She has resolved, after a summer with Hannah pestering her, to say hello to Harry on the train this year. To strike up a conversation. To make her presence known.
She might as well be walking through a brick wall, she tells Hannah.
"Well, that's not fair," says Hannah. "We're witches. We probably can walk through brick walls."
Susan thinks that this is not the point.
She shares a compartment with Hannah and Terry as they did last year (this time Terry has swapped his chocolate bars for Sugar Quills, but Hannah still has her lollipops). They are joined by Ernie and Justin, who have nothing to swap until the trolley gets there. They are shared with anyway.
"Go find him," Hannah whispers to her when the train begins to move. Terry overhears.
"Go find who?" Terry wonders. Hannah giggles.
"Nobody," says Susan quickly, casting Hannah a dark look.
"Yes," agrees Hannah unconvincingly. "Nobody."
Terry looks downtrodden, but says nothing. He's always been a discrete sort of person, and it makes Susan want to tell him about Harry.
But not yet.
She moves to leave just as Anthony Goldstein and Michael Corner enter the compartment.
"Hello, all," Michael says pleasantly. "Have you heard the news yet?"
"Probably not," says Hannah, coldly, "as we've all been here. What is it?"
"Harry Potter's not on the train!" he says excitedly, sitting next to Terry and taking one of his Quills.
Susan feels a mixture of relief and fear. At least she doesn't have to go talk to him, but what if something's happened?
Michael continues, "I've just seen Hermione Granger looking for him and the Weasley boy, and she can't find them anywhere. She says they were with her when they got here, but never came through the barrier. Do you believe it?"
He's been kidnapped, Susan thinks, kidnapped by Death Eaters and he's in trouble and he's going to die and -
She is stopped by Terry's tiny voice of reason. "Perhaps something was wrong with the barrier. He's probably just sitting at King's Cross waiting for somebody to find him. After all, what can happen at King's Cross with all those wizards taking their kids to school? Someone would notice something, after all."
Terry has no idea what he's done to make Susan breathe easier, but Hannah does.
"Yes," says Hannah with a mild comforting note in her voice, "he'll probably be at the start of term feast, no trouble at all."
She glares at Michael Corner, who doesn't know what he did. Anthony Goldstein laughs.
Susan does not think flying cars are a responsible means of transportation, especially when being driven by someone who cannot avoid trees. She finds herself upset at Harry for being so reckless, until she remembers he's in Gryffindor and these things are to be expected. She then also remembers that Harry does not answer to her, as she has still never spoken to him.
Susan also hates Quidditch. It is a dangerous sport and should not be played when there are cursed Bludgers on the loose around the grounds. What kind of irresponsible team Captain allows a boy to be chased by a Bludger around the Quidditch pitch without doing anything? And what kind of teachers takes the bones from a person's body?
Susan hates Oliver Wood, and hates Lockhart all the more, and feels awful that she sighed over his good looks on the first day.
She is doing well in her classes, and has allowed Terry to teach her to play chess. He's quite good, being brilliant, and Susan is very bad. Terry is a modest winner though, and never makes her feel like she has done something wrong.
Susan wonders, sometimes, what it would be like to be in another House. She thinks Slytherin would make her cry, having to live in the same room as Pansy Parkinson. Ravenclaw might be fun, although the girls are snooty sometimes, and Susan isn't sure she's smart enough. Gryffindor, she doesn't think about. It is too good for her. She is no where near brave enough for Gryffindor.
The truth is, Susan isn't sure that if there hadn't been a House like Hufflepuff that she would have been Sorted at all. She isn't cunning like Parkinson or wildly intelligent like Terry or brave like Harry. Hufflepuff was all that was left. It was for the ordinary people who don't have anything to set them apart, and Susan is completely normal.
Unlike Hannah, who tries to cover up her normalacy by studying like a maniac, Susan is rather proud of it. After all, she likes Hufflepuff. She belongs here, with Hannah and Ernie and Justin, though sometimes she wishes Terry were with them.
Susan feels torn apart, because how is she supposed to belong here when Harry belongs in Gryffindor? Isn't she supposed to belong with him? She resolves to always love Harry, even if she can't belong with him. She knows he is too good for her.
Susan is scared. She has never been this scared before. She is scared for herself and for her friends, and she is scared for Harry who is being blamed for it all.
She comforts the first years as best she can, because it helps her to tell them it will all be all right. She never lets Hannah out of her sight, and neither does Ernie, after Justin goes and comes back as a statue. Terry walks them to class when he can, and she makes sure that Anthony watches out for him.
Despite what Ernie says, she knows that Harry would never do this.
Cedric Diggory and his friends watch over the younger Hufflepuffs, and Zacharias doesn't like it. "You may be my captain, but you are not my mother," he informs Cedric, and stalks away on his own. Susan is sure he'll be the next to be attacked, since he is always by himself, but he is not. Hermione Granger is next.
Ernie stops talking about Harry.
"At least he apologized," says Hannah in Ernie's defense. "Most people didn't even bother."
Susan reminds herself that Hannah had defended Harry to Ernie, saying that he "seemed nice," and so doesn't press the issue. She also doesn't speak to Ernie for a while.
Susan has never been afraid like this before. She is afraid to turn the corner, she is afraid to go to class. She is afraid she'll never see her mother again. She writes home every day, and her mother always writes back. She doesn't talk about the attacks, but about normal things, and her mother does the same, thankfully. Mrs. Bones does sign every letter with Be careful, Susie! but Susan appreciates that she is her mother, and has to say things like that.
"Susan, may I tell you something?" says Terry in the library one day.
"Of course, Terry." Susan stops reading for a moment and smiles at him. He is blushing.
"Well... you see... I just wanted you to know, in case something happens, that you're my best friend, you and Hannah of course, and that I was scared the first day on the train, but that you made it all better, and that if you hadn't said I could stay I probably wouldn't have any friends and... just... please don't die, okay?"
He says all this quite fast, and Susan is stricken. She thinks that Terry is afraid, possibly more afraid than she is, and that perhaps fear is collective.
"You're my best friend, too, Terry," she tells him, "and I am not going to die."
He has never looked so happy.
"Harry Potter has a hero complex," says Zacharias as they are walking down to the end of the year feast. Susan cannot help but gush her pride at Harry's rescue of the little Weasley girl. "He can't just let teachers find the girl, no no. Here he comes, to save the day! Thank God for Potter."
Susan glares and opens her mouth to protest, but Ernie, to her surprise, is quicker.
"In case you haven't noticed," he says, "none of the teachers had any idea what was going on. If Harry hadn't found her, she would be dead."
Zacharias frowns but says nothing. Susan shoots Ernie a grateful he doesn't understand, and sits down at the Hufflepuff table.
Harry is with Ron Weasley at the Gryffindor table, and is congratulated upteen times before the feast has even started. He grins and allows the praise, but there is something that is making him sad. Something in the way he pauses right before he puts the fork in his mouth, something about the way he watches the doorway. Something that is fixed as soon as, halfway through the feast, Hermione Granger comes running up to them to give Harry and Ron hugs that could strangle a moose.
Of course, Harry was worried about his friend, and of course he would hug her back, but Susan has never wanted to be Hermione more in her entire life.
She tries not to stare at Harry, because he is beaming at Hermione and because she must say goodbye to all her friends. She watches as Justin and Calvin Summerby arm wrestle and knock a pitcher of pumpkin juice over. She notices, for the first time, that Hannah blushes every time Ernie says her name, and when Terry, Anthony, and Michael come over to say hi, that Terry looks relieved and happy and that he hugs her and Hannah like Hermione hugs Harry. Susan, who didn't lie about being his best friend, hugs back just as hard.
The feast is almost over when Susan realizes she isn't scared anymore.