title: you, tomorrow, next year
author: Sirikit
rating: PG/K+
summary: It's not as if they're friends, but it's not as if they're not. Susan Bones and Zacharias Smith, friendship, gen.
wordcount: 2,000ish
a/n: I set out to write something completely unrelated and this is what happened instead. I have no idea what this is about; it just made itself. (ETA: Edited with minor changes, mostly for typos.)


it's one o'clock on a Friday morning
I'm trying to keep my back from the wall
the prophets and their pawns have had another success
and I'm wondering why we bother at all

---

First year.

"My father's said a lot of good things about you Boneses," he says by way of introduction on that first evening in the Great Hall.

Susan just manages a quiet "thank you" before turning to the girl on her right, the one in the blonde pigtails.

"I'm a Smith," he insists.

"Are you then?" she replies, baffled, not knowing what she is supposed to say to that.

He scowls at her, but Hannah is smiling and introducing herself and Susan doesn't even notice.

---

They avoided each other at school by silent consent. She arrived afraid of everything, and so did he, but he'd learned to hide the fact and this made him disdainful. Not that she minded, having found Hannah and Ernie and Justin.

Zacharias was always somewhere else, with other people. The first few months passed by and one wondered what he got up to, but no one actually cared to ask, including her.

---

Second year.

"He's very nice," she insists, but not too strongly, because that's not her way. She swishes her wand in the general direction of an old kettle, but nothing happens.

"He's an idiot," Zacharias retorts, and then it's his turn (a swish, a piff, a zap!) and now he's turned the kettle into a squelchy white squid, lying forlornly on top of their textbooks.

"Disgusting," she says affably, poking the gummy head with her wand. She takes an experimental sniff and smells oily seawater. "Do you think the smell is something we can transfigure too?"

He grins at her, but she doesn't notice that either.

---

It's not as if they were friends, but it's not as if they're not. Aside from her and the Quidditch players, he only ever seemed to talk to Ernie. He avoided Justin, possibly because he was Muggleborn, and didn't have much to say to Hannah. She didn't approve of either of those things.

---

Fourth year.

He drops beside her in the sofa in the common room. "Disastrous bloody news. Did you hear?" he demands, and Susan wonders what ever happened to a simple 'hello'.

"No, I haven't," she replies, even though she has heard, seven times already that day, because this was News and she was the sort of person other peopled liked to tell News to.

Zacharias settles in, radiating indignation. "I can't believe Dumbledore's going to let Potter get away with it! The bloody nerve of that entire house, thinking they can cheat Hufflepuff out of what Cedric's earned. But no, they've just got to put in their favorite little hero—"

He keeps talking but doesn't really need a reply, so Susan doesn't give him one. She scribbles away at her Potions coursework.

"—right?" he finishes, looking expectantly at her.

Her hand slips and now there's a big inksplot where her formula should have been. Susan's no Divinations witch but she still thinks it's some sort of sign, so she meets his gaze, pauses a moment.

"I think you sound a bit jealous, is what I think," she admits with careful neutrality.

His mouth opens on a protest but snaps close just as quickly, because despite everything Zacharias is an honest boy and she's an honest girl. He flushes red and glares, but not at her.

She reaches for a new quill and he turns to the right page in the textbook, and it's business as usual.

---

Then they lost Cedric that one evening, and between the cold air in her lungs and the stands full of people panicking, Susan thought, please no. Please don't let this be the thing that proves that we are all growing up, way too fast.

---

Fifth year.

On top of everything else -- like the fact that Umbridge is showing herself to be a breed of monster -- Hannah's birthday is in two weeks, so on that first Hogsmeade weekend Susan leaves earlier than the others. She mentions it to him tersely in the corridor (to remind him about the date, so he can at least try to seem less cross that day) and suddenly he's detaching himself from his Quidditch mates and inviting himself along to walk her into Hogsmeade.

She looks at him like he's grown another head.

He frowns, looking self-conscious. "What, I can't walk with a friend somewhere now?"

"No, I just thought you had a really strong opinion on whether I get Hannah a pink jumper or a yellow one," she deadpans.

He makes a dismissive gesture that reminds her that he's just a little bit humorless. "The lads think I fancy you anyway. Just let them. This way they don't ask why I've got this sudden need to go to the Hog's Head later."

Susan feels strongly that he ought to have asked first before pulling her into this little bit of fiction, but what can she say, really? It's in her nature to be helpful.

She shakes her head, walks on. "Fine, but you're holding my shopping bags."

"Bloody hell," he mutters, and it's the utter dismay in his tone that makes her laugh.

---

People got taller, they got spots, they got fatter or thinner, they got caught snogging, drinking, breaking this rule or that, they got together or they split up, and then there were top marks, near-failures, heated arguments about Quidditch and the Weird Sisters, and on and on, the usual teenage things.

Susan got taller. She and Hannah talked about cutting their hair, but never actually did it. She kissed Justin once, then twice, three times, and after that she considered it a pattern. She got a decent set of OWLs. She learned to fight back.

They all did, and that was the most important change of all.

---

Then it's summer and Aunt Amelia's gone, too. Murdered, which is a level of hatred Susan can't bring herself to process. But what she can do are the motions: she knows there will be notices in the paper, meetings with goblins about property, and all those condolences to receive (bravely, graciously, because they're a Hufflepuff family to the last).

Ernie visits. Hannah stays a week. Justin sends flowers and visits several times. Zacharias sends an owl.

Susan,

My father's just told me about your aunt and I'm very sorry. I met her a few times you know. And I was just about to write 'everyone
said she was a very admirable witch' here but that's rubbish. I'm sure it's true, but you're the one who knew her. You talked about her
a lot. (Yes, I do listen to you too sometimes.) She seemed like good family and I think she was proud of you to have told you so much.

For what it's worth I know you'll come out of this okay.

Zacharias

ps: But in case you're a sopping mess that's alright, too.

"Zacharias, you idiot," she says to herself, giggling a bit hysterically, and then suddenly she really is a wet, sopping, blubbering mess, crying noisily into her shirt.

But he's right, she thinks. This is alright, too.

---

She hugged him for a really long time that September, when they all met up again on the platform at King's Cross. He went red to his ears and was plainly embarrassed, especially with Hannah and Ernie and Justin there, but he let her and even patted her shoulder awkwardly a few times.

Then he muttered something scathing about Ginny Weasley as she and her brother passed by. Susan sighed. Some things never changed.

---

The end of sixth year.

"The headmaster went and got himself killed on school grounds!"

"Don't yell at me," she warns, understanding for the first time why people like to hex him so much. "Stop it. Just stop. You're going out of your way to be disrespectful and you know it. There's no reason why you need to leave right now, and not after the funeral."

He can't hold her gaze and goes back to packing, throwing the last bit of his Quidditch gear into his trunk. "Term's over, Bones," he says after a moment, quietly. "I'm done with all this. My father's already here. Term's over, and I'm done."

He's clearly hanging on to the last bit of his bravado and Susan can't bring herself to push past that. A good friend would push, she thinks. A good friend makes sure you don't do something you'll regret afterwards. A good friend would--

But he leaves anyway, and she doesn't do anything else to stop him.

---

It turned out that the war was not much of a war, having been fought sometimes and in secret, so the Muggles wouldn't find it all out. Harry Potter and his friends bore the brunt of it anyway, for which she couldn't stop feeling grateful.

But it also turned out that war was still war, however it worked, and there were a lot of things Susan could say about it (--about the fear and waiting and how easy it was, really, to kill another person if you had to--) but the important thing was, she survived. They all survived. More or less.

---

What-would-have-been-seventh-year.

It ends where it began, in Hogwarts, in the Great Hall with a big feast. Only Ernie and Hannah aren't there ("We've got the back wall of the kitchen to fix up, Suse, just make our excuses for us, yeah?") and Justin isn't there ("Really sorry, I know you'll hate me, but I've got exams up at uni") but somewhere is better than nowhere, and she's an optimist at heart.

From the Hufflepuff table, Susan watches Harry as he talks with his friends. He's The Boy Who Lived, The Boy Who's Still Living, and even though she's never really known him, Susan is absurdly proud of him. He catches Susan's eye and she waves.

Beside her, Zacharias is oblivious, as usual. "Merlin, is that Potter heading over here? What the hell does he want?"

Susan tries not to sound too droll, but it's difficult. "I think he wants to say hello, and possibly to shake our hands. He'll probably say something nice, so you should try to say something nice back. Neither of you will mean it, but that's not important."

He gives her the same irritated half-glare that hasn't changed in seven years. She disregards it.

"Just think, after this, you'll probably never have to talk to Harry or any of the Weasleys ever again."

He brightens at this. "Well, there is that."

---

After.

"Are you going in for Auror training after all?" he asks her later, as they're walking down to Hogsmeade. It's a considerate question, but then he ruins it with: "It's a pretty thankless job, you know. Couldn't think of a worse nightmare than having to deal with all those s--"

"Oh, shut up, Zacharias," she says, and he's so startled that he does. But it's not as if she's cross; it's the nostalgia, maybe, and now she's laughing at him, at herself, at finding yourself at eighteen and not having a bloody clue.

Susan considers him, still tall and skinny and difficult-to-deal-with as ever, and thinks, Thank you, you great prat. I think it was you who kept me going all these years.

"You know, we never really talk, Zacharias," she says, thinking of first year and second year and that entire childhood they spent in passing.

"What are you on about?" he asks, smirking faintly at her. "We've been talking all this time." He gives her a long look that she can't read, and that, Susan realizes, that is something new.

They go on from there.

and to those of you who mourn your lives through one day to the next ...
can't you live and be thankful you're here?
see, it could be you, tomorrow, next year

Guillemots, "Trains to Brazil"

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