Author's Note: Enjoy!

Hogwarts: Assignment #10, Potions Task #1 Write about the character of Poppy Pomfrey. She should be the main character in your story.

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Warnings: NA

After Giving It Everything

And after the storm,

I run and run as the rains come

And I look up, I look up,

On my knees and out of luck,

I look up.

-After the Storm, Mumford & Sons

Minerva felt breathless and dizzy, going through all her lists and all her checks to assess the state of the school, its staff, and its student body after the Battle. Today, the Hogwart's Express had brought most of the students home. A few students who did not have homes to go to after this year of hell or who couldn't bear to face what their families had become had asked to stay behind. Aberforth had offered to house them at The Hog's Head until repairs on the castle were finished, and Minerva would dream up some tasks for them to complete over the summer to justify their keep—reorganizing the library, perhaps, coaxing the portraits back to their regular spots… she'd think of something.

The last person she had to check on was someone who had insisted she'd been too busy up until now to sit down, talk to her, or even have a proper hot meal. Minerva found her now in the Infirmary, empty for the first time after days of chaos. All the injured had finally been either discharged or transported to St. Mungo's—nobody had been moved until Poppy had been confident that every Death Eater spy and influence in the hospital had been plucked away by the resurging Auror Department.

And now she sat on a bed, in her red and white Matron's robes. Her greying hair had been thrown into one of her usual hairstyle days ago—two Dutch braids against her scalp, gathered in a bun. It kept her surprisingly long hair out of the way and could hold for a long time, though Minerva had never seen Poppy on her feet for this long, not even after major Quidditch accidents.

"Poppy," Minerva said, standing in the doorframe of the Infirmary.

"Yes," she said, jumping to her feet. "Yes, come in! Is everything quite alright, Minerva?"

"As well as it could be. Please, sit. You've been working… harder than anyone should," Minerva said.

"As have you," Poppy said. "I must have a sleeping drought or something to soothe your muscles…"

"I am okay," Minerva said. She wasn't sure if that was the word she should be using, but she needed the Healer to stop thinking about others for about ten minutes. "May I sit with you?"

"Of course," Poppy said, returning to her seat. Minerva perched on the bed next to her. The second she took the weight off her feet, her entire body relaxed.

She saw Poppy's body similarly release days of tension and her eyelids fluttered.

Minerva reached over and took Poppy's hand. Poppy squeezed.

"I saw Remus Lupin once a month when he was a student here—more often, if one of the other boys decided to try something dramatic and got hurt," Poppy said. "And then again when he taught here. I had never treated someone with lycanthropy before, and he was such a sweetheart and an intelligent, fun boy to talk to… I was so proud whenever I could do something for him, to help him. And three days ago he was dead and there was nothing I could do but lay him next to his wife."

Minerva nodded.

"I had Colin Creevey in that bed for months, when he was petrified," she said, pointing one out. "Months. And after that, he came by every few weeks and asked me if I needed help rolling bandages or cleaning up. Every year, he asked his mother to send him a tin of her Christmas baking and brought it to me."

Minerva chuckled. She'd enjoyed Mrs. Creevey's coffee and walnut cake a few times herself—though Dennis and Colin often requested that their mother make Minerva shortbread.

"Fred Weasley," Poppy said. She giggled to herself. "The first time I had Harry Potter in here, he tried everything he possibly could to leave that boy a toilet seat, for when he woke up."

Minerva had had to be very strict when this story had been reported back to her. But now, she laughed.

"Do you remember that beard he and his brother gave themselves when they tried to enter the Triwizard Tournament?" Minerva asked.

Poppy laughed even harder. "I had to call Albus down here because I couldn't even figure out how that Age Line had been made—it was a spell of his own making. It was driving me mad, and then that boy looked up at me and said, 'Madam Pomfrey, don't worry about this. The beard gives me a certain gravitas, I think I can use to my advantage if it stays for good.'"

Minerva giggled. Those boys had been so funny—the troublemakers always were. It was getting harder and harder as the years went by to keep her face straight and discipline them.

"Nymphadora Tonks—or maybe Lupin, if she changed her name… she was always in here with Charlie Weasely, who had some bite or burn or sting to get treated," Poppy said. "She sprained her ankle during a Quidditch match once, and I didn't even recognize her when her teammates carried her in. I don't know what we'd have done, if she'd died in a form in which we couldn't recognize her."

Minerva nodded.

"I spent years watching the people who died today—the ones on both sides," Poppy said. Her white apron was bunched up in her hands. "I patched them up, soothed their aches and pains, sent them packing when they tried to get out of class with fake ailments… and I can't do anything else for them, now. I ran out of knowledge, I ran out of luck, I…"

"Saved Lavender Brown's life by stopping her bleeding after Greyback attacked her, and used the techniques you perfected by treating Bill Weasley to improve her outcomes significantly," Minerva interrupted. "You stopped the curse infecting Angelina Johnson's leg, and it didn't spread to her heart—the Healers at St. Mungo's were amazed. You stabilized Pius Thickness so that he didn't suffer permanent damage due to long-term exposure to the Imperius curse. You set all the injured House Elves' limbs and they healed within the day. You did a thousand other things too."

Poppy looked down at her twisting hands.

"It doesn't feel like enough," she said quietly.

"It was," Minerva said. She reached out and took one of Poppy's hands, squeezing tightly. "We have to… Poppy, we'll go mad if we don't believe that we've done enough because we did everything we could. I watched you, Poppy. I watched you go, and we're exhausted now because we gave it everything we had. If we look at the losses as if they trump the victories, we'll go mad."

Poppy nodded. She smiled a bit and then looked back to Minerva.

"And we'll be here for many more years to come to do even more," Poppy said. "You'll stay around, won't you?"

"I will," Minerva said. "I have a meeting with our interim Minister for Magic later tonight. I believe he may offer me the Headmaster position."

"I believe he will too, and it will be an honour to work for you," Poppy said. She smiled. "And to keep doing what we do."

But there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.

And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.

Get over your hill and see what you find there,

With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Stacked with: MC4A; Hogwarts

Individual Challenge(s): Gryffindor MC; Spring Rain; Seeds; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes & Things A (Reflection); Themes & Things B (Loss); Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

Word Count: 1264