Poppy Potter and the Betrayals of Fifth year.
Poppy Potter laid on her bed staring at the ceiling deep in thought. The alarm on the nightstand read 3.27 am. Hedwig was out on her hunt, so the window was open for her, letting a gentle breeze of cold night air into the room.
Poppy shivered as a particularly large gust of wind entered the room, snapping her out of her never-ending stream of thoughts. She had just awoken from a nightmare, the same nightmare she had been having since she had arrived back at the Dursley: Voldemort's return
The only difference the dream had from the true timeline of events was that when her parents appeared out of Voldemort's wand, they shook their heads at her, telling her that it was her fault that they were dead. Similarly, when Cedric had appeared he also shook his head in disgust and then the dream would end with Voldemort striking her with the cruciatus curse.
The nightmare never failed to leave her out of breath, covered in cold sweat, a horrible taste in her mouth and the same feeling of utter uselessness. In all honesty, the constant reminder of the third task had opened her eyes to the fact she had barely any experience or knowledge in Defense against the Dark Arts, or any subject in that matter. She had always held back in class for Hermione's sake, she was the smart one and didn't take not being the best that well. It also didn't help that Ron wanted nothing but to play exploding snap and chess. Poppy was used to it though, she used to purposely drop her grades in primary so that her uncle wouldn't punish her for getting better marks than Dudley.
But now, all these reasons sounded futile and idiotic, she could have been killed that night. Poppy had resorted to studying to channel her frustration. Frustration at her stupidity, at her friends who had barely written five sentences in their last letters and at the lack of information and news she was being given by her headmaster.
In the last week, Poppy had devoted herself to her school work. When she first began it had been hard. A little too hard. She had never studied for anything much in her entire life. At first, it had felt impossible, she couldn't process anything that she was learning. It all went through one ear and out of the other.
And so she gave up on Monday. Started again on Tuesday and gave up again on Wednesday. It was on Thursday that she decided to start from the beginning, from the very beginning.
At the bottom of her trunk was her first-year charms textbook. She felt slightly silly at first and more than once the self-conscious part of her told her that she was being dumb and that it would be better to stick to her ways than try to begin new habits.
She would have listened had she not been reminded by those ghastly nightmares every night how pathetically weak she had been. That immense shame overpowered her insecurities. So she ploughed through the charms textbook. She practised her theory over and over again on Friday and by Saturday morning she was positive that if she picked up her wand she could do all her first year spells flawlessly.
But that hadn't been a big enough achievement for Poppy. So she began on her transfiguration textbook and then her Astronomy textbook and (with a little more convincing) her Potions and History of Magic textbooks.
When Poppy woke from her nightmares, she simply turned to her textbooks so that she could work through the night. In between chores she repeated over and over in her mind Potion recipes and Potion ingredients and their uses. While she worked in the garden, Poppy went over transfiguration basic theories. In the shower, she memorised the correct pronunciation of each charm. So by the following Tuesday, Poppy picked up her second-year textbooks, confident that she had studied all her first-year material.
She was quite proud of herself.
Unsuccessfully, Poppy tried to go back to sleep. At 7 am when she got out of bed, took a quick shower before going downstairs to start making breakfast. She was setting the table when her Aunt Petunia walked into the kitchen.
"Good, you're awake. I made bacon, scrambled eggs and some pancakes. I'm going out, I'll see you later." Poppy said, quickly trying to leave the room before Petunia could process what she said.
"Hold it." Aunt Petunia called, just as she was about to open the front door, trailing after her, hands on her hips. "What makes you think that you can come and go as you please? Is this a hotel?"
Poppy had to put in a lot of effort not to laugh in her Aunt's face.
"Of course I don't think this is a would be quite silly of me. At hotels, you're the one who's being served. Not the other way round. With all the work I'm doing you'd think I'm some sort of maid." she said, promptly walking out of the door.
Poppy sighed in relief once she was on the other side of the door. She'd been lucky that time and hopefully her mouth wouldn't get away from her again anytime soon. Usually, she was quite good at controlling her temper around her relatives but these days she felt more like a shaken fizzy drink seconds away from exploding. She was just so tired.
The hot sun hit her as soon she stepped out of the door. She was opening the front gate when she noticed a woman peering over at the rose bushes.
"Excuse me, can I help you?" Poppy called out, opening the gate.
"Yes, you can. I was wondering who your gardener was because these rose bushes look beautiful." she asked.
"Um, I guess I am... " Poppy replied, baffled.
"Wonderful. I'm Mrs Fray. I live just across the street and if it isn't too much trouble could you come to do my garden?"
"Er... Mrs Fray...I um..."
"I'd pay you of course."
"But um.."
"How about five hundred pounds, does that sound good. And I'd buy all the seeds and all that stuff."
"Five hundred. That is way too much..."
"I'll take that as yes then. And don't worry about the pay, if you can do half of what you've done here, you deserve it."
"Well...um sure then..."
"Perfect. You can start tomorrow. I'm door number 7. Come round at 10." Mrs Fray said excitedly before walking away, stopping and then turning back around.
"Sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"It's Poppy Potter."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow, Poppy" Mrs Fray said, walking away.
Poppy stood frozen in shock for a couple of minutes. It looked like she'd got herself a summer job.
That next day, Poppy woke up early and took a jog around the neighbourhood before returning home to change for Mrs Frays.
She arrived five minutes early and knocked on the door.
A boy opened the door. Or more so a man opened the door. He was wearing pyjama bottoms and no shirt revealing many muscles. He had light brown eyes and blonde hair that was all over the place. He couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen.
"Can I help you?" he said, rubbing his eyes.
"Um... I, er.. here to... garden," she mumbled looking down trying to stop him seeing her blush.
"What?" he asked loudly, he turned to shout inside. "Mum, there's some girl at the door."
"What?" she heard a voice shout back then Mrs Fray came into view.
"Oh, Poppy it's you. Come in. This is my son Leo. Leo, this is Poppy. She's here to fix our garden. And put a shirt on!" she said slapping him with her tea towel.
Leo mumbled something, trudged up the stairs and they heard a door close. Mrs Fray turned to her.
"Well let me show you the garden. It's just through here. It's an absolute mess. You'll have your work cut out for you."
She opened the back door to reveal a garden with long overgrown grass and was littered with all types of junk and the fence was all but falling apart. An old deck chair was broken on the floor and a stray cat was napping in the centre of the garden.
"See what I mean?" Mrs Fray said with a small laugh."You know it wasn't always like this, Leo used to mow the grass but then he had GCSEs, joined college and suddenly he hasn't got time for household chores."
"Right," Poppy said with a small smile as she thought of what Aunt Petunia would say if she ever saw the shambles the garden was in. "Where is your lawnmower?"
"Yes it right over here." She said, pointing to an old beat-up lawnmower. "Well I'll let you get to it, I'll be in the kitchen If you need me. Don't hesitate to call."
Once she left, Poppy groaned dramatically. She definitely had her work cut out for her.
Poppy finally left Mrs Fray's home at quarter past 4. She had managed to fish out all the junk that she found, a broken football, a stray flip flop, weirdly some plastic cups, a barbie doll that was missing a head and leg and some many other surprising things that ended up in the bin bag that grew as time went on.
Mrs Fray had turned out to be a very positive, helpful employer. She came every hour with fresh juice and made her sandwich for lunch. She didn't talk to Leo again but she did see him through a window she assumed was his bedroom. They had locked eyes for a few seconds before he quickly broke eye contact, closing the curtains.
As she crossed the street back to 4 Privet Drive, she felt the hair on the back of her neck. Someone iswatching me. She realised. Quickly opening the door to the Dursleys, she locked herself inside. She looked through the peephole to see if anyone was there but there wasn't. She let out a sigh of relief and walked up the stairs retreating to her room to once again start studying. She forgot about the ordeal too interested in her work.
The Weasleys stared at the doors of 11 and 13 Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore had told them that the Order of the Phoenix was located at 12 Grimmauld Place but it looked as though such a place did not exist. Suddenly, a battered door with the number 12 appeared between number 11 and 13.
"Wicked," the twins whispered.
"Come on then, let's go inside." Mrs Weasley commanded although it came out a little weak. Her eyes were red and she had a natural frown. Percy had left that morning.
The Weasleys trudged forward heaving their bags. Mr Weasley knocked on the door. They waited until they heard shouting on the other side of the door.
The door opened to reveal Sirius Black with a very grim look upon his face however he didn't wait for polite greetings he walked forward and faced a painting of a woman who was screaming her head off.
"Shut up! Shut up, you old hag!" Sirius roared back even louder, if that was even possible. He grabbed the curtains of the painting and forced them to close with extreme effort.
He turned back to face the red-headed family with a small grin.
"Welcome. Welcome to my humble abode."