Al
Some months into his second year, the half-brewed Forgetfulness Potion of one of Al Potter's classmates went terribly, terribly wrong. Half the class was doused in the shower, and because the potion was incomplete, it affected each student differently. Evelyn Mayhew turned purple. Frank Johnson started babbling in what sounded like Ancient Greek. Al himself grew a handsome pair of antlers.
There were too many casualties for Professor Pritchard to handle himself, so he sent the students who could still walk under their own power – and still remembered the way – to the Hospital Wing for Madame Pomfrey to treat. Al spent the entire trek mentally reviewing every detail of the incident that he could remember, because in situations like this, he reasoned, you never knew what was going to be important, and Madame Pomfrey was going to need all the help she could get.
In his childlike naivete, Al mistakenly believed that the school nurse had never seen an incident like this before, that she didn't treat at least a dozen Potions mishaps every term. To a worry-prone twelve-year-old, this was a medical catastrophe that would take nothing short of magical genius to rectify. To Madame Pomfrey, it was a Tuesday.
She listened patiently to his rapid recitation for about half a minute, swiftly adding ingredients to a series of cauldrons along the back wall, then cut him off with a, "Thank you, Mr. Potter. That's all I need to know."
And she distributed portions of potions to Al and his classmates, and Al watched in wide-mouthed amazement as the side effects melted off his peers almost immediately. Oh, there were a handful who took more specific care, but the majority of the second years were treated, returned to normal, and dismissed back to class in less than five minutes. Al watched them go, still staring in shock and awe, his potion glass halfway to his mouth.
"Mr. Potter," Madame Pomfrey said sharply after a moment. "Do you plan on keeping those antlers as a fashion statement?"
Belatedly, Al drank his potion, and in the next moment or two, he felt the antlers shrink back into his forehead. He lifted his hands to his head in amazement, and then he was at Madame Pomfrey's side, demanding, "How did you do that?" as she frowned in concentration at the place where Al's classmate Gertie had once had a mouth.
"Hmm, topical or airborne?" he heard her mutter, turning Gertie's head this way and that, which was not an answer to his question.
"Madame Pomfrey!" he said more insistently. "Didn't you hear me?"
"Mr. Potter," she said, eyes flicking briefly and impatiently in his direction, "if you are not still ailing, you are free to return to your classroom. Topical, I think," she said, referencing Gertie, and she crossed to her store cupboard for a jar of ointment. Al followed her, immediately behind her when she turned, which succeeded in obtaining her attention, but not in assuaging her building irritation.
"How did you fix everyone?" he demanded.
"I haven't, Mr. Potter," was her pointed response, "because someone is standing in my way and preventing me from treating my patients."
Al moved aside, but he didn't leave. He watched Madame Pomfrey treat Gertie and Reynard and Emmaline and all his other classmates and send them on their way, and then he approached her again.
"How did you do that?"he asked her for a third time.
"Mr. Potter, I have been the nurse at Hogwarts since before your grandparents were a twinkle in your great-grandparents' eyes; I am well up to counteracting a second year potion gone wrong. Now, as you are neither injured nor ailing, you have no need to be here, and I'm certain you have a class to get back to."
Al left, but he was back the next day, and the next, and the day after that. Every moment he had free was spent in the infirmary, watching, observing, and peppering Madame Pomfrey with questions about cures and fixes and spell reversals. He never got much more than a reprimand or instruction to get himself off to class, but with unswerving stubbornness inherited from his mother, Al refused to back down or give up.
"What is it, Mr. Potter, that you are hoping will happen?" Madame Pomfrey demanded one day when he'd entered more quietly than usual and caught her by surprise. "Do you think that, by being constantly underfoot, you will eventually wear me down so I will appease your requests simply to get you out of the way?"
The question was sarcastic and rhetorical, but Al answered it anyway. "That's Plan B," he said, serious and genuine. Her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed as she considered him.
"All right," she said finally. "Enlighten me. What is Plan A?"
"That you'll realize I'm serious." He was as emphatic and firm as it was possible for a twelve-year-old to be. "I want to learn from you; I want to be a Healer!"
"You are twelve years old." She stated the fact simply, no derision, no judgement. Just a fact. "How do you know what you want?"
Al turned the question back on her. "I'm twelve years old. Why shouldn't I?" For a fraction of a moment, he thought he might have actually surprised her. So he kept talking. "You fix people, Madame Pomfrey. That's all I've ever wanted to do. You know everything there is to know about Healing, and I will learn anything you have to teach me, even if all I ever do is sit in the corner and take notes. You're the best there is! Just, please let me show you that I mean it!"
She was silent for a long time, and Al thought that maybe, just maybe he had gotten through to her. Maybe he had convinced her. Then, "You have class, Mr. Potter. You'd best be on your way to it."
Al tried not to visibly deflate, but it was difficult. Without another word, he turned and left the infirmary, defeat informing every feature.
He almost didn't return the next day, because if that speech hadn't swayed her, what would? But no, he thought, stubbornly setting his chin. He had a point to make. He had something to prove. So, at the hour and a half break between morning and afternoon classes, he scarfed down lunch and headed for the Hospital Wing. And that day, something was different.
Madame Pomfrey was waiting for him.
"In the back water closet," she said without preamble or introduction, "are bedpans that are long overdue for a scouring. I haven't had any detention students assigned to the infirmary lately. I'm not inclined to trust a second year's Scouring Spell, so you will have to do it by hand. I will show you the proper procedure once and only once, so you'd best pay close attention."
"Madame Pomfrey," Al said, breathless, "Are you . . . are you saying what I think you're saying?" She peered at him over her spectacles.
"I am saying that if you are going to persist in coming here regardless of any word or action of mine, I might as well get something out of it," she said in a pointed tone. "Are you going to stand gaping at me, or are you going to come to the back water closet?"
For the next month, Al Potter spent his spare moments occupied at menial tasks in the infirmary. He scoured bedpans, laundered bedding, and scrubbed the Hospital Wing to within an inch of its life, and eventually graduated to alphabetizing the store cupboard of healing herbs and filing away incident cards. He was thorough and diligent, and never once did he sigh or groan or express boredom or displeasure with the work he was being asked to do.
And so, the day came when Madame Pomfrey stopped him on his way to the store cupboard that housed the brooms and mops.
"One moment, please, Mr. Potter. I need to speak with you in my office."
Heart pounding, he followed her into the small but sunny office and perched nervously on the edge of the wooden chair reserved for visitors.
That was the day Al Potter's life changed forever, because that was the day Madame Pomfrey officially took him on as her apprentice. His willingness to do any task asked of him, no matter how menial or repetitive, and the frankly astounding fact that he hadn't viewed the month's labor as a test but rather a series of reasonable requests, had convinced her.
By the time his second year ended, he was spending three evenings a week in the Hospital Wing, and most every Saturday. By the time his third year started, he was assisting in the brewing of potions and treating the most minor of complaints. By the start of his fourth year, he was nearly as constant a fixture in the infirmary as Madame Pomfrey herself.
And there came a time when students who arrived at the Hospital Wing with bumps and scrapes and bruises, or who needed Pepper-Up Potion or a headache cure, could expect to be treated by Al Potter, Madame Pomfrey doing little more than glancing in their direction and noting the incident in her records. Under a closer watch, Al was even setting bones and reversing spell damage and weighing in on treatments. There was nothing he wasn't willing to do and nothing he didn't want to learn.
When he wasn't treating student patients or brewing potions or putting things in order or cleaning and scrubbing, Al was sitting in a corner with a notepad, observing Madame Pomfrey at work. He watched her treat spell damage and Quidditch injuries, headaches and colds and acne. He watched her calm students down from their stress and reassure them that their cough was not pneumonia and fix the everyday problems of hundreds of teenagers to get them ready to face the next day. And he watched her quill tremble ever so slightly, squint three or four times at the next ingredient on a potions list before she could read it, strain under a load that had once been no trouble. And he made up his mind to help her just like she helped everyone else.
He was on his way to the Hospital Wing one day late in his fifth year when he heard it – a boom and a crash that stopped him cold for just a moment before he sprinted full-out for the infirmary doors – and saw Madame Pomfrey crumpled on the floor, remains of what had been an almost-brewed batch of Pepper-Up Potion splattered all over the back wall.
He was at her side before he'd even finished deciding to go there, checking breathing and pulse and resisting the urge to shout her name when he knew it wouldn't help.
As soon as he knew she was still alive, he pulled out his wand and Conjured up his fox Patronus. "Send for Mungo's," he spoke aloud, fusing the words to the fox and focusing on his godfather. "Madame Pomfrey needs help."
Then he Summoned dittany and aloe and knelt to do the little he could to stem the flow of blood and treat the burns.
Moments later, Neville Longbottom burst through the door, Headmistress Sinastra close on his heels. Not stopping his ministrations, Al informed them in a voice far calmer than he felt of what he knew had happened and what he was trying to do. Neville, whose knowledge of healing came from the battlefield, knelt to help while the Headmistress quickly set up a barrier around the door and went to wait for the Healer.
"I sent for Healer Bones," his godfather told him, "a friend, through personal channels," which Al knew to mean the old enchanted coins of Dumbledore's Army. The name Bones was familiar, as well. He thought he'd met her at some event or another, or possibly studied her in a history class. "She'll get here faster than anyone through the official ones."
"Thank you," Al said, but his voice sounded dull and hollow to his ears.
When Healer Susan Bones came striding into the infirmary, Al repeated the information he'd offered Neville and the Headmistress, and he insisted on being allowed to help move Madame Pomfrey up onto a waiting bed.
Under normal circumstances, he would have then insisted to be allowed to stay and observe, but these weren't normal circumstances. Feeling slightly ill, he allowed his godfather to lead him to the hall and sit.
"She's lucky you were there," Neville said, trying to relieve his worries, but the words had the opposite effect.
"I told her I would do it!" Al shouted, angry now, angry and frantic with worry, and up on his feet.
"Al," his godfather said gently, but Al spoke over him.
"No, I told her I would take care of it! I told her to let me do it, she knows how volatile Pepper-Up is, she knows her hands aren't — she should have waited for me!"
Behind him, Neville had gone very still, and Al realized, belated, what he had unintentionally revealed.
"Al," his godfather said, and Al rounded on him, fierce and defensive.
"She's fine," he hissed. "She's fine, she's – her hands shake sometimes, and she doesn't see as well as she used to, that's all, and — she's still the best damn Healer you or I have ever—"
"I never said she wasn't," Neville said, cutting through Al's tirade. Exhausted now, his anger flared and gone, Al sank back down onto the bench, head in his hands.
"She should have waited," he whispered, his voice soft with anguish and guilt and worry. "She should have — I was on my way."
Neville wisely said nothing, just sat with a comforting hand on his godson's back while they waited for news.
Healer Bones appeared not long later. Al rose to his feet immediately with a, "How is she? It looked to me like she got her arm up in time to protect her eyes from the spray, but there will probably be lingering irritation. Did she inhale the smoke? Is there respiratory damage? Is she conscious? Can I —"
"Al," Neville interrupted, a heavy hand on his shoulder. "You'll get your questions answered faster if you let her talk."
Knowing he was right, Al forced himself to take a deep breath. "Don't sugar coat it," was all the more he said. "Tell me straight."
Healer Bones smiled at him. "She'll be fine," she said gently. "I've treated the burns on her arms and face, there was no damage done to her eyes. The blast knocked her to the ground and she hit her head. The fumes irritated her eyes and throat, but nothing a few days' rest won't fix right up. It's actually not an uncommon occurrence, exploding Pepper-Up. We see it at Mungo's a lot, sometimes from our own people. It's easy to do; only takes a tiny bit too much Horklump juice in the final brewing stage. She should make a full recovery after a week or two, Al."
Swallowing, he nodded, taking in the information, trying not to go weak with relief. "Can I talk to her?"
"Al," Neville said, "maybe you should —"
"No, it's all right," Healer Bones said with a smile. "She's asked for him, actually."
Al was through the doors before she'd finished speaking.
Madame Pomfrey was sitting up in the farthest bed from the door. Her hands and arms were bandaged, her eyes and face redder than usual, but not looking nearly as bad as Al had feared. He stood at the foot of her bed, arms crossed, staring down at her as she looked impassively up at him. "What happened?" he demanded.
"My hand slipped."
"Slipped?" he repeated, vaguely accusatory. "Or shook?"
She didn't answer.
Shaking his head, Al pulled a nearby stool to the side of the bed and sat. "I told you I was finishing the potion today," he said softly. "I got waylaid for five minutes, talking to Professor Flitwick about my essay, you thought the potion couldn't wait five minutes?"
"It needed doing," was her only response.
"Not by you," Al stressed. "That's what you have me for! That's why I'm here – to do the piddly little things like brew potions so you don't have to worry about them, and so you don't have to worry about —" He broke off, shaking his head, and took a deep breath, deciding it was best to change the subject. "Healer Bones says you'll make a full recovery in a week or two, but it is going to take that long, and you are going to have to sit and rest, much as you might hate that. Mungo's will send over a temporary replacement, I'm sure, and that Healer and I will take care of things around here until you're back on your feet. And in the future –"
"Al, I'm retiring."
The words stopped him cold. He frowned at her, mouth open. "What?" he finally got out.
"I've asked Mungo's to send a permanent replacement. I'll oversee the transition in the next few weeks, but the new Healer will take over by the end of the year, and it is my hope –"
"No, no, stop," Al said, interrupting, almost frantic. "What are you talking about?"
"It's time," she said gently. "It's past time, I think. I shouldn't have let you cover for me this long."
"That's not — I haven't —"
"It's time," she said again, still gentle, more gently than she'd ever spoken to him, a fact that was cutting through the fog of his brain. "I've gotten slow."
"No, you haven't," was his immediate response. She looked at him sternly.
"Rule number one. Never lie to your patient."
He looked away sharply, jaw tight. "Not noticeably," he finally said, voice small and quiet. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her smile, a tiny, sad one.
"I've noticed," she said. "You've noticed. Two is more than enough, but I think after this, the number is higher, don't you?"Al didn't answer, because to answer was to acknowledge the truth of what she was saying. But she knew him too well, and his non-answer was answer enough. "You told me once that you wanted to learn from me because I was the best. I'm not anymore."
"I have two years left," Al said, almost pleading. "Okay? Two years. We can hold this place together for that long!"
She gave him that look, the one he hated more than all the others, the one he got when she felt he was being foolish. He looked away, cheeks burning. "You are fifteen years old," she said. "You haven't even passed your OWL tests. You have learned a lot in three years, and someday, you will be a great Healer, but what happens if I need to brew Pepper-Up for the professors while you're home over Christmas holidays? Or prepare an emergency remedy while you're in class? Or perform a delicate spell that you haven't mastered? I do not doubt your abilities, but I am your teacher and your Healer, and you are a student at this school, and I do you a disservice if I don't see to it that you and your peers have the best care that can be offered. And beyond all that, it's time you learned from someone new."
"No!" Al's head came straight up at that, the word coming out choked and vehement.
"Al–"
"I don't want to learn from anyone who isn't you!"
"Then you don't want to be a Healer," was her sharp reply. "Because that's the job. You learn all you can from all you can. If you don't want to learn from anyone but a school nurse who hasn't been up to date on new medical practices and advancements for 67 years, then you don't want to be a Healer, and my trust in you has been misplaced." Al studied his hands intensely and blinked back tears. He heard a soft sigh, and then one of her wrinkled, bandaged hands reached out and covered his. Slowly he raised his head. "It's my fault," she said softly. "I thought I could make it. I thought I could last the next two years out, with your help. But I shouldn't have put that on you. Or rather, I shouldn't have let you take it on yourself."
Gently, Al turned his hand over and gripped hers, offering a small smile. "It was never any trouble," he said, and she let out a short laugh.
"That may have been the problem," she said wryly.
Al laughed, and with the laugh, the fight went out of him. He knew where the conversation would go if he kept arguing; he'd taken so many conversations with Madame Pomfrey to the same place in the past – This is not a discussion or debate, Mr. Potter. I'm not asking for your opinion; I am telling you how things are going to be. So instead of fighting, he took a deep breath and just said, "I'm going to miss you."
Madame Pomfrey sniffed. "I shall miss you as well," she said after a pause, and if her eyes were shining, Al certainly wasn't going to mention it. "But don't worry, Mr. Potter. After 67 years, I have some clout. I won't let you be taught by anyone mediocre or apathetic."
"Perish the thought," Al said with a quirk of a smile. She patted his hand then, twice.
"Send Healer Bones in on your way out, would you?" Al nodded and stood, pushing back the dividing curtain as he started for the door. "Al?" He stopped and turned. "I want you to know . . . how proud I am of you."
The words brought unseemly tears to his eyes, and he swallowed them, hard. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "For everything."
A week later, she was gone, and a the new Hogwarts Matron was arriving, and Al was very noticeably absent. It wasn't that he didn't want to meet whoever she was, it was just, he didn't think he could watch someone new move into Madame Pomfrey's space.
But the time came when he knew he couldn't put it off any longer, so, with a deep breath, he headed out of his dorm and for the Hospital Wing – and was met with a very puzzling sight.
The hall outside the infirmary was crowded with students, all young men, and the doors to the infirmary were shut fast. "Um, what's going on?" Al asked of a sixth year he just barely recognized. "Why are all these people here?"
"Oh, well, I don't know about all these fakers, but I'm sick," the sixth year said, coughing for good measure. Al raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Me, too!" called someone else in earshot.
"Me, too!" echoed down the hall, and then a chorus of coughing broke out around him.
"What the hell is going on?" Al demanded. The sixth year pulled him aside.
"Have you seen the new nurse who's replacing Pomfrey?" he asked in an undertone. "Trust me, once you do, you'll come down with something, too."
Al refrained from rolling his eyes, choosing instead to paste a smile on his face and force his way through the crowd. Idiots, he thought uncharitably as he went. Dealing with lust-driven male population of Hogwarts was the last thing the new Matron needed.
"Well," he called in a loud, cheerful voice when he'd reached the front of the queue. "Shame to see you all so suddenly ill on a Saturday! Luckily, we've got plenty of Pepper-Up potion for you all, and as you know, I'm the matron's assistant, and the common cold falls under the things that I treat, so I'll just step inside and grab a cauldron and treat you all right here, since there's no need to bother the new matron on her first day with such minor problems, right?"
And he gave them all his most winning smile as, gradually, the crowd dispersed, grumbling and complaining as they went. When the last would-be patient had disappeared, Al turned to the infirmary doors — to find Healer Bones standing there, watching him with a smile.
"Madame Pomfrey told me you'd be an asset," she said, "but I didn't realize just how much of one! I'll have to chase off the hoards again at some point, I'm sure, but I'm glad I don't have to bother on my first day."
"Healer Bones," Al said, confused. "What are you still doing here?"
"It's Madame Bones now," she said, "and I'm starting my new job. I'm glad you're here, Al. I want to talk to you about NEWT classes, and I want to talk to you about internships opportunities, and I want to talk to you about the branches of magical study Mungo's supports, but right now, I need to talk to you about Madame Pomfrey's ongoing treatments and medication distribution system. Are you ready?"
It took Al only a minute to find his voice. "Yes, ma'am, I am," he said, and Madame Bones's smile grew.
"Then let's get started."
With a smile of his own, Al let himself be ushered through the doors.
I know what you're all going to say - FINALLY.
Yes. It's been a while since I've been able to update this. Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoyed this closer look at Al.
Al, like Rose and Scorpius before him, has already been written about extensively (in Among Thorn, Fighting Briars, and Tending Roses), and will be written about even more in the future (the forthcoming, as-of-yet-untitled story of him and Honoria Ridgeton), but unlike Rose and Scorpius, I knew exactly what I would write about for his moment here.
A variation of this scene was originally included in Tending Roses, but I had to cut it for flow. It was a story I always wanted to return to, though - how Al came to be Madame Pomfrey's right-hand-assistant during his time at Hogwarts, and what an important mentor she would be for him.
And for those of you saying, "But wait! Didn't Hannah Abbott replace Madame Pomfrey? And wasn't it in 2014, not 2020?" I say that Rita Skeeter is a liar and you can't trust anything she says, and I've had my headcanon for this universe established for years, so there! :)
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you soon with Lily's moment!
