There had been a horrible scene the day before, when Hannah Abbott was taken out of Herbology to be told her mother was dead. They had not seen Hannah since.
-- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, chapter 11
I've noticed that several fan sites are assuming that Hannah Abbott is gone for good, and this makes me sad. I believe she'll be back, for, as J. K. Rowling has consistently pointed out in Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince, people die, the survivors learn to live with their grief, and life goes on.
After the Funeral
When the Galleon, the enchanted Galleon that Hermione had given her, throbbed in her pocket, she felt it. And she wanted to go. Ernie didn't want her to.
Her name was Susan Bones. She was pretty, she was bright. Her aunt had been head of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry. Her uncle had been a prominent member of the Order of the Phoenix. If the wizarding world had had an aristocracy, the Boneses would have been it. They were well-off, but more than that, they were famous. The citations, the decorations.
The graves.
Infant aristocrat though she was, Susan had been born into a family that was falling apart. She was named for her grandmother, who was murdered just before she was born. Her earliest memory—it felt like a memory—was of visiting her Uncle Edgar's house. One fire and five dead bodies; in the kitchen, her mother screaming. Except that that had also happened before she was born, so it must have been a photograph or something.
Why would anyone take a photograph of five dead bodies?
The day after the Death Eaters broke Azkaban, nine-tenths of the Hogwarts student body unfurled their copies of the Daily Prophet and read, Geoffrey Jugson, convicted of the brutal murder of Edgar Bones, his wife, and family. And she was an instant celebrity. But Susan unfurled her copy of the Daily Prophet that morning and read, Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom. And she thought, oh. She had noticed, long ago, that Neville didn't seem to have parents. That was a little odd, if you thought about it. Most people did have parents, even if they were dead. Now, staring at the Daily Prophet, she thought, oh. Maybe my family was lucky after all.
Tonight, standing in the Hufflepuff common room, she felt the Galleon throb in her pocket. She would have bet anything that Ernie wasn't even carrying his. She walked straight across the room and thrust it in his hand.
He looked at her.
"It's the signal. Outside the Room of Requirement, now."
"Susan, I've got a ream of potions homework to finish tonight."
"Ernie, it's hot. Ernie—I think this might be real."
"Susan, you aren't going."
"You signed the parchment, Ernie. We all signed. Harry told us what we were getting into. You said—you said it was the most important thing—"
"Susan, that was last year. It was—there wasn't a war on last year."
Oh, right, Ernie. You only fight prissy incompetent teachers. You only fight when there isn't a war on. Is that what you mean?
Hannah had broken up with him after her mother was killed. Ernie didn't want to listen as much as Hannah wanted to talk. In private, he complained Hannah was depressive, morose. Hannah was obsessed with the war.
Hannah says you're insensitive, and you run to me for comfort?
Pardon me, Ernie, but Hannah's not the only one who's had a murder in the family. Hannah's not the only one with dead bodies on her mind.
"Ernie, this is serious. Things have happened here before. Two years ago—the Triwizard Cup. Last year—there was that battle at the Ministry of Magic. Harry went to save his friend—"
Ernie stroked his upper lip, where he liked to think he had a moustache. "Harry is in an unusual position, Susan. Harry has—unusual powers. We all know that. What he decides to do, isn't a good guide for us."
"Hermione and Ron—"
"Hermione's brilliant. She was doing NEWT-level work before she passed her OWLs. And Ron—Ron's his best mate. Can't stand to be left behind. But I'm a prefect, and I—"
"Bet you Neville goes." She had no idea why she'd said that. Why Neville?
Ernie laughed. "Neville would be even less help than we'd be."
"Bet he goes anyway."
Ernie was the sort of boy her parents liked: intelligent, responsible, ambitious. And most of the time he was the sort of boy Susan liked, too. Most of the time.
Now, in the silence that unfolded between them, she rebelled. She gathered up her books and parchment, and she said, over her shoulder, "I'm going, Ernie."
He grabbed her wrist. "Susan, don't go."
"I'm going, Ernie."
"Susan—"
Ernie had almost kissed her, last Saturday night. That had to mean something, because he wasn't usually very sociable around exams. He tended to get a little obsessive, before exams.
She would bet that if she lifted a finger he'd do it again.
"Ernie," she said quietly. Ernie, take your hand off my wrist.
"Susan! I l-lo-like you."
She couldn't believe what he'd almost said.
She didn't know he felt like that.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
She tossed her head. She carried her books and parchment to the sixth-year girls' dormitory. She put on stout shoes. She replaited her hair. She tucked her wand in the pocket of her cardigan.
When she came back, the porthole wouldn't open. He'd done something to the door. She rattled it three or four times, and Hannah burst into tears.
And so, all through the night, as the Battle of Hogwarts raged in the Astronomy Tower, Susan Bones sat on the sofa in the Hufflepuff common room, holding Hannah Abbott's hand and telling her—not really believing, but telling her anyway—that no one was going to die.
But as she talked on and on, in a placid, soothing tone, half her brain kept thinking that Harry and Ron and Hermione were out there fighting. Even Neville—why did she keep thinking about Neville? She just had this feeling that Neville was there. Neville was fighting the people who were the reason she didn't have grandparents. The reason she didn't have cousins. And she was sitting on a sofa, with her wand in the pocket of her cardigan, saying, "Hannah, Hannah, no one's going to die. No one else is going to die."
Turned out she was wrong about that.
In the morning, when the battle was over, after Ernie had undone whatever it was that he had done to the common room door, Professor Sprout told them that Albus Dumbledore was dead. And Ernie fainted.
She left him to Hannah. She shouldn't have done it, but she did. She ran to the infirmary. She needed to see who else was injured. Who else was dead.
At the far end of the room, there were screens around a bed. At the near end of the room, Neville Longbottom, in frog-print pajamas, was rubbing his eyes.
"You were there," she said.
"I didn't really do much," said Neville. "Death Eaters kept shooting spells at me, and they kept missing, and then I went flying and hit something and passed out."
"But you were there." It was the only thing she could think of to say. She sounded like an idiot. A gawky adolescent fool, in front of—Neville Longbottom? But he was there.
Her name was Susan Bones. She was pretty, she was bright. If the wizarding world had had an aristocracy, the Boneses would have been it.
And now, after the funeral, she stood alone, under a tree beside the lake, staring after that chubby, clumsy, brave, and winsome boy, Neville Longbottom, and seeing him for the first time.
