They met for dangerous caffeine at a Greek coffee shop in Piccadilly. Susan ordered at the counter then slid into a quiet booth at the back. It was just before the lunch rush so it wasn't long until she had a varis really-I-mean-it-strong cup in hand. She sipped, you didn't gulp café Hellenico, and eyed the pastries.
"So." The scion of the House of Bones prompted as she succumbed to the baklava. She loved honey sweets but couldn't bake them at wand point. Felicitously, conspiracy gave her plenty of opportunity to treat herself.
"The same spiel." Hermione confirmed, stirring her spiced hot chocolate. "Too many skeletons in too many closets." She had to fight to keep the sneer off Cathal's face. They were meeting in Muggle London because it was the fashionable thing now and Susan was a half-blood. Nothing to see here. "The rush of honesty didn't last longer than the intake of new Aurors."
"I've owled Harry half a dozen times." Susan was proud to have been in the DA. She'd stood up and taken the caning. She just wished more people shared the Hufflepuff ethic; now the high profile trials were over no one seemed to want to launch a proper investigation. There was no corruption in the Ministry, not with Shacklebolt's new broom and the shining ranks of heroes guarding the nation.
"He's in Germany hunting Rowle." Which she knew because she had been questioned by Dean Thomas over any connection between her Max relatives, the wanted wizard, and her presumed sympathies. She had danced with the Death Eater at her debut after all. "There are new confidentiality protocols in place, apparently. I asked and got 'no comment'."
"I'll see if any of the boys are willing to talk to me, or I'll ask Hannah to chat them up. She's working at the Cauldron." And she was angry enough to help. Susan sipped more coffee, treasuring the rush and the bitterness. "The inquiry into her mother's death hasn't been reopened. Won't be, due to mishandling of the case." The redhead looked her feudal overlord in the eye. "Do you know who killed her mother?"
"Mulciber and one of the younger recruits. A training exercise to test his nerve." Hermione replied after some thought. The new initiates had liked to boast of their prowess, and their excesses. She had made herself listen so she could answer questions like this. To give some closure, however feeble. "Holt was his name. Ballard Holt."
"Not a prominent family." She'd never really been interested in the web of kinship and heritage and Sacred Twenty-Eight and all that guff. Her parents had deliberately tried to shield her from the legacy of the first wizarding war. They hadn't lied. They simply hadn't talked about it. Aunty Amelia had been more frank but Susan hadn't asked the right questions before it was too late.
"He's a pure-blood so he'll be in the Department of Heritage and Lineage's books. If someone's hiding him or shielding themselves from blowback from a family connection, their name will be there too." That department had shuffled back into dusty obscurity, its budget cut to pre-war austerity, with a mooted name change to further whitewash history.
"Not sure we have someone to plausibly touch that morass." Susan frowned then slowly, consciously smoothed her face, easing the tight set of her mouth. She'd caught sight of herself in passing in a shop mirror at Tesco's. Those pinched lips, narrowed eyes; Alecto Carrow's expression reflected back at her. She'd dropped her shopping basket from numb hands. The imprint, the fear, had dug in deep.
So now she checked herself. A conscious decision to assess, to relax and not allow her learned behaviour to rule her. Susan told herself staunchly that she didn't need to be wary all the time. Didn't need to anticipate punishment in every defiance. She could in fact quietly plot reprisals in a nice cafe with a not nice woman. And no one would fucking stop her because she wouldn't let anyone raise a bloody hand to her ever again.