Celebrating Voldemort's Downfall
Chapter 2
by Iva1201
A/N: The disclaimer and A/N from Ch. 1 apply also to this part of this story (still not mine and still not betaed (-:). I thank you for the kind reviews for Ch. 1 and wish you to enjoy this new installment of mine. (-:
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Hogwarts
Early November 1981
Madam Pomfrey emerged out of the Floo several floors higher, in the office adjoining the infirmary, and startled. Through the open doorway leading from her office into the main ward of the hospital wing, she got the first glimpse of the fighting three children the Emergency House Elf had reported to her about.
Unlike she had expected they weren't Slytherins fighting a Gryffindor – or Gryffindors teasing a Slytherin for that matter, but two Huffelpuffs – those kindest creatures between their students! – fighting a much smaller and obviously worse hurt Slytherin boy. In the middle of the agitated, insults exchanging group, stood Pomona Sprout, uncharacteristically shouting reprimands onto both sides and trying to keep the enraged children in the safe distance from each other.
"Poppy, I am so happy to see you," the Herbology Professor breathed out in relief as soon as she spotted the now swiftly approaching nurse. "I really don't know what I should do with them. Blast Dumbledore for having ordered all the Butterbeer…"
"…and Aberforth for having delivered it," Pomfrey nodded in agreement, her eyes turning to the other infirmed children, who still looked very sick as they lay or sat curled in their beds. Poppy sighed, knowing that she couldn't do anything for them, feeling worse for that. But until Snape recovered himself, there was no way to obtain the remedies she needed for them – and she knew well that any other treatment would be only harsher on her small patients. Damn on Dumbledore for getting me such an unreliable brewer! The insult went quite unwillingly through Pomfrey's head, before she forcefully suppressed the thought, reminding herself that the young Professor wasn't well himself and turned her attention back to Pomona and her charges.
"I will take the Slytherin, Huffelpuffs are rightfully yours." The nurse smirked in the direction of the two older students, who were immediately captured by hand by Pomona, freed now of the third child, and led to the opposite side of the room. Once there, Sprout better charmed her students loosely bound to the awaiting beds and from the distance watched Poppy's work.
The nurse acted much the same with the Slytherin boy; with the only difference that once the boy was seated and secured on the bed, she instantly started to fix him. Broken nose and a building black eye, several broken small bones in the left hand and pretty many bruises was her first reading; alcohol poisoning the second – no wonder there, she sighed, repairing the forth-year's nose and charming his face clean of blood.
Leaving the boy half-treated, since she didn't have any more potion suitable to treat alcohol poisoning on hand either, Madam Pomfrey walked over to the other end of the ward, on her way there smiling reassuringly at her smaller, now sadly not only sick but also frightened looking patients.
Pomona's Huffelpuffs managed to calm themselves somewhat while Poppy had been occupied with their Slytherin adversary, so the nurse had an easy job with them now, overlooking the fact the two teenagers had started the fight in the first place and had hurt the smaller boy very probably only because he was a Slytherin. To be absolutely honest, Pomfrey longed to shout on them, but refrained from it – reminding herself of the scarred looks on the faces of the smaller kids.
Patching these two was actually easy – a few scratches here and there, none of them bleeding much. Poppy cleaned and dressed the wounds that required her attention; then stood back, eyeing the two sternly.
"It will take at least a week for your classmate to regain full use of that hand. I hope you are satisfied with yourself, gentlemen." Pomfrey's words literally whipped the Huffelpuffs, while the nurse readied her wand for their next treatment. "Let us hope that suffering through the aftereffects of a Sobering Charm will teach you a lesson." She aimed her wand at the first mischief-maker, running it down along his body and pronouncing a clear: "Sobrius." A second later, she repeated the treatment on the second boy.
"There, all done." Poppy nodded satisfied when the gazes of the two teenagers lost their slightly glassy look and the boys became alert again. "This is the fastest way how to make one sober again, though there is going to be a price for it. I will give you a potion for the headache but you will have to suffer through the rest. Our Deputy Headmistress would tell you to enjoy it and be grateful that you are not a girl to struggle with these pleasures each month."
The nurse summoned two Headache Potion vials then, handing them to the pair, followed up by a set of Sleeping Draughts that she placed on the night table between their beds. "Don't take these two until I tell you it's safe." Madam Pomfrey waved her hand in the direction of the night table, leaving the teenagers in Sprout's care. Armed with several more vials of the sleeping aid, she approached her smaller patients, examinating them anew and helping them to get down the Sleeping Draughts, so that they could get at least a bit of rest.
Finally, the small children were all settled for the night, as comfortable as Poppy could only make them with the lack of the potions to treat them properly. Madam Pomfrey brought the last Sleeping Draught vial to the Slytherin boy at the far end of the infirmary and then nodded at Pomona and her Huffelpuffs sweating now profoundly in their beds that they could take the brew now too. Seeing those two downing the bitter potion eagerly in one go, clearly not enjoying their current condition, she smiled discreetly and disappeared in the bathroom.
Pomona Sprout had a more difficult time to hide her smirk over her students' reaction, sitting just next to them. She better stood up and walked away from their beds, using the time before Poppy returned to call for a Kitchen House Elf to provide them with tea.
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Reentering the ward a couple of minutes later, Pomfrey ran a weary hand over her tired eyes and thankfully took the empty seat prepared for her next to Sprout, smiling gratefully at her friend when Pomona handed her a cup full of steaming tea.
"Thank you, Pomona. It has been a long day." Madam Pomfrey leaned back in her chair, warming her cold hands on the frail looking china.
The Herbology Professor nodded in agreement, sipping on her own tea. "It certainly has. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Not that I hold my hopes high with our Headmaster's splendid ideas and all the madness the end of the war brought with itself..."
They both kept silent for several minutes, feeling the last statement hadn't required any other commentary. The peaceful quiet of the ward being interrupted only by the soft breathing of the slumbering children and an occasional sound of the metal of a spoon meeting the china of one of their cups, Poppy started to relax, finally able to distance herself from all the turmoil of the ending day.
The nurse was about to forget even about Snape's ill-timed undependability, when Pomona asked curiously: "I have wanted to ask you all the time, Poppy – I fully understand that you cannot brew the potions you need by yourself with all this traffic up here, but why Snape can't do it for you? The boy is certainly skilled enough, whatever I may think about his ill manners and his mysterious getting a job here otherwise."
Madame Pomfrey sighed. "He has taken ill himself, Pomona. Trust me, I would have asked him to brew the potions for me otherwise."
"Nothing serious, I hope?" Pomona Sprout asked, her voice suddenly worried despite her previous harsh words on the address of the young Potions master.
Poppy Pomfrey eyed her for a moment, torn between keeping her patient's privacy and her own need to share with her friend. Finally, she decided on the latter, knowing Sprout would not deliberately spread the information. She waved her wand around them to activate a Privacy Charm and said: "Not really, I hope at least. The boy only saw it fit to overdose on Dreamless Sleep – again, I may add. One would almost wonder if the end of the war was unwelcome to him…"
Pomona Sprout pondered about Poppy's words for a moment. Then she quietly offered: "He used to be friends with Lily Potter, Poppy, do you remember? I don't think they have ever reconciled, whatever happened in their fifth – or was it sixth? – year. Maybe he mourns her?"
"Quite possibly... I have almost forgotten they used to be so close." Poppy nodded, her voice somewhat relieved. "I really hope you are right, Pomona. You don't wish to know what occurred to me..."
"Oh Poppy, I think I have a rather good idea what you could have thought." Sprout waved her hand dismissively. "I don't think Dumbledore would have given the boy the job here if that was true. Whatever the man is – and I don't think very high of him right now, you know – he wouldn't employ a sympathizer of You-Know-Who here."
"You hope," Madam Pomfrey mumbled, well aware of the dark magic tattoo on Snape's left forearm.
"No, Poppy, I trust Dumbledore in this," Sprout said seriously. "There are some vows the head of Hogwarts has to undertake when entering the office and consciously endangering the school would break more than one of those promises. Believe me the school has mechanisms to protect itself when a Headmaster acts against its interests..."
"I only hope the system is reliable enough," Madam Pomfrey murmured, not particularly satisfied with the explanation.
"Poppy, don't tell me you have never read Hogwarts, The History!" Sprout smiled mischievously, teasing her friend a little to lighten the mood – she knew very well the nurse never had the patience to read that particular bulky tome. More seriously she explained: "There are some nasty examples as to what happened to those who did not respect this quality of Hogwarts in the past. Just to give you one case, a mild one I may add – you will know Dilys Derwent, I am sure. When she became Headmistress here, she ordered her nurse to take in a plague patient whom she had known to be a Dark practitioner. While Derwent decided to admit him anyway, the school felt her uncertainty that this wizard's intentions wouldn't turn against it and its inhabitants in the end. On its own will, Hogwarts Apparated the man to St. Mungo's, where he eventually died of the plague, although all necessary care was provided for him. Dying, the man cursed his caregivers and it took over a week for the hospital curse-breakers to find a counter – the plague ward of St. Mungo's being blocked the entire time. Had it happened in Hogwarts, all the infirmed would have died – the nurse and Derwent herself the only ones remaining in the castle during the holidays and providing care for numerous Hogsmeade patients."
Madam Pomfrey slowly nodded: "I have heard this story myself. But, Pomona, don't you think Hogwarts would only act this way when the Headmaster himself felt he was doing wrong?"
Sprout eyed her silently for a moment, clearly taken aback. "Good point, Poppy," she murmured then uncertainly. "I think that that is actually the idea – the school being linked to its head and reading his fears and intentions..."
"...so if Snape was a supporter of You-Know-Who but Dumbledore believed his giving him a job here would actually mean some sort of protection for the school, Hogwarts would have allowed him to employ the boy here." Pomfrey finished with a deep frown, again suspicious of Snape's true intentions.
Sprout looked momentarily dubious herself, pondering the possible explanations. Finally, she looked up from her half-empty cup, steadily returning Poppy's upset gaze. Suddenly sounding very sure of what she was saying, Pomona opined: "The boy had been friends with Lily Potter, Poppy. He mourns her, not You-Know-Who, I am sure of that. You know as well as I that even the genuine supporters of His are hiding their true feelings now, hoping to keep out of Azkaban. If Snape once used to be His, and I very much fear that this is what you are trying to tell me, then he is – from what you tell me once again – obviously deeply sorry for the consequences of his past unfortunate deeds now. … Imagine how hurt you would be if you once were a sympathizer of an organization being guilty of your close friend's death!"
"True," Poppy Pomfrey mumbled, for a moment really feeling with the boy down in the dungeons. Before she could add anything else, however, the door to the infirmary sprang open and revealed another handful of sick looking children. Pomfrey sighed: "Here we are again. Can I ask you to give me a hand once more, Pomona?"
"Sure, you can – just tell me what I am to do," Sprout smiled, promptly finishing her cup and, setting the china aside, she rose to assist the nurse.
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Down in the dungeons, Severus Snape was finishing the second cup of the much too strong coffee Madam Pomfrey prescribed for him, his doing closely observed by the saucer-sized eyes of the House Elf the nurse had left with him. As the caffeine finally kicked in and Severus became more aware of his surroundings, he realized he didn't know the small ugly creature. Startled to find his well-protected territory invaded by a stranger, House Elf or not, he asked, irritated: "You are one of the Elves assigned to the Infirmary, right? You can return there now."
The Elf in question shook its head negatively, so vehemently that its large ears flapped around its head. "No Infirmary Elf, Master Professor. I be Emergency House Elf. Infirmary Elves not in Hogwarts. They in hospital. My responsibility take care of Master Professor now."
No Infirmary Elves at Hogwarts? Snape wondered, momentarily forgetting he actually wanted to ask where his own Elves, those assigned to the Dungeons, were. Then he recalled that Madam Pomfrey complained at a staff meeting just about a week ago about an epidemic of dragon pox in the Ravenclaw tower; the children being infirmed at St. Mungo's infectious ward and nursed by Hogwarts Infirmary Elves since the hospital didn't have enough free nurses or Elves on hand after the latest Dark Lord's attacks.
"Where are the Dungeons Elves in that case?" Severus snapped, realizing that someone had had to summon the nurse and wanting to lash out at him for it.
"You leave them collect the moon fruit, Master Professor, they back in the morning." The Elf supplied eagerly, confusing Severus even more. Moon fruit? What the hell was that!
"What fruit?" he murmured, feeling a headache building.
"The fruit that best at moon, Master Professor. Purple Berries." Purple Berries? What plant had purple fruit? Severus frowned, puzzled. Oh, I sent the Elves collect Magnolia Vine, he recalled suddenly. Potions Masters believed it to have best qualities if collected by moon light, and he had also wanted to get rid of the annoying little creatutes. Damn, how could I forget?
"What else?" Snape groaned, pulling upset at his hair.
"I not understand, Master Professor," the House Elf beeped uncertainly, disturbed that it couldn't help its master.
"What else did I forget?" Severus almost shouted at the little creature, causing it to jump back and mutter 'bad elf, bad elf' over and over again. Snape obviously didn't mind, finishing in the same matter: "For instance: how the hell Pomfrey got here? Who summoned her?"
"Mistress Nurse have children sick. Mistress Nurse needing Master Professor. Master Professor have potions Mistress Nurse need," the Elf recited dutifully, staring at Severus with those annoyingly innocent large eyes. "Master Professor sick too, Master Professor not have potions. Master Professor need strong coffee..."
Severus bowed his head somewhere around the middle of the Elf's speech, resting it in his hands. So Pomfrey needed him – for the first time since he had started teaching here – and he made a fool of himself. When the Elf finished, he asked quietly, now angry with himself and no longer with the Elf or Pomfrey: "Which potions? How are the children sick?"
"They drink much, very young, bad for the children stomach." The Elf looked sad, as if it was guilty of the situation itself.
"It's not your fault," Snape muttered tiredly, fearing one of the typical displays of House Elves' self-punishment. Drink much – celebrating the Dark Lord's downfall no doubt. Not seeing the precious lives it had cost. Severus suppressed the thought. Not now! He forced his thoughts back to the present. Headache Potion, Stomach Settling Potion, Alcohol Poisoning Draught, he listed in his head, fighting the headache. I should have it all. Not much, but enough for one night.
Standing up, Severus stumbled and almost tripped over. The Elf was immediately at his side, looking scarred that he would really fall. "Master Professor not go anywhere. Master Professor need his coffee. Master Professor must sit and drink."
"Master Professor must help Mistress Nurse." Severus shook his head at the Elf. "Return to the Infirmary. I will be right there," he ordered firmly and summoning his last reserves, he walked, on willpower only, step-by-step towards his adjoining office.
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