Painkiller

Painkiller

Her name is Poppy because Poppy is what they make morphine from, and morphine is a very effective painkiller, even if it doesn’t cure anything. Not unlike sex.

Hermione remembers these facts from the Muggle world that she picked up as a child, when she was home sick and rifling through her mother’s library because she’d run out of books to read. She remembers about things like morphine and platinum implants and open-heart surgery, although she’s known for years that she’d never have need for any of them. And besides, the entire wizarding community thought Muggle medicine was mad.

Like she remembers about condoms, and how to use them, even though Poppy would laugh at the very absurd, ineffective idea of putting a piece of latex between two people to keep them from contracting illnesses while they have sex. It’s silly, really; there are so many Muggle-borns, like her, it would be just as easy for a witch or wizard to get an STD from one of them. But they just don’t take Muggle diseases seriously.

There’s a lot they don’t take seriously. Things like paper bills and television, and how one can be guilty about not going home for the holidays even if one would rather spend Christmas with one’s friends. Why waste time being sorry for something, once you’ve decided to do it? Unless, what if you’re not choosing to regret, what if you stand by your actions even if your parents aren’t too happy, but you feel guilty about it anyway?

Hermione can’t change how she feels. She’s tried.

Maybe she feels guilty about how she could be giving Poppy AIDS right now, which is ridiculous because she’s never slept with another Muggle in her life. Anyone in the school would say that Madam Pomfrey can cure anything, but Hermione has her doubts.

Not that Poppy likes being doubted. She says she could have been a Healer at St. Mungo’s, or anywhere else she fancied, but she came to this school because the students need her, need someone able who can care for them as they deserve.

Someone who can fuck them, Hermione wants to scream at her and knows that it’s not herself talking, because she never uses words like “fuck”. What’s the point, when there are dictionaries of words more apt to describe what she’s feeling? Not that she thinks she can describe how she feels about this, this absurdity. This…

Hermione hates being at a loss for words. When it happens, Poppy finds something else for her to do with her mouth. She always thinks she can heal anything with sex, and Hermione doesn’t bother to correct her, even if she leaves the hospital wing no less confused and frustrated than when she came.

That’s why morphine is a painkiller, and not a cure. This doesn’t solve any of her problems, doesn’t make her rows with her parents or her fears of the future go away. They leave the hospital wing with her, every time. But they never come in. It’s not allowed in there, just like cigarettes aren’t allowed in hospitals. And when Poppy whispers softly that she can make her pain go away, if only she’ll let her, she’s not entirely lying, just telling her own version of the truth.