The beginning of the fifth year. And something Susan really didn't expect at the end of the chapter.
SUSAN VII
The train chimney burst the moment Susan climbed into the Hogwarts Express. She looked behind one last time before climbing and waved her hand at her parents. They both looked very worried, although they forced themselves to smile as they silently said goodbye to her one last time.
Susan dragged her trunk inside the train. Far ahead, she saw Hannah who was bringing her own luggage into a compartment. Ernie came out of the compartment to let her best friend go in. Susan supposed that the compartment of the Hufflepuffs in fifth year was there. She progressed in that direction as other people kept pouring inside the train.
"Hey, Susan," Ernie waved at her. "You're alright?"
"Yes, Ernie. Glad to see you," Susan answered.
"Look at this." He seized a piece of his robes and showed it to Susan. A badge with a large P covering a badger from Hufflepuff was pinned on him. "I received it yesterday," he said, all proud.
"Congratulations, Ernie."
Hannah had showed it to her the moment she received her letter. Susan was happy for her friends. There had been a part of Susan who wondered if she would be made prefect herself, but truth be told, seeing Hannah with the badge was partially a relief. Her aunt had told her about her own experience as prefect, and it came with additional responsibilities in a year where they had to focus as much energy as possible on preparing their O.W.L.s. Susan preferred to focus on the brighter side of things, and she was really happy for her two friends.
"Thank you, Susan. Hannah and I…"
"Susan," her best friend interrupted Ernie then, coming out of the compartment, "you can place your luggage. I'm done."
Susan thanked her friend and went to place her trunk there. Justin and Sally, who were already in the compartment, helped her. Wayne and Megan were also in the car.
"Well, we better go," Ernie said then. "We are expected in the car reserved for prefects, and it wouldn't do to be late for our first prefect's meeting."
"Don't let the badge go to your head," Wayne said, grinning.
"I'll tell Harry in which car we are," Hannah told Susan. "This way, he'll be able to find you once we're done. The Head Boy and Head Girl should not be long with us."
Susan nodded, thanking her friend, before she and Ernie left for good. She then sat down next to Justin, on the seat closest to the corridor and farther from the window.
"So, you've had a good summer?" Justin asked everybody.
"Yes," Wayne answered. "I almost spent it all at Megan's home. Her parents are fantastic."
Megan was all smiling. Susan forced herself to smile for them. She also had a good time with Harry during the first part of the summer holidays. That had all changed after the Dementors attacked, of course.
"I spent most of it in the United States," Sally informed them. "My uncle lives in Florida. Is it true that there was a heatwave almost for the entire summer here?"
"Yes," Justin replied. "It was horrible. I was wondering when it would end. I must say, I was almost happy to return to Hogwarts."
"Me too," Susan confirmed.
A whistle was heard. Susan knew this one. It announced that the train was about to leave. Everyone, almost as one, went to the window to wave one last time at their parents. Susan struggled to find a place among her friends, who were closest to the window, and only got a glimpse of her father and mother before the train started moving. She waved at them as much as she could. She would miss them, and she would worry for them too. With Voldemort out, they were as much in danger as she was.
"I'm glad to be back here," she said though, once the families had disappeared as the train kept accelerating.
"Your parents abandoned the idea of sending you abroad, finally?" Justin asked her. Susan frowned, but then realized how Justin must have known that.
"Hannah already told you?" Susan asked him.
"She wrote to me about it. Glad to see they didn't go through with the idea."
"What do you mean, your parents wanted to send you abroad?" Sally asked.
"They thought about sending me to study in Montréal."
She pronounced the name of the city in its French pronounciation, causing the t to not be heard.
"Isn't that a village in France?" Wayne asked. "Don't tell me they wanted to send you studying in Beauxbatons?"
"No. Montreal is in North America. And this is not a village, but a city with millions of inhabitants. There's a wizarding school there. This is where my mother studied at my age. She knows people working there. I literally had to convince my parents to not send me there."
Especially her mother. She was very set on the idea of sending Susan in her homeland. Her father was a little more hesitating.
"Well, you know, you weren't the only one to who it happened," Megan said. "My father… He had some reservations about sending me back to Hogwarts."
"Really? Why?" Susan asked.
"Well… With everything going on with Dumbledore… He wasn't sure if he wanted me to come back when Dumbledore couldn't ensure our safety. With Cedric's death and everything…"
Susan's mood darkened. So there were people who truly believed the lies of the Daily Prophet. She already knew, of course, but now it was the parents of one of the girls with who she shared her dormitory. Hogwarts still remained one of the safest places in the world.
"It's true that it is strange…" Wayne acknowledged. "We don't know what happened to Cedric. As if Dumbledore didn't want to tell…"
He clearly hesitated to say more.
"He told us what happened last year," Susan reminded him.
Wayne and Megan looked at each other. Sally looked very busy staring through the window.
"Susan," Megan began, "you and Harry… are you still together? Is that really serious between the two of you?" she asked uncertainly.
"Yes, it is," Susan assured, beginning to not like the direction that this discussion was taking.
"Well… are you sure this is wise? I mean…"
"What?" Susan asked, really starting to get annoyed.
"He can be a little…"
"It's because of what we read this morning," Wayne completed for his girlfriend, producing a number of the Daily Prophet from his bag next to him. "It's on the second page." Susan had stopped reading the newspaper, but she unfolded the paper and looked at the second page since Wayne mentioned it.
LEGISLATIVE REFORMS
THE MINISTRY CLOSES LOOPS FOR OFFENDERS
The Daily Prophet has managed to get further details on the new legislation adopted two days ago. While the Educational Decree Number Twenty-two garnered a lot of reaction and coverage, giving the power to the Ministry of Magic to select a professor for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry if the actual headmaster could not fill a teaching post, this decree was only part of the legislative changes adopted by the Ministry on that day.
Part of these changes concerned various articles of the law, most of them backward and useless, that criminals and delinquents used to escape justice. Although spokespersons for the Ministry assured these flaws did not affect major cases in the past, and they were mostly implemented to reinforce and streamline the law enforcement system, some employees within the Ministry have spoken more openly about how these legislative changes would allow to avoid miscarriage of justice.
"The Ministry of Magic is responsible to apply the law and is therefore also responsible not only to enforce it, but also to respect it. And unfortunately, lately, because of loopholes in laws that have existed for a very long time and have not been modernized, offenders and their representatives who have become experts at exploiting these loopholes, have managed to escape justice," declared Percy Weasley, Junior Assistant to the Minister. "A very good example of this state of affairs is the acquittal of none other than Harry Potter from accusations of unlawful use of magic and endangering the secrecy of magic. I attended his trial as a scribe, and I was outraged, as were many other people within the Ministry, to see an offender, someone who acknowledged himself to have used magic illegally in an area inhabited by millions of Muggles, to get off without punishment."
In this case, the accused was defended by none other than Albus Dumbledore, formerly Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, who used his knowledge of the law and the loopholes it included to describe his student's actions as justified. And as the then state of the law, the Wizengamot had no choice but to clear the accused of all charges. According to Mr Weasley and a few other employees of the Ministry, with the legislative changes brought two days ago, this kind of judicial maneuvers will no longer be possible in the future.
"It is vital for offenders, no matter their origins, their family name, their age, or the support they get from influential people, to be trialed, judged and punished according to the spirit of the law," continued Mr Weasley. "For if they do not face the consequences of their offenses, then the wizarding community cannot be safe."
Susan was not impressed by the article. It was the same kind of nonsense and lies that the Daily Prophet published since June. She put it aside.
"You should stop reading this," she shortly commented.
"But… Susan… You read. They say Harry is a delinquent," Wayne said. This caused Susan to look at him, totally bewildered.
"Maybe it would be better to take your distance with him…" Megan added.
"A delinquent?" The others stopped saying anything before Susan's appalled expression. "Are you hearing what you say? We're talking about Harry. We know him. Does he strike you as a criminal?"
Megan and Wayne both looked confused, and Sally stared straight at Susan, looking afraid. As for Justin, he suddenly put some distance between him and her.
"Well… There's this thing with Diggory," Wayne said. "We don't know what happened there. What if it was Harry who…"
"HOW DARE YOU!" They jumped this time, as Susan shouted, something she rarely did. Both Wayne and Megan looked afraid of her now. "It was Harry who brought back Cedric's body! He risked his life for that! And you're accusing him of murder?!"
"Hey!" Justin said, almost quietly. "No one is accusing anyone here. We all know that Harry killed no one. That's nonsense."
Justin's words relieved her. So there was someone with common sense in this compartment. Still, she sent an angry glare at Wayne and Megan for even suggesting something like that.
"Excuse us, Justin," Megan said. "Only, when reading this article… I mean, Susan, you knew that Harry had a trial this summer?" she asked, a questioning look on her face.
"Yeah," Wayne supported. "You have to admit this is strange. We've got the right to ask questions and to obtain answers."
"Answers?" Susan said, this in a low, unbelieving voice.
She was beginning to be really fed up. Over the last month, she was attacked by Dementors, had her testimony of what happened that night questioned by everybody, was forced by her parents to stay home at all time, and even threatened to be sent to another country. They even forbade her from telling what had happened to her. She was fed up.
"You want to know why Harry ended up in trial? Very well. I'll tell you. It's because we were attacked by Dementors!"
Wayne and Megan were caught off guard, and Sally didn't look any better. In fact, Sally looked terrified now.
"Dementors?" Wayne asked, unbelieving.
"Yes. They attacked us, in the middle of a Muggle alley. Harry was forced to use a Patronus Charm to push them away. You remember that silvery stag he created during the first task last year? That's a Patronus. This is what he created. This is the only way to deal with them. If he had not created one, we would both be dead right now. And the Ministry found nothing better to do than to accuse him of illegal use of magic. And when we both told them what happened, they didn't want to believe us. But you will not read it in the Daily Prophet, because the Ministry prefers to depict Harry like a liar, only because Harry says things that bother them."
The whole compartment was silent for a while after she was over telling them what happened. Finally, Megan broke the silence.
"Are you sure… there were Dementors?"
"Yes. You remember how we felt when they inspected our compartments two years ago? Well, I felt the exact same thing that evening. So no, this was not people posing as Dementors. They were real."
Wayne and Megan looked at each other, at a loss.
"Susan…?" Sally asked, sounding very uncertain. "You were really attacked? By Dementors? There were Dementors wandering in London?"
"I doubt they were wandering and fell on us by chance, Sally, but yes, there were Dementors in London," Susan answered, bored that everyone asked her if this truly happened.
"But… what were Dementors doing in London?" Wayne asked. "I thought they were supposed to be at Azkaban. How did they end up there?"
"And are you okay, Susan? Did they hurt you?" Sally asked, looking concerned all of a sudden.
"Yes, I'm fine," Susan replied. But the truth was she still had nightmares, even nearly a month after the attack. "As for what the Dementors were doing in London, well, I suppose someone sent them there."
"Who would have sent Dementors in London?" Megan asked, quizzical. "And why? Why would someone send two of them in the capital?"
"Probably to kill Harry."
Her declaration was welcomed by a stunned silence. "To kill Harry? But…" Wayne had a strange expression. "Why? I mean, okay, Harry is kind of particular, but… Someone would go to such lengths to send Dementors after him?"
"It wouldn't be the first time someone would try to kill him," Justin commented.
"But come on, if someone wanted to kill Harry Potter, he could simply wait to cast him a Killing Curse when he doesn't expect it, like how Professor Moody showed us last year. That doesn't make any sense to send Dementors after him. And who would be able to send Dementors?"
"Him," Susan simply responded.
"Who, him?" Megan asked. Susan realized her mistake. She couldn't say aloud the name of Voldemort, but she refused to call him You-Know-Who or whatever pseudonym indicating they were afraid to say his name.
"You-Know-Who?" Justin then asked. Susan stared at him. He looked terrified. "Wait… You think it could have been him who…"
"Last year, when Dumbledore discussed with Cornelius Fudge after the third task, he warned him that Dementors could defect. It seems like it's already happening."
Justin and Sally exchanged terrified looks. As for Megan and Wayne, they looked just as uncertain as before. Megan then spoke up.
"Susan, I believe you if you say that Dementors attacked you… But that You-Know-Who sent them after you and your boyfriend… That seems impossible. You-Know-Who has been destroyed long ago. Perhaps those Dementors escaped the Ministry's control, like two years ago during that Quidditch match. That doesn't mean…"
She left her conclusion unfinished. But Susan understood very well. They didn't believe that Voldemort could be back. They believed the lies of the Daily Prophet and the Ministry. Susan shook her head.
"I'm going to take a stroll in the corridor," she said, discouraged, standing up.
Justin seemed about to say something, but no sound came out of his mouth. Anyway, Susan didn't want to hear anything he might have to say. Right now, she wanted to be alone. She needed to be alone. After she closed the door of the compartment, she heard Wayne ask.
"Do you think they were really attacked by Dementors?"
It seemed that people indeed refused to believe.
She went to walk along the train, hoping it would clear her mind. Instinctively, she seized a lock of hair and… She shook her head. She often brushed her hair while thinking about something that troubled her, so the movements of the action had become almost mechanical. But she had no comb or brush right now, so she let go of her hair.
The last month of summer had been very difficult. After the Dementors' attack, Susan had kept having nightmares about the attack, and about the memory of her family's slaughter that resurfaced. She wanted to get rid of it, but the voices of her grandparents begging her mother to flee, of her cousins being killed, of her uncle dying populated her nights nonetheless. She had been lucky once to not have made a similar nightmare for three nights in a row. But the nightmares were only the tip of the iceberg.
Her parents prevented her from leaving the Abandoned Tower. In itself, she understood and even agreed. She didn't think she would have dared to go outside in the weeks following the attack, and she was never really the kind of person to go out regularly. It was mostly their refusal to let her testify at Harry's hearing that had angered her. She needed to tell what had happened. She was there. But her parents didn't want to have troubles with the Ministry of Magic, with Fudge being in power and his actual behaviour towards Harry. They had refused to let Susan testify when Dumbledore came to ask them a few days after the assault. But Dumbledore had left discreetly a special piece of parchment, on which she only needed to write a word if she wanted him to know she wanted to testify. The evening before the disciplinary hearing, she wrote she wanted to testify on the parchment, and a few words had appeared to tell her to be ready early the next morning. Dumbledore had come to bring her to the Ministry while her parents were still sleeping, and she had gone with him.
The hearing itself had been a challenge. The way her aunt told her about the trials, and what she recalled from Pettigrew's trial she attended two years ago, Susan always had the image of a well defined procedure, where everyone was free to speak one after the other. Instead, the Minister kept interrupting everyone, not wanting to hear anything that could prove Harry's innocence. It was clear that Fudge only wanted to condemn Harry, and he didn't care whether he was guilty or not. It made her sick. He went so far as to claim that Susan had been lying during her testimony, claiming that her Trace didn't register the spells Harry cast near her.
Susan had always loved her aunt. She was her godmother, and she always loved when she came home to visit them. But that day, she had loved her more than ever. She summoned the employee of the Improper Use of Magic Office that registered Harry's use of magic that evening. Under oath, the employee, Mafalda Hopkirk, finally recognized that Susan's Trace had indeed indicated the same charms as Harry's, at the same hour and the same place. Her aunt then summoned Alan Atwater, the Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office, who finally confessed he hid the information about Susan's Trace detecting the spells. He claimed it was obviously Harry who was guilty of misuse of magic, not Susan, so there was no use in reporting the results of Susan's Trace. She saw how displeased her aunt was that such information was hidden. Then Dumbledore drove the nail in the coffin by reminding how the Ministry initially ordered Harry's expulsion from Hogwarts and his wand's confiscation, exposing to the entire Wizengamot how the case was mishandled since the very beginning, and how certain members of the Ministry broke laws and regulations to condemn Harry. After that, her boyfriend was easily exonerated.
Susan didn't have time to talk with Harry after the trial was over. Her aunt ordered to follow her right away, and when they left the courtroom, Harry and his mother were already gone. She did not miss Cornelius Fudge discussing with Lucius Malfoy though. It made her sick to see this former Death Eater… No, to see this actual Death Eater discussing in a friendly way with the Minister of Magic. Her aunt brought her back to her office, and there she asked Susan to confirm everything she said during the trial, which Susan did. She then called Susan's mother so she could bring her home, and both her aunt and her mother had a good discussion when she arrived. Her aunt was angry that they didn't tell her right away that Susan was attacked by Dementors. But the most disturbing words were when her aunt declared that there was a possibility that Susan had been targeted by this attack, not Harry.
Susan had time to think about it over the following days. She hadn't considered the possibility that Dementors might have been there to attack her personally. She was sure that they were sent by Voldemort to kill Harry. This was the theory that made the most sense. On the other hand, her aunt was the person saying that there was a possibility, however small it was, that Susan might have been their target. It was true that they didn't know for a certainty who sent the Dementors yet. And there were these words from Dumbledore during the trial.
We must ask ourselves why somebody within the Ministry ordered a pair of Dementors into that alleyway on the second of August.
Susan had not thought about this. Could someone within the Ministry have given the order? She wasn't sure, but seeing how Fudge behaved during the hearing, how he looked so determined to condemn Harry, even going as far as to circumvent the law, and how not only her parents but also her own aunt looked afraid of the Ministry now… Maybe someone within the Ministry had wanted to get rid of Harry. There was no lack of people within it who despised him, for sure. But if the order came from the Ministry… Susan's aunt had made some enemies over the years. Although she was very respected, Susan knew that her aunt was also despised by some people. She had political enemies. Could someone go so far as to send Dementors against her niece? It looked extreme to Susan, but considering the turn that the Ministry took recently, it might not be as impossible as she would previously have thought.
So she remained inside for the rest of the summer. She wrote to Harry a little, but it was hard to discuss with him by letter, especially considering that now, she received the same treatment he complained about before. His letters could not tell much. At least, Hannah lived in the same building, so Susan saw her on an almost daily basis.
An investigator from the Ministry had come to ask her questions the day following the disciplinary hearing. Apparently, her aunt had indeed taken the situation very seriously. She had begun an official investigation on the attack Susan and Harry suffered.
The days following the hearing had been easier. Susan was relieved that Harry was cleared of all charges. This removed a huge weight from her mind. But now her parents were seriously considering sending her in Quebec to continue studying there, in the school her mother attended at the same age. Susan had a huge argument with them when she learned of it. She finally convinced them to let her stay at Hogwarts. She had spent the last four years of her life there. All her friends were going to that school. This was the year of her O.W.L.s. It wasn't time to change school. This was where Harry was too. She didn't want to be separated from him. She finally managed to convince her parents that with Dumbledore as headmaster, Hogwarts was the safest place for her.
And now here Susan was, following the corridor of the train, dealing with the fact that people she knew, people she considered to be friends, actually believed that Harry and Dumbledore were crazy when speaking about Voldemort's return. What were they doing of Cedric's murder? Of the Dementors' attack last month? Of Bartemius Crouch's revelations when he left office? Of all the events that took place since they arrived at Hogwarts, from the Philosopher's Stone in their first year to the riots at the Quidditch World Cup last summer? What about the fact that Albus Dumbledore believed it? Did they truly trust Cornelius Fudge, a Minister of Magic who awarded himself the Order of Merlin, First Class, although his career and accomplishments were considered pretty normal by everyone at the time and even today? Susan couldn't believe that people were falling for all those lies, especially when the Ministry of Magic was failing to provide explanations for Cedric's death or the riots, and dissimulated that Barty Crouch Junior was alive and free for nearly an entire year?
She crossed the path of a few students on her way, though most of them remained within compartments. From the windows, the tall buildings and towers of the city had been replaced by the small houses of the suburbs. Susan knew that soon, the train would run across the countryside and everything they would see would be farmlands, forests of trees and isolated cottages. Susan knew the scenery by heart. It was the fifth time she made this journey at the very same moment of the year, in addition to the identical trips she made when returning from winter holidays, and the others from which she left Hogwarts and did the journey in the opposite direction. She had marvelled at it the first time. She remembered how excited she was to finally go to Hogwarts four years ago. She marvelled at the passing landscape back then, sitting next to the window in the compartment she hared with Hannah and other students she didn't know. Hannah had quickly made friends with everybody in their compartment while Susan needed to be addressed directly to join the conversation. Today, the landscape was as beautiful as before, but Susan couldn't make herself marvel at it like the first time. Though she still was happy to go to Hogwarts, being reunited with all her friends, with her bed in the Hufflepuff dormitories, with the teachers she both appreciated and who sometimes bored her, with the other people in the Choir, with the park surrounding the castle… The school was like a second home for her, as much as it was for almost every student.
For a moment, Susan wondered what her life would have looked like without Hogwarts. How would it have gone if she had attended her mother's school, for example? She would have spent the years living there, in a school where she would have used on a daily basis a language that, although she mastered it, wasn't her language. She would have been separated from her best friend since she was five or six, Hannah. Would she have made friends as easily without her? Most of Susan's friends were also Hannah's, and they had been Hannah's friends before becoming Susan's as well. How different her life would have been?
Susan moved to the side of the corridor to let a student get through the corridor with a very huge trunk. She wondered what he could be carrying with him to have a trunk that was so large that Susan had to flatten against the wall for the trunk to only scratch her legs. When she looked ahead again, she saw Cho Chang emerging from one of the compartments and walking in the opposite direction as to where Susan currently was.
Susan thought about calling her. She didn't know Cho personally, but like everyone else at Hogwarts, she knew that this girl had been dating Cedric Diggory when he died. Susan remembered spotting them during the Yule Ball, whispering to each other during dinner, then dancing under the music of the Weird Sisters. When she saw them evolving on the dance floor, looking like the happiest people in the world, Susan had been momentarily slightly jealous of them, wanting to experience the same thing. It was ironic that it was a little while later, at this same ball, that she experienced something similar, although she didn't completely understood it on the moment. Today, Cedric was dead, and Susan's relationship with Harry was rocked by Voldemort's return and the Dementors' attack.
As Cho Chang walked along the train and Susan did the same at a distance from her, she decided to not call the girl. Susan couldn't even begin to imagine what she was going through. Her boyfriend was assassinated. She had seen his body when Harry brought it back. Susan had feared the worst when Harry and Cedric reappeared from the maze, after so long. She was afraid that something terrible happened to them. She was right. Only, Susan's boyfriend survived. Cho's didn't. Susan didn't see how she would be able to say anything that would make her feel better. She barely knew Cedric's girlfriend. And she would feel quite uncomfortable discussing with Cho, especially if the conversation turned towards Cedric's death.
After Susan entered a new car, she heard a strange, loud suction noise, almost akin to an explosion. She stopped in her track. Cho Chang turned on herself, and she looked surprised to see Susan. But Susan barely gave her any attention for she noticed something green against the wall of a nearby compartment, where the sound seemed to be coming from. She went there and opened the door.
The scene in front of her was not one she would have expected to see on the Hogwarts Express. A thick, putrid, stinking, green liquid had splashed all over the compartment where four people were sitting. The girl the closest to Susan, sitting on the left, had risen her arms to protect her face, but the top of her hair was covered in such a way she seemed to be wearing a small green hat. Lowering her arms to see who entered, Susan recognized the face of Ginny Weasley, Ron"s younger sister.
"Should I be asking what just happened?" Susan asked, very uncertain.
"It's my fault," a boy on her right said, on the opposite seat, holding a green plant in his hands. "I never tried it before," Neville apologized. But Susan had noticed someone else's presence in the compartment, who despite how his entire face was covered with the green liquid, she recognized instantly.
"Harry, are you fine?" she asked as he wiped the lenses of his glasses.
"Yes, I think so. Hi, Susan," he replied. He looked a little embarrassed. Susan couldn't hold back a smile at the situation.
"Don't worry," Neville said. "Stinksap is not poisonous. It's not dangerous."
"Never mind," Ginny then said. "Scourgify!"
The green liquid completely disappeared in an instant, right when Susan realized she had walked into the cabin just deep enough for her shoes to dip into the liquid on the floor.
"Okay. So, what happened?" Susan asked again.
"It's this," Neville said, showing up the small plant he held in hand. "A Mimbulus mimbletonia. I received it for my birthday. I tested its defense mechanism, but… It was more than I expected."
Susan guessed so. She looked to Harry. "You don't mind if I stay?"
"No, of course, not," he replied immediately, looking very happy all of a sudden.
Susan went to close the door of the compartment. She noticed Cho Chang going back where she came from as she closed it, then went to sit between Neville and Harry.
"You're alright?" Harry asked her, taking the hand she laid on the seat next to him.
"Yes, I'm fine," she assured. She looked around the compartment. Aside from Harry, Neville, Ginny and herself, there was a fourth occupant, but the girl remained hidden behind a magazine held in a reverse position. Susan decided to not bother her and instead asked about the people who were absent. "Where are Ron and Hermione?"
"In the prefects' car," Harry answered.
"With Ron probably getting bored to life by what the Head Boy must be telling them as we speak," Ginny said, laughing.
Susan was a little surprised by the information. "Your brother is prefect?" she asked Ginny.
"Yes, he is," Ginny replied. "Fourth in the family." She said it with an expression that Susan judged to be somewhere between annoyance and pride.
Susan looked to Harry. She was surprised. Yesterday, when Hannah had received her letter with her badge, she had come pounding at Susan's door right away to show her. Susan had been somewhat relieved she wasn't chosen. It was harder for her to communicate with people. Hannah was more sociable, easy to speak with. Hannah was very excited about the prospect of being prefect. It hadn't been long before they received a letter from Ernie to announce them that he was made prefect as well.
Although they didn't talk much about it, Hannah and Susan assumed that Harry was made prefect of Gryffindor. After everything that happened since he arrived at Hogwarts, especially last year's events, the two girls both thought it was an evidence. Susan never thought a single second that Ron could be chosen as prefect. For Hermione, this was no surprise, and in Susan's view, more than deserved… but Ron?
Susan thought about asking why it was Ron who was made prefect instead of Harry, but she decided to not voice her opinion. Ron's sister was there, and Neville and Harry were his friends. Considering the mixed opinion she had about Ron ever since he broke up in a rather spectacular, public and childish manner with her best friend, Susan was afraid such a conversation could end badly. So instead, she turned the conversation towards something else.
"Did you receive your letters from Hogwarts only yesterday you too?" she asked. They all nodded, even the girl hiding behind her magazine, although she remained hidden. "That's strange. Usually, we receive them about a month in advance."
"Fred and George say that Dumbledore had a hard time finding a new professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts," Ginny explained, talking about her twin brothers who played on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
"Really?"
"Are you that surprised? Of the three I had since I arrived to Hogwarts, the first ran away with a ruined reputation, the second one was forced to resign after everyone discovered he was a werewolf…" At the mention of this, guilt filled Susan. She still regretted the role she played in Professor Lupin's departure. "And the third one was locked up in his own trunk for months."
"Not to mention the one who died," Harry added.
Susan shivered at the reference to Professor Quirrell. She still couldn't believe that her very first professor tasked with teaching them to defend against the dark arts shared his body with Voldemort himself.
"No wonder no one wants the position," Ginny concluded.
"Who do you think it's going to be?" Neville asked.
"No idea. But at least, Dumbledore found one," Harry said.
Something came up in Susan's mind at this moment. Something she read only a few minutes ago, when Wayne and Megan showed her today's edition of the Daily Prophet.
"Is it Dumbledore who chose the new professor?" she asked.
Everyone looked at her skeptically. "What do you mean?" Ginny asked.
"Well, I just read something earlier. That the Ministry adopted a new law giving it the power to choose a professor if Dumbledore could not find one. The law was adopted two days ago… and we received our letters yesterday… so…"
Harry was the one to react the most violently to the news. "Wait, the Ministry can choose teachers now?"
"Only if Hogwarts' headmaster cannot find one," Susan specified.
"You think that the Minister of Magic chose our new professor?" Neville asked.
"I don't know. But the timing is odd, don't you find?"
"I wonder who Fudge could have named," Ginny said, an expression of disgust on her face. "Whoever that is, it cannot be good."
"No," Susan, Neville and Harry said together.
They continued to discuss until the food trolley arrived. They all rushed on it, Susan being almost the first. She knew that if Hannah was here, she would shake her head while laughing at her best friend grabbing anything to eat before everyone else. About fifteen minutes later, Ron and Hermione arrived in their compartment.
"I'm starving," Ron said, taking a Chocolate Frog from their piles and dropping on the seat in front of Susan, between Ginny and the other girl, still hidden behind her magazine. He looked as if he had a horrible morning.
"Hi everyone," Hermione said. "There are two prefects in the fifth year for each house."
"Yes, I know," Susan said. "Ernie and Hannah are prefects for my house."
"Yes," Hermione confirmed.
"And guess who is a Slytherin prefect?" Ron asked them.
"Malfoy," Harry muttered.
"Of course," Ron confirmed.
"And that complete cow Pansy Parkinson," Hermione added with disdain and hatred. "How she got to be a prefect when she is thicker than a concussed troll… Even Hannah didn't understand. Almost all the other girls in Slytherin have more brains and better marks than her."
Susan shared their disgust at the news. And she wasn't surprised that Hannah disapproved as well. Both Pansy and Hannah were girls with a large circle of friends around them, but any resemblance between the two stopped there. Pansy and her so-called friends spent their time intimidating and mocking other people. As for Malfoy, Susan couldn't believe that the very same year that Harry wasn't made a prefect, the son of a Death Eater, who was exactly like his father, got the same position.
"Who are the prefects of Ravenclaw?" Harry asked.
"Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil," Hermione answered. She was the only one still standing in the compartment. "Ron, give me some space. I would like to sit down as well."
"There is place on the other side," he complained.
Susan found it quite inappropriate to say, given that both sides currently had three people sitting, and those on Ron's side each occupied less space. Hermione seemed to think the same, as she almost kicked Ron in the leg to push him against the girl reading her magazine, leaving enough space for Hermione to squeeze between him and Ginny.
"You went to the Yule Ball with Parvati Patil?" the girl behind the magazine suddenly said.
She was speaking to Ron, and everyone looked at her as she did so while lowering slightly her magazine. The girl had a lunatic gaze, with unkempt, disheveled, very long, blond hair. It was as disheveled as Hermione's.
"Yeah, I know I did," Ron replied uncertainly.
"She didn't enjoy it very much," the girl informed him. "At least, that's what her twin sister said. Padma didn't think you treated her sister very well, because you wouldn't dance with her. She went to say that she would rather have seen her sister dating her ex again." Susan felt a little uncomfortable about this. Looking at Harry, who avoided her gaze, it was obvious he was uncomfortable with the declaration as well. His former relationship with Parvati was not something they usually talked about. "I don't think I would have minded. I don't like dancing very much."
And the girl returned behind her magazine. That was odd, and everyone in the compartment except her seemed to think so.
"Luna," Ginny said. "Luna Lovegood. She's in the same year as I am, but in Ravenclaw."
The family name was familiar to Susan. Her gaze went to the magazine Luna Lovegood was holding. It was upside down, but by trying to read the title, Susan managed to decipher it. The Quibbler. It then dawned on her.
"Are you the daughter of Xenophilius Lovegood?" Susan asked her.
Luna lowered her magazine once more. "You know my father?" she asked, still in her dreamy voice.
"No, but… I heard about his… magazine."
Susan slightly hesitated to call it this way. In her family, the Quibbler was more often than not the subject of jokes, and not at all considered a serious magazine. Its articles went from subjects such as non-existing magical creatures to conspiracy theories that were all craziest than the others. Once, her mother brought back an article that claimed the Ministry of Magic of Quebec was in fact a cover for the American and Canadian magical authorities, with the final objective to surround the province with a wall of Bubblegums to observe the effects of long-time exposure of these candies on a large population. Both Susan and her mother laughed for hours about this theory, so unbelieving it seemed.
Luna, in the meantime, kept looking dreamily at Susan. She did it for so long that Susan began to feel uneasy. Then Luna Lovegood simply returned to reading it, like this, as if nothing happened.
"Well, anyway," Ron then said, "we're done with the introduction speech of the Head Boy. I thought it would never end."
"It barely lasted an hour, Ron," Hermione reminded him.
"If we want to spend an hour listening to someone making us drowsy, we have the professors during class hours. Or Percy, for anyone stupid enough to listen to him. But anyway, now we're only supposed to patrol the corridors every so often." His face lightened up at this moment. "And we can give out punishments if people are misbehaving. I can't wait to get Crabbe and Goyle for something…"
"You're not supposed to abuse your position, Ron!" Hermione warned him. Susan had to admit that she agreed. As much as she despised those Slytherins, she disapproved using positions of power to use it unfairly.
"Yeah, right, because Malfoy won't abuse it at all," Ron mocked.
"That doesn't mean we must do the same as he does," Susan then said.
"Come talk to me about it when Malfoy gives you a detention for being redheaded," he retorted. "You believe that he's not going to target you?"
"Susan is right," Hermione agreed. "You must not stoop to his level."
"I'm not stooping at Malfoy's level. I'm just going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine."
"You're only going to make things worse, Ron."
"So what? We do nothing and let Malfoy make laws in the school?"
"Why not?" Susan asked. "Anyway, there are teachers and the other prefects. If Malfoy goes too far, he'll be reprimanded."
"By who? Snape? Let me doubt it."
Susan knew that her arguments were weak. But she couldn't condone behaving the same way as someone like Draco Malfoy. It went against everything she believed in.
They kept talking about whether or not Ron and Hermione should trap Malfoy and his friends before he did, until the door of the compartment opened. The air immediately turned cold and tense when the boy with pale blond hair, now bearing a prefect badge, and two brutes behind him appeared on the doorframe.
"What?" Harry asked aggressively.
Susan didn't feel any warmer towards the intruders than her boyfriend was. No one in this compartment held any good feeling towards them.
"Manners, Potter," Draco Malfoy warned, swaggering, his badge positioned in evidence on his robes. "Or I'll have to give you a detention. You see, I, unlike you, have been made a prefect. Which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments."
"Yeah, but you, unlike me, are a git, so get out and leave us alone," Harry shot back, causing everyone in the compartment to laugh, though Susan was a little afraid. It wasn't the best thing to insult someone else. She sometimes talked back to such people herself, but she may regret it afterwards.
"Tell me, how does it feel being second-best to Weasley, Potter?" Malfoy moved to.
"Shut up, Malfoy!" Hermione retorted.
"I seem to have touched a nerve," Malfoy now smirked.
"At least, we can be sure that Ron and Hermione didn't pay to become prefects," Susan shot. "How much did your father pay Snape to get you a badge?"
Malfoy seemed furious at the insinuation. But he quickly smirked again. "And you, Bones? I was surprised it was the queen of gossips that got the badge in your house. Perhaps your family name isn't worth much anymore."
"At least, none of my ancestors is suspected of murdering a minister. I wonder how Fudge would react if we reminded him of this."
"Well, that's the thing." Malfoy stared at all of them. "Unlike you all, my family knows how to choose its friends. And so does the Minister."
"Yes, that's why everyone wants to throw up when they see you with your mother," Harry said, standing up and slapping the door of the compartment shut on Malfoy's furious glare.
The son of Lucius Malfoy walked away, to everyone's relief.
"You told me last year that Lucius Malfoy thought about sending his son to Durmstrang, Hermione, didn't you?" Susan asked.
"Yes," she confirmed.
"I wish he did," Susan muttered.
"It would have been so easy to make him fall from an iceberg and make it look like an accident," Harry added as he sat down between her and the window. Even Susan had to admit that right now, she wouldn't mind much if it happened.
"Well," Ron said, standing up after finishing yet another Chocolate Frog. She looked at all the old papers he removed from his pants. And Hannah who thought that Susan ate too much wherever something was available. "I'll go patrol. I'll try to get Crabbe and Goyle while Malfoy is not looking."
"Ron!" Hermione protested.
"What? You're going to stop me. How? You may think I didn't listen, but prefects cannot give detentions to other prefects. That, I got it from the Head Boy."
And Ron walked out. "I'm surprised he was even listening," Hermione said. "I'll follow him and try to stop him if he tries something stupid."
She left as well.
"What a pair of prefects we have for this year," Ginny commented.
"Yes, they're quite funny," Luna said, still hidden behind her magazine.
"What should we do if Malfoy gives us a detention?" Neville asked.
"Maybe complain to the professors?" Susan offered.
"Very good idea," Ginny ironized. "I'm sure Snape will love to hear us complain about his little pet."
The discussion eventually moved away from the Malfoy matter. Neville talked a little further about his plant. Ginny and Harry talked about Quidditch, a discussion Ron joined whenever he came back into the compartment. Hermione, Harry and Susan discussed their classes for this year and how they expected O.W.L.s to go. Luna Lovegood kept staring dreamily at each and everyone of them after she folded her magazine.
"We better change," Hermione said after a while as darkness settled over the train and they were approaching Hogwarts.
"I better go then. My luggage is in another compartment," Susan said, standing up.
"I'm accompanying you," Harry offered.
"Harry, you should change as well," Hermione reminded him.
"It will not be long," he replied, leaving with Susan. She didn't protest his coming. She felt that there was something he wanted to tell her.
Indeed, after a few steps, he asked the question.
"Are you alright? I mean, really fine?"
He didn't need to specify what he was talking about. "Yes, I'm fine, Harry," she assured. The Dementors' attack was not that long ago, but she was okay. "The first days were hard, but… It got better after the trial. Thank you for writing to me."
"Sorry for not writing more."
"I think we both know you couldn't tell more," Susan replied, understanding. Still, she admitted that she wished they could have told each other more in their letters. "Can you still tell me something about what happened in August?"
"Well… There was a party when Ron and Hermione got their prefect badges. Moody was there. The real one. He said that Dumbledore must think that Ron and Hermione are ready to receive many jinxes to make them prefects."
Susan laughed lightly. "Well then, I'm glad you didn't get the badge."
"It's okay. It's only a badge. My mother was a prefect, did you know?"
"No. I had no idea," Susan sincerely replied.
"She says that I will not be envious of Ron when he will have to watch over the first-years during their free time."
"Yeah, I guess so," Susan said, still smiling. "My father was never prefect. As for my mother, well, I'm not even sure there is a prefect system in the school where she went. She never talked to me about it, so… Was your father prefect?" she asked out of curiosity.
"No. But Remus… Professor Lupin. He was one."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"Apparently, Dumbledore thought he could get my father and my godfather in line. But he confessed that he failed miserably," Harry went on, smiling as well.
"You believe that Ron will manage to get his brothers Fred and George in line?"
From Harry's expression, it was clearly an impossible mission, and one he would gladly watch his friend attempt and fail. "I think that it will be a job for Hermione."
"First, she will need to turn Ron into a true prefect, and it might be an even harder job."
Susan was first afraid of his reaction, but Harry laughed at that as well. It had been some time now since Susan truly laughed. But this time was over as they reached the compartment where she put her luggage.
"It's here," she said. "We see each other on the platform?"
"Okay. See you later."
They kissed briefly before separating. It did Susan tremendous good. She realized that it had been almost a month since they did such a simple gesture. She hadn't dared to kiss him in front of Ginny, Neville and Luna Lovegood. She didn't feel comfortable kissing in front of other people. Though when she opened the door and entered the compartment of the Hufflepuffs in fifth year, she had the distinct impression some of her friends saw them.
"Here you are," Hannah said, as if she had been waiting for her the whole trip. This may be the case, after all.
"We're almost at Hogwarts," Ernie said. "You should change."
He and Hannah had indeed already put on their robes and pinned their badges on it. Susan found that Ernie wore his a little too proudly.
"That's why I came back," Susan replied. "My luggage is here."
"Wait, I'll help you," Hannah offered as the two girls struggled to get Susan's trunk from the nets. "So, how's Harry?"
"He's fine," Susan replied shortly.
"Before you arrived, we were all saying how it was good that he came back to Hogwarts this year, and that the Ministry judged him fairly. Aren't we?"
Susan didn't miss the insistent look Hannah threw at Megan and Wayne, who both nodded. Susan had a pretty good idea of what went on in her absence. Hannah lectured them and forced them to apologize to Susan for what she viewed as an unfair behaviour. Her best friend had been doing that for a very long time, ever since Muggle elementary school, whenever she felt Susan was mistreated by someone. Susan was grateful to Hannah for that, but she sometimes wished that people like Wayne and Megan acknowledged their wrongdoings and mistakes themselves, instead of having someone else force them to do it.
"Hannah and I will have to supervise the debarkation at Hogsmeade," Ernie informed them. "Amanda was very clear about it. One of our first responsibilities as prefects." His voice betrayed both excitement and a feeling of duty.
"It's not going to be hard," Hannah added. "There are never any problems with the arrival at Hogsmeade. Well, except maybe three years ago, when we realized that a train car was missing once inside the station."
Susan remembered this one. She luckily wasn't part of the students who were stuck on the track, but Harry and Hermione had been. The way all the students from this car flew on broomsticks for hours to reach Hogwarts had been the main topic of conversation for weeks afterwards.
"Don't be so sure, Hannah," Justin said. "Our first year, I think I remember someone threw a Dungbomb not long before the train stopped."
"That was only an accident," Hannah brushed away.
"Justin is right. We must be ready for everything," Ernie said.
Susan thought that Ernie might be taking his role a little too seriously. He was the extreme opposite of Ron.
"If I was you, I would keep an eye on other prefects," Susan warned. "You know, the kind of prefects who might abuse their authority."
Hannah and Ernie obviously didn't need to stare at each other for long before understanding who Susan was talking about.
"Don't worry, Susan," Ernie assured. "If Malfoy tries anything funny, we will deal with him."
"And with Parkinson too," Hannah added.
They looked as pleased to see them as prefects than Hermione was.
"It is true that I wouldn't have chosen Parkinson as prefect," Megan said. "Why not choose Daphne? At least, she has the decency of behaving politely with everybody."
"Remember that when it comes to Slytherin, Professor Snape is choosing prefects," Hannah pointed out.
"It's true that I always heard he treated Malfoy like his personal pet," Wayne commented.
Hufflepuffs might disagree on things between them, but their common view of Slytherin was quite negative, given the students of this house easily mocked and laughed at the Hufflepuffs.
The train eventually slowed down. Ernie and Hannah had to leave early to supervise the students as they left the train. Susan, Justin, Sally-Anne, Megan and Wayne followed them not long after. Landing on the platform of the Hogsmeade station proved difficult, as it was flooded with hundreds of students coming from all the United Kingdom and Ireland struggling to make their way through a human sea towards the coaches that would bring them to Hogwarts for the welcoming feast. The crowd was so thick that Susan quickly lost her other friends and was forced to move forward with the hope that she would catch the people she was looking for later.
When she was close to the coaches, Susan kept looking for someone she knew. Then she spotted Hermione.
"Hermione!"
Her friend turned to Susan, though she didn't seem very happy. "Here you are, Susan. You won't believe what I just saw. Malfoy was just horrible with a first-year. And he's only had his badge for three minutes yet."
"Should we be surprised?" Susan asked, skeptical.
"Probably not. But I'm going to report him nonetheless. Have you seen my cat? Crookshanks?"
"No," Susan replied.
"One of them must have… Wait, they're here."
Susan followed Hermione's gaze, and she was glad to find Harry, Ron and Ginny. Ron's sister was holding Hermione's cat in her arms.
"Thank you, Ginny," Hermione told her, recuperating her cat. "Come on, let's get a carriage together before they all fill up."
"You're coming, Susan?" Harry asked. She nodded.
The five of them headed towards the coaches and climbed into one just as Susan watched Malfoy and his friends pushing away younger students to get to a coach more quickly. Most of the trip to Hogwarts was spent discussing Hagrid. The others looked worried that he wasn't on the platform when they arrived. Susan had not noticed it. It was strange, indeed. Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper, was part of the institutions at Hogwarts. Even Susan's father once told her about him. He had led Susan with all the other new students in her first year to travel the lake.
Once in the Entrance Hall, Susan was forced to part ways with Harry and the others to go at her own table. She wished a good evening to Harry and went to join her other friends in Hufflepuff. She found Wayne and Megan discussing. They suddenly went silent and forced themselves to smile at her the moment she sat down between Justin and Sally.
"Did you notice if Hagrid was absent tonight?" Susan asked them.
"Hey, it's true," Justin said. "He wasn't there to conduct the first-years. It was a woman instead."
"Perhaps he is ill," Sally said. "Or perhaps… Do you think he might have been fired? Or that he resigned?"
"Why would he do such a thing?" Susan asked. "He's been in Hogwarts forever. Perhaps as long as Dumbledore himself."
"True. My parents knew him when they were students here," Sally pointed out.
"He's not at the staff table," Justin said, looking at it.
Susan looked at it too. Indeed, the massive presence of Rubeus Hagrid was missing. Most of the other teachers were there though. Professor Sprout was discussing with Professor Flitwick, while Professor Snape was conversing with Dumbledore. The Professor McGonagall, the Head of the Gryffindor House, was not here, most likely busy escorting the first-years. Instead, Bathsheda Babbling, their professor of Ancient Runes, was discussing with…
Susan froze. She felt as if something heavy fell into her throat. Professor Babbling was talking with another woman. A woman who Susan knew quite well. But what was she doing at the staff table? She looked at the Gryffindor table. No one seemed to have noticed anything. Hannah arrived at this moment.
"I recant what I said earlier," she sighed. "Managing the arrival at Hogwarts is a nightmare. I hope things went better for you."
Susan turned to her friend. "Hannah. Did you see who's at the staff table?"
Her friend leaned forward to better look at it. After a moment, the same shock expression than the one Susan must have had seconds earlier appeared.
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