The Malfoy Project

𝟗𝟔 - 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐎𝐤𝐚𝐲 𝐈𝐈

༻⚜️༺      

     I found out what happened to Susan during the Battle of Hogwarts.

     It was just as she said — she had run.

     The explosions, the stampeding of the creatures shaking the ground beneath her; it was all too much to bear. So, when no one was looking, she turned and fled, abandoning her friends in the courtyard to be swarmed by Voldemort's army.

     She eventually found her way to the kitchens by default, the only place she knew to be safe, where she shut herself in an empty cupboard under the sinks and remained crouched in the darkness until the fighting ceased.

     It was from this hiding place that she, through a crack in the doors, witnessed a Death Eater chase Gryffindor student Katherine Wilkins into the room, and there, subjected Katherine to acts so unspeakable that the exact details of her torture are only meant to be spoken once, heard once, and then never again.

    Salazar knows why she chose to share this information with me. Perhaps it was knowing that I had also betrayed my side, that she hadn't been the only one who had no desire to self-sacrifice for a friend — a dastardly sentiment for a Hufflepuff, and one which makes her no different than traitors like me.

     That is why I will not be recording it down. The only places it will live in are my memory and my heart. It exists as the single string that ties the lives of a boy like me to a girl like Susan; binding two lost stars adrift in a sea of millions.

     "It's not fair, you know," Susan finished quietly, though her eyes were bright. "It's not fair that my friends treat you with kindness and hospitality. You, a bona fide Death Eater. They wouldn't do the same for me if they found out I had the chance to help Kate and didn't."

     "That's not true," I said. "Our pasts don't make us who we are." I recalled Ainsley saying this to me once, or I might've made it up. Either way, I fully believed it.

     "That only applies to people who've had bad pasts like you," Susan returned. "It doesn't work the other way around."

     I hated to admit that there was an inkling of truth to this, so I made no reply. Susan gave a small huff and leaned her back against the door, and neither of us said anything for a moment.

     I broke the silence first. "Susan, would you turn back time if you could?"

     "Maybe," said Susan.

     I don't know why, but I decided to tell her about the Time Turner. It just felt like it was something I had to do. It felt right. I told her what I wanted to do, and the reasons for it. Like Ernie, she offered neither support nor protest, only nodded slowly, as if she'd been expecting to be told this information all along. (Besides being bad shots, it appears Hufflepuffs also carry the unfortunate burden of being good listeners.)

     "Ernie is wrong," I said. "He wants to let her get hurt again." Susan cocked her head to the side, her blue eyes regarding me keenly. "Do you really think that?"

     I thought about it for a minute. "No, but he thinks I'm trying to control her. That isn't what I'm trying to do at all. I just... I just want to make things right. "

     "Alright, fine," said Susan. "Say you use the Time Turner to fix this. Then what? Are you going to keep using it to fix every inconvenience in your life?"

     "Of course not, but this is different."

     "It's always going to be different. So, my question is, when does it stop?"