Poppy felt anxious, standing outside the ice cream parlour in Diagon Alley. It was the second week in December, and the worry which had burrowed itself deep in her chest over the past week threatened to overwhelm her.

She assumed that this was the reason - this meet up with Esther and Cass was the black cloud following her around, making her look over her shoulder, making her heart stammer in her chest at bedtime, refusing to let her sleep more than a two hour stretch.

Her argument with her friends on the train at the end of the school year still popped into her head at random intervals. Their words and tone still made her feel small. They'd talked to her like she was a child who wasn't allowed to be scared of what Dumbledore had told them all, because she hadn't experienced the last war. She resented that. And yet still, she wished that one day they'd know she was right, and they'd speak to her properly again without her having to lie to them.

She'd almost cancelled when Mathieu had owled her and set up this quasi-reunion. But Dumbledore had half-commanded her to attend. Stupid Bill, she thought for the thousandth time. If he'd just kept his mouth shut.

She took in a deep breath, allowing the freezing December air to ground her as she remembered her conversation with Dumbledore. The look he gave her when she said she might not meet up with Cass and Esther had made her feel smaller than any argument. He'd told her under no uncertain terms that she needed to repair the relationship. Especially with Esther, whose father was extremely important in the Ministry.

"Est-ce que tu entres?" asked a deep voice slowly, as if talking to a child. The words jolted Poppy out of her thoughts.

She allowed the side of her mouth to tip up into a smile as she looked to her left.

"Hey," she said, grateful that Mathieu had appeared at her side and wasn't waiting inside the parlour with Esther and Cass already.

He looked older. It took Poppy a moment to process why but then she realised it was his hair, which was cropped shorter now, and it seemed that he'd invested in hair wax since she'd last seen him. And his robes - with a high collar, structured shoulders, a pinched waist and the deep shade of green, they made him appear more established than he had in their last year of school. He'd always been handsome and charming, but now he seemed moreso.

She wondered if he thought she looked different as well. Perhaps he thought her more haggard maybe? Not that she had noticed if she looked older or not… she didn't think she-

"Are you alright?" Mathieu asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

Poppy shook her head and forced a small smile. "'Course," she said, turning back to the front door. "Can't wait to see everyone."

"I'll believe that when you go inside," Mathieu countered.

"What if they… what if they're…" Poppy said, pausing mid-way to take a deep breath.

"Esther believes you've changed your mind about everything you argued about. Cass doesn't," he explained, drawing himself up to his full height.

Poppy frowned and looked at Mathieu again. "Do you-"

Mathieu simply laughed and shook his head. "You don't think you're the only one who believes Dumbledore do you? Don't look so shocked."

"I thought- wait, so Esther…"

Mathieu sighed and shifted, clasping his hands behind his back. "Well, I wasn't stupid enough to say I believed, so E doesn't know. I've been working on her for months. Making her sympathetic to the idea that we should be prepared in case something is coming. It helps that her dad's starting to lose faith in Fudge. You didn't hear that from me," he whispered with a wink. "She wasn't really receptive to any of it at first, but then I reminded her about what happened at the World Cup Final. She wasn't there, but I was." Mathieu swallowed thickly. "But the moment Cass gets a whiff…"

"It's straight back to square one?" Poppy asked. "Yeah, I can imagine. Cass can railroad."

Mathieu nodded. "I'm worried about E. You know her dad's high up in the Ministry?"

Poppy nodded slowly. That was why she was there, wasn't it? At least after today she'd be able to go back to an Order meeting and confirm that they had one sympathiser that she knew - Mathieu.

Poppy frowned and looked to the ground. She felt backed into a corner already, and now her first thought when she met a good friend was that he might be a good recruit for the Order? A question formed and vibrated its way to the front of her mind, destroying all others - When did I stop having a choice?

"Don't worry," Mathieu said, misreading Poppy's silence. "When she does come round, I'll have prepared a safe life for us both. She'll be okay."

"In London?" Poppy asked quietly. She wasn't sure if Esther would be safe if she still lived in London with her father.

Mathieu shook his head. "Paris. She's joining me over there in the summer. We've got a little flat lined up already and we're going to spend a year pretending we're not the product of wealthy parents. You know, ignoring the number when rent comes in, saying we need to cut costs by eating in, and visiting all the free monuments when we know we could pay."

Poppy rolled her eyes. "Alright for some." She shook her head and apologised for being rude but Mathieu waved her off with a chuckle. "I'm just worried about Cass. She'll tear me apart in there."

"She won't," Mathieu said, his voice softening even more. "She loves you. They both do. Just convince her you're sorry. It'll be easy I think, just get her an extra scoop of salted caramel and say these past few months have shown you how stupid you were." He added the last with a simpering voice and a hand on his chest, which made Poppy chuckle.

But before she could say anything else, the bell above the shop door dinged, and Esther's voice called, "Are you coming in? You know it's freezing, don't you?"

Poppy grinned at her oldest friend and said, "Says the woman in an ice-cream parlour!" as she walked towards Esther, holding out her hands for a hug.

Twenty minutes later, Poppy stood at the front of the mounds of ice cream at the counter, having handed over a few coins of silver. It had taken fifteen of those twenty minutes for Poppy to convince Cass that she really was sorry for what had happened.

Poppy had demeaned herself in front of her friends and pleaded with Cass to understand the stress she'd been under at the end of the school year. Mathieu and Esther had backed her and reminded Cass that Poppy had been in a serious fall which had landed her in the Hospital Wing with a head injury.

Finally, Cass had accepted the excuse and Poppy had gone fetch her another scoop of ice cream 'as a treat'.

"I missed you," Cass said under her breath, when Poppy placed the sweet in front of her.

Poppy let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and sank into her seat, saying honestly, "I missed you too." The two friends smiled at each other for a long moment and then Poppy asked, "So what are you up to these days?"

In the months since they'd last seen each other, Cass had earned a place on the reserve team for the Kenmare Kestrels, Esther was an intern with the photography department for The Daily Prophet, and Mathieu was based in Paris.

When he went to the loo, Esther proudly explained that Mathieu had begun to take over his family business, something to do with cauldrons and other ironmongery, and was working with his father in Lille. Poppy reluctantly made a mental note to tell The Order. That kind of information really would come in handy. Especially knowing that Mathieu's father had fought against Grindlewald.

When the topic of Poppy and her work came up, she felt uncomfortable and didn't know how to answer her friends. She wanted to say that she was an Auror-in-training now, but Scrimgeour had been firm - if she mentioned that to anyone before an announcement had been made, she might as well quit.

She tried to mention Gringotts, but Esther and Cass shared a look, and then Esther said, "I went in there looking for you a few months ago and they said you'd quit."

Poppy worried her bottom lip between her teeth and cleared her throat.

There was an awkward silence, and then Esther said, "Well at least you're not having to pay rent."

Poppy frowned. "What do you mean? I do… I pay rent…"

"But don't you live with Fleur? Didn't her parents buy the flat you're in?" Cass asked. At the look on Poppy's face, her face dropped and she cleared her throat. "I'm guessing she didn't tell you that?"

Poppy closed her eyes and sighed deeply. "That would be why the rent is so affordable."

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine. Probably about time I officially found out I was a charity case. Just didn't think it would be…" she trailed off. "How did you know?" Poppy asked.

"Oh, uh… well, it used to be my Grandmother's flat," Mathieu said awkwardly. "Only, she's based in Godric's Hollow now."

Poppy puffed up her cheeks and let the air slowly escape her lips. She tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling, noticing that the paint was beginning to peel. "It's fine," she said, lowering her gaze. "Really. Just know that I have a job, I just can't talk about it right now."

"Why not?" Cass asked, raising an eyebrow.

Poppy swallowed thickly, knowing that if she didn't explain herself, Cass would jump to conclusions and all of her work would be undone. She leant forwards, beckoning the others to do the same, and made a show of looking over her shoulder to see if they were being overheard.

"You have to promise me you won't say anything," she whispered. "The department weren't allowed to hire any new Aurors, so they didn't. But I'm working in the research team. It's all hush hush because of Fudge's hiring freeze."

Esther's squeal threatened to deafen the group and Cass looked skeptical. It was only after Esther mentioned that her father had spoken to Fudge about Poppy that Cass relaxed, and soon after they decided to make their way to The Leaky Cauldron for some dinner, but not before they all ordered a round of rum ball ice cream.

Later that evening, when Poppy returned to the flat after her meet-up, she found Fleur and Bill on the sofa. She pulled her silver-haired friend off Bill and into her arms.

"Where have you been?" Fleur asked. "You smell awful."

"Ice cream turned into rum balls and that turned into rum," Poppy moaned into Fleur's shoulder, swaying slightly.

Fleur patted her back heavily, as if she didn't want to be hugged for as long as Poppy had been holding her for.

Poppy didn't usually enjoy hugs of this length, but having drunk multiple rounds of rum, she no longer felt as awkward about physical contact as she usually did.

"This is nice," she mumbled. She didn't say aloud that she wished that she was hugging someone who was inches taller, freckled, red-headed, and a man named Charlie rather than a woman named Fleur.

"How was it?" Fleur asked.

"Fine," Poppy muttered.

"Good. Are you friends again?"

Poppy moaned her assent. They stood like that, with Poppy leaning on her smaller friend for a beat, and then Poppy muttered, "Thank you."

"For what?" Fleur asked. "Telling Bill that you were too chicken to meet with your friends?"

Poppy took a deep breath, but her words wouldn't come out. She wanted to say thank you to Fleur for letting her stay in their flat, for believing Dumbledore, and for not telling Poppy that her parents owned the home, but Poppy's words wouldn't come out. Instead, her limbs began to feel heavier than before, and her eyelids began to flutter shut.

"Bill, help me," Fleur commanded quickly.

A moment later, Poppy felt strong hands pulling at her upper arms, a whooshing sensation which made her head spin, and then her side was enveloped by the soft comfortable sofa. Her brain felt as if it was still moving, but the sofa grounded her as she felt a weight shift above her, and she fell asleep clutching the corner of the blanket Bill had placed over her.

The next morning she felt the tension in her heart had eased a little (aided greatly by the overwhelming nausea and headache she had to deal with after her copious drinks the night before), but her anxiety was heightened the moment she received an owl from Artie just before lunch. The letter was hastily written and said that he would be in England soon, and would meet up with her when he could. That he hadn't forgotten about her.

She relayed the information to Bill, who promised to tell Moody when he saw him.

The next day, she went to work via the Owl office, where she posted Charlie's birthday present to him - the signatures of the French Quidditch Team she'd collected at the Ministry party.

She had written him a letter to go alongside it, saying that she missed him and would he have free time over Christmas, but she heard Moody's voice in her head telling her not to be so stupid as to post something so personal, so she tucked the letter into her pocket and went to work.

A few days later, in the lift on her way up to the office, Poppy overheard a few Ministry workers gossiping that someone had been found drunk overnight in the Ministry.

She smiled when they said that the offender had been whisked away before anyone important saw them, and that no one would have known had it not been for the portraits who had seen the events and run to tell their friends.

Poppy couldn't help feeling that nothing changed - gossipy portraits were all over, not just at Hogwarts.

It was a big no no to be drunk within the Ministry walls, definitely, but Poppy didn't think whoever it was would have been the first to have a little post-work tipple and get a little too affected by the alcohol. Just maybe the first to be caught in a while.

The lift gossip meant that Poppy wasn't surprised when she reached the Auror office and was ushered into the break room for a compulsory session on why drinking at work was a bad idea, even if you were off the clock.

It was a welcome distraction from the anxiety she still felt over her letter from Artie, and the wonder of when he would contact her again.

She noticed that the Auror who had given her a swig of Firewhiskey back in September wasn't there. She assumed it was him who had been caught. She smiled to herself. It was about time.

Poppy wasn't the only one who found it mildly amusing. None of the Aurors there seemed to be taking the seminar seriously. They kept interrupting the lecturer to joke and jeer and so were locked inside the room for over two hours before they were all finally released because they had work to do (and not because they'd finished the session).

But after lunch Poppy's amusement at the debacle faded when she heard another rumour- a man had been attacked within the Ministry, and they were just saying he'd been drunk.

Then another - that a man had been found seriously injured in the Atrium. That the bodily fluids people had been talking about all day had been blood.

Then, the worst rumour of all - that the injured wizard had been hurt while on the job - that a mutated Muggle artefact had been more dangerous than he'd realised and had attacked him.

Poppy's heart jumped to her throat.

Arthur had been on duty guarding the entrance to the Department of Mysteries last night.

Arthur worked with Muggle artefacts.

Arthur wouldn't want to be found in the wrong place if someone had attacked him - the Order was secret. It had to stay that way.

She knew that she needed to go, and quickly, but when she told Scrimgeour she was ill and needed to go home, he told her to suck it up and had his secretary spring a surprise theory test on her.

So Poppy spent the next few hours alone, in the break room, trying to get through a twenty page booklet on the history of British-American-Canadian-French Auror relations while trying to find some way of confirming if it was, as she suspected, Arthur. Or not.

Her suspicions were almost confirmed when Tonks, who seemed even more clumsy than usual, fell over while trying to make a cup of coffee. On her way up, she hastily shoved a note at Poppy which read, "Go straight home tonight", and then ran out the door without her drink.

Later that evening, when she was finally allowed to leave and she dragged herself through the front door of her flat feeling as though she'd put all of her words and thoughts onto parchment, she finally found out what had happened.

Well, she deciphered what she could from Fleur, who spoke at a mile a minute in French, her hair all over the place, her face stricken. When Fleur finally stopped speaking, Poppy stared at her.

"I feel as though you've been overly kind to me in the past," she said, placing a hand to her forehead as she tried to translate what Fleur had said. "I got Arthur, Bill, Ministry and- oh shit. Oh shit. Fleur!"

"Yes. Now, go to wherever you are meant to, and tell Bill I will no longer be leaving for France in the morning. I will be here for him," Fleur said, practically pushing Poppy out of the door.