Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2018 1:53:51 GMT
[trigger warnings: death, war, ptsd, war-typical injuries, living on the run.]
SUSAN CATHERINE BONES
** 24 -- DMLE WORKER -- BRITISH -- SINGLE **
"I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me"
prologue
The Bones family has not been a lucky one. They suffered in the last war, killed for their active stance against You-Know-Who.
Susan was the first grandchild. Now she is the only grandchild, her cousins killed in their beds by the Death Eaters, whilst her aunt and uncle fought their master. They did not kill her parents - they were in hiding, with thirteen month old Susan - nor her aunt, ensconced in the Ministry.
Susan does not remember her family, but her parents do. Her father and aunt grieve for their brother, and every year there is a quiet day of remembrance.
Susan's life has been tainted by blood since before she can remember.
Susan was the first grandchild. Now she is the only grandchild, her cousins killed in their beds by the Death Eaters, whilst her aunt and uncle fought their master. They did not kill her parents - they were in hiding, with thirteen month old Susan - nor her aunt, ensconced in the Ministry.
Susan does not remember her family, but her parents do. Her father and aunt grieve for their brother, and every year there is a quiet day of remembrance.
Susan's life has been tainted by blood since before she can remember.
act one
She grew up aware of who had been loved and lost. It's hard not to, when there's still photos around the house, her aunt gets that haunted look on her face when anyone mentions the war and her parents are ridiculously protective of her.
She's not allowed to go outside the house on her own until she's nine, not even to walk down the street to her friend's house. And even then, her mum watches from behind the living room curtains.
Still, she grows up loved, and wanted, and cherished. Her parents never fail to let her know her much they love her, but they don't shy away from punishing her when she breaks rules, either. They're fair but firm, and they love her.
When her parents had work, her Aunt Amelia would babysit. She'd take her to work with her, and Susan would sit on the floor of her office and play with the silver gavel. She left a dent in the underside of her aunt's desk once, and Amelia just laughed. When she got older, and could be quiet for longer, her aunt would let her sit under her desk in court and listen. There's tradition, structure in the law, and a young Susan found comfort and strength in it. These days, she sees how the system can be corrupted, turned rotten from the inside out.
She learned a lot from her aunt. Justice, and hard decisions, and mercy. She learned that it's as important to follow the spirit of the law as it is the letter. She learned that the law does not have answers for everything. She learned that it needs improving.
The law creates structure. Susan can understand that. Her life has always been structured - her family have an easy routine, and clear rules, and carefully laid out punishments for when those rules are broken. There's an order of things, and that order makes life work the way it should. She struggles, when the order's broken, and things change.
It's hard to adjust to it.
But she tries. Because she is a Bones, and the Bones do not go down easy.
She's not allowed to go outside the house on her own until she's nine, not even to walk down the street to her friend's house. And even then, her mum watches from behind the living room curtains.
Still, she grows up loved, and wanted, and cherished. Her parents never fail to let her know her much they love her, but they don't shy away from punishing her when she breaks rules, either. They're fair but firm, and they love her.
When her parents had work, her Aunt Amelia would babysit. She'd take her to work with her, and Susan would sit on the floor of her office and play with the silver gavel. She left a dent in the underside of her aunt's desk once, and Amelia just laughed. When she got older, and could be quiet for longer, her aunt would let her sit under her desk in court and listen. There's tradition, structure in the law, and a young Susan found comfort and strength in it. These days, she sees how the system can be corrupted, turned rotten from the inside out.
She learned a lot from her aunt. Justice, and hard decisions, and mercy. She learned that it's as important to follow the spirit of the law as it is the letter. She learned that the law does not have answers for everything. She learned that it needs improving.
The law creates structure. Susan can understand that. Her life has always been structured - her family have an easy routine, and clear rules, and carefully laid out punishments for when those rules are broken. There's an order of things, and that order makes life work the way it should. She struggles, when the order's broken, and things change.
It's hard to adjust to it.
But she tries. Because she is a Bones, and the Bones do not go down easy.
interval
Well, what do we have here?
Susan jumped a little at the voice - her parents had told her of what the Sorting consisted of, but the voice still surprised her - and she swung her legs on the stool a little nervously. "I'm Susan, sir," She replied quietly, hands folded neatly in her lap.
"Sir, hmm? I like that. A Bones, are you? Susan nodded, sitting patiently. Just like your aunt, I see...A strong belief in justice and fairness. She flushed at the compliment - there was nobody she wanted to be like more than her aunt. "And hardworking, too...well, better be HUFFLEPUFF!"
Susan hopped off the stool and hurried over to the Hufflepuff table with a grin - she'd sort of guessed that's where she'd end up, and there was nowhere else she'd rather be.
Susan jumped a little at the voice - her parents had told her of what the Sorting consisted of, but the voice still surprised her - and she swung her legs on the stool a little nervously. "I'm Susan, sir," She replied quietly, hands folded neatly in her lap.
"Sir, hmm? I like that. A Bones, are you? Susan nodded, sitting patiently. Just like your aunt, I see...A strong belief in justice and fairness. She flushed at the compliment - there was nobody she wanted to be like more than her aunt. "And hardworking, too...well, better be HUFFLEPUFF!"
Susan hopped off the stool and hurried over to the Hufflepuff table with a grin - she'd sort of guessed that's where she'd end up, and there was nowhere else she'd rather be.
act two
School was a change. Susan was used to leaving the house every day for her lessons and coming home to her parents - now, she was hundreds of miles away, sharing a room with four other girls and living in the same building as her teachers. Her mother sent letters upon letters, fretting about her - she knows now that there had been very long, very serious discussions about sending her away in the first place - and her father sent words of encouragement and love.
She was snappy and surlish, the first month of term, unable to make the adjustment to a whole new routine. But she did adjust, eventually, and every time she went home and came back it took a little less time to adapt. She doesn't like it, but she deals with it. She spends more time with her Housemates once she's out of her funk, and finds everlasting friendships with them. They band together, their little bundle of cheerful, hardworking students who hate being called duffers, and she gets on with her schoolwork and goes to Quidditch matches and plays gobstones with Ernie and chess with Justin and Hannah in the common room.
Things always seem to go wrong at Hogwarts though, thanks to one Harry sodding Potter, and most of the time, Susan rolls her eyes and gets on with things. Still, Justin's petrified in their second year, and she and Hannah and Ernie spend months alternating between visiting him and making copies of their notes and glaring at Potter until it comes out that it wasn't his fault at all.
Third year is quieter. Susan gains a reputation for being one to solve disputes between their Housemates, and people start coming to her. She makes notes, and consults others, forming a jury of peers, and makes fair decisions. She tries to emulate her Aunt and make things fair, and when rules are broken she goes to the Prefects. Her verdicts are rarely argued with, and it fills her with pride. She still glares at Potter though, because people fawn over him and worry like he's the only Wizarding War orphan - and he's not, every day she feels the pain of a family lost that she never knew - until Hannah tells her about the Muggleborn students who've loved and lost too.
There are tragedies in everyone's life. People just know more about Potter's.
Hannah sees the little things, and Susan thinks she should introduce her to her Aunt. Hannah would make a good Auror.
Fourth year is a whirl of gossip and adventure and Merlin, Potter, again? They cheer for Cedric, and Justin takes her to the Yule ball, and Ernie takes Hannah, and they all swap partners and dance together. It's brilliant and fun and the year is a disruptive, riotous mess and Susan finds herself enjoying it, surprisingly.
Then it all goes to shit.
Cedric dies, and Susan rages. It isn't fair or right, and there's nobody to punish for it, nobody to face the scrutiny of the law bearing down on them. She sits beside Hannah at the end of year feast, and she can feel the anger rolling off her, and she vows to do something about it. Something to make this better.
She was snappy and surlish, the first month of term, unable to make the adjustment to a whole new routine. But she did adjust, eventually, and every time she went home and came back it took a little less time to adapt. She doesn't like it, but she deals with it. She spends more time with her Housemates once she's out of her funk, and finds everlasting friendships with them. They band together, their little bundle of cheerful, hardworking students who hate being called duffers, and she gets on with her schoolwork and goes to Quidditch matches and plays gobstones with Ernie and chess with Justin and Hannah in the common room.
Things always seem to go wrong at Hogwarts though, thanks to one Harry sodding Potter, and most of the time, Susan rolls her eyes and gets on with things. Still, Justin's petrified in their second year, and she and Hannah and Ernie spend months alternating between visiting him and making copies of their notes and glaring at Potter until it comes out that it wasn't his fault at all.
Third year is quieter. Susan gains a reputation for being one to solve disputes between their Housemates, and people start coming to her. She makes notes, and consults others, forming a jury of peers, and makes fair decisions. She tries to emulate her Aunt and make things fair, and when rules are broken she goes to the Prefects. Her verdicts are rarely argued with, and it fills her with pride. She still glares at Potter though, because people fawn over him and worry like he's the only Wizarding War orphan - and he's not, every day she feels the pain of a family lost that she never knew - until Hannah tells her about the Muggleborn students who've loved and lost too.
There are tragedies in everyone's life. People just know more about Potter's.
Hannah sees the little things, and Susan thinks she should introduce her to her Aunt. Hannah would make a good Auror.
Fourth year is a whirl of gossip and adventure and Merlin, Potter, again? They cheer for Cedric, and Justin takes her to the Yule ball, and Ernie takes Hannah, and they all swap partners and dance together. It's brilliant and fun and the year is a disruptive, riotous mess and Susan finds herself enjoying it, surprisingly.
Then it all goes to shit.
Cedric dies, and Susan rages. It isn't fair or right, and there's nobody to punish for it, nobody to face the scrutiny of the law bearing down on them. She sits beside Hannah at the end of year feast, and she can feel the anger rolling off her, and she vows to do something about it. Something to make this better.
interval
"Are you sure it's a good idea?" Hannah asks, the four of them tucked into a quiet corner of the common room. Susan only nods in response, mouth set in a firm line. "We have to," She says, simply, and Ernie makes a noise of assent. "We aren't learning anything, and my aunt - she says there's something going on. That it reminds her of last time."
"So that's that, then." Justin says softly. "We're joining the DA."
"So that's that, then." Justin says softly. "We're joining the DA."
act three
She spends fifth year learning how to fight. She learns to fight, ad to defend, and she has to use that, when she gets harassed by Slytherin goons on a near daily basis. A chill sets into her bones when the men who killed her family escape Azkaban, and she has to argue with her parents to let her stay at Hogwarts, not immediately flee into hiding like they want to. She spends her days fielding questions about it, and she finally starts to understand how Potter must feel all the time.
Voldemort's return is confirmed at the end of the year, and dread washes over her.
The dread turns to rage, and grief and sadness when he kills her Auntie Mel in her office. She's not yet seventeen, and the woman she idolises is gone. Susan knows she went down fighting. She knows that her aunt did not die easy.
She dreams of her aunt's death. She had not died peacefully, and Amelia had spent her life building the foundations of peace.
For the first time, she emphasises with Harry. She manages not to snap at the well-wishers - at least, not often - she keeps her head down. When Hannah goes home, she writes her letters, because nobody else quite understands.
She keeps her head down. She works hard, and she helps students in Hannah's place, and she tries to look after the first years like Hannah does, and she does her best.
The summer comes, and things change again.
In the middle of the night, her father wakes her up and passes her a backpack. Susie might be a pureblood, and the Bones name might mean something - but in this life, in this war, it means danger.
She spends three weeks with a second cousin. She sleeps on the couch, and doesn't realise it's a luxury.
When they run out of safe couches, they buy magical tents, until the Snatchers learn to search for the magical signature. She learned what it is to be hungry, and to not know when she'll be full again.
Now, being full makes her feel like she's not paying attention.
She gets separated from her parents once, when the snatchers nearly catch them, and she sleeps in ditches, and once a tree, and all she has to eat is the packet of gum in her pocket.
When she finds her parents again, she gets her mother to teach her the wards, and then they do them together every night. She repacks her backpack with careful diligence, just in case. She makes sure she has snack bars, water, knife and spare clothes. She wears her backpack all the time, and doesn't let it touch the ground.
The DA coin around her neck wakes her up one night.
They go to Hogwarts.
When she steps into the Great Hall, Hannah and Ernie and Justin engulf her. They've spent six years living together, and here they meet on the edge of battle carrying things they don't recognise in one another. They're hardened by what they've seen, what they've done, and it breaks Susan's heart to see the rage in sweet, kind Hannah's eyes, the weariness bearing down on Ernie's shoulders, the tremor in Justin's hands.
She's injured in battle; a curse to her shoulder and one to her thigh. Someone drags her and the Ravenclaw she was helping to the Great Hall. To this day, she still doesn't know who. Someone fixes her up enough that she can limp around, and she reports what happened to McGonagall. She hauls bandages and limps messages from general to healer to the wounded. She gathers reports from those being treated, and she knows where every soul in that room is, so her messages move quickly.
If Voldemort moves to take the Great Hall, she is ready. She is her aunt's legacy, and she will not die easy.
There are the wounded laid out on the floor; children she had cheered with at Quidditch games, sat beside in exams, children she had taught how to get into the kitchens. There are teachers who've made her laugh and made her cry, and none of them are her parents' faces.
They're fine, or they're bleeding out in the grounds.
They both survive the night. So do her friends.
Voldemort falls; an overlord obsessed with immortality lands in the courtyard of Hogwarts with a dull thud, the same as any mortal man.
The war is won. They are free.
Voldemort's return is confirmed at the end of the year, and dread washes over her.
The dread turns to rage, and grief and sadness when he kills her Auntie Mel in her office. She's not yet seventeen, and the woman she idolises is gone. Susan knows she went down fighting. She knows that her aunt did not die easy.
She dreams of her aunt's death. She had not died peacefully, and Amelia had spent her life building the foundations of peace.
For the first time, she emphasises with Harry. She manages not to snap at the well-wishers - at least, not often - she keeps her head down. When Hannah goes home, she writes her letters, because nobody else quite understands.
She keeps her head down. She works hard, and she helps students in Hannah's place, and she tries to look after the first years like Hannah does, and she does her best.
The summer comes, and things change again.
In the middle of the night, her father wakes her up and passes her a backpack. Susie might be a pureblood, and the Bones name might mean something - but in this life, in this war, it means danger.
She spends three weeks with a second cousin. She sleeps on the couch, and doesn't realise it's a luxury.
When they run out of safe couches, they buy magical tents, until the Snatchers learn to search for the magical signature. She learned what it is to be hungry, and to not know when she'll be full again.
Now, being full makes her feel like she's not paying attention.
She gets separated from her parents once, when the snatchers nearly catch them, and she sleeps in ditches, and once a tree, and all she has to eat is the packet of gum in her pocket.
When she finds her parents again, she gets her mother to teach her the wards, and then they do them together every night. She repacks her backpack with careful diligence, just in case. She makes sure she has snack bars, water, knife and spare clothes. She wears her backpack all the time, and doesn't let it touch the ground.
The DA coin around her neck wakes her up one night.
They go to Hogwarts.
When she steps into the Great Hall, Hannah and Ernie and Justin engulf her. They've spent six years living together, and here they meet on the edge of battle carrying things they don't recognise in one another. They're hardened by what they've seen, what they've done, and it breaks Susan's heart to see the rage in sweet, kind Hannah's eyes, the weariness bearing down on Ernie's shoulders, the tremor in Justin's hands.
She's injured in battle; a curse to her shoulder and one to her thigh. Someone drags her and the Ravenclaw she was helping to the Great Hall. To this day, she still doesn't know who. Someone fixes her up enough that she can limp around, and she reports what happened to McGonagall. She hauls bandages and limps messages from general to healer to the wounded. She gathers reports from those being treated, and she knows where every soul in that room is, so her messages move quickly.
If Voldemort moves to take the Great Hall, she is ready. She is her aunt's legacy, and she will not die easy.
There are the wounded laid out on the floor; children she had cheered with at Quidditch games, sat beside in exams, children she had taught how to get into the kitchens. There are teachers who've made her laugh and made her cry, and none of them are her parents' faces.
They're fine, or they're bleeding out in the grounds.
They both survive the night. So do her friends.
Voldemort falls; an overlord obsessed with immortality lands in the courtyard of Hogwarts with a dull thud, the same as any mortal man.
The war is won. They are free.
epilogue
The curse in her leg has gone too deep to ever be fully healed. It will ache for the rest of her life, and her shoulder tinges when storms are due. She can't always get up the stairs and she sits halfway up, her leg screaming in pain.
There's a lilac bush outside the kitchen window. When it's windy, it knocks against the glass, and these days it makes her spill her tea. In the back of her head, she screams at herself for not wearing her backpack.
She wonders how her parents did it, the first few days - weeks - months - after the battle - and then she realises that this was not their first war. Not hte first losses they suffered. This was not the first time they came home and found their home no longer fit over the scar tissue.
She's offered the fast-track Aurorship, but she refuses, in order to go back and get her NEWTs. She doesn't want to be an Auror; she wants to live up to her aunt's name, her aunt's legacy, and rebuild Wizarding law.
She thinks of changing her name, sometimes, that what she wants will be handed to her because she's a Bones, and the Boneses have always worked in the DMLE. But she doesn't, becuase she is her Aunt's legacy, and she gets an internship in the department. Eventually, she moves into the Administrative Registration Department, working her way up the ranks.
The system has never done anything to protect people because it's been turned rotten from the inside out. She's angry, but she does not want to burn it down. She wants to strip it back to its roots and rebuild it from the foundations up.
And she will.
Hard work. Fairness. Dedication. These are the tenets of her House, and Susan Bones will will drag herself up her government step by honest step, or she will die trying.
And she is a Bones, and Susan Bones will not die easy.
There's a lilac bush outside the kitchen window. When it's windy, it knocks against the glass, and these days it makes her spill her tea. In the back of her head, she screams at herself for not wearing her backpack.
She wonders how her parents did it, the first few days - weeks - months - after the battle - and then she realises that this was not their first war. Not hte first losses they suffered. This was not the first time they came home and found their home no longer fit over the scar tissue.
She's offered the fast-track Aurorship, but she refuses, in order to go back and get her NEWTs. She doesn't want to be an Auror; she wants to live up to her aunt's name, her aunt's legacy, and rebuild Wizarding law.
She thinks of changing her name, sometimes, that what she wants will be handed to her because she's a Bones, and the Boneses have always worked in the DMLE. But she doesn't, becuase she is her Aunt's legacy, and she gets an internship in the department. Eventually, she moves into the Administrative Registration Department, working her way up the ranks.
The system has never done anything to protect people because it's been turned rotten from the inside out. She's angry, but she does not want to burn it down. She wants to strip it back to its roots and rebuild it from the foundations up.
And she will.
Hard work. Fairness. Dedication. These are the tenets of her House, and Susan Bones will will drag herself up her government step by honest step, or she will die trying.
And she is a Bones, and Susan Bones will not die easy.
OOC NAME: bea
