Chapter 13

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Susan arrived back in time for dinner looking tired but much more relaxed. Of course, Harry already knew she was feeling calmer and more confident from the feelings through their bond. He'd only checked in once during the day when her anxiety levels had spiked along with a sense of determination and he hadn't been able to help himself, prior to putting on the Head of House ring and was surprised to find that neither the distance between Hogwarts and London or the wards on Hogwarts and Gringotts affected his ability to sense what Susan was feeling and doing.

Susan didn't seem to notice him checking on her but that may have been due to the amount of anxiety she was already feeling. He could tell she was at the bank with the woman who'd collected her from Hogwarts, could hear the goblin speaking. He realized that it must be her birthday and she was at the bank to become the Head of her House, and was worrying about the potential betrothal contracts in the family vault. He hoped it turned out well for her but realised that she probably wouldn't tell him anything until she was ready to meet and start dating her betrothed and he had to be warned of the dates to stay out of her head.

Not that it was much of a problem, they rarely checked on each other unless they were feeling extreme emotions or pain these days. He was fairly sure with a bit of effort he could block the feelings coming from her while she was with a boyfriend even though the thought of it still felt like a loss somehow.

Harry was relieved to notice her anxiety fading away soon after that, though he'd felt several small spikes of anger, and embarrassment later in the day, he knew she was overall pleased with whatever she'd found at Gringotts.

Susan was eating quietly not wanting to talk about her private business at the table and it seemed like nothing of note had happened while she was gone because her day out with her aunt was all her classmates seemed to want to talk about. She'd disillusioned her head of house ring to avoid more gossip.

Dessert was just served when something Ernie said about being entitled to know because of their betrothal snapped the last of her patience.

"I'm now Head of House Bones. I have been to Gringotts and looked at all of my parent's papers. I found the betrothal offer your family made to mine, and like I have been telling you for years, my parents didn't sign your family's or any other offer. We are not betrothed! I am not betrothed to anyone! Nobody gets to tell me who I marry, let alone what I should think or how I should behave! Who I marry will be my choice to make and it won't be you!" Susan said fiercely.

"But you still could sign the offer," Ernie replied complacently.

"Why yes of course I could sign any of the more than a dozen betrothal offers sitting in my vault, but why would I?" Susan asked annoyed that he didn't seem to have listened to a single thing she had said about the future she wanted.

"You could do far worse. You wouldn't want to risk marrying a stranger, at least you know we get along and I'd treat you well," Ernie replied.

"You don't treat me well now! I have told you repeatedly that I don't want to marry a man who thinks he has the right to control the way I behave or carry out my Head of House duties or what I want to do for a career, and you've made it quite obvious that you think you have the right to do that even before you knew for certain whether we were betrothed. Why would I accept an offer from someone who doesn't respect who I am, for a life I don't want?" Susan asked incredulously.

Ernie looked shocked, and Susan cynically wondered whether he was surprised that any girl would turn him down or whether he had honestly believed he treated Susan with the respect he thought his future wife deserved. Either way Susan felt sorry for whoever married him.

"You want to end up an old maid like your Aunt Amelia?" Ernie's best friend, Wayne Hopkins asked.

"I could sign any of the dozen betrothal contract offers that were in my vault if I wanted to. Or I could accept none of them and marry for love! My manager recommended that I didn't destroy the offers until I was ready to decide which one I want to accept, as most families would see that as an unacceptable insult. But I can tell you honestly, unless your behaviour and attitude towards women changes dramatically and you're prepared to give me some magical assurances that you won't interfere unnecessarily in my life choices I won't be accepting your family's contract even if all the others are invalidated. To be honest, your grandparent's contract it doesn't mention you by name, so even if my parents had accepted it I could still have chosen one of your cousins over you, and I would have," Susan said determinedly.

Now Ernie looked more angry than shocked but Susan wouldn't let him get a word in. She'd put up with his attitude more than long enough.

"I have no desire to be the stay at home, docile and meek pretty little wifey that you so clearly think you want. So, if I were you, I'd give up on hoping that I will one day lose my mind and sign your family's contract and start looking for a girlfriend who wants the same things that you want from life because we would make each other miserable."

"Why didn't you pick one of the betrothal contracts?" Wayne asked curiously. "Are you trying to put off being betrothed. That's not going to do your reputation much good."

"Maybe I'm waiting to see which of the idiots are killed or permanently maimed in the war rather than risking tying myself to someone who cannot give me the heirs I will need," Susan snapped.

"You do realise that you are probably not the only witch my parents offered a betrothal contract to," Ernie stated pompously. "If you don't accept soon you might miss out."

"I'll take my chances, I don't know why you're so interested in marrying me, it's obvious that we will not be able to make each other happy," Susan retorted. As a head of house in her own right, she knew there would be several younger sons willing to offer her marriage under her own terms at the drop of a hat, she didn't need to worry about becoming an old maid even if all of the offers she had in her vault were invalidated.

-o0o-

"So, tell me. Were there any interesting betrothal offers?" Hannah asked eagerly, once they were up in their dorm.

"I can't tell you that," Susan said, astonished that her friend would even ask when they were not alone. "You know I can't! It's private house business."

"Sure, you can. We won't tell anyone," Megan said.

"Like I believe that!" Susan scoffed. "I'm legally not allowed to tell anyone about the offers before I accept one and even then, I won't be able to talk about the offers I didn't accept. MacMillan was an exception because he told all of us about the offer from his Head of House himself. Which by rights he shouldn't have, especially since the wording of the Macmillan offer and the fact that it came from his Head of house and not his father, means that it could apply equally to his young cousin in first year if I chose him and possibly some other cousins I haven't met, who've already graduated or are being educated abroad as well."

"You're really not going to accept him?" Megan asked.

"Why are you surprised about that? I want to be an Auror, and he'd never accept his wife working full time. It just wouldn't work even if I found his proprietary airs and graces flattering which I definitely don't. if he doesn't stop now that he knows we're not betrothed I'm going to end up hexing him," Susan said irritated.

"Are you going to try to get to know the others better before you have to decide?" Hannah asked.

"Only half of them are even here at Hogwarts. Auntie said she's going to look into them all a little and make sure none of them are Death Eaters or known criminals or dark wizards," Susan said.

"And the ones that are here?" Megan asked.

"I might try to get to know what they're like and what they think about witch's rights and pureblood politics," Susan replied. "I won't be singling them out particularly because I want to know those attitudes for future friends as well as in a husband. I certainly won't be asking anyone of them out or flirting with them to try to get them to ask me on a date."

"Why not?" Hannah asked.

"Apart from the fact that you'd be watching for me to do that and gossiping about it between yourselves? I don't know how many of them know about the contract offers. I don't want to give one of them expectations they shouldn't have just to get to know them a little better if they know that I just became my own Head of House and am able to accept the offer myself," Susan said. "That's the way family feuds are started."

"Where there any reciprocated offers?" Megan asked.

"You knew about them. I'd never heard of them," Susan asked surprised.

"Yeah my parents made one for me with Dad's best friend's son. He goes to Beauxbatons, he's nice enough. I mean, I don't want to marry him, but it's not a terrible back up plan," Megan explained. "I take it there was one, since you learned about them today."

"Yeah there were a couple," Susan said.

"You know that the wizards' families also have a copy of both your contracts. Either of those families could accept the offer at any time. If you want to accept one of the other contracts, I wouldn't wait," Megan warned.

"I know they could. But they're honourable families and they gave their word just like Mum and Dad did not to do it except to protect the family from You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters," Susan said, not mentioning the fact that she didn't think either of the wizards involved could access their contracts until the end of July and that she knew one of them was seriously involved with someone else and she wouldn't really mind being married to the other after the war if they were still interested in marrying her too.

She knew that Harry would never roll the contracts together without her permission, in fact he probably wouldn't even bring it up after their disagreement a couple of months ago, and Neville wanted to marry Luna Lovegood, he wasn't going to wake up one morning and decide to force her into marrying him.

"Yes, but you never gave your word not to do it so he probably didn't either, his parents did. If you want one of those offers you could just roll them up together to activate them, and so could the wizard if they had access to them," Hannah said.

"Perhaps I could but it would be dishonourable to do that without talking to the wizard involved, our parents made those contracts to prevent us from being trapped into a marriage we didn't choose, not so I could use the contracts to trap one of them. I can't imagine Harry or Neville acting like that," Susan protested.

"You have a contract offer from The-Boy-Who-Lived?" Megan asked excitedly.

"Well technically no, he wasn't The-Boy-Who-Lived when the offer was made, since his parents were still alive to sign it," Susan said refusing to get excited. "And it isn't so surprising, our parents were comrades in arms in the fight against You-Know-Who in the last war. They probably made several offers to people they trusted, to protect their son and their friends' daughters."

"I heard Longbottom is on the brink of making a betrothal offer to Luna Lovegood," Hannah said.

"Yeah, I've heard that too. I think it's true, or at least he wants it to be, but they hadn't actually signed a contract as of this morning or the contract offer from his family wouldn't still be in my vault," Susan agreed calmly.

"You're not upset? The two of you have always got along fairly well, he is a sweetheart even if he is a bit shy, and the Longbottoms have plenty of money though he doesn't shove it in people's faces, and no younger siblings or uncles and cousins hanging about hoping to inherit or getting paid an income from the estate and thinking they have a right to stick their noses in all your decisions, and he wouldn't insist on wearing the boots in his marriage like most men would," Hannah asked.

"His grandmother would though, Madam Longbottom is one woman I wouldn't want to cross," Megan said.

Susan smiled at this description of the benefits of marrying Neville. He deserved more than to be valued for his family situation, she was glad he'd found happiness with Luna.

"No, I'm not upset. Sure, Neville's a nice guy and a decent friend though I don't know him that well, but if he's in love with Luna, I'm glad he can marry her. He's someone I could picture being good friends with but I don't want to marry a friend. I want to fall in madly in love with the wizard I marry, I certainly don't want to marry a wizard who's in love with somebody else," Susan replied. "Auntie said I don't have to accept any of the offers if I don't want to. That I can throw them all out and run off with a muggleborn, or an American or whatever I want. I'm the Head of House Bones and nobody has the right to tell me what I can or can't do. I'm not sure I want to give that up for a traditional pureblood marriage."

"You want to marry a muggleborn? Instead of the boy who lived?" Hannah asked incredulously.

"It might sound callous but I wasn't joking when I said that I'm thinking about waiting until after the war to see who survives before I make a decision. I have no desire to be a young widow left holding the baby or be killed because of who I married, I want my kids to grow up in a proper family with two parents," Susan said. "Not to mention living with the never ending scrutiny of scandalmongers like Rita Skeeter and everyone who believes what they read in the Daily Prophet."

"Of course, Potter will survive, otherwise You-Know-Who will have won," Megan said matter-of-factly.

"There's no guarantee that Harry will win. One sixteen year old boy and a couple of friends willing to fight, up against You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters is ridiculous odds," Susan retorted angrily. "Or they could take each other out and Potter could save the world but still die from his injuries. And even if he survives doesn't mean he's still going to be fit and well enough to start a family," Susan said. "You only have to look at a lot of the older Aurors to see that. They might've been hero's in the last war but they didn't walk away from the battle Scot free, physically or mentally. Remember what Professor Moody was like, would you want to be married to a wizard like that?"

Megan and the others had to admit that they wouldn't but they still couldn't imagine Harry Potter turning into a damaged and overly paranoid old wreck, he was still larger than life and totally invincible to them, they didn't see his suffering over the loss of his parents and godfather or the horrible memories he still struggled to deal with at times. So of course they couldn't conceive any possibility other than that he was going to come out of the war without any permanent harm or mental health issues.

Susan just shook her head at their naivety, but realised that would've been her view as well if she hadn't got to know Harry as well as she had. No wonder he had so much trouble trusting people, he was right most of them didn't take the effort to actually get to know him, they just bought into all the stories of the-boy-who-lived and assumed they knew him.

Part of her selfishly wished that she'd never had her eyes opened, now she knew that Harry faced unspeakable danger and he wouldn't hesitate but he also didn't believe that he could survive his final confrontation with Voldemort. He also believed that even if he did defeat Voldemort, the Death Eaters who survived the battle would all be targeting him for the rest of his life. There was no guarantee he would leave the battlefield alive even if Voldemort was defeated, and dark magic left wounds that couldn't be healed.

Now that she knew him well she was ashamed to admit that she wouldn't have thought twice about what Harry was going to have to sacrifice to bring about the end of the war. Or questioned whether it was worth it as long as it wasn't her family and friends who were killed.

-o0o-

Susan woke early next morning and decided to check in on Harry to see if she could get him to talk to her, now that she knew that she wasn't betrothed to someone else maybe it was time to start trying to repair their relationship.

Harry was in the shower.

'Morning Susan,' he thought back to her turning off the water and hurriedly drying himself with a charm so he could pull on his clothes.

'Morning Harry, I didn't mean to interrupt your shower,' Susan said apologetically though she doubted Harry heard her, he was making no effort to use his side of the bond. As soon as he was dressed he flopped on his bed and began reading over that day's lesson in his charms' textbook, as if deliberately shutting out all random or emotion based thoughts so she couldn't get a read on him.

"Studying again Harry. You're getting as bad as Hermione," Susan heard Seamus tease as she was about to leave Harry's mind.

She felt Harry shrug, "She has a point. It actually makes the spells easier to have read through the theory beforehand," he offered.

"Wow! I'll have to start doing that, the spells this year are next level," Susan heard another voice say, she thought it might be Dean Thomas.

"Hermione's been nagging us all about it since the beginning of first year, I don't find it does me much good most of the time except for DADA. McGonagall and Flitwick are pretty good at teaching us the stuff we need to know," Neville reminded them.

Susan felt Harry's embarrassment and regret and realised he'd been lying about prereading assignments improving his performance in class, and why. It wasn't only to hide that his magic was stronger, he was reading to block her out or to make sure he didn't have any personal thoughts or feelings while she was in his head, not that she'd see the thoughts anyway, it had nothing to do with trying to improve his performance in class, which didn't need any extra effort, and he wasn't deliberately using the pretence of extra studying to hide the power boost he'd received. She backed out of his head feeling guilty. Harry had finished his shower early and been studying because of her intrusion and now she'd caused him to lie to his dorm mates and give a friend false hope, when it had been removing the magical blocks nit a change in his study habits that had improved his performance in class, something the other boy couldn't do because he already had access to all his magic, he just didn't have as much as Harry had had available even before he removed the blocks.

-o0o-

Susan stressed for most of the day about how to apologise to Harry and make things better between them. It was uncomfortable being so intimately connected with someone who clearly didn't want to share thoughts with you. She decided that trying to communicate through their bond wouldn't work and she didn't want to be trying to take advantage of it since Harry seemed to be trying so hard to block her out.

She sent Harry a note asking him to meet her in an abandoned corridor on the ground floor an hour before curfew.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed and those who followed or favourited this story for your support.