The summer between third and fourth year was the most tedious of her life. Aberforth was kind enough to provide her with a small yet scarcely furnished room in the back of Hogs Head pub. It was very generous of the surly man to offer her a part time position for the summer. That being said, Poppy was forced to work every day in order to earn her keep. Well, perhaps not every single day but she helped out due to sheer boredom.

Helping out entailed cleaning, lots of cleaning. The worst part was the grumpy Hogs Head owner made her do it all by hand as he could get into trouble by allowing an underage witch to use magic in his establishment. How ridiculous, most of the patrons did not even know she was underage judging by the way they ogled her.

The animagus spent that summer mostly reading and practising her occlumency and legilimency. After last summer, she recognised how useful the skill was and began practising entering someone's mind without using the incantation. It was actually easier to enter someone's mind if they were drunk, surprisingly, and they didn't even notice her intrusion. She also continued her reading into spell creation and started off extremely small in attempting to create her own spells. She was unsuccessful but continued trying.

Poppy wrote her friends a lot that summer. In particular to Harry but as he knew about her animagus form she simply stopped by his house on Privet Drive and dropped him off food and the two friends would chat. Harry didn't like her visiting too much as hearing the Dursleys would make him embarrassed so she only actually visited him twice. He would make it up to her with lots of letters.

Hey Poppy,

The summer has been a bit boring like it usually is. I'll be staying with the Weasleys again before the term begins. How have you been? How does it feel working in Hogs Head? At least you've got something to do and are right next to the Forbidden Forest if you want to go for a run.

I met Sirius yesterday. He's great. I was picked up by his friend - your remember Remus - and he brought me to where he and Sirius are staying for the moment. It's a lovely little cottage in the woods. It's where I will be staying when I go to live with him. Sirius was disappointed he couldn't take me out for the day but seeing as he's still technically a wanted fugitive it wasn't possible. He's really eager to make up for lost time. He bought me a firebolt. Can you believe it, it's amazing, he said that he will definitely be sneaking into Hogwarts to see me play this year. Dad was really brilliant at Quidditch, he said.

The day with Sirius was great but he was very annoyed at how the ministry was handling the situation. They are avoiding him and taking ages to reply to his owls and he can't exactly barge into the Ministry for a meeting, can he? They say it's because they're swamped with the Quidditch World Cup coming up.

Speaking of, I will be going with the Weasleys. Sirius is gutted he can't go but wishes me the best. I'm disappointed you can't come. We will miss you there. I'll be meeting Sirius a few more times before September first. He was asking about you. Would you like to come meet him? He'll be meeting Ron when he drops me off at the Weasleys but he's really eager to meet you.

Let me know,

Harry

Poppy did not go meet Sirius that summer. Mostly because she didn't want to intrude on their time together. Sirius was probably just asking lots of questions about Harry's friends and Harry was eager for someone else to meet his godfather. Perhaps it was because they were both a little awkward together. They were family but didn't really know each other. She did not envy their situation and didn't want to involve herself. They would be fine.

Aberforth was oddly protective of his goats and refused to allow her near them. Lounging around a dingy old pub every day made her feel lazy so she became more active in taking a run around Hogsmeade every day in her human form. Poppy usually went on runs in her animagus form, relishing in the freedom of the Forbidden Forest but wanted to keep her human body in physical shape too. Poppy also roped Aberforth into practising duelling with her. Well, it was more like he threw spells at her and she practised evading and dodging them physically.

Again, Poppy bought a whole new wardrobe and even got a hair cut this year. She was shooting through her puberty as girls typically did at her age and wanted to use her new mature body to her advantage. She was still keenly aware of the power that being attractive held and powerful mask and shield it provided her. Poppy took it a step further and used some of her own savings from last summer to pay for a personal stylist in the muggle world. Poppy was admittedly uncertain of Muggle fashions and therefore got professional help. The man that helped her was strange. He was giddy, hyper and cuttingly honest when he bought her clothes. Apparently, her arse and tits were to die for but would make her look too trashy in some of the more popular styles. The man was in his early twenties and wore brightly coloured clothes and gold hoop earrings. He even introduced her to muggle 'make-up' though she was pretty uncertain about most of it and preferred her spells when it came to skin care. This was the most fun she had all summer and promised to return to him next year.

The animagus didn't consider herself vain but more hyper aware of her presentation to the world. Men's eyes would follow her as she walked by and she had developed fairly well for her age even though she still had growing to do. She didn't consider herself to be more attractive than the other girls her year but the effort she put in did show. Like Hermione had lovely tanned skin and such wild beautiful hair. It was important to look the best she could however as people didn't usually listen to what she said or noticed her occasional unusual behaviour if she looked pretty. It was both infuriating and demeaning but as long as it worked to her advantage, Poppy didn't care. The teenage girl was extremely aware of how an individuals posture, facial expression, hair and the care that they took with their appearance told you about their character.

For example; McGonagall's perfect bun and lovely but neatly pressed and conservative robes. This told her that McGonagall was a serious woman who held herself in high respect and was confident in was assertive at times such as not shy in standing up for what she believed in.

Similarly, Albus Dumbledore with his brightly coloured and silly patterned robes and a long beard. His mind was keenly unique and he enjoyed the simple pleasantries in life such as amusing robes with dancing pumpkins at Halloween. However, the robes were soft and comfortable looking and he did not appear to care how attractive he looked, his mind was more important to him than his body. The odd colours showed how unique and eccentric he was and how did not like to conform to traditional fashions and liked to think outside of the box. He didn't care what anyone else believes but stuck by what he himself liked.

Poppy, herself, decided to wear mostly conservative looking clothes that covered most of her skin - and scars - but clung to her figure attractively. They were neither the height of fashion nor careless but they were pretty, bold colours that emphasised her growing assets. They were still relatively childish clothes and somewhat innocent as she still wanted to be underestimated by her opponent. All in all, Poppy wanted to convey that she was bright faced, naive and innocent young girl. She wanted to look like she did not care overly about her appearance but still made an effort to look nice. Her personality was as bright as her clothes and they did not draw attention away from her big green eyes and wavy hair.

One definite benefit of living in the Hogs Head that summer was the newspapers she could read to keep up to date with the Wizarding World. It was very useful, especially when she read the Daily Prophet the day after the Quidditch world cup, knowing her friends had attended. It had given her a heart attack and certainly startled Aberforth. He didn't really know how to deal with a hysterical teenage girl. It would have been amusing if she wasn't so freaked out. She had failed her friends. Yet again.

She checked in with her friends – in invisible animagus form – from time to time since the attack and became even more focused in practising her duelling abilities so she would be properly equipt to deal with any danger. It was only to Harry did she reveal herself and had taken to stopping by as a wolf at least once a week by the end of summer.

It was only a week later that another dreadful headline put her into another mood;

Azkaban Breakout; Peter Pettigrew, recently captured Death Eater and mass murderer escapes

Poppy was furious with Albus Dumbledore and wanted to go and curse the man. She had to take deep breaths from running off and confronting the imbecile. He was an utter failure. He did not deal with the situation and instead showed himself to be an incompetent old fool. Poppy sliced open her palm that day squeezing a glass too hard. It was how she discovered she had slight more strength than an average girl her age. The younger Dumbledore brother stitched her up silently. She was grateful and returned to him later when scratched her arms too harshly when crying. He didn't say a word.

Aberforth was surprisingly well off and generous with his gold. When her Hogwarts letter arrived and she read the list of school books, he gave her more than double the necessary galleons for the items and told her it was her pay for the summer. She was pleasantly surprised as she assumed her pay was her board but apparently not. She tried to hug the man in gratitude but he sent her a hex in response that had her limping for a week.

Poppy felt refreshed and ready to take on the world when she finally left for her fourth year at Hogwarts.