Author's note: In 2015, I wrote The Susan Chronicles: The Call to fulfill my need for Susan x Caspian fic taking place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the 1990s. My biggest regret was moving Susan forward in her timeline. I'd like to revisit it, and place it in the time period of the 1940s. After all, if anyone can help/stop Tom Riddle as a teenager, it would be Susan Pevensie.

So for the hardcore Narnia fans: I'm going with the timeline that puts the Pevensie crash in 1943, for plot reasons. And yes, the character descriptions and events are movie-verse. As for The Call's relationship to The Once and Future Queen? Think of it as an AU of each other. They're companion pieces.

With that out of the way, I present The Susan Chronicles: The Once and Future Queen.

I checked my lipstick one last time in the mirror. It was perfect, crisp shade of red, not a single smear out of place.

"Susan? You'd better get down here, or else we're going to be late to the train station!"

I placed the lipstick in the pocket of my coat— well, it was Mother's nicest, but after the accident, she didn't need it anymore. I adjusted my nylons, then picked up my wand off of the dresser.

"Coming!"

I turned back to my trunk and practiced my first spell all summer.

"Wingardium Leviosa." With a swish and a flick, my trunk floated in the air, following every command of movement issued by my wand.

Satisfied, I directed it down the stairs, and with an equally graceful flick, set it down by the stairs. I placed the wand in the pocket Mother sewed especially for hers. Yet as I scanned the room, to make sure there wasn't anything I had missed, my eyes came across a portrait.

Wait— no— that wasn't the right word for it. Portraits were of people. This was a painting of a ship, and a very odd one at that. It did not look like any ship that I had ever seen in a book or in life.

Yet, it was familiar somehow, like I'd seen it before, and didn't remember where.

I stepped forward, entranced by it. The waves appeared to move, and sway, like portraits at Hogwarts. The closer I stepped, the more real it looked, like a colored-in photograph—

"Susan!"

Aunt Alberta's exasperated cry preceded her as she raced up the steps. Her expression grew angrier upon seeing the painting.

"Get away from that old thing, Susan! Get away!"

I reluctantly retreated from it, joining my aunt out in the hallway. She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding the patches she darned onto her jersey.

"I really ought to have taken that painting down a long time ago." Aunt Alberta pursed her lips. "A wedding present from that rotten professor— not that it bothered anyone until last summer, when Lucy and Peter— never mind that. It won't be there by Christmas. Now, come along. We're running late, and you need to be on the Hogwarts Express."

It was strange, coming without Peter, Edmund, or Lucy. I kept my eyes straight ahead and my posture as straight as the princesses. I could keep it together, until I was alone in a train compartment.

But as I took in the steaming scarlet engine, I felt a sudden surge of panic. They'd all died in a train crash, after all.

Why wouldn't I be next?

At least then I could join my family again. . .

I shook my head. I had to get a grip—

"Susan, are you alright?" There was pity in Uncle Harold's eyes, as if he understood why I'd stopped in the middle of Platform 9 and 3/4.

"Yes, I'm fine." My tone was adequately icy— no one would ask.

"Make sure to write us at least once every week," Aunt Alberta said as she looked me over one last time— presumably to make sure I looked presentable. Never mind that she need not worry on that account.

"Of course, Aunt Alberta."

"And you should study at least one hour every night for your O.W.L.s."

"Yes, Aunt Alberta."

"And do give our regards to Tom— he's such a lovely boy, I remember from your letters and the pictures."

"Yes, Aunt Alberta. I'll do that."

She nodded curtly, satisfied with my answers. "Be a Pevensie witch. Show everyone what Pevensie witches are made of."

"I will."

I didn't know what to say to them. To give goodbyes at a train station again? That reminded us all too much of the Accident.

"I'll see you all at Christmas."

"Are you sure you don't need help with your trunk?" Uncle Harold asked.

"No, I've got it." I faked a smile for good measure. "Besides— magic."

"Of course."

I then lifted my trunk myself as Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold turned and left. I didn't blame them. I would have bet anything that they were just as upset as I was to be in a train station.

Yet as I was dragging it along, I conceded that I was wrong. I wasn't in fact, strong enough to lift it.

Come on, Susan, I told myself.

I was about to resort to magic entirely when he appeared. Handsome, with hair longer than most boys, and as dark as his eyes, like coffee, he seemed familiar somehow.

"Can I help you with that?"

"I'm fine," I lied, and I had my hand on my wand when he instead started pulling my trunk.

"At least let me help you then." I picked up the other end so he wasn't dragging it along the concrete, and the two of us managed to put it in the luggage car. It reminded me of when Peter and I would help the kids with their luggage.

When the job was done, the young wizard boy turned to me, and I could've sworn he'd recognized me. But I don't know where from. We'd never met before.

"I'm Caspian del Rey," he said. "And you are?"

"Susan Pevensie," I mumbled. "I don't recall seeing you around before?"

"My family moved to England," he said, and now I recognized his heavy Spanish accent. "To escape the war there."

I nodded. "So Beauxbatons, then?"

"Of course."

"Good luck at Hogwarts." I turned around, when he touched my shoulder, only to pull away when I whirled around. "What?"

He looked as if he were going to say something, and then thought better of it. "Nothing."

"Good."

With that, I took my carpetbag and wand, and stormed off to find my own compartment. I wasn't in the mood to flirt and flounce— not this year. It took everything to keep up with the lipstick and nylons, so that no one suspected anything was wrong. Boys were just one step too far, no matter how beautiful they might have been.

The first compartment I saw had Marjorie Jorkins and Annabel Vance talking in it. Lucy's best friends. Yet I saw them talking and laughing, as if they didn't care that she'd died. I walked a little more quickly. I wanted to run from Caspian del Rey, from Majorie Jorkins, from Annabel Vance.

I didn't even want to see my best friend, Phyllis Fawley.

I just slipped into the last compartment, the last place anyone would look, and I let myself cry.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

I looked up to see Tom Riddle standing there.

"I'll leave— I'll bet you want to be alone right now." Yet as he turned, I felt a rush of panic.

"No, please stay."

I don't know why.

He turned, and I thought I saw a ghost of a smile. But I must not have, because then I saw him give me a look of mixed pity and understanding. Of course Tom would understand. He always did.

"Come here."

I stood, and embraced me as I continued to cry.

"There, there, Susan."

He held me during the entire trip to Scotland.