Chapter 1: Calm at Last

Susan hated Tuesdays. No, hate wasn't a strong enough feeling. She despised Tuesdays. Why? Honestly there probably wasn't any acceptable good reason for this extreme loathing. Whoever, she did have a few reasons she thought where enough. Firstly, she didn't get see Charlie in the morning because he begun work earlier than usual. Secondly, her coworker for the day was a sixteen year old boy named Darius, who a) had a crush on Susan, b) talked in the most obnoxiously loud voice ever and c) despised the Beatles (how could you despise the Beatles). Thirdly, she didn't have time to eat on her lunch break since it was basically ten minutes, all this because Darius insisted he had to eat prick twelve as if he would starve if he didn't, and it didn't help that he would wiggle his eyebrows and ask if Susan wanted half of his tuna sandwich (she hated tuna sandwich). And lastly, Tuesday was laundry day.

She didn't have anything against doing laundry in of it self, but it was an annoying shore. It was better than doing the dishes, which she usually did by magic anyway, but it was time consuming. And Charlie sucked att separating colors, so in the past month two of Susan's favorite white blouses had turned into a light uneven shade of pink. It was reparable by magic but Susan had always found that particular kind of spells hard to master. However, she thought this was enough reasons to hate Tuesdays and she really didn't need another one.

But it seemed to be inevitable. She had for the past forty minutes helped (or tried to help) a retired couple fint a record for their forthy year old sons birthday. If they had been nice Susan wouldn't have minded at all, but they had spent the past thirty minuts complaining about todays youth and criticized all of Susan's suggestions. And she had suggested everything underneath the sun. And the moon. And probably half of heaven and hell. After one hour Susan contemplated jumping through the window, but she decided to do suggest one more record and doubled back to the classical music section (even though she already thoroughly scavenged it). She pulled out a record and went back to the old mean couple.

"Okay, we do have this collection of Vivaldi classics preformed by a Ukrainian youth orchestra. Its classical but still new thinking, and they are truly gifted. And half of the profit goes to Ukrainian youth shelters. Do you think something like that would work?" She tried smiling politely at the couple but it probably came of as rather sour. The elderly man glanced at his wife (who seed to be the one making all the calls), who nodded.

"Yes, I do think that would work just fine." He told Susan in broken english. Susan suspected that half the reason they hated her where because she couldn't speak the language, which happened to inconvenience them. She tried to learned though. Charlie spoke almost fluently and had tried to help her out as much as possible.

The couple payed for the record and Susan wrapped it up as quickly as she could just to get them on their way. When the door slammed shut behind the Susan lat her smile vanish and her head fall against the countertop as she stifled a scream of pure frustration. She was so closing early today.

"Whoa, you seem to have a shitty day!" Susan's head flew up and she met the laughing eyes of Hannah Abbott, and behind her Neville Logbottom looking around curiously. Susan immediately reconsidered her harsh criticism of Tuesday. Tuesdays weren't always all that bad.

"Hannah! Neville! What are you doing here?" Susan exclaimed as she threw her arms around both of them.

"Well, a little bird told us that you apparently had fled the country and hung out in rural Romania. We sort of had to see it for our self!" Neville grinned.

"And which little bird told you that? There isn't all that many people who knows about my whereabouts!" Susan said laughing. She was curious, but she couldn't claim that she wasn't relived. Since she basically up and gone without even as much as leaving note behind, at the time it had felt easier since the last thing she wanted to do was dealing with any form of confrontation. But now Susan couldn't deny that some of what she left behind wasn't just unresolved but deeply buried beneath several layers of denial and doubt.

"Bill succumbed under pressure. Or well, Ginny convinced him. He was creepily jolly when he came back from visiting Charlie." Hannah said clearly suppressing laughed. "And you so should have told me! I'm actually kind of offended. You managed to get Charlie Weasley and didn't tell me!"

"Hey, your boyfriend is right here!" Neville exclaimed, raising his eyebrows and pointing at himself.

"It seems like you aren't the only one who should be offended! You didn't tell me that you two got together." Susan said grinning.

"Well, you went totally MIA so it wasn't exactly that easy. But I'm here now, am I not?" Hannah said as she pulled Susan into another hug.

Susan decided to close early after that, even though she wasn't actually allowed to do so. But she figured this was a special occasions and nobody, except possibly Darius, would care. And all he would say would be something stupid about that Susan should dumt her 'fancy boyfriend' and go out with him. And the fact that Darius thought Charlie Weasley where fancy really did say something about his lifestyle. She hurried to close and lock the door while Hannah and Neville showered her with anecdotes about life in the UK. It wasn't really a special or unusual situation in any way. They spoke in the same relaxed way that they had done during their Hogwarts days. But for just that reason it was also completely different. So much had happened and all of them had new scars, both physical and psychological. Susan noticed the way Hannah flinched for every car that drove by, and Neville clenched his scared fist when they walked past a gang of brawling teenagers. Susan knew that both herself and Charlie had similar mannerisms that developed since the war. And she truly didn't know if ignoring them was the best thing that they could do.

The healers had never cared much for psychology, at least not to the same extent as muggle doctors put their trust to it. Susan had taken muggle studies at Hogwarts, and since she moved to Romania she had tried to update her knowledge at least somewhat. As an example of this had she read a book about diagnosing psychological conditions, which most likely had given her hybris regarding her own ability to diagnose this conditions. But she did however the less conclude that most of the children whom had lived through the final battle probably had PTSD, or at least some of the symptoms. Which according to Susan's beloved book wasn't surprising in the least, but rather somewhat anticipated.

When they where almost back to the apartment Susan made a brash decision. She took Hannah and Neville by one hand each and turned on to a gravel road winding out of the small town. Susan let go of their hands and took a few steps ahed before she turned back. She looked at their rather confused faces and smiled.

"Follow me!" She yelled as she started to run. The gravel was hard and damp after the rain that had fallen the previous day. Susan breath was strained and the air was cold and almost freezing even though it was only September. She fell only once, scraping her palms. Susan felt Neville's hand on her shoulder before she once again heaved herself up and continued to run. The gravel road was whining steeply up hill by now but she didn't care, when she reach the top she turned of and run through a small grassy field feeling the damp grass beat against her knees. At the woods edge she finally came to a stand still. Even though she was still breathing heavily, she turned around pointing.

"This, this is what I wanted to show you!" She beamed against Hannah and Neville. What do you think? I haven't showed Charlie, but I love it! Please. Just please tell me what you think."

AU: I suck at cliffhangers. Honestly I don't even think that this counts as a cliffhanger… But still, what do you think Susan shows them? Thanks for reading, please review. I also want to apologize, I was sooooo tired when I wrote this that some parts might not make sense.

/WigglyWednesday