December 1942
The Gryffindor Common Room looked as though a hurricane had swept through it. The curtains were hanging slightly askew, the cushions from the chairs had been thrown into a messy pile on the floor and there was a fine dusting of fireplace soot covering nearly everything.
Standing a little while away from the cushion pile was the main reason for the mess. Her wand was drawn and pointed at Ro, who stood just in front of the cushion pile with her arms spread wide.
"Are you ready?" Poppy asked, already feeling a little guilty over what she was about to do.
Ro nodded, a wicked grin on her face and mirrored in her eyes. "Hit me with your best shot!" she teased.
"Tarantallegra!" Poppy shouted, laughing involuntarily when Ro broke into a wild dance.
She stopped after a few moments as Minerva's voice spoke the counter-curse from where she sat in a chair to Poppy's left, poring over the book that Ro had found from her brother.
Ro straightened her uniform before turning to face Poppy again as she asked "Next?"
Poppy raised her wand again. "Petrificus Totalus!"
Ro's outstretched arms clamped to her sides and her face froze in a neutral expression, toppling backwards to land with a soft thud on the well placed cushions. After a wave of Minerva's wand she was back on her feet again, encouraging Poppy to try the next spell.
After a few rounds of the knockback jinx, followed by Expelliarmus, a very tired looking Ro raised her hands in defeat. "Crikey Pops, you've killed me!" she declared dramatically, falling back onto the cushions.
Poppy glanced back at Minerva, who was still copying out various incantations frantically from the book. She looked back at Ro for a moment with a barely suppressed smile, before lifting her wand in Minerva's direction. "Expelliarmus!" she whispered three times.
The look on Minerva's face changed instantly from concentration to confusion as the book flew out of her hand, followed by her quill and then the parchment. Another Expelliarmus caused the empty-handed Minerva's glasses to fly off her face, hitting the wall and snapping across one of the hinges. Minerva looked around for a moment, before her green gaze came to rest upon Poppy. "I should have guessed," she laughed dryly, getting to her feet and walking in the direction of her broken glasses.
"I'm really sorry," Poppy said as she followed, wringing her hands a little.
"Not to worry, I got this," Ro assured her, lifting her own wand. "Oculus Reparo!" she said clearly, and Poppy breathed a sigh of relief as the arm reattatched itself to the main body of the glasses.
Her relief faded, however, when Minerva turned to her with a mischevious glint in her eyes. "Now how do I get my revenge for that?" she asked playfully.
With a smile that almost matched Ro's in its cheekiness, Poppy shouted "Rictumsempra!" before Minerva could even draw her own wand. Minerva crumpled to the floor with the force of the Tickling Curse, her hands wrapped around her middle and laughing uncontrollably until tears streamed down her face.
Ro and Poppy couldn't help laughing too, finding the image of their usually serious friend crying with laughter on the floor too much to cope with. It was a little while before Poppy regained enough composure to perform the counter curse, letting Minerva climb back to her feet and straighten her glasses.
The creak of the portrait hole being opened behind them made all three turn around with a start; out of pure instinct and not seeing who was entering the common room, Poppy lifted her wand with a flash and said "Colloshoo!"
The newcomers turned out to be Lyall Lupin and Hector Bones, who stopped instantly as if they'd been glued to the floor. As they collapsed in a heap of tangled limbs, all five first-years couldn't help but dissolve into giggles for the second time.
"I hope one of you knows the counter-curse for this!" Lyall said after a short while, "I really don't want to have to leave my shoes here and go to the Great Hall for dinner in just my socks!"
"Although that would be funny, I can help you out there." Minerva said with only a slight tone of resignation, using her wand to unstick Lyall and Hector's shoes from the floor.
"Thanks, Minerva, " Hector said with relief, hopping from foot to foot as if to make sure his feet were properly removed from the floor. "That was really great Poppy, where did you learn to do that?"
Poppy giggled a little embarrassedly. "We found the curse in a book belonging to Ro's older brother, and we taught it to ourselves."
"Defense in preparation for the pantomime?" Lyall asked.
Ro nodded. "And unless I'm completely wrong, I'd say we're pretty much done."
"I agree." Minerva nodded with a smile. "But we need to get this cleared up before one of the prefects gets back. I reckon Fleamont or Augusta would have all the points in the Gryffindor hourglass taken if they saw the room looking like this."
"It's like someone's let a hippogriff in," Hector agreed with a short laugh. "We'll give you a hand, though I don't suppose any of you know any cleaning spells?"
There were head-shakes from everyone in the room. "One thing I need to remember to learn at some point," Ro said, "that way I'll never have to clean my bit of the dormitory again."
"Good old fashioned elbow grease it is then!" Poppy declared, rolling up her sleeves and making a start on the cushion pile.
Since deciding to master a few of the defence techniques in the book belonging to Tavin Hooch, Poppy was feeling a great deal more confident about sharing the stage with Druella Rosier. The first few rehersals had been nothing short of a disaster, with spells flying across the Great Hall whenever Professor Beery's back was turned. Both Poppy and Millicent had returned to lessons afterwards a few times at least with pimples covering their arms and faces; Druella had recently learned the pimple jinx and had shown quickly that she wasn't afraid to use it.
But as November rolled into December and Christmas trees started arriving from the Forbidden Forest, Poppy's own skillset grew and grew. She proved time and time again that she could disarm, knockback, and full body bind, could turn legs to jelly and send her friends dancing around the room for as long as she pleased. All she had left to hope was that she wouldn't need to rely on those spells once on the stage.
There had been weekly rehersals with Professor Beery for Poppy, Millicent, William and Druella, and it would be fair to say they hadn't gone very well. Their first problem had been finding a creature to play the role of the blind, bloated worm that the characters encountered, as Professor Dippet had been reluctant to use any of the strange ideas supplied by the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Kettleburn. Eventually they had settled on an Ashwinder that had been enlarged using the Engorgio charm, but Professor Beery could frequently be heard to complain about how reckless Professor Kettleburn's ideas usually were.
Although the cast had all settled into their characters and learned their lines relatively easily, the experience had done nothing to warm the relationship between the four of them. Poppy had grown used to having her Muggleborn heritage brought up by Druella at every opportunity, and Millicent still regarded her with a frosty attitude after the events of Halloween. Even William had picked up on the dislike for Druella before long, though usually kept out of any arguments. Neither side had ever resorted to using wands while they argued, but Poppy couldn't help thinking that Druella was saving that trick until they got on stage.
Irma had kept to her agreement; a couple of days before the pantomime she'd shoved a book into Poppy's hands as they passed each other in a corridor. Once back in her dormitory, Poppy had opened the book to see a small piece of parchment float out onto the floor. The message was short and simple, but easy enough to guess the deeper meaning of: "Take your wand. IV."
Poppy took her advice and found a way of concealing her wand in the sleeve of her costume. But during the first few scenes of the pantomime, she started to think that her training hadn't been necessary and that she'd been silly to worry. However, she'd been quickly proven wrong.
"Come on, Sir Luckless, you shouldn't be so hasty to abandon our quest!" Poppy said, addressing William on stage as her character.
William shook his head stubbornly "But I am nothing more than a mere knight! I would only be a burden to you." Out the corner of her eye, Poppy thought she saw Druella shake her wrist behind her back and mutter something, but she had no time to think about what Druella could be doing.
Turning her full attention back to William, Poppy started to speak the next line. "Of course y-" she gagged slightly, feeling as though there was something blocking her throat, but forced herself to carry on. "Ye wad mi a groot hulp!" She wrapped her hands around her throat as her words came out in an incoherent mess, feeling her cheeks redden as laugher sounded in the audience.
"Poppy, you're ruining the play!" came Druella's shrill voice, and a few people in the audience shouted agreement.
As despair suddenly crept up on her, Poppy turned her head to look out into the audience towards the Gryffindor table where Minerva and Ro were on their feet and rushing towards the edge of the stage. Even from the distance she stood at, Poppy could see the concern written across their faces, but that was banished from her mind when Druella drew her hand from behind her back and waved it towards Poppy. She realised instantly what had happened; Druella had used the Tongue-Tying Spell to bind her tongue and prevent her from speaking properly.
A collective gasp of horror was heard from all around the room as Druella shouted "Everte Statum!" and an orange light burst from her wand. Poppy was thrown in the air and flipped around twice before crashing hard onto the stage, screaming as intense pain swept through her body.
Fighting through the agony that thankfully subsided within a few moments, Poppy staggered to her feet and pulled her own wand from out of her sleeve. "Rictumsempra!" she gasped, grateful to find she now had full control of her tongue. A silver stream of light hit Druella right in the stomach, and with a feeling of satisfaction Poppy watched as she sunk to her knees and laughed uncontrollably.
It was only when she looked up that Poppy realised that the entirety of the audience was now standing in a half-circle around the stage. Teachers were trying to push through the crowd of students with limited success, Minerva and Ro were calling encouragements, and there was a shout of "Who taught the mudblood to use magic like that!" from the Slytherin side of the Hall. A pale flash of light accompanied the outraged cry, which Poppy only recognised as the counter-curse when Druella was able to reach for her wand again.
Poppy reached first, lifting her wand with a whisper of "Mimblewimble." She'd kept quiet in the hope that Druella wouldn't hear her, and sure enough a look of utmost shock appeared on her face when the words "Angergia Skillas!" flew from her mouth.
Despite the incantation being said improperly, a green light still appeared from Druella's wand and shot towards Poppy. She threw herself to the floor just in time for the spell to fly over her head and hit Professor Beery full on in the face, causing his head to glow an eerie lime colour and his eyes to look as if they were about to bulge out of their sockets.
All attention was immediately diverted from the duelling students to Professor Beery; the rest of the audience parted instantly as Professor Dippet stormed through the crowd followed closely by the matron, Madam Quinine. Even Poppy was focused solely on the now- swelling head of the Herbology Teacher, until there was a slashing sound behind her and a few of her blonde curls dropped to the floor.
There was a truly evil glint in Druella's eye as she thrashed her wand and said "Deffindo!" again, and Poppy cried out as white hot pain shot across her wand arm. Druella's Severing Charm has created a rip in her costume and a long wound in the skin underneath, from which blood was rapidly pooling out of. Before she could react, another slash appeared in the hem of her dress, and then part of the sleeve fell off as Druella repeated the charm for the third time.
Desparation lending her energy, Poppy raised her wand and screamed "Expelliarmus!" Druella's wand flew from her hand to land behind one of the bush props, and seconds later the bush had disintegrated in a small, ashy explosion.
A confused silence settled over the Hall, everyone's eyes captivated by the smouldering pile of embers that had been a plant mere seconds ago. Poppy was frantically trying to think of a time when the Disarming Spell had ever caused an explosion, when the terrified voice of Professor Kettleburn sounded from near the back of the crowd.
"The Ashwinder has laid its eggs! Everyone run, run for your lives!"
From Poppy's perspective, everything started happening in slow motion. Most of the students in the audience heartily took Professor Kettleburn's advice and started sprinting for the door. Minerva, Ro and Septima were trying to push their way towards the stage, ignoring Professor Merrythought's voice telling them to turn around and evacuate with everyone else. Professor Beery was still emitting low moans from somewhere behind her, and Matron Quinine was muttering furiously what she assumed were various counter-curses. Professor Dippet and Professor Kettleburn were shouting conflicting instructions which were being ignored by everyone in the room, and Professor Dumbledore was striding up the stairs and onto the stage with a rare look of alarm in his usually peaceful eyes.
That was when it happened.
The props surrounding the embers burst into flames, igniting everything around them including the floorboards themselves Waves of fire started spreading quickly in Poppy's direction, but in her terror she couldn't think fast enough to make herself run. It was only when she felt William and Druella rushing past either side of her and Millicent grab her wrist that she started moving, refusing to look back at stage behind them that was blasting heat and sparks into the hall.
They had barely cleared the stage when an explosion shook the Hall, sending rubble and smouldering timber shooting into the air. Poppy saw the terrified faces of Minerva and Ro and heard several people scream, before everything dissolved into darkness