Fic: Sentimental Journey
Title: Sentimental Journey
Rating: G
Pairing: Minerva McGonagall/Poppy Pomfrey
Word count: 2300
Summary: Even after fifty years, there are stories to tell one another. Minerva and Poppy take a leisurely stroll down memory lane.
Notes: This is a remix of Sentimental Fool by
mindabbles, originally posted at
femslash_remix.
After the scones were eaten and the tea pot drained and the limping conversation had finally drawn to a close, Poppy walked a mollified Mrs Drummond down to the Portkey in the village.
“Thank you for understanding, my dear!” Poppy called out in farewell. “We’ll be certain to send an owl if--“
Pop!
Mrs Drummond had grasped the broken broomstick outside the pub and disappeared without a thank you or goodbye of her own.
Well, then. So much for an effort at reconciliation. What was it the children were saying these days? Good riddance, Tom Riddle! Followed by a laugh, every time.
Only a few years on, and the former Dark Lord was a school child’s joke. Poppy sighed.
Araminta Drummond would come around eventually. Meanwhile, one of life’s only constants was waiting for Poppy at home.
*
Poppy’s heart always lightened when she reached the top of the hill and first saw the ancient stone cottage silhouetted against the mountains to the south. Home, she thought. This is still home.
“Min!” she called as she opened the door. “I’m back!”
Poppy avoided the dour stare of silent Aunt Kate, whose portrait hung just to the right of the door, and took off her traveling cloak.
“Minerva?”
To her surprise, the tea cups were still on the table. Crumbs littered the table cloth, and a brown ring of tea spread beneath the pot. Out of the corner of her eye, past the bedroom door frame, she could see a black woolen sock twitch at the end of the bed.
Minerva rarely left the washing up, and she was never horizontal before midnight.
“Minerva?” Poppy asked, peering into the bedroom. “Are you ill?”
Minerva was sprawled across the bed, her hair disheveled, one arm draped over her eyes, which she withdrew reluctantly. “What an absolutely insufferable woman!” she said.
Poppy slipped off her shoes and climbed in bed next to Minerva, leaning on an elbow and stoking Minerva’s hair. “She thought she was about to acquire the loveliest little But’n’Bed in the Highlands, and instead she got a plate of scones.”
“Those were excellent scones!”
“Indeed, they were,” Poppy said.
“A bit dry, my arse.”
“Not at all. It may have been your best batch yet.”
“And the house is in perfect condition.”
“It is.”
“Neglect! There isn’t a house within an hour’s broom flight that’s as well cared for as this one.”
“There isn’t.”
“Or one with a better view of the loch and the mountains.”
“True. She loved the view the last time she was here.” Poppy continued stroking Minerva’s hair. “She was just disappointed, Min. We had the parchment ready to sign. I’d feel the same way, if I had come so close to owning this house.”
Minerva rolled over and leaned on her elbow, so that she and Poppy were face to face. Poppy tucked a loose strand of Minerva’s hair behind her ear.
“Thank you, Poppy.”
“For what?”
“For knowing me better than I know myself. You knew I wasn’t ready to give up the house.”
“You haven’t been so busy as Headmistress that we couldn’t find a week or two to visit over the summer, if we tried a bit harder. This is our home, much more than those rooms where we live during the school year.”
“It’s an escape, but it feels more real than the rest of the world, sometimes.”
“It does.”
“Aunt Kate always said that whiskey was the only reason to go into the village, and she couldn’t think of any reason to venture past the village at all.” Minerva said. She snorted. “Of course, that was only after Fiona arrived. Mum said before that her owls could hardly keep up with her.”
Poppy smiled at the thought of the dour witch in the living room. She loved the story of brusque, independent Aunt Kate, undone in her last years by a middle-aged witch who liked walking and whiskey as much as she did. “Aunt Kate has kept her eye on you over the years.”
“I didn’t know how lucky I was, to inherit this house. It’s kept us together.”
“Not just the house,” Poppy said, a memory of Aunt Kate suddenly tugging at the edge of her mind. “Aunt Kate was the one who brought us together, did you know that?”
“No.” For the first time since Araminta Drummond had arrived that afternoon, Minerva smiled. “Tell me.”
*
“You remember the last days of Grindelwald’s reign,” Poppy began. “Chaos, uncertainty--“
“Panic,” Minerva added, nodding. “In London, especially.”
“Would he come to Britain, next? Aurors out on the street. Diagon Alley crowded like I’ve never seen it. Witches and wizards who had left home with nothing except their cloak and their hat, escaping Grindelwald.”
“Everyone desperate for a Portkey to America.”
“The smell of sausages in Diagon Alley, wizards hawking wands--“
“Half of which had been stolen.”
“--to wizards and witches who hadn’t performed magic in years. And Muggle culture! It was as if everything Grindelwald had banned in Europe was being sold on the streets of Wizarding Britain. Nylon stockings. M&Ms. Scrabble.”
“And the music!” Minerva said. “Muggle songs on the Wireless, even.” She hummed for a moment, recalling the tune, then began to sing softly: “Going take a sentimental journey, going to set my heart at ease...”
Poppy joined her. “Going to make a sentimental journey, to renew old memories.”
Poppy smiled. “London was overwhelming, at the time.”
“You’ve always been a country lass.”
“I was eighteen. I’d been at Hogwarts for seven years. I spent my summers on the farm in Inverness-shire. I’d never traveled farther south than Glasgow. But I had been accepted for training at St Mungo’s, and, less than a fortnight after leaving Hogwarts, I found myself in London, looking for a room. It was well nigh impossible, the innkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron told me, but he booked me a bed for a week and promised he’d help.
“The first day was awful--vacancies already filled wherever I went, a door slammed in my face, one witch who laughed when I told her what I was able to pay. But the second day I found something almost immediately--a tiny bedsit above Ollivander’s, let by an elderly wizard whose sister had trained to be a Medi-witch, too. And after we had a cup of tea and settled on terms, I stepped back out into Diagon Alley to discover the world had changed.”
“It had,” Minerva said, picking up the thread of the story. “I remember it so clearly: it was a Friday, clear, sunny, warm for June. I had left the Ministry mid-morning for a tea break, and just as I reached the tea shop there was a roar in Diagon Alley I had never heard before. Hundred of wizards and witches laughing, hugging one another, pushing, yelling, talking all at once. It took me a moment to understand what was happening, and then someone passed me the Daily Prophet and I saw the headline. The war was over.”
“I heard my name, just as I stepped onto the street and began to realize what had happened. And there you were.” Poppy smiled.
“And I kissed you,” Minerva said. “I’ll never forget that.”
“Nor will I. You picked me up--“
“You were so tiny!”
“And swung me around, and kissed me. Grindelwald has been defeated! you said. The prisoners at Nurmengard have been released! The war is over! And all I could think was: Minerva McGonagall just kissed me.”
Minerva leaned over, recreating the event, pressing her lips against Poppy’s. “To be fair, they were both milestone events in their own way,” Minerva said.
“But how was I to know? The last time I’d seen you had been two years earlier, and I wasn’t certain that Minerva McGonagall, top student and Head Girl, even remembered who I was.”
“Of course I did! You were the most beautiful witch in your year.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. “And you were almost manic with excitement, along with hundreds of other wizards and witches, who were hugging and kissing each other, incoherent with joy.”
“Come away with me, Poppy, you said. To Nurmengard? I asked stupidly, because I couldn’t make sense of anything, right then. No, back home, you said--do you remember? To the Highlands. I’m due for a few days’ holiday, and I have a house near Loch Ruthven. I’m to take the train up tomorrow.
“It occurred to me that now that I had secured a room in London, the responsible thing would be to go back home for a week or so, to help my parents at the farm. But you took my hands, almost as if you knew what I was thinking. Come, you said. When was the last time you went on holiday? In the most beautiful part of the world? Celebrate with me.
“And, thank goodness, I did.”
*
“That was an excruciating journey, wasn’t it?” Minerva asked. “As soon as we boarded the train and you sat down with me, I wondered if perhaps you hadn’t understood my intentions at all.”
“How was I to know you were interested?” Poppy asked. “I’d spent my fifth year so besotted with the Head Girl that I could hardly concentrate in class. I lived from prefect meeting to prefect meeting, hoping for a chance to talk to you for a minute or two. You were always busy with your own friends and your own studies. I had simply been in the right place, at the right time, to spend a few days with you. I couldn't believe my luck.”
“I always thought we had a good rapport,” Minerva said crossly.
“Min,” Poppy said, laughing. “The first thing you asked me on that journey was why I wanted to be a Healer. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t have possibly afforded Healer training--four years of study in London, followed by training at St Mungo’s. I’d battled with my parents for a single year of Medi-witch training. Afterward, they were expecting me to come home and find an apprenticeship in Inverness.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Minerva asked. “You were so quiet, the whole journey.”
“You began to talk about your posh London flat, and your apprenticeship at the Ministry, and your theories about who would be the new Minister for Magic, after the war.”
“It had been two years! I was telling you about my life. I thought you might be interested.”
“Min,” Poppy said gently. “I was. But you know that occasionally you can be a bit intimidating?”
At that, Minerva laughed. “Fair enough. But I was in agony the entire trip, Poppy. You were so close, and so lovely, and yet so very distant.”
“Making every effort not to embarrass myself,” Poppy said.
“I tried to hold your hand, when we had the carriage to ourselves.”
“Is that what that was?” Poppy asked, gently, teasing.
“I’d just kissed you!” Minerva said, now genuinely distressed. “What did you think I was doing?” Minerva shook her head. “Was I truly that awkward?”
“I didn’t know how to read you yet, Min.”
“And what changed? Because that evening you kissed me on the path to the village.”
“Aunt Kate.”
Minerva frowned. “Aunt Kate had died. That’s how I’d inherited the house, in the first place--oh! Not the portrait!”
Poppy nodded.
Minerva’s eyes widened in wonder. “That portrait has never spoken to me, not once in more than fifty summers.”
“Nor to me, not after that first visit.”
“What did she say?”
“It was after you left to buy groceries in the village,” Poppy said. “I thought I’d rest for a while. Aunt Kate didn’t approve.” To demonstrate, Poppy sat up, squared her shoulders, lifted her head, and gazed down her nose at Minerva. “Girl!” she barked. “She’s courting you. Get out there and help her!”
Minerva threw back her head and laughed. “Never one to waste words, Aunt Kate.”
“It took me a moment to realize just what she meant, but when I did, I grabbed my robes and shoes and chased after you. You hadn’t walked far. When I caught up to you, you greeted me with this look of--well, I can only describe it as transparent delight. I’d have been a fool not to have understood what it meant.”
“Somehow everything felt right, that evening.”
“We were home,” Poppy said simply. “In London we would have moved in different circles. Here, we were ourselves. The mountains always remind me just how short and insignificant all our lives are.”
“And what did you say to me?” Minerva asked.
“You remember,” Poppy said.
“No, I don’t.”
“How could you--“
“I want to hear you say it again.”
At this, Poppy stood up, pulling Minerva with her, holding her close. “Are you going to kiss me or go on behaving as if that's not why we’re here?” she whispered.
There was only one answer to that question. Minerva leaned down and kissed her.
After a moment they pulled apart. “Cheeky,” Minerva said, bright-eyed and flustered. “Who would have thought?”
Poppy slipped one arm behind Minerva’s waist, grasped Minerva’s hand with the other, and began swaying. Minerva took the hint, continuing the song they had sung earlier in a soft, melodic voice.
“Never thought my heart could be so yearn-y. Why did I decide to roam? Got to take that sentimental journey, sentimental journey home.”
Poppy led them around the edge of the bed, out of the tiny bedroom, and into the living room.
“Poppy,” Minerva said, halting her song and narrowing her eyes: “Are you leading us toward the washing up?”
“What in the world makes you think that?” Poppy asked innocently.
She was not tall enough to see over Minerva’s shoulder, but she swung them around once more, and just as they turned, she caught Aunt Kate’s eye and winked.
Even Aunt Kate couldn’t quite hide the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Everything feels right tonight” Minerva said, tying the apron around her waist and reaching for her wand.
Poppy picked up a tea towel to help. “I feel that way, too.”
This entry was originally posted at http://magnetic-pole.dreamwidth.org/41691.html. It has
comments.
Rating: G
Pairing: Minerva McGonagall/Poppy Pomfrey
Word count: 2300
Summary: Even after fifty years, there are stories to tell one another. Minerva and Poppy take a leisurely stroll down memory lane.
Notes: This is a remix of Sentimental Fool by
mindabbles, originally posted at
femslash_remix.
After the scones were eaten and the tea pot drained and the limping conversation had finally drawn to a close, Poppy walked a mollified Mrs Drummond down to the Portkey in the village.
“Thank you for understanding, my dear!” Poppy called out in farewell. “We’ll be certain to send an owl if--“
Pop!
Mrs Drummond had grasped the broken broomstick outside the pub and disappeared without a thank you or goodbye of her own.
Well, then. So much for an effort at reconciliation. What was it the children were saying these days? Good riddance, Tom Riddle! Followed by a laugh, every time.
Only a few years on, and the former Dark Lord was a school child’s joke. Poppy sighed.
Araminta Drummond would come around eventually. Meanwhile, one of life’s only constants was waiting for Poppy at home.
*
Poppy’s heart always lightened when she reached the top of the hill and first saw the ancient stone cottage silhouetted against the mountains to the south. Home, she thought. This is still home.
“Min!” she called as she opened the door. “I’m back!”
Poppy avoided the dour stare of silent Aunt Kate, whose portrait hung just to the right of the door, and took off her traveling cloak.
“Minerva?”
To her surprise, the tea cups were still on the table. Crumbs littered the table cloth, and a brown ring of tea spread beneath the pot. Out of the corner of her eye, past the bedroom door frame, she could see a black woolen sock twitch at the end of the bed.
Minerva rarely left the washing up, and she was never horizontal before midnight.
“Minerva?” Poppy asked, peering into the bedroom. “Are you ill?”
Minerva was sprawled across the bed, her hair disheveled, one arm draped over her eyes, which she withdrew reluctantly. “What an absolutely insufferable woman!” she said.
Poppy slipped off her shoes and climbed in bed next to Minerva, leaning on an elbow and stoking Minerva’s hair. “She thought she was about to acquire the loveliest little But’n’Bed in the Highlands, and instead she got a plate of scones.”
“Those were excellent scones!”
“Indeed, they were,” Poppy said.
“A bit dry, my arse.”
“Not at all. It may have been your best batch yet.”
“And the house is in perfect condition.”
“It is.”
“Neglect! There isn’t a house within an hour’s broom flight that’s as well cared for as this one.”
“There isn’t.”
“Or one with a better view of the loch and the mountains.”
“True. She loved the view the last time she was here.” Poppy continued stroking Minerva’s hair. “She was just disappointed, Min. We had the parchment ready to sign. I’d feel the same way, if I had come so close to owning this house.”
Minerva rolled over and leaned on her elbow, so that she and Poppy were face to face. Poppy tucked a loose strand of Minerva’s hair behind her ear.
“Thank you, Poppy.”
“For what?”
“For knowing me better than I know myself. You knew I wasn’t ready to give up the house.”
“You haven’t been so busy as Headmistress that we couldn’t find a week or two to visit over the summer, if we tried a bit harder. This is our home, much more than those rooms where we live during the school year.”
“It’s an escape, but it feels more real than the rest of the world, sometimes.”
“It does.”
“Aunt Kate always said that whiskey was the only reason to go into the village, and she couldn’t think of any reason to venture past the village at all.” Minerva said. She snorted. “Of course, that was only after Fiona arrived. Mum said before that her owls could hardly keep up with her.”
Poppy smiled at the thought of the dour witch in the living room. She loved the story of brusque, independent Aunt Kate, undone in her last years by a middle-aged witch who liked walking and whiskey as much as she did. “Aunt Kate has kept her eye on you over the years.”
“I didn’t know how lucky I was, to inherit this house. It’s kept us together.”
“Not just the house,” Poppy said, a memory of Aunt Kate suddenly tugging at the edge of her mind. “Aunt Kate was the one who brought us together, did you know that?”
“No.” For the first time since Araminta Drummond had arrived that afternoon, Minerva smiled. “Tell me.”
*
“You remember the last days of Grindelwald’s reign,” Poppy began. “Chaos, uncertainty--“
“Panic,” Minerva added, nodding. “In London, especially.”
“Would he come to Britain, next? Aurors out on the street. Diagon Alley crowded like I’ve never seen it. Witches and wizards who had left home with nothing except their cloak and their hat, escaping Grindelwald.”
“Everyone desperate for a Portkey to America.”
“The smell of sausages in Diagon Alley, wizards hawking wands--“
“Half of which had been stolen.”
“--to wizards and witches who hadn’t performed magic in years. And Muggle culture! It was as if everything Grindelwald had banned in Europe was being sold on the streets of Wizarding Britain. Nylon stockings. M&Ms. Scrabble.”
“And the music!” Minerva said. “Muggle songs on the Wireless, even.” She hummed for a moment, recalling the tune, then began to sing softly: “Going take a sentimental journey, going to set my heart at ease...”
Poppy joined her. “Going to make a sentimental journey, to renew old memories.”
Poppy smiled. “London was overwhelming, at the time.”
“You’ve always been a country lass.”
“I was eighteen. I’d been at Hogwarts for seven years. I spent my summers on the farm in Inverness-shire. I’d never traveled farther south than Glasgow. But I had been accepted for training at St Mungo’s, and, less than a fortnight after leaving Hogwarts, I found myself in London, looking for a room. It was well nigh impossible, the innkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron told me, but he booked me a bed for a week and promised he’d help.
“The first day was awful--vacancies already filled wherever I went, a door slammed in my face, one witch who laughed when I told her what I was able to pay. But the second day I found something almost immediately--a tiny bedsit above Ollivander’s, let by an elderly wizard whose sister had trained to be a Medi-witch, too. And after we had a cup of tea and settled on terms, I stepped back out into Diagon Alley to discover the world had changed.”
“It had,” Minerva said, picking up the thread of the story. “I remember it so clearly: it was a Friday, clear, sunny, warm for June. I had left the Ministry mid-morning for a tea break, and just as I reached the tea shop there was a roar in Diagon Alley I had never heard before. Hundred of wizards and witches laughing, hugging one another, pushing, yelling, talking all at once. It took me a moment to understand what was happening, and then someone passed me the Daily Prophet and I saw the headline. The war was over.”
“I heard my name, just as I stepped onto the street and began to realize what had happened. And there you were.” Poppy smiled.
“And I kissed you,” Minerva said. “I’ll never forget that.”
“Nor will I. You picked me up--“
“You were so tiny!”
“And swung me around, and kissed me. Grindelwald has been defeated! you said. The prisoners at Nurmengard have been released! The war is over! And all I could think was: Minerva McGonagall just kissed me.”
Minerva leaned over, recreating the event, pressing her lips against Poppy’s. “To be fair, they were both milestone events in their own way,” Minerva said.
“But how was I to know? The last time I’d seen you had been two years earlier, and I wasn’t certain that Minerva McGonagall, top student and Head Girl, even remembered who I was.”
“Of course I did! You were the most beautiful witch in your year.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. “And you were almost manic with excitement, along with hundreds of other wizards and witches, who were hugging and kissing each other, incoherent with joy.”
“Come away with me, Poppy, you said. To Nurmengard? I asked stupidly, because I couldn’t make sense of anything, right then. No, back home, you said--do you remember? To the Highlands. I’m due for a few days’ holiday, and I have a house near Loch Ruthven. I’m to take the train up tomorrow.
“It occurred to me that now that I had secured a room in London, the responsible thing would be to go back home for a week or so, to help my parents at the farm. But you took my hands, almost as if you knew what I was thinking. Come, you said. When was the last time you went on holiday? In the most beautiful part of the world? Celebrate with me.
“And, thank goodness, I did.”
*
“That was an excruciating journey, wasn’t it?” Minerva asked. “As soon as we boarded the train and you sat down with me, I wondered if perhaps you hadn’t understood my intentions at all.”
“How was I to know you were interested?” Poppy asked. “I’d spent my fifth year so besotted with the Head Girl that I could hardly concentrate in class. I lived from prefect meeting to prefect meeting, hoping for a chance to talk to you for a minute or two. You were always busy with your own friends and your own studies. I had simply been in the right place, at the right time, to spend a few days with you. I couldn't believe my luck.”
“I always thought we had a good rapport,” Minerva said crossly.
“Min,” Poppy said, laughing. “The first thing you asked me on that journey was why I wanted to be a Healer. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t have possibly afforded Healer training--four years of study in London, followed by training at St Mungo’s. I’d battled with my parents for a single year of Medi-witch training. Afterward, they were expecting me to come home and find an apprenticeship in Inverness.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Minerva asked. “You were so quiet, the whole journey.”
“You began to talk about your posh London flat, and your apprenticeship at the Ministry, and your theories about who would be the new Minister for Magic, after the war.”
“It had been two years! I was telling you about my life. I thought you might be interested.”
“Min,” Poppy said gently. “I was. But you know that occasionally you can be a bit intimidating?”
At that, Minerva laughed. “Fair enough. But I was in agony the entire trip, Poppy. You were so close, and so lovely, and yet so very distant.”
“Making every effort not to embarrass myself,” Poppy said.
“I tried to hold your hand, when we had the carriage to ourselves.”
“Is that what that was?” Poppy asked, gently, teasing.
“I’d just kissed you!” Minerva said, now genuinely distressed. “What did you think I was doing?” Minerva shook her head. “Was I truly that awkward?”
“I didn’t know how to read you yet, Min.”
“And what changed? Because that evening you kissed me on the path to the village.”
“Aunt Kate.”
Minerva frowned. “Aunt Kate had died. That’s how I’d inherited the house, in the first place--oh! Not the portrait!”
Poppy nodded.
Minerva’s eyes widened in wonder. “That portrait has never spoken to me, not once in more than fifty summers.”
“Nor to me, not after that first visit.”
“What did she say?”
“It was after you left to buy groceries in the village,” Poppy said. “I thought I’d rest for a while. Aunt Kate didn’t approve.” To demonstrate, Poppy sat up, squared her shoulders, lifted her head, and gazed down her nose at Minerva. “Girl!” she barked. “She’s courting you. Get out there and help her!”
Minerva threw back her head and laughed. “Never one to waste words, Aunt Kate.”
“It took me a moment to realize just what she meant, but when I did, I grabbed my robes and shoes and chased after you. You hadn’t walked far. When I caught up to you, you greeted me with this look of--well, I can only describe it as transparent delight. I’d have been a fool not to have understood what it meant.”
“Somehow everything felt right, that evening.”
“We were home,” Poppy said simply. “In London we would have moved in different circles. Here, we were ourselves. The mountains always remind me just how short and insignificant all our lives are.”
“And what did you say to me?” Minerva asked.
“You remember,” Poppy said.
“No, I don’t.”
“How could you--“
“I want to hear you say it again.”
At this, Poppy stood up, pulling Minerva with her, holding her close. “Are you going to kiss me or go on behaving as if that's not why we’re here?” she whispered.
There was only one answer to that question. Minerva leaned down and kissed her.
After a moment they pulled apart. “Cheeky,” Minerva said, bright-eyed and flustered. “Who would have thought?”
Poppy slipped one arm behind Minerva’s waist, grasped Minerva’s hand with the other, and began swaying. Minerva took the hint, continuing the song they had sung earlier in a soft, melodic voice.
“Never thought my heart could be so yearn-y. Why did I decide to roam? Got to take that sentimental journey, sentimental journey home.”
Poppy led them around the edge of the bed, out of the tiny bedroom, and into the living room.
“Poppy,” Minerva said, halting her song and narrowing her eyes: “Are you leading us toward the washing up?”
“What in the world makes you think that?” Poppy asked innocently.
She was not tall enough to see over Minerva’s shoulder, but she swung them around once more, and just as they turned, she caught Aunt Kate’s eye and winked.
Even Aunt Kate couldn’t quite hide the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Everything feels right tonight” Minerva said, tying the apron around her waist and reaching for her wand.
Poppy picked up a tea towel to help. “I feel that way, too.”
This entry was originally posted at http://magnetic-pole.dreamwidth.org/41691.html. It has
comments.