AN: First of all I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. It was a massive surprise to see so many of you enjoying the idea and I hope you also like where I take this. A shout-out and mention also has to go my new beta alix33, who has been a huge help with this and I'm looking forward to working with them in future projects.

All that's left to say is that I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Two: Susan Bones

After George Weasley came Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, both declaring that Harry, the DA and Ginny Weasley were the reasons they ended up fighting against Voldemort at Hogwarts. Through them, I was able to talk to Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott, Susan was a particularly heartbreaking story given that she'd lost her aunt and parents to Death Eaters. I'll be honest, I cried after leaving her flat.

"It was awful," she said, when she'd made me tea and sat me down on her incredibly comfortable sofa amidst an avalanche of books and magazines. It turned out she was quite the fan of Witch Weekly. The only other place I'd seen so many of my own bylines was mum and dad's.

"I don't really remember mum and dad, but Aunt Amelia was always there. Always. And she was so solid, so constant. No matter what life threw at her she just brushed it off, like it was nothing." Susan had bitten her lip, stirred her tea and wavered for a moment. "Then, well, then she couldn't. He did it. No-one else could've. I was always really proud of that.

"I think that's why I stayed really. It wasn't easy. Dealing with the Carrows, hiding for ages too scared to come out in case they… It was almost a relief, when the fighting started. Oh god, that's horrible to say, is that horrible?"

I was quick to reassure her, but too caught in my own memories to help myself. The mention of Carrows was never a fun thing to dwell on. "Not at all."

"It was just so freeing, knowing it was over, knowing that we had a chance. I mean, before that it was just hope really. Hope that Harry was still out there. We didn't know, of course. Had no idea really. When he came back," she'd smiled then, lost in the memory. "I'll always remember it."

"And what was it like for you, the battle?"

"I finally understood it all," Susan answered, her voice trembled again and there were tears in her eyes. "Why mum and dad fought against him. Seeing them, what they could do, it sort of put it all into place. Hearing about it was one thing, we all knew the stories, didn't we? But actually seeing them kill people. After that, it gets a bit blurry really.

"What about you?"

"Me?" They always wanted to know what I was doing. "Well, it was a lot less fighting and more being locked away in the dungeons. We didn't really get the chance to fight."

"And would you? Have fought, I mean."

"Maybe," the truth was I had no idea. The more I talked to these people, the more it became apparent that I had no idea what they were talking about. I had literally no idea, because while they were fighting and dying we were bickering amongst ourselves and, at best, trying not to kill Pansy Parkinson while she wailed about Draco and his goons being missing.

"It must've been hard."

"You're thinking of what you guys did," I joked, trying to deflect from the rising sense of shame that always seemed to accompany these interviews. Here I was, talking to people who fought against dark witches and wizards, took on the Carrows every chance they had and got tortured for their trouble. Me? All I did was keep my head down. Like the fate of the world somehow wasn't my problem.

"It wasn't easy," Susan conceded. "For any of us."

"And what would you say," I began, in an effort to actually interview her. "To people who read our article now? About what it was like, fighting against such overwhelming odds?"

"We didn't really think about it like that," Susan shrugged. "I guess, we just wanted to help each other. That's what it was like for me anyway. But I am glad we did. Look at how much everything's changing. The world we live in now, I think auntie would've been proud of it."

"You must miss her?"

"Every day," Susan nodded, "it's not always obvious things. Sometimes there's something I'll want to tell her, or something I know would drive her mad. She was very proper. Very precise."

"And do you think it was her? That kept you fighting."

Susan considered this for a moment. Some people liked to think about what they wanted to say. Others reeled off endless drivel and it was about finding their hidden gems. Susan was definitely the former.

"Yes and no. I wanted to get back at them, but it was more than that. Auntie died for what she believed in. I couldn't live without her if I didn't do the same."

There was a moment of silence. Long and painful, because what can you say to something like that? I was lucky. I had mum and dad and friends who loved me. I hadn't really lost anything when so many other people had lost everything.

"Do you know she grew roses?" Susan asked abruptly, in the way people always do when they need to fill a silence to stop the train going round their mind. "Auntie Amelia. She loved them. Said they reminded her of mum. They were her favourite. I always remember them growing up. Auntie Amelia had this huge rose garden. She kept a bouquet in her office, so that way mum and dad were always there with her.

"I know you said this is about inspiring people, but the truth is I'm not very inspirational. What I did, I did because Auntie would've done it and…" she hesitated, a small sob escaping her lips. "And because I think a part of me wanted to be with them again. I didn't care if I died because at least then I'd see them all. And I wanted them to be proud of me, you know?"

There was more, but Susan said later she never wanted it published and I've never repeated it to anyone. And I never will. There are some promises you don't break. Some stories don't need to be told.

The rest of that day was spent writing up my notes into something legible, then examining them against what the others had already said. My desk was beginning to become a shrine to it all. Susan, George, Dean and Seamus and some others as well. Each person had a seperate section, then an overall plan split into themes and ideas. Loss. Togetherness. Ambition, which admittedly was lacking. None of them seemed to think about the tomorrow they were creating, they had just been fighting for a present that sucked less.

"You're here late," that was what Alice said when she found me, hunched over Susan's notes. That little snippet I told you, well, that was some of it. Truth was I was there for an hour and she cried twice. It's not always glamorous this job. Most of the time, actually.

"And so are you?"

"Graveyard shift," Alice smiled sourly, holding up a cup of coffee before drawing her wand and summoning a bowl of sugar from the small kitchen next to the office. "Katherine's really got it in for me this month."

"That's twice this week?"

"Yep," Alice sighed, popping the 'p' and falling into her chair. She spooned so much sugar into her coffee it became a deabetic's nightmare. "And why are you here? Not that I'm complaining."

"I spoke to Susan Bones today."

"Oh fun," Alice had already witnessed my research meltdown when I realised just how many people Susan Bones had lost. Obits were never really my thing and yet somehow always were. "Need a hug, sweetie?"

"I'm good, thanks though." I sighed, pushing away Susan's notes and looking at Alice. Even from a few feet away and behind a desk partition, I could see the bags under her eyes and her somehow less than perfect hair. It was disconcerting. Alice was always, always, the model of perfect. There was never a hair out of place, yet that day I saw about fifteen. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm fine." When her words were greeted with silence, she let out a frustrated moan. "Ugh, fine.? Really? Okay, I'm not fine. Or I want to be fine but fine is currently eluding me. I'm fine-ish."

"That's a lot of 'fines' in one sentence. What's going on?"

"It's home stuff."

"Your folks?" Alice still lived with her parents. Not because she particularly wanted to or because she couldn't afford to move out, but because if she wasn't there they physically couldn't cope. Her dad had dementia. Pretty bad. Alice and her mum rotated when they were looking after him, but it wasn't easy.

"Mum mainly," Alice confessed. "I think she's not doing too great, seeing dad like this."

"And you?"

"Oh, I'm peachy," Alice said, forcing a smile onto her beautiful face. "You know me."

"All too well," she'd always been able to fool the others into thinking she was okay, but I'd been privy to far too many sideways glances and confessions in the Leaky Cauldron to believe it anymore. But what that also meant was no, we are not talking about this. So I kept my questions to myself and pretended to be re-reading the notes I'd taken at Susan's.

"Guess we're both having a great time," Alice said, taking a swig from her disgusting coffee and letting the smile slide away.

"I'm getting second-hand sadness, I'm fine."

"Mhmm."

"Comparatively fine?"

"Bit better, still probably nonsense, but I'll allow it."

"It's better than the Prophet, at least we're trying to actually tell their stories and do something. That place, people were just galleons waiting to be harvested." Notes I genuinely received in that hellhole include Boring, no-one will care about a woman raising money for her dead son's charity and get the drama from it over a new school for magic only kids opening in Durham. God, I hated that place.

"Reckon more'll talk to you?"

"Maybe, Susan was really helpful and I've got all of these," I gestured to the huge stack of notes, "but I know the real hits would be Potter and his little band of misfits. And it's not like I've got long left."

At that point it was just one week, five days and twenty hours-ish. Katherine's enthusiasm for the interviews had bumped them up to the front page, or splash as it's called here, and so that meant meeting after meeting with Keith and Ian - the two lead designers. They were all for big heroic images of the most high profile of them, probably Susan at this point, but that didn't sit right. Trouble was, I couldn't think of a good alternative.

"You've done better than anyone else," Alice pointed out, "I mean, everyone else just got 'no' or 'bugger off', but you, you got actual answers to real questions."

"But Katherine —"

"Forget Katherine," Alice said, with a wave of her hand. A wave that would have been nowhere near as relaxed if Katherine had actually been there. "You're doing great and wherever this ends up, it'll work out."

I ended up staying with Alice until the end of her shift before heading home that night. I barely slept. I kept replaying Susan Bones's story in my head. It was hard not to. Even as Daphne slept soundly in the other room, my oldest friend and the girl I'd hidden in that common room with, I couldn't shake the feeling of guilt. It's one thing not doing something, it's another seeing how easy it could have been done. Who could I have saved? Would I have died? Would I have just got in the way? The truth was, all of it was possible and yet the reality was I hid. I hid and hoped the war that was killing so many people would just leave me alone.

I didn't sleep, but when I arrived at my desk the following morning I wished I had. The letter was hidden beneath an all too familiar envelope. The last time I'd seen those I'd been seventeen. Alice, who somehow managed to look alive while I felt like the walking dead, was eyeing it with outright suspicion from her desk.

After a few seconds of silent peer pressure, I eventually opened it, banishing the envelope with a curt flick of my wand. It was brief, but when I got to the signature that was hardly surprising. He'd never been one for words. In fact, I don't think I'd ever actually seen him string more than four together.

Tracey,

Susan and Hannah told me what you're trying to do and I'd like to speak to you, if that's okay? I've got classes all day but I would be more than happy to meet you afterwards to discuss your article. I think what you're trying to do is really great. Just let me know.

All the best,

Professor N. Longbottom

Well, I guess I was going to Hogwarts. Again. Yay.