Work Text:
Hannah talks and Susan stares at her; that’s how it has always been.
Eleven-year-old Hannah relates how McGonagall explained to her family that she was a witch and Susan, sitting next to her in the Great Hall on their very first day, looks at her extravagant gestures and feels relieved that someone talked to her after spending the train ride hidden behind Hogwarts: A History in an empty compartment.
Twelve-year-old Hannah declares on the station, just before they return to their families for summer, that they are best friends and will be forever. Still eleven-year-old Susan examines her face for any trace of mockery; she finds none, and she hugs her tightly.
Thirteen-year-old Hannah jumps on freshly twelve-year-old Susan’s bed, yells happy birthday, says how glad she is that they could see each other in the summer. Hannah blinks sleepily at dishevelled blonde hair, says that she can’t wait for September, in two weeks, when they will see each other all day every day again.
Thirteen-year-old Hannah tells Ernie that he is an idiot when he makes another joke about how Susan tripped on her own feet in front of professor Lupin and how she must have a crush on him and Susan wipes the stupid tears in her eyes and watches Hannah’s angry scowl as she rips him a new one.
Fourteen-year-old Hannah says that boys are stupid and that they should just go to the Yule Ball together. Susan doesn’t remind her that Justin didn’t agree to go with her simply because he asked Sally-Anne and agrees wholeheartedly. She looks at Hannah’s growing smile and doesn’t allow herself to think about why she hadn’t even planned to ask a boy.
Fifteen-year-old Hannah whispers, in the privacy of the drawn curtains around her bed, that this summer she hung out a lot with old friends from primary school. That she kissed a girl. That she thinks she liked it. Susan scrutinizes her, thinking for a dumb second that Hannah is only saying that because she knows what Susan has been wondering since last year. But it’s stupid; they’re best friends, and they can more often than not tell what the other is thinking about, but Susan can keep a secret. She even had a small crush on Dean Thomas once, and she made sure to tell her friend about it. Hannah asks, voice wavering like Susan never heard it, if she hates her for not telling her. Susan takes her in her arms, golden hair covering her eyes, and reassures her.
Fifteen-year-old Hannah looks around them and tells Susan about Dumbledore’s Army. Susan takes a look at her resolved face, doesn’t see the fear that she sometimes, more and more often, feels for her Muggle-born friend, and asks when the first meeting is.
Sixteen-year-old Hannah chokes up when she says that she’ll write as she steps into the fireplace in McGonagall’s office. Susan looks at her closed eyes and feels her heart in her throat. She doesn’t cry until she comes back into the dorm, with the empty bed next to hers, and thinks about Hannah’s nearly corporeal woodpecker Patronus yesterday, and about Mrs Abbot’s way to make her feel at home when she visited.
Seventeen-year-old Hannah screams and Susan turns just in time to see her fall on her face, a green spell coming so close from her that it burns a hole in her sleeve. Susan screams too but she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she stuns the Death Eater and has no time for checking Hannah for any injury; the battle is roaring around her to the rhythm of the blood pounding in her ears and she runs to help someone that she doesn’t recognize but must not be older than fifteen and she wants to throw up but there is no time.
Eighteen-year-old Hannah mumbles in her sleep, Susan strokes the sweaty hair away from her face and traces the ugly scar on her cheek that she refuses to fade with magic. They have been sleeping in the same bed since before they came back for the eighth year, since the summer they spent at Susan’s home, but it’s rare that they both sleep peacefully a whole night. Susan keeps her wand in her pajama’s waistband. Hannah saw it one night when she stretched and her shirt rode up. She lifted the pillows to reveal her own.
Nineteen-year-old Hannah still talks a lot, and Susan still sometimes tunes her out, but she hears her saying Tom told her he wanted to sell the Leaky Cauldron to finally retire; she hears what Hannah doesn’t say, and she hears her own voice offering to run it together. She looks at the happiness on Hannah’s face, which she doesn’t get to see as often now, as she feels the same expression on her own.
Twenty-year-old Hannah is talking to a woman at the bar. Susan sees fingers staying a second too long on the glass when she holds it out, sees the customer’s hand brush them, and slams the pint so harshly in front of Terry Boot that he has to vanish the stains on his white shirt.
Twenty-one-year-old Hannah asks if Michael and Susan would join her and Melissa for another double-date this weekend. Susan looks at the slight furrowing of her brow and admits that they broke up last week. She doesn’t develop. Three days later, she says that she broke up with Melissa. It wasn’t that serious anyway, she just says.
Twenty-two-year-old Hannah talks about the decoration she wants to put up for Halloween even though it’s only the first Monday of September, and about the first-ever holidays they could take in two weeks, when it wouldn’t be so busy, and where they could go, as if it was obvious that they would stay together, and Susan realises that it is, and that she couldn’t tire from staring at Hannah but she wants more. She leans over slowly, and Hannah stops talking and looks at her like she never had before, and they kiss.