a cute muggle boy and went on a few dates with him. She had also met his friend, who was even cuter, and went out with him, too. The boys didn't know about each other at first, and when they found out there was a huge fight.
"And I mean huge!" Grace exclaimed. "I may have made things even worse when I pretended not to know who I met first, but it was just too funny! In the end neither of them wanted to see me again but it's fine, not like I'm ever going back there anyway."
Grace's family were muggles and they always spent their summer somewhere different. This year they summered in Blackpool.
The train ride took longer than usual, midway through the journey dementors stopped the train to look for some murderous lunatic. While they passed the girls' train compartment, Poppy felt as if someone had taken her good memories and replaced it with all that had ever gone wrong in her life and multiplied it by a million. Grace was relatively unaffected. After they were gone, in an effort to cheer Poppy up, Grace performed a curling spell on Poppy's hair. It created beautiful big curls that fell onto Poppy's shoulders.
Finally, the train arrived at Hogsmeade. Poppy and Grace were among the last to leave the train, since Grace wanted to freshen her makeup one last time before stepping out. She also insisted on putting lipgloss on Poppy.
"This is such a great shade, don't you think? It's even called 'Magical', how fitting is that?" Grace laughed.
"It's sticky," Poppy complained.
"Oh, shut up. Your lips are so full they were made for lipgloss. Or for snogging but I don't see that happening anytime soon. My point is, it looks perfect! Do you want mascara? Your lashes are so long you don't really need it but..."
Poppy opted out of mascara, amazed at Grace's ability to combine compliments and slight insults in the same sentence. She chuckled. Sometimes she felt jealous of Grace's looks, the fact she was taller than Poppy or her long legs but Grace was always quick to turn the conversation around, praising Poppy for her best qualities. Whenever Poppy got insecure about herself, Grace was there to make her forget it.
The girls got on the last carriage that would take them to the castle. It was about to take off when they heard a boys voice: "Wait! Don't leave yet!" The carriage jolted and Grace fell on Poppy's lap. Two boys climbed on. Poppy couldn't immediately see them because Grace was still scrambling her way off the floor and out of Poppy's lap. When she finally saw who their new companions were, she couldn't believe her eyes.
"Marcus Flint?" Poppy gasped. They boy sitting next to Marcus was Adrian Pucey. He smiled wide upon recognising Poppy. Poppy flashed a faint smile in his direction, she didn't fancy Adrian the way he did her, but he was one of the better Slytherins. Or used to be, who knew what effect Flint had had on him.
"Do I know you?" Flint asked with a puzzled look.
"Well, I am in your house," Poppy said slightly annoyed.
"Oh," Flint replied. "What's your name, then?"
"It's Poppy! You know Poppy, Wood's sister, right?" Adrian said before Poppy had a chance to open her mouth.
"Right, didn't recognise you," Flint said, turning away from Poppy and began talking Quidditch with Adrian.
Arriving at the castle, they all exited the carriage. Grace held Poppy back a little bit so the boys wouldn't hear their conversation.
"He doesn't know who you are?" Grace asked in shock. "I mean, you're a bit more womanly now, sure, but you're not that different."
"Apparently. But whenever he's spoken to me before, I've been with Oliver, maybe he just needs some context to remember people. It is Flint, after all," Poppy ranted. She was a bit mad, who wouldn't be? This boy had known her for three years and then he just forgets? They never talked much, only when Oliver was around Flint would shout out obscenities and that mostly happened before a Quidditch match, but still, he forgot?
"What's he even doing here, didn't he graduate last year?" Grace pondered.
"Guess not."
After the sorting of new students and the feast, Poppy entered the Slytherin common room and was amazed when it was nearly empty. Flint was sitting on one of the green leather chairs. Everybody else was probably down in their own dormitories, catching up and telling each other about their summers or plotting evil plans, as Slytherins do. The train ride had been exhaustingly long and Poppy was heading for bed when Flint spoke.
"It's the hair," he said.
"What?" Poppy replied, maybe a bit too snappily. She was still mad.
"I mean, it's different, it's why I didn't recognise you," Flint explained. "It looks nice."
"What?" Poppy said surprised. A compliment, from Flint? "I mean, what are you doing back here?"
"There was a problem of sorts," he replied vaguely.
"Right. I'm going to bed," Poppy said. No reply.
She lay awake in bed for awhile, not being able to sleep. Was Marcus Flint going soft? They'd actually had an almost decent conversation with no name-calling or rude remarks. She thought maybe she had been too quick to snap at him. Maybe this new side of him would help her in the upcoming Quidditch tryouts. She'd never tried out before, in fear of Flint and having listened to Oliver's stories about him for a few years. Flint and Oliver both became captain two years ago and Oliver told Poppy not to try out until Flint was gone. Except, he was supposed to be gone this year. This was supposed go be Poppy's year and she wasn't going to let anybody stand in her way, least of all Marcus Flint.