The end of October came before Poppy knew it, and she found herself sitting at the breakfast table with Cass and Esther, chatting about the guests who would be arriving that very evening.
It seemed to have escaped their (and everyone else's) notice that it was Poppy's birthday but she didn't mind much at that point - the best gift she could get would be a moment of peace and she didn't want to be the centre of attention today or make anyone feel bad that they'd forgotten.
"Question," said Cass, frowning at the gigantic banners which showed off the school emblems. Poppy raised an eyebrow to show that she was listening but Esther remained still, her eyes darting between her book and a group of boys a few feet away. Poppy, who knew that Esther had a crush on someone, assumed he was in the group, and tried to ignore her strong want to work out which boy it was.
"Well?" Esther asked, sighing and giving Cass all of her attention now.
"D'yeh ever feel embarrassed that we're the house with a badger?" Cass asked, frowning. "Like, don't get me wrong, badgers are good, and obviously we live in a burrow-like dorm and stuff, but really? A badger? Slytherins get wee snakes, Gryffindors get bloody lions, Ravenclaws are soaring eagles, and we're badgers? Is it too much to ask to be an animal capable of murder?"
Esther frowned, but Poppy, who had in fact thought about this before, shook her head. "Honey badgers are vicious. Wouldn't cross one if I were you. They look all cute but one wrong move and you'll end up in hospital. In any case, I don't really mind it. I think I'd prefer to be a Hufflepuff any day – we're loyal and, what was it the hat said-?" she asked Esther.
"Hard working I think."
"Yeah, we're hard working. And I think we're a kind bunch really."
"You would say that," Cass grumbled, poking at her ham, "you're way too nice to random people."
"I'm not," Poppy complained, taking offence to the tone.
"She's right, Pop, you are," Esther said absentmindedly.
"Since when?" Poppy asked, truly bemused.
"Since ever," Cass replied, smiling. "If you don't have that 'I hate you' feeling for someone then you try too hard to be nice."
"I really think you've got that wrong," Poppy replied, frowning. "I can be not nice to people…"
Esther snorted.
"Okay, wave at Patty Hemcock. She's brutal," Cass said, pointing over at a particularly angry looking Ravenclaw girl. "Bet you five sickles she waves back."
"Patty?" Poppy asked, glancing at the Seventh Year. "She's not that bad."
Esther's mouth fell open and she whipped her head up to stare at Poppy in disbelief. "Not that bad? She practically nutted me the other day because my potion exploded and melted the corner of her bag."
Poppy grimaced. "She told me about that… She said she'll apologise soon, and it's not an excuse but she's going through some stuff and her dad gave her that bag before he died."
Cass' eyes widened comically and she choked on her drink.
Poppy reached over and slapped her on the back as she continued, "I can be mean!"
"Sure you can," Cass laughed.
But Esther leant in and narrowed her eyes playfully. "It's annoying you isn't it?"
"Yes!" Poppy sulked. "I can be tough. I'm not too nice."
"Huh… tough girl eh?" Esther said, trying to hide her laughter. "Maybe we just think you're too nice because you're a good listener and have a nice face, kind eyes, and not many people have bad things to say about you…"
"I can be mean!" Poppy insisted, ignoring Esther's distraction attempt. "Look, I don't know why I'm being so defensive about this," she lied, having just worked out that she felt annoyed that her friends were making fun of her and at the same time hadn't remembered her birthday. Which she was too nice to point out…) "But here. Ernie Stemwick was trying to talk to me yesterday and I was just done with everything so I pretended I couldn't hear him… it's not even the first time…"
Esther began to laugh out loud, and Cass joined in soon enough, but it didn't make Poppy feel any better.
"Is it too much to ask to have some quiet time on your own in the library?" she asked with a frown. "I'm actually getting quite overwhelmed this year."
"Overwhelmed? You?" Esther asked curiously.
Poppy shrugged. "Everyone's so excited about the tournament. There's no escape from talking and people… I think I need some alone time, y'know? It's all just getting on top of me…"
Cass leant across the table and put a hand on Poppy's forearm. "You know what you need?" she asked. "A stiff kick up the arse. Don't worry," she said when Poppy burst out laughing, "my shoe's clean."
"You're such a dick," Poppy cried through her laughter.
"Language, Jacobs," scolded Professor McGonagall, who was passing their table. Poppy sank down in her seat as her friends continued to laugh at her.
Later that day, when she returned to her dorm to drop off her bags before the representatives from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrived, Poppy found an owl sitting on her bed.
Esther, who had been tending to a plant by the open window, pointed over and said, "Arrived a minute ago. I said it could wait there."
Poppy removed the small brown package from its leg and sent it on its way.
"You're not going to open it?" Esther asked when Poppy placed the parcel underneath her pillow and moved towards the door.
"Later," she said, "don't want to miss anything."
"Happy birthday," whispered Professor Sprout, who was lined up with the other teachers behind the seventh years.
Poppy turned her head slightly and raised an eyebrow at her Head of House.
"You thought I'd forget?" Professor Sprout asked with a smile. She gently guided a small pot into Poppy's hand, and stepped backwards.
Poppy smiled and looked down at the plant which was tiny even in its little pot - Sprout must have picked it that morning.
Sprout held a special place in Poppy's heart. Ever since first year, Sprout had given her a little clipping of a plant for her birthday.
It had started when Sprout had found Poppy crying one day and over a pot of tea and some biscuits had said Poppy reminded her of a former Hufflepuff student who had also struggled immensely with the transition from home to the boarding school.
From then on, every year Sprout gave Poppy a small plant to take care of as a project to keep her occupied, and in late June before the train departed from Hogsmeade Poppy returned it to the greenhouses "for safekeeping," since she couldn't take it home.
This little one marked her seventh and final plant, and Poppy decided that she'd take it with her this year.
"Is that a starthistle?" Esther asked, frowning down at the plant. "Why'd Sprout give you one?"
Poppy, who thought now would definitely be the worst time to remind her friends about her birthday (they didn't know that Poppy had been given all of her plants by Sprout and she wanted to keep it a secret), whispered, "I said I wanted one.."
"Oh," Esther, who absolutely loved plants, replied. "You can keep it next to Norman if you'd like?"
"Thanks," Poppy replied, grinning.
"Put it in your pocket for now though, or it'll catch a cold," Esther replied.
Poppy placed the small plant into her pocket and turned back to watch the sky just as a sixth year shouted to announce a school's arrival. Sure enough, a gigantic carriage appeared from the distance, pulled through the sky by majestic winged horses.
The Beauxbatons carriage glided to a stop in front of the Hogwarts students and Poppy just managed to pick her jaw off the ground when the door swung open and a gigantic woman emerged. She greeted Dumbledore first.
"Dumbl-dorr," she purred, her voice carrying across the rows and rows of silent and awestruck students.
"Dumbly-dorr," Cass mocked from next to Poppy, who let out an involuntary snort at her atrocious attempt at a French accent.
"Be nice," she hissed once she'd recovered.
"I am!" Cass replied, obviously trying not to laugh. "But his name sounds like some kind of mushroom now."
Poppy shook her head and watched as a dozen students clad in robes or dresses of what looked like pale blue silk slowly made their way out of the carriage. She thought they looked quite cold and wondered how long it would take them to get inside where the fires were lit and the Great Hall was deliciously warm.
From the line of seventh year students, which was directly in front of the teachers but the last row of the Hogwarts students, Poppy, Cass and Esther couldn't quite hear any of the ensuing conversation, catching words here and there.
Poppy, at almost five feet ten, and with slightly heeled boots on stood tallest, but even she had trouble seeing over the heads of some of the sixth year boys. After complaining since she was even shorter than average at five feet two, Esther conjured a couple of stepping stools and she and Cass joined Poppy at her height.
They needn't have bothered though, as soon enough the headmistress, who had been identified as Madam Maxime, and her students were on their way inside, striding purposefully past the lines of Hogwarts students.
Esther, more unused to the cold than Poppy who had Care of Magical Creatures outside in all weathers, and Cass who flew all year round, began to shiver and Poppy quickly cast a spell to blow warm air over her.
Esther raised an eyebrow and Poppy smiled. "This is why you should've taken Charms. It's a simple warming spell. It won't last long though. It's meant to act as a hairdryer or to dry your clothes, but gives a nice burst."
Cass made Poppy do her next, and then Steven Knotting, a sixth year student standing in front of them, whispered, "Share the warmth, Jacobs."
Poppy groaned quietly but did as she was asked. Soon enough most of the sixth years in front of her were turning around to get her to cast the spell on them. She tried to escape the duty by turning to the teachers behind them to try to get them to put a stop to it, but Professor Flitwick, who was standing on what looked like a small ladder, smiled at her and said, "Brilliant spellwork Jacobs, please continue," and so she was stuck. She rolled her eyes at Esther and began to warm the next person.
Fred, George and their friend Lee, who had moved down the line to where the Hufflepuffs stood, piped up soon enough.
"Alright, Pop? Heard you were peddling warmth spells?" Fred asked, grinning.
"Not by choice," she grumbled, turning the hot air on them now.
By the time she'd finished warming Cedric (much to the annoyance of Fred and George who led Lee back over to where the Gryffindors were), Durmstrang were beginning to arrive.
"Has it dawned on you yet that most sixth years could have cast that spell themselves?" Cass asked, leaning in and laughing.
"Oh for god's sake!" Poppy groaned. "They're so lazy!"
"And you're too nice," Cass replied, laughing.
Poppy was too busy complaining about the students' audacity that she missed the Durmstrang boat docking.
"Jesus Christ, where'd that come from?" she asked suddenly, staring at the giant ship which was now protruding from the lake nearby.
"Durmstrang sailed underneath the lake, Miss Jacobs," called Professor Dumbledore from his place towards the front.
Poppy pursed her lips in embarrassment and ducked her head as students laughed around her. Soon enough, the Durmstrang cohort were on their way inside and Cass was practically jumping around as she craned her neck to see someone in the Durmstrang group.
Poppy raised an eyebrow at her and Esther whispered, "Krum is here."
"Can you believe it?" Cass asked, trying to get a better look at the Quidditch player.
"He's about eighteen and spent last year flying away from school, so it stands to reason…" Poppy said excitedly, craning her neck to try and see Krum as well. "Pretty cool! Do you think we'll see him fly this year?"
But her friends didn't answer as her words had been drowned out by the other students. She looked around awkwardly to make sure no one else had heard her and watched her embarrassment, and then she followed her friends inside and took a seat at the Hufflepuff table.
Before long, Poppy and the rest of the new and current students found themselves tucking into incredible food.
"You don't even know what it is," Cass said, frowning as Poppy ladeled something which looked like chicken in a red sauce onto her plate.
"No, but Krum's lapping it up, so thought I'd try it," Poppy replied absentmindedly. When Cass began to spoon heaps of it onto her plate, Poppy caught Esther's eye and grinned – she hadn't seen Krum eating it at all.
"She must be part Veela, right?" Esther asked after a while, nodding at a silvery-blonde haired girl who was sitting in Beauxbaton robes at the Ravenclaw table. "It's physically impossible for someone to be that hot, isn't it?"
"I'm not sure," Poppy replied, averting her gaze when the silvery-haired girl caught her eye. "But if she is, I weep for the male population of Hogwarts, and I hope she's okay with them staring..."
"Just the male population?" Esther asked with a sly smile.
Poppy chuckled. "I will be keeping my staring to a minimum. But if she really is part Veela then I think the guys will be more overt in their attention if she 'shows off her shine'. At the World Cup the Bulgarian team brought Veelas as their mascots, and when they started dancing a whole lot of idiocy began."
"You seriously didn't feel any urge to show off?" Cass asked, frowning. "Da almost jumped over the family in front of us, trying to get to them. Ma was mad at him for the rest of the summer," she said with a loud laugh.
"Well, I felt an urge to start talking about my favourite history topics to try and show off my intellect," Poppy explained, shaking her head. "Maybe I'm better at masking…? Or I know I don't have anything to offer!" She sighed deeply and placed her chin in her hand as she stared at the table, deep in thought. "Then again, I can't say I was concentrating on what everyone else was doing," she added with a smirk, "they were pretty hot."
"Och, Poppy. What would Charlie think?" Cass teased from Poppy's other side.
Poppy scoffed and picked up her cutlery again. "If he minds me looking at women then I'd say we have bigger problems…" She shook her head. "Wait, no, we don't have any problems because we're not a couple!" she complained, knowing that Esther had tricked her into voicing her attraction to Charlie.
Cass and Esther both snorted loudly.
After dinner, they listened to Dumbledore's speech in rapt silence and then made their way back to the dorms. Poppy, who was now slightly green at the prospect of a magical wooden cup deciding their futures, sank into bed. She only remembered the parcel she'd received when she found her neck at an odd angle when she lay down on her pillow. She pulled out the little brown pack and turned it over in her hand.
"Still putting your name in?" Cass asked from her bed when the lights went out.
"I said I would if you did," Poppy replied honestly, staring up at the ceiling. "Are you still going to?" she asked a moment later. While she still wasn't a hundred percent convinced about it all, she knew that if she didn't, Cass wouldn't.
"I think so," Cass replied quietly. "Ma and Da said I didn't need to and that I'd be on Grandma's piano at some point, but… I don't know, seems like I should try…"
Poppy inwardly groaned. All she really wanted was someone to give her permission to not go for it, and to tell her that she wouldn't regret not putting her name down.
She pulled her duvet cover over her head and cast Lumos so that she wouldn't disturb her friends. Unwrapping the parcel, she found a dragonhide belt with a simple golden buckle inside, and a little note which said,
Poppy,
Hope this doesn't get to you too late. It's not much and I know you'll get cooler presents, but happy birthday.
Charlie
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she tried not to let her happy crying wake her friends.