Bones to Bones

"Susan? Susan? Are you listening to me, Susan?"

"What?" said Susan, looking up from the Transfiguration book she'd been attempting to read in bed. "What is it Hannah?"

"I asked you a question Susan. What's a switching spell?" sighed Hannah, taking a seat next to her.

"Well, you know, it's a spell that switches things."

"That sounds like the kind of answer I would give, are you sure you're all right? You haven't seemed like yourself lately," asked Hannah worriedly.

"I'm fine. Just sort of worn down with everything happening," Susan insisted.

Hannah looked dubious, but didn't say anything else. Susan knew why Hannah seemed so doubtful. She wasn't quite sure how to describe it, but she didn't even feel like she was the same person she had been. She hadn't felt right since the day that Dumbledore's Army had broken up several weeks before. She'd been tired and listless, she'd lost enough weight that her clothes didn't fit quite right, and she'd had trouble concentrating on her schoolwork.

Susan wasn't sure which was worse, the contact with Umbridge, or the lack of contact with her aunt. Susan hadn't seen Dody since that awful day she'd seen her aunt, and when she'd sent Agatha with a message, the only reply she'd recieved was a short, pointed, note wondering how her schoolwork was going. On the other hand, she'd seen entirely too much of Umbridge over the last fewweeks. The Dark Arts professor hadn't said a word to her outside of class, but that didn't mean that she hadn't made her feelings well known to Susan. Every time she saw Susan, whether in class, or around the school, she'd broken out into that same foul, victorious smile she'd flashed after Aunt Amelia had yelled at Susan.

"Susan! Susan! You're doing it again!" said Hannah, digging an elbow into Susan's ribs. "If you wouldn't mind coming back to our planet, it's time to go eat breakfast."

As Susan and Hannah walked down to breakfast, they ran into Cho, who had an extremely sour look on her face. When Cho saw them, she pursed her lips and glared at Susan. However, just before Susan could speak, she felt Hannah's hand on her forearm. Susan turned to Hannah, who looked Susan straight into the eyes and shook her head. Susan sighed and turned to follow Hannah to the Hufflepuff table, her dark mood returning as quickly as it had left.

Settling down at breakfast, Susan hardly heard the usual hustle and bustle of breakfast at Hogwarts. About three bites of food was all that she had managed to get down before she found her mind wandering again. She looked up and was a bit surprised to see that Harry had a look as preoccupied as the one she imagined she was wearing.

"Would you stop that Susan? I don't know why you're mooning over Potter like a lovesick puppy!" snorted Zacharias who had joined them without Susan even noticing. "He's not so special after all. His nearly getting us all expelled should be enough proof of that."

Anger burning away her mood once again, Susan retorted, "It wasn't Harry. It was Edgecombe, and her little defender Chang! It's their fault; if it wasn't for them none of this would have happened! You know it's the truth! I wish that Granger had put a better curse on the parchment! Maybe Edgecombe's nose should be a foot long or something! Maybe Chang's hair should have fallen out!"

"Susan!" said Hannah, looking alarmed, while Ernie and Justin looked on in dismay. "Why can't you let it rest? None of us are happy about it, but Cho didn't turn us in after all."

"She's defending her isn't she? I just don't see what Cedric ever saw in the little cow!"

"Susan?" asked a soft voice from behind her. "I don't understand. You've taught me that loyalty is important, so why is Cho being loyal to her friend such a bad thing?"

Susan was about to snap back, but caught herself and after a deep breath answered, "Rose, yes loyalty is important, and that's why I'm so upset. I guess you could say that Cho is being loyal to a friend, but look what that friend did. She's a traitor, a promise breaker. There's nothing lower than that. That's not the sort of person you show loyalty to."

Rose stood there a moment, looking at Susan, as if she were trying to gather her courage. "I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you are being fair to her," she said at last. Susan felt her fists clench beneath the table as she fought down the impulse to yell at the young girl. She might have anyway, except the looks she got from Hannah and the boys made it clear that they weren't about to let that happen. Afraid to say anything else, Susan began to pick at her breakfast again.

A few moments later, she was surprised when Justin jabbed her in the arm. "Susan, what do you make of that?" he said, pointing at the Ravenclaw table. Looking across, she saw that there seemed to be a lot of tension at the table this morning. Most of the older students looked like they'd gotten very little sleep, and they looked downright grumpy. The truly odd thing was that most of them were clustered down at the end of the table furthest from the Professor's table, while Terry and Anthony were by themselves as far away from their classmates as they could get.

"I wonder if something happened last night?" said Susan, blinking as she saw Padma Patil nodding towards Terry and Anthony, before joining her sister at the Gryffindor table.

"You know, Cho did look really angry this morning," said Hannah. "I think you might be right. I wonder what it was about?"

Leaving breakfast, they were surprised to find Terry and Anthony leaving right behind them. "Didn't take you two long to eat today," said Justin.

"Yeah, well, you can eat pretty quickly when you aren't talking," said Terry. Both Terry and Anthony had bloodshot eyes, and it was pretty obvious they'd barely slept the night before.

"What's going on?" asked Justin.

"Oh, is it that obvious?" said Terry ironically. "Major blowout last night. It's been building ever since the betrayal. Most of the house wants to lynch Granger for what she did to Edgecombe. You know, we have to protect our own and all of that."

"Of course, there are a few of us whose heads were as much in the noose as anyone because of what the fool did," said Anthony darkly. "She betrayed us as much as anyone else, but do they care? No! Quite the shouting match though. Most of Ravenclaw against the two of us and Padma."

"Well, Loony was there too you know," said Terry.

"Well, yeah, she floated in and out. No one ever really knows what she's thinking though, so I guess I didn't count her, though she was in the same boat. Well, suffice it to say that right now, we aren't very popular with our own house."

Susan felt Hannah grab her forearm, as if to say "stay out of it." Susan looked at Hannah in annoyance, wondering just when she'd decided to appoint herself Susan's keeper, but didn't say anything.

The rest of the day seemed to take forever to go by, yet Susan found she could hardly remember most of it. She was in bed that afternoon, lying on her stomach, still trying to sort out the definition of a switching spell when Hannah came upstairs, insisting that she had to come down.

"Susan, how could you have missed it?" said Ernie enthusiastically.

"What now?" sighed Susan.

"The Weasley brothers, you know, the twins?" explained Hannah. "They just left school!"

"It was awesome! One second they are cornered next to the swamp, and suddenly they were gone!" added Justin.

"Hold it. Leave school? Swamp? What are you talking about? Start at the beginning, would you?"

"Well, you know how those two are always into practical jokes. Well, this one was great!" enthused Ernie. "I'm not sure how they did it, but they put an instant swamp in one of the corridors! Oh, the old troll came running along with her lackeys, but the twins outfoxed her. One second she is ready to have old Filch flog them, and the next they are on their brooms and out the door!"

"Oh, and that salute by Peeves!" Hannah laughed. "It was the funniest thing I've ever seen!"

Susan sat there blankly, as the others went on with this aspect and that of "the great escape" as they were calling it. They'd already forgotten that Susan was sitting there, and that was fine with her. She couldn't explain the empty feeling that hearing the news had left inside of her. All she knew is that she had a little voice in her head accusing her. "You said we shouldn't show any loyalty to the frog, but what have you done about it? Hide in your room?" Sighing, Susan went back up to her room and flopped onto her bed, far away from the laughing.

+++

A few weeks after the "great escape", Susan was in the common room, trying to stay awake through a chapter of the Dark Arts book. Tim and Zacharias were over in the corner, laughing and joking. They'd been getting along much better ever since the Gryffindor game, and now Zacharias was the big Quidditch hero of Hufflepuff. The weekend before, they'd managed to beat the hated Slytherin team in a close contest. Zacharias had only scored two goals the entire game, by far his lowest output of the season. However, his passing had set up no less than ten other goals by the other chasers, and Hufflepuff had held a narrow lead all game long until Tim was able to catch the Snitch and set off the biggest party Hufflepuff had seen since the night Cedric's name had come out of the Goblet.

"Why don't you join us Susan? Than you wouldn't need to read that drivel," asked Ernie.

"Huh, join you? Join you for what?" asked Susan in confusion.

"Susan, what is with you lately? You always seem to be off in your own little world. Either that, or just hiding in your room. We're going to skive off of Dark Arts today. We still have a few snackboxes we picked up before the Weasleys left. What'll it be, nosebleed or fever?" said Justin.

"I'll pass," said Susan quickly.

"Why? Don't tell me you want to go to Dark Arts? No one in their right mind would want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in the presence of that troll," said Ernie.

Susan shook her head and said, "I'm not going to skip, got it?"

"What is going on Susan? It's as if Umbridge broke your spirit!" whispered Justin harshly.

"Not Umbridge," mumbled Susan.

"What was that? I didn't understand," said Justin.

"Not Umbridge," said Susan more clearly. "I'm under strict orders to keep out of trouble from Aunt Ameila."

"So? It's not like she's here after all. Come on, it will be great!"

"No, I can't, I can't get in any more trouble with her," said Susan, trying to keep from crying.

"Susan? Are you all right?" asked Hannah, glancing at Justin.

"I can't stand to have her this angry with me," said Susan quietly. "She's much more than just an aunt. She's almost like a second mother. Did you know she lived with Mum and I while Dad was in the hospital? I could care less about the froglady. I wouldn't care if she grinned at me all day, every day for a month, if only I knew my aunt was proud of me. Listen, have your fun. I just can't join you."

"Oh, Susan," said Hannah enfolding Susan in a hug.

Not long after, Susan found herself to be one of only two students in her Dark Arts class. Everyone else had begged off with fevers, vomiting or bloody noses, and a few had even been daring enough to combine the effects, with some rather nasty results. Susan was reading the same chapter in the textbook that she'd dredged her way through earlier that day, and didn't find the reading to be any more interesting or enlightening than it was the first time. It didn't take long before she found herself totally unable to concentrate on the lesson, as that little voice had popped back up in her mind. "Coward, you talked big in the council, but aren't even able to do something small like this. What, you think she's going to expel the entire school? Everyone is doing this."

The next day was the last Quidditch game of the year, between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Even though Hufflepuff had won two games, they found themselves out of contention for the Quidditch Cup. That lessened the interest in the game amongst the Hufflepuffs, but going out on a nice Spring day was still better than yet another morning hunched over books, trying to revise for the rapidly approaching exams. Also, Susan had to admit that she was rather hoping that Cho would make a fool of herself again. She'd had a bad season so far, and Susan was quite looking forward to seeing the season come to an unpleasant end. It was sort of a pity though that Gryffindor didn't stand a chance, since they had such a rubbish keeper. Ron seemed like a nice guy, but when it came to Quidditch, he should have stayed in bed.

The game had barely gotten started, when Ron let the first bad goal of the game through. Susan and Hannah were sitting just across the aisle from the Gryffindors, and the groans were nearly deafening. Suddenly, Hannah giggled and pointed across to the Gryffindor section, where Harry and Hermione were maneuvering their way down the seats to leave. Susan looked back at Hannah, and saw her friend wink with an impish smile. Susan knew what Hannah was thinking. She'd heard the rumors about those two, and Hannah probably figured they were taking the opportunity to spend a little "quality time" together. Susan wasn't so sure. The looks on their faces were surprised and confused, and she rather doubted that they would be surprised and confused about something like that.

When Susan turned back to the game, she saw Draco Malfoy strutting up the aisle as if he owned the world. Without thinking, Susan yelled out "Hey, ferret! Sit down, you're blocking the view!"

"What was that Bones?" snarled Malfoy. Susan saw that Malfoy was so intent on her that he didn't even notice Potter and Granger slip away out of the stadium.

"I said, stop pretending that you own the world and sit down so that the rest of us can enjoy the game without seeing your ugly face in the way."

"Careful Bones, or I'll have to take some points away from Hufflepuff," smirked Malfoy.

"Oooh, take points? Whatever will we do? That's not much of a threat Malfoy. We all know that with you and your Inquisitorial goons on the job, there isn't a chance that anyone other than Slytherin will have a single point at the end of the year."

"Fine, fine. I guess we'll just have to arrange for some detention. Perhaps Professor Umbridge can teach your some respect. Come with me Bones," said Malfoy with a broad grin.

Looking at Hannah, Susan saw that her friend had turned pale, but she gestured for her to stay put. Trying to put thoughts of the next letter from her aunt in the back of her mind, Susan followed Malfoy. Each step seemed to take an eternity, as Draco led her in triumph to Professor Umbridge. However, that particular fate was not to be, when Draco's litany of potential punishments was interrupted by a silky smooth voice.

"What do we have here, Malfoy?"

"She was showing disrespect to me Professor Snape, so I'm taking her to Professor Umbridge. After all, we can't have the Inquisitorial Squad disrespected," said Malfoy smoothly.

"Oh, no, we can't have that. However, I'll deal with her punishment Malfoy, no need to bother our good Headmistress with such a petty affair, is there?"

"But, Professor, I'm sure she'd want to do this herself!" drawled Malfoy.

"Are you saying that I am incapable of appropriate punishment?" said Snape, a touch of menace in his voice.

"Oh, no sir, no sir!" said Malfoy quickly.

"Very well then, why don't you go watch the game. I'm sure Weasley will provide entertainment. As for you Miss Bones, you should come by my dungeon tonight after supper. Now, get back to the game yourself."

As Snape turned and swooped away, Susan felt a nearly overpowering urge to run up and kiss him. She wasn't going to face Umbridge again after all! A Snape detention was nasty, but she was sure she could deal with it. As she headed back to watch the remainder of the match, she heard a great cheer, and a chorus of the song the Slytherins liked to sing about Ron Weasley. Much to her surprise though, it turned out it was the Gryffindors singing it, as they had won the game and the cup.

That night, Susan sat in the Potions dungeon, preparing Runespoor scales. It was a rather tedious procedure, as you first had to skin the three headed snakes before soaking the skins in a foul smelling potion. Then, you would take a knife and run it over the soaked skins, catching the scales in a tray. As she worked, Susan wondered where Potter and Granger really were going. In the end, she decided that it couldn't have been anything truly important. However, that didn't keep her from whistling as she scraped away at Runespoor skins.