5. Things of Value

"Poppy, dearest, I can't wait to hear that lovely voice of yours. Pity your sister couldn't be here." Anna's stepmother leaned over with squinted eyes to tap Poppy on the tip of her nose.

"Gina," Anna protested. "Poppy isn't here just to entertain you, this is her home."

Gina Rosander pursed her lips as she looked in Anna's direction. "I wasn't asking for your opinion, Anna. I'm sure Poppy would be happy to sing for me, she always is."

Anna knew for a fact that the statement wasn't true. Neither Daisy nor Poppy enjoyed being their step grandmother's entertainment, but Anna didn't know how to avoid her step mother. She knew part of her didn't truly want to avoid her. After Anna's father had died, there had been a few months when the two had been friendly, leaning on each other for comfort. The same thing had happened months after Anna's brother had died.

Apparently the only thing that truly united Gina and Anna was grief.

"It's okay mum," Poppy said. She took her grandmother's hand and directed her towards the sitting room with the piano. Anna figured in her mind, it was better to get the whole thing over with at the beginning rather than have to spend the whole afternoon dreading it.

Afterwards, Dudley took her out for ice cream, leaving Anna and Gina alone together.

"Whatever troubles we've had between us," Gina said, "I'll admit you've done a good job with your girls so far. Better than I ever did with you."

"I know," Anna said crisply. "You were my model of everything I shouldn't do."

To Anna's surprise, Gina laughed. "I suppose I can take credit for something."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their tea and watching the pigeons and finches out on the birdfeeders in the backyard.

"I know you always avoid this topic," Anna said at last, "But what do you know about my birth mother?"

The question used to gnaw at her back when she was a teen, but lately it had returned. When Dudley's father blamed her for Daisy's magic, she had first pushed it aside, but then when Poppy showed signs of magic, she couldn't stop wondering. Had the girls inherited magical abilities only from Petunia's family? It seemed unlikely. Was there something in Anna's as well?

"Not much, only what your father told me," Gina said. She stared down at her tea, eyes unfocused, remembering something Anna hadn't been present for. "Phineas said she'd tricked him into thinking she was sane."

"Felicity never mentioned anything about our mother being mad," Anna said.

"She wouldn't, would she? That girl." Gina shook her head. "The both of them were insane according to Phineas. Odd things would happen when they were around. Said Melinda wanted to send the girl to some Hogwash school out in the middle of nowhere, and threatened to leave when Phineas said no. Refused to go get help from a mental institution or some such. Before he knew it, they were divorced, and that woman took his daughter off to America."

Anna almost choked. "Hogwash, you say?"

"Hogwash. That's what he told me."

"Insane…" Anna said the word as she thought out loud.

"That's what I just said," Gina confirmed.

The two sat in companionable silence for a while more before Gina got to her feet and insisted she had been away from home quite long enough. On her way out, she met Poppy and Dudley at the door, gave a kiss on the cheek to both, and drove away.

"Dudley," Anna said once she was gone, "Could I talk to you for a moment?"

Dudley tipped his head, indicating that Poppy should go somewhere else and he joined Anna at the table.

"I think my mother was a witch. My sister might be too."

Both of Dudley's eyebrows rose. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Right. Are you going to ask your sister then?"

Anna's heart fluttered. "I… should I?" She'd been trying so hard to stay out of the magical world, only entering enough to show her daughters that she was proud of them even if magic still scared her. If her sister was a witch, would that change things?

"If it's true, then wouldn't that be something that would bring you closer together? She would have been hiding so much from you. And think of the stories she could tell to the girls."

Stories. Dudley had tons of them now that Harry had walked him through his years at Hogwarts. Anna still knew basically nothing. She knew Harry had fought in a war, and that he was famous for winning that war.

"Can you tell me some of Harry's stories?"

Dudley looked surprised. "I thought you didn't want to know any of this stuff unless it pertained to the girls directly."

"I've had a change of heart."

So Dudley began.

Anna listened without interrupting for a long time. She could see what Ginny had meant the previous year, though. The school safety and the communication Hogwarts had with parents had clearly gotten a lot better in recent years. But that Harry had gone through so much as only a preteen or teen still scared her.

Dudley's descriptions also felt eerily familiar to her somehow. She'd already known about the lack of technology at Hogwarts, but hearing about it in context of Harry's story, and the presence of pureblood supremacy, something clicked.

Mudblood. She'd heard the word before meeting Harry, hadn't she? Hadn't Pansy's friend called her a mudblood once? Pansy had ushered her away from the situation quickly and Anna hadn't thought about the occasion in years, but she was sure her memory was right. And Pansy had been the one to put her back in contact with her sister.

It couldn't be a coincidence, could it?

-POPPY-

Poppy couldn't remember her parents ever spontaneously taking the day off to go hiking in the countryside alone before, but she wasn't complaining about being left at the Potter's house for the day. Now that she knew about magic, going over to the Potter's place meant she was surrounded by magical objects and appliances, and she could see what Ginny actually did every day for work.

She insisted that writing sports articles and occasionally editing stories for The Quibbler wasn't all that entertaining to watch, but Poppy couldn't get enough of watching the moving photos. They weren't all that different from seeing a gif - except the moving photos were on paper, not a computer screen. And, of course, the contents of the photos were quite different. No muggle gif showed people riding on broomsticks through the sky.

Ginny even let her look at some old articles from back when she'd been in the Holyhead Harpies when she was younger to keep her occupied when she was done with her homework.

When she'd had enough of browsing newspapers, Poppy wandered aimlessly around the house. Ginny didn't seem to mind, only telling her not to touch anything if she didn't know what it was or if it was in someone's personal space. She stopped to take a look in each of her cousin's rooms, noting that each had hung banners with their house crest somewhere in their room. James had pictures of him and the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team, as well as some with his cousins or people Poppy didn't know.

Albus didn't have anything quidditch related in his room, but he had several books on herbology on a shelf as well as a number of novels, both magical and ones Poppy herself had read from the muggle world.

Lily's room was the messiest. She had posters of just about every female quidditch star on her wall, and a few pictures of friends squished in a corner near her bed. Even though she, and a lot of her things, were currently at Hogwarts, unmatched socks still hung out of an open drawer, and papers littered her desk.

The door to Harry and Ginny's room was barely open. Poppy wasn't intending to go inside, only to look through the crack, but then she saw it. It was Poppy's wand. She didn't know how she could tell it was her wand (the box was closed) but she knew it had to be. She pushed open the door. It creaked rather loudly, but a pause to listen let her know that Ginny hadn't noticed the noise.

In two strides she was at the side table and lifting the cover off from the wand box. There it was. The wand looked quite a bit different from the stick she'd taken to the shop. It was smoother and had a better grip carved from the wood, as well as having a finished shine to it. She ran a finger along the wood, excitement building each second that passed. Then, she at last lifted it from its case.

It felt the same as before, but ten times as powerful. One swish through the air and sparks flew from the tip. Poppy laughed.

Ginny did not.

The wand was taken from Poppy's hand before she knew what was happening.

"This is why it was sent to me and not to you," she pointed out. "Self control, Poppy. It's a valuable skill." She put the wand back in the box and pulled Poppy back into the dining room.

Ginny didn't spend a long time with explanations. She went straight to the main point. "Underage magic using a wand is illegal, Poppy. It's illegal because it's dangerous. Wands amplify any accidental magic you might do, and any sudden bursts of emotion could lead to serious injuries. Understood?"

Poppy nodded. She did understand that. She just thought that, as she was apparently unable to do magic without some kind of wand at all, that perhaps an exception could be made.

"Look," Ginny said. "I'm taking a break right now. Why don't you talk to me about whatever's on your mind. How's school? I know Daisy wasn't looking forward to leaving her friends in the dark, how are you holding up knowing all of this ahead of time?"

Poppy shrugged. She didn't care about the others at her school. She didn't have friends that meant anything to her outside of the classroom. "It's okay," she said. "I'm not close with anyone, not like Daisy was."

"Why not?"

"No one cares about the same things I do, and I can't talk to them about where I'm going next year. What's the point in trying?" She had seen Daisy as one of her closest friends, despite the age gap and knowing that Daisy probably didn't reciprocate the feelings. Daisy was at Hogwarts. Poppy would never admit it outloud, but she was still bitter about being left behind so easily.

"What about your sports friends? You play softball, right?"

Poppy nodded. "They're nice, but we don't talk about anything unrelated to the game usually."

"And if you could make friends that would be going to Hogwarts with you?"

"How?"

"There are small schools run by witches or wizards for students too young for Hogwarts. I could talk to your parents about it."

Poppy imagined the possibilities. "Yes!"

"Then you have to make a deal with me. You won't try to use your wand for underage magic again."

"Deal."

Poppy didn't even feel guilty about the fact that she didn't intend to keep that promise.

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