"What exactly did he ask?" Moody asked for the umpteenth time.

"I've told you!" Poppy cried, placing her head in her hands. She let out a loud sobbing groan and then raised her head. "He just asked me those questions. Over and over again. Then I went to the holding cells. Then the questions. Then he said I didn't get into the programme originally because the Ministry thought I was too close to Harry. Then he gave me my wand back and took me to get changed!"

She'd been sitting at the table at Grimmauld Place since just before seven, explaining what had happened. It was now almost eleven and Moody, just like Scrimgeour, wouldn't let her have a proper break from going over and over everything.

"Give her a break Mad-Eye!" Tonks tried. She'd only been there for half an hour, so had missed Moody shutting down everyone else who had told him he was going too far. Not that many people had - Mr Weasley, Sirius, Lupin, they'd all seemed as interested in her answers as Moody had been.

Emmeline Vance and Mundungus had walked innocently into the kitchen for a spot of dinner, and had to listen in.

Poppy didn't blame any of them for Moody's vendetta. She wouldn't have known what to do if she was in their place either.

At one point Mrs Weasley looked as though she wanted to interject, but Kingsley had stopped her, nodding to Moody, who looked, at that moment, as though he would kill anyone who asked him to stop his line of questioning.

And so it was Bill who had been threatened with silencing if he interrupted again.

And it was Bill who placed a calming hand on Poppy's shoulder for support.

"I don't believe it," Moody answered gruffly.

To say that Moody didn't believe her story was an understatement. Moody had half-accused her of being disloyal to Dumbledore for the past few hours – mining and mining away, casting doubt over her. She wished Dumbledore had been there, to tell Moody to back off. But he wasn't. He was, unfortunately, currently at Hogwarts.

"But you won't tell me why you don't," Poppy cried. This was just like Scrimgeour all over again, and it was infuriating.

Poppy glanced at Bill, asking for him to tell her that she wasn't crazy to not know what Moody wanted from her. He squeezed her shoulder and removed his hand. She nodded, thanking him silently for his support and belief.

"You didn't take the antidote," Moody said.

"I told you, I did take it," Poppy said, exasperatedly.

"And I told you, I don't believe you. You think the Ministry would just let someone walk in with a filled vial and not ask any questions?" he half-roared. "If you're sitting in those robes, that means you believed everything you said in there. So what are you? A liar? Or a traitor?"

"Hey," Tonks warned, surprising everyone. "That was too far."

"How well do you really know her?" Moody asked her. "True friends turn during war. What about people we barely know? Now's not the time for us to make mistakes."

Poppy blanched and her eyes filled with exhausted tears. He was right, of course. She knew that she was loyal. But it wasn't like she was truly close to anyone enough for them to-

"Charlie trusts her. Charlie knows her," Tonks said, as if this was the highest praise.

"So does Ginny," Bill said, nodding, "Fred and George. Ron. Me."

"Exactly. And I do too," Tonks said, nodding.

Bill, seemingly emboldened by the fact that he hadn't been threatened by Moody in the past few minutes, said, "So if you don't believe that you can trust our judgement, why is Dumbledore sending Charlie all over Europe recruiting? Why did he trust mum and dad with caring for Harry this summer? Trust me with spying on Gringotts? Trust Ron to keep Harry's secrets? And why did he recruit Poppy himself?"

Poppy paused and looked, surprised, between Tonks and Bill. Not surprised because of their defence in general, but because of their words. She took it as a given that she trusted them both and all of the Weasley's (minus Percy, of course). But not that they trusted her.

"This is different. Scrimgeour used Veritaserum on her," Moody said, narrowing his eyes at Poppy.

Poppy let out a frustrated noise and shoved her hand down the front of her robes, into her bra.

"I hardly think-" Moody tried, though he was silenced when Poppy pulled her remaining capsule from her robe and chucked it at his head.

She was annoyed that she'd only just remembered that it was there - she could have saved herself the trouble of at least an hour's worth of questions if she had. That, and it seemed what she'd needed was a good dose of friendship, shown by Bill and Tonks to validate her position amongst the older Order members.

"Apparently Muggle-borns aren't as daft as people think," she said through her teeth, finally snapping and showing her anger. "There. That's the antidote you gave me. The capsule's disposable. Digestible. Bite down to pop it and you're done. I took three into the Ministry and used two."

She leant forwards on the table, bracing her forearms on the cold wood so that she could lean over, her eyes fixed on Moody's normal and magical eyes. "After the first day they stopped giving me laced tea and tried to dose my food in the holding cells, only they didn't bank on me not trusting good-looking food.

"I only ate the bottom of a bread bun the first night. It was burnt. Now, I don't think we need Snape to teach this particular Potions lesson, so here it is; while Advanced Potions Making tells us that properly made Veritaserum is infallible, March's Practical Potioneer published an article that said that when Veritaserum is burnt, it loses its powers at double the rate. I know because Esther was given detention for telling Snape about it, and complained for three weeks about how unjust it was.

"So by the time Scrimgeour sent for me in the morning, the Veritaserum was out of my system. The next night, I swapped dinners with a woman I met. I had her mashed potatoes and she had my chicken stew. And before you ask how I managed to bring those," she said, nodding at the capsule which sat in Moody's hand, "into the Ministry, apparently they don't check witches' bras when they think there's not enough padding in there to hide a vial."

She sat back, her chest rising and falling as she took deep breaths through her nose, and silently dared the shocked Moody to say more. To challenge more.

"There's more than enough I'd say," came Mundungus' voice down the table and Poppy couldn't help the small smile that tipped her lips when Mrs Weasley whacked him on the back of the head.

Moody recovered quickly. "This is a Muggle thing, is it?" he asked, his magical eye focussed on the capsule in his hand. She was glad that Moody wasn't training his magical eye on her underwear. He seemed to trust that she'd given him the only container she had on her.

"It's brilliant," whispered Sirius, shaking his head, ignoring her outburst also. "Dumbledore will love that. Where'd you get these?"

Poppy blinked. She'd thought she'd be in trouble for raising her voice, but no one seemed annoyed at her in the least.

"Oh please," Moody said, "I don't trust suck ups. True emotion? That's what I trust."

Poppy took a moment, and then she felt Bill's hand squeeze her shoulder once more, and Sirius repeated his question.

"I made them after my first interview at the Ministry. Thought they might be useful," she said, the fight leaving her. While she and Moody still argued, she'd grown a soft spot for the falsely accused Sirius, and felt like she wanted to tell him the truth.

Moody passed the little pill to Kingsley who stared at it just as interestedly as Sirius had. Tonks leant over to see it too, and gave Poppy a double thumbs-up and a grin.

"Look, I'm tired," Poppy said, knowing that she'd finally convinced them. "I can't do this any more. I've told you everything and I have work in the- oh no. Bill!" she cried, turning to the older red-headed wizard. "Scrimgeour said I have to start training immediately. But I can't just quit Gringotts and not serve notice can I?"

"It's fine. I'll sort it out. They'll be angry for a while but it'll be fine," he replied, sincerely.

"How long's a while?" she asked nervously. "Rent's due on the fifteenth and it has to be in Muggle money. If they're mad they won't let me make a withdrawal, will they?"

Bill chuckled and shook his head. "You'll be fine. Give me your key and I'll sort it all with Fleur."

Poppy tried to say thank you, but it came out as a slightly garbled sentence, and her head began to loll now that no one was asking her questions and the last of her energy had been spent on her angry outburst.

"Right. It's time for bed. You can ask more in the morning," Mrs Weasley said to an indignant Moody, as she waved her wand and Poppy's half-finished bowl of stew flew to the sink.

"No. We've just broken good ground," Moody said. "Now we need to go over what happened after-"

"Alastor. Stop. We've all given you more time here than we think you need. She isn't Sturgis," Mrs Weasley said quickly, her eyes darting around the room as if she'd made a mistake saying that.

This woke Poppy up. "Sturgis? What happened to Sturgis?" she asked quickly. No one met her eye when she tried to look at them, apart from Moody.

"Tried to get into the wrong door at the Ministry," he grumbled. "Six months in Azkaban. Lost my best invisibility cloak too."

"What? Why? When?" she asked, eyes wide.

"Now you're fine with questions?" Moody asked moodily.

"Thursday evening. He was sentenced on Friday," Bill explained quickly, glancing at Moody to gauge his reaction. "We don't know why he did it."

"We can speculate," muttered Moody.

"But that would mean he was in the holding cells when I was! I didn't see him… why would he do that?" Poppy asked, ignoring Moody's scoff again.

"He tried to force his way into the Department of Mysteries," Sirius replied, leaning his arms on the table. "Who knows what he was thinking. Though there are some of us who think it was foul play. Imperius. But we can't prove it."

Poppy blinked. She'd been called to the Ministry to answer questions on Thursday and that night Sturgis had broken in? "He was on duty, right? Guarding? Is this why they kept me so long? No… they can't think-"

She trailed off. Scrimgeour couldn't think she had anything to do with Sturgis, could he?

"Look what you've done. No," Mrs Weasley said, placing a hand on Poppy's shoulder. "Sturgis was discovered at night. You would have already been in those dreadful cells. No one thinks it's connected. Alastor's just a little more cautious."

"More cautious?" Poppy asked quickly, turning to look back at Moody, whose eyes were still on her.

She understood him a little more now. Perhaps he wanted to know that she was still her. Still a fighter. He trusted her anger because she'd let it out on him when they'd first met in the Hospital Wing just two months ago. An imposter wouldn't have gotten angry, wouldn't have done anything other than spout the same monotonous words she'd been reciting.

They were both, after all, still scarred by the fake-Moody who had harmed them both.

She thought back to what he'd said that night in the Hospital Wing - what he'd told her would prove to him that she was her. He'd said to call him Al to make sure he was still him, but he'd also said-

"I thought you could trust a Margaret," she said, not thinking the matter was serious enough to warrant her calling him Al and needing to come up with another codeword.

Moody let out a breath, as if he'd been holding it for hours. He nodded once. "When the war gets going you'll understand why I needed to do that," he said. Then he trained his eyes on his bowl of stew and began to eat.

"That's all it took to leave her alone?" Emmeline questioned, frowning. "It took three months for you to forgive me for dropping your flask once in the First War and that wasn't even my fault!"

"Give it a rest Emmie," Mundungus said, shaking his head, "we're still not buying that a stag came outta nowhere, shoved you, and ran away."

Sirius and Lupin smirked in a way that told Poppy that they knew a bit more about that particular situation. Lupin turned his face away but Sirius didn't try to hide it.

"We have an understanding," Moody replied, shaking his head. "Would have made this whole thing a lot easier if she'd just remembered that."

"You could have just asked me," Poppy replied.

Moody continued to eat his stew, and ignored her now.

"I've made up Fred and George's room for you," Mrs Weasley said hesitantly as she pulled Poppy out of her seat and began to usher her towards the door.

"Why're you limping?" Moody called.

"Why d'you think?" Poppy replied, immediately feeling bad for her snap – she knew it wasn't Moody himself who had attacked her, but times like these, it was hard for her to not take it out on him, as he looked exactly the same as her assailant.

Moody grumbled in reply and Mrs Weasley pulled her from the kitchen quickly.

"Sorry. I can just go home," Poppy said quietly. "I've probably made it more awkward than anything in there."

"Don't be silly," Mrs Weasley replied. "All of us lose our tempers at one point or another. I think you did well to hold out as long as you did. Now, you've been through quite the ordeal and I don't like to think of you being alone tonight so I'd like you to stay here. Arthur and I will be here as well, otherwise I would have offered The Burrow."

"I live with Fleur," Poppy said, "I can just-"

"No, no dear, what you need is a good safe sleep and a hearty breakfast," Mrs Weasley replied quickly. Poppy sighed but didn't argue. She knew Bill would tell Fleur where she was.

Poppy's footsteps slowed when they reached the stairs. "How many flights is it?" she asked, peering up the middle of the staircase as she rubbed her thigh with her knuckles to ease the pain.

It wasn't just her leg which worried her with those stairs - she also didn't like the idea of having to walk past whatever horrors lined the walls upstairs, if the House-Elf heads mounted on the wall were anything to go by.

"Don't think about that, come on, you'll be there before you know it," chimed Mrs Weasley kindly, placing a hand on her back, pushing her forwards.

"Are you alright, dear?" the Weasley matriarch asked when they reached the room.

She opened the door, and Poppy glanced in, seeing a rather bare looking room with peeling black wallpaper, lanterns on the walls, and two beds, both of which were covered with threadbare green blankets and white sheets. It seemed that the twins had taken their decorations with them back to Hogwarts, as Poppy didn't think they would have willingly stayed in such a depressing ode-to-Slytherin room as this.

"No one's going to ask how I feel about it, are they?" Poppy asked quietly, staring into the room still. "I was gone for four days and no one's asked if I even want to be…" She took a deep breath and trailed off.

Mrs Weasley gasped and whispered, "I hadn't… I hadn't noticed that…"

"It's okay," Poppy replied, moving into the room and tipping her chin up to appear much braver than she felt in that moment. "I don't want to talk anymore anyway."

That night Poppy fell into a nightmare-filled slumber. She dreamt of the bars of the holding cells, her mother, spells shooting at her, Sturgis, and the Dark Mark rising through the sky.

The dreams continued to plague her each night through the rest of the week. But despite her restlessness, each morning she woke with a stronger resolve to work hard and fight than the day before. If that was how Scrimgeour would check alliances now… what would Voldemort do?

Poppy focussed only on getting through her first week of training, which was spent poring through notes and reports on current cases to support ongoing investigations.

She moved from Auror station to Auror station, depending on who needed her more.

One Auror referred to her as a glorified administrator, but he was soon set straight when Poppy noticed a glaring error in his paperwork and his case was almost discredited, and Kingsley praised her loudly for her work. Then, she wasn't given as much trouble.

Each day she left early in the morning to get a head start and avoid Fleur's pitying gaze, and bought dinner on the way home each night, locking herself in her room to eat, de-stress, and study.

The only upside to her time working on 'administrative tasks' was that her leg pain dulled from all of the desk work, and by Thursday she was walking normally once more.

She worked with Kingsley on Friday. While he tried to go easy on her by giving her menial tasks, she hit her groove and managed to complete his work by midday so he had to pass her on to another Auror who needed help tracking down a known Muggle targetter.

She'd been intending on spending the evening with Fleur to apologise for being so avoidant, but she uncovered an inconsistency in an eyewitness account which led to a bit of overtime and meant that she got home long past Fleur's bedtime.

Poppy practically crawled through the front door and to her room, silently praising the fact that it was finally the weekend, which meant that she had two days off.

She knew her time would be spent reading books for her upcoming classes, but at least she could be horizontal if she chose to be.

But when she opened the door, she gasped and took a moment to breathe before she closed the door behind her, changed into a camisole vest top and pyjama shorts with a flick of her wand, and crawled into Charlie's waiting arms.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said, lying half on top of him, with no pretence of her want for intimacy - she didn't think he'd mind, considering their understanding that they were together now. She felt unable to otherwise convey her sheer relief that she had him to comfort her, and so she buried her face in his neck and breathed in his comforting scent.

"I came as soon as I could," he whispered into her hair as he pulled her more securely into his arms.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes already drooping. "You're not angry?"

"Angry?" he asked with a breath of a laugh. "No, I'm great. Why would I be angry?" He tugged at her ponytail, as if asking her to look up at him, which she did. "Are you okay?" he asked, trying to look at her face. He paused when she didn't answer. "You look tired. Were you with Percy?" he asked, frowning.

Poppy shook her head and grabbed a fist of his robes, snuggling her face back into the crook of his neck. She couldn't explain it again.

"Please don't make me," she whispered, her whine turning into a tired sob.

"Make you?" he asked, trying to move her to see her face again. It only made her clutch at his robes more. "Pop?" he asked now, shifting under her. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No! Stay," she whined. "Please? Just don't leave me?"

"I won't. I'm- Poppy," he said, sounding utterly confused. He moved them again, so that Poppy couldn't hide her face any more. "Don't make you do what?"

"Explain what happened," she whispered, looking at him with pleading eyes. "Please? Just stay with me?"

"So I haven't done anything?" he asked, his frown deep-set on his face.

Poppy shook her head. "No, Charlie, you are everything I want and need right now."

His response was immediate. He tugged at her leg to pull it back over his waist, until she was laying on him once more, and held her, one arm holding her to him, the other rubbing her back.

"Charlie," she whimpered, snuggling closer as she melted into his comforting heat. As her eyes began to drift closed, she tilted her head and placed a kiss on his jaw. She'd been aiming for his cheek, but found herself too tired to move more.

His arms tightened around her. "Sleep," he whispered. "I've got you, Bounce. We'll talk in the morning."

She fell asleep to the sound of his strong heartbeat.

That night, for the first time since she'd been sequestered by the Auror Department, she had a dreamless sleep.

Charlie was gone the next morning, and Poppy woke to the soft breeze blowing through her open window.

She rolled onto her back, spread out her arms, and stared at the ceiling.

Despite asking him to stay and waking to find him gone, she found that she wasn't upset. She didn't know how exactly, but she could feel it in her bones that he had stayed the night and left mere minutes before she'd woken.

From the sounds in the kitchen, Fleur and Bill were awake and making breakfast, and she thought he must have left in case they heard him.

She dressed in more covering pyjamas, and made her way to the bathroom.

"Morning," Bill greeted.

Poppy grimaced at the brightness of the sunlit living room and waved at him, rubbing her tired eyes.

When she returned to the kitchen and sat on a stool next to Bill at the breakfast bar, a worried-looking Fleur placed a plate loaded with pastries and a couple of boiled eggs in egg cups in front of her.

"I'm sorry I've been avoiding you. It's just been a long week. And before you start, it's not your fault," Poppy groaned.

"It is!" Fleur cried, running around to throw her arms around Poppy's neck. "I will never go on holiday again. I promise."

Poppy laughed and hugged Fleur back, shaking her head. "Oh c'est ridicule," she said, moving Fleur back so she could see her face. "Comment étaient tes vacances? Et comment va Gabrielle?" Poppy asked, trying to make Fleur feel more at home (even though Poppy knew that her French pronunciation still needed a lot of work, as did her French in general. She was still relying on Fleur's good will and kindness to not point out her numerous errors.)

"Non! Ne change pas de sujet! Quatre jours. Tu es parti quatre jours et personne ne le savait à cause de moi," Fleur cried.

Poppy groaned. "Arrêt! Bill aurait pu vérifier sur moi," she replied slowly, trying to think of the right words. She may have spent the past year learning the language, but living with Fleur had been a well needed crash course in French and it was coming easier to her now. "En fait, il a vérifié. Il a frappé à l'appartement. Mais il n'a pas revérifié ni essayé de me trouver. Donc si quoi que ce soit, c'est sa faute."

"Okay, English please," Bill interjected, narrowing his eyes. "I know you just said Bill and fault in the same sentence, and I don't agree with that."

Fleur rolled her eyes but smiled at Bill. "They were separate sentences, mon amour. But do not worry, you will learn," Fleur sighed happily, placing a loving hand to Bill's cheek. But when she turned back to Poppy, her eyes turned more apologetic and blazed with protectiveness. "Four days! I should have known when you did not come home after Percy. I thought that you had left early for work! Not that you were-"

"It's okay!" Poppy said, noticing Bill's expression harden at Percy's name. "Really. It happened, it's not your fault, I'm okay. I mean, I'm not okay, but I will be. Really."

And she knew that she wasn't lying. Not completely. It seemed that after a week of exhaustion, all she'd really needed was Charlie and a good night's sleep to regain some semblance of a good mood.

"Still," Fleur said, gliding back round to the other side of the bar. "I would like to say sorry properly. Since I am sure that you will not want to go out to eat, I am making you breakfast." She turned and began to wave her wand to chop fruit.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Bill asked quietly.

Poppy shook her head slightly while she watched Fleur closely. The French witch had been learning to cook, but from the looks of some of the pastries, still hadn't mastered the subject.

So when Fleur was occupied, Poppy slyly moved two pain au chocolats from her own plate to Bill's. His eyes widened and he shook his head quickly, but Poppy slapped his hand when he tried to give them back and reminded him with a hissed sentence that he hadn't noticed she was missing either. Bill grimaced.

When Fleur began to turn around, he shoved the small pastries into his mouth and began to chew quickly.

"You were hungry," Fleur said, as if staying a fact. "I knew this."

"Full now," Poppy lied.

Fleur raised an eyebrow, and leant over the counter to inspect Poppy. "No. You made Bill eat. You are still hungry. You did not like the pastries. I have other dishes."

Poppy sighed and allowed Fleur to spoon fruit onto her plate now. At least it was just chopped, she thought, but there was no way she would be able to eat everything she'd been given. Not when she'd only just woken up.

Bill shook his head quickly and held up three fingers, indicating that he'd already been stuffed full of three helpings of food - which Poppy assumed were Fleur's test runs - but Poppy chucked half a grapefruit onto his plate and smiled cheekily when he dejectedly started to eat again.

"You will make this longer than it needs to be if you continue," Fleur said over her shoulder.

Poppy's mouth dropped open and she mouthed to Bill, "How does she know?"

Bill shrugged, eyed the back of his girlfriend's head, and quickly finished his plate.

Poppy smiled. They were meant for each other.

—

"Early dinner at the Burrow later, Pop?" Bill asked later that morning when he and Fleur were donning their jackets to head out for their theatre date. "Mum sent a note saying I had to be back, and said to invite you too. I think she's worried about you."

Poppy, who had retired to the sofa after breakfast and was currently reading The Daily Prophet, looked over the top of the sofa and nodded. She knew the Weasley parents had moved back to The Burrow after the kids had all gone to school, and it would be nice to see them without the pressures of the Order.

From Charlie's continued absence, she assumed he'd gone back to Romania already, and she needed something to look forward to.

"Fleur too?" she asked.

Fleur stilled and shook her head quickly. From the look on his face, Bill was quite relieved with his girlfriend's reaction.

Poppy slid back down and sighed. She wondered when Fleur would feel comfortable enough, and when Mrs Weasley would too.

"Maybe when you get engaged, then they'll have to like you," she said jokingly.

A long silence followed her words and after a while she looked back over the arm of the sofa to see a bashful and red-faced Bill staring into Fleur's eyes. Her hair glowed almost as brightly as her smile.

"Alright, go will you? You're letting a draft in," Poppy added when they didn't move.