Poppy Potter

Spare Parts

Why was it compulsory for my brother to always ruin good things right now? I was having an incredible dream, and he ran into the girls dorm, as I was the only one still here over Christmas, and decided to wake me up. "Poppy! You've really got to see this! Poppy! You've got to see this!" He pulled back my covers. "Poppy, Poppy, come on. Get out of bed!"

"Why? Harry, I only just got to sleep!" I groaned, getting dragged out of bed by him, still wearing his invisibility cloak. "Come on, I'm tired, practice starts up almost right away with term too!"

"There's something you've got to see. Now, come on!" So I allowed myself to be dragged through the castle under the cloak with him, going through the castle to find what he was trying to show me. Which was a mirror. "Come on. Come. Come look, it's our parents!"

What? What the hell were you talking about, Harry? The mirror was large, ornate and well cared for, but at the same time, you could still see how old it was as myself and my twin brother were reflected into the silver glass. "I only see me."

So he moved to the side, so it was just me standing in there, as shy and as small as usual. "Look in properly. Go on. Stand there. There." Oh, my Stars... How the hell was this at all possible? It, it just... What? "You see them, don't you? That's our dad-"

No, no that was not what I saw, not what I saw at all. I stopped dreaming of mum and dad years ago, I couldn't remember them at all. "That's me! Only, I'm a Prefect, and, and Fred's Head Boy...and I'm holding the Quidditch cup! And l, I'm Quidditch Captain too! I look good, I look happier than I ever remember feeling." Could I at all maybe be that happy? Be happy enough to succeed in life? "Harry, do you think this mirror shows the future?"

But as he started to look sad, I crashed, whatever making him happy turned me sad with a cold burn on my scar so I shivered in my nighty, wishing that I had enough forethought to grab my own cloak to wander through this draughty old castle. "How can it? Our parents are dead."

Of course. I was an idiot, there was no way that anything could ever go that well for me, and I was just... I was here to be spare parts for my brother, the one that Voldemort had wanted to kill. All I was, was a shadow behind him, never quite good enough, and never as fun. "I, I'm sorry..." I muttered, before turning and running out of the room, just running through the whole castle before I reached somewhere I hadn't actually been before. The Astronomy Tower, as we didn't do much more than theory until 3rd Year. It was just so, so high and you could see for miles as I sat on the very edge, watching the sun slowly come up. "I've never seen the dawn like that before."

My mutterings to no one in particular seemed to get an unexpected answer quickly though, because Professor McGonagall appeared at my elbow, in just a nightdress and her usually tightly tied back grey hair loose around her shoulders. "I come up here to watch it myself at times. It's the best view in the castle, and something tells me that only you could ever catch the full majesty of it in a drawing, Poppy."

"I, I'm sorry... I, I'm not supposed to be out of bed." I muttered, looking down at my tiny bare feet, my own long red hair covering my face before she just brushed it off for me, more tenderly than any other Professor probably would have, finding me in one of the most dangerous parts of the castle after lights out. "I just... I couldn't sleep."

"Neither could I, don't worry." She smiled, pulling me down from the edge, but her arms stayed around me as we kept watching the horizon, because I think she could feel that I was shivering like mad. "Please, don't sit up there, you'll give me a heart attack, Poppy. Which is getting increasingly easy with those Twins you're so fond of, and Peeves." Fred and George, yes, I loved spending time with them, but Peeves? He tried to set fire to my hair to see if it would be even redder. "As long as you send me Onyx to let me know you're here, I don't mind giving you permission to be here in the middle of the night. I've already spoken to Professor Dumbledore about giving you... Special circumstances, especially in the coming years."