The Tortured Soul of Hannah Abbot
All right, so yes, she fell apart when her mother died.
Wouldn't you?
If your mother was murdered by a Death Eater?
If your mother, who wasn't an Auror and wasn't a fighter and wasn't even a very powerful witch, just a nice simple woman with a nice simple job and a couple of children and some really good spells for biscuits and cake, was murdered? By a Death Eater? In this war that wasn't supposed to be happening, not when you were sixteen and wanted to be thinking about other things, but was happening anyway?
Whatever she had said to him—and she had said a lot of things, she had said some things she didn't want to think about right now—she still liked Ernie.
She was in love with Ernie.
At least, she thought she was. Sometimes it was hard to tell when you were fifteen and V-V-Voldemort was coming back and OWLs were next term and someone put his arm around you and you were both scared out of your wits but you just really, really wanted to be with him. So you did, and you didn't think.
But now that you weren't doing anymore, you started thinking, and you thought, well, maybe I was in love with him.
Maybe he was in love with me. Was in love with me.
And now he's in love with Susan. Because I fell apart when my mother died.
I guess my mother isn't coming back.
A lot of people are dead now, and none of them are coming back.
Who's going to die next?
And when is Susan going to hook up with Ernie?
Except that Susan said no. That must have been what happened. Susan said no.
Susan, the girl who had everything, said no. Susan, who was smart and good-looking and good-natured and stable, and had Ernie's eyes following her across the common room every night. Susan said no.
What is Susan up to?
Susan is sitting on the sofa, holding your hand and saying, "Hannah, Hannah, no one's going to die. No one else is going to die." And you think, how does she know that? She doesn't really know that. Someone's going to die. I feel it in my bones. Someone else is going to die.
And Susan doesn't really want to be sitting here on the sofa, holding my hand. Susan wants to be fighting. Susan could be out there, fighting, and Ernie could be sitting here on the sofa, holding my hand, instead of uncharming the porthole the minute Susan's back is turned and tramping out into the corridor with all those pesky pajama-ed first-years and second-years who just want to gawk at the show. Who don't understand what it's like when your mother is dead.
Except that Ernie doesn't want to be holding my hand. He wants to be holding Susan's hand. And if Susan was out there fighting, Susan might die.
And you really, really, really don't want Susan to die.
Susan, the girl who has everything. Susan, who is smart and good-looking and good-natured and stable, and has Ernie's eyes following her across the common room every night. Susan, whose grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins were all murdered by Death Eaters. But not her mother.
No, that's me, Hannah Abbott, the girl whose mother was murdered.
Someone is dead. I feel it in my bones. Who's dead?
I ought to be brave. I need to be brave. Like Susan.
But my mother is dead.
And I'm still in love with Ernie.
