Gold​

Harry wished the guilt would drip down his back and down his shoulders and over his scapulas through the week-old bruises, over the bumps of his spine and into the folds of Susan's linens so easily as his sweat did.

Summers had become hotter in London with each year gone, and this tiny witchcraft flat didn't have anything to cool it but the single sash window squinting down at Whitehall. And they were high up. And heat, he had learned, rises.

Susan enjoyed the heat. Harry had learned that, too. He'd learned plenty about her over the last year—far more than he should have.

He knew which magazines she fancied having in the loo, and how many pairs of yellow socks she had (three-and-a-half), and what to write to her mum if she was too absorbed in her work to answer the daily check-up interdepartmental memo that fluttered down to Level Nine.

He knew the names of her dear deceased house-elves. He knew how many sugars went into her coffee. Knew what her throat felt like against his. Knew she didn't mind if his was a little bristly sometimes if he hadn't had a shave in a day or two. Knew the barely audible hmmm-ing sounds she made while working on her research.

And Susan Bones was altogether a quiet woman, but unabashed and firm, and would really lay into you if you got her snarled up by behaving in any manner she could not puzzle out the why of at once.

She'd never given him a difficult time about this, however, and it drove him three-quarters mad.

Harry gripped the edge of the bed frame, scratched a finger up and down the grain of the wood for a time, then bent his head slightly to watch with one eye as she watched him with both.

Susan had propped herself, chest down against the white-linen dressed mattress, up on her elbows with her sweaty, matted gold braid trailing down her shiny tanned back with a look of earnest calculation on her face.

"You could try... Exeter," she said. "Weren't most done half between Chudleigh and Starcross? If you were crafty enough—and I'd say he was—you'd be able to pass for muggle there. He might even have a stronghold... a lair, perhaps." Idly, she kicked a leg and laid it over her other. "I've been meaning to visit Starcross. Have you gone sailing before?"

Harry puffed a too-hot breath through his nostrils. Bare as she was born, covered in their mixed sweat runoff, her clothing wadded up in between her bed and night table, his squashed right next to hers, his fiancé away for summer training, and she wanted to talk about his investigation and whether they should go sailing together?

"Susan, I don't—"

"You haven't, you mean," said Susan.

"Haven't!" said Harry heatedly. "Haven't what? Gone sailing? No, I haven't—Susan, I don't want—"

"Balderdash," said Susan lightly. "The wind is cool on the channel, Harry. You'll be just fine." She sighed and crawled forward across the bed to reach for her wand atop the nightstand.

Harry quickly shifted his gaze away from her bared chest and back out her stupid tiny window; he heard her mutter a spell and felt a cool breeze stir in the room.

"Better?" asked Susan softly.

Harry felt her shoulder against his back, then her chin against his shoulder and her breath on his neck.

"A touch," said Harry gruffly. But he couldn't bring himself to move away; he couldn't lift a hand to move her, either. He was comforted by the weight of her; and nearly made sick by it.

"I'm almost certain you're only a few major investigations away from being named head of the office," said Susan. "The Minister can't hold it open forever, everyone in your department is always pelting away to ask leave for this matter and that thingy." She dragged her fingers over his arms and embraced him from behind. "Just yesterday I had to join a queue to have my statement approved." She snorted softly, as though the idea of queueing for the Minister's signature for her recollection was comical. "It simply cannot continue."

"Kingsley didn't even glance at it, I reckon," said Harry, touching her fingers. Her nails were lacquered storm cloud grey. "He was present when we cornered him down there—" He flicked at her thumb with his. "Perhaps you're right, he's doing too many things. We could have done for Jugson ourselves."

"And this new one," said Susan, "absolutely mad. Mounting witches on antlers in fields. When you catch him that might—"

"Who's to say it's a man," said Harry. "It might be a woman."

"Nonsense," said Susan flatly. "That's not at all how a woman would kill someone."

"And how would you know?" said Harry.

"I've killed seven Death Eaters, Harry," said Susan. "From a distance. With magic. Without getting a stain on my blouse. Why would I need to do something as unnecessary as mounting corpses and draining their blood? That's a very messy practice, you know."

Harry resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, her face being so close to his. "Then perhaps you should be the Auror and I'll be the Unspeakable."

"That wouldn't do," said Susan, squeezing his arms. "You'd never see me. I would hardly be home—"

"Like me?" said Harry softly.

Now he moved her hands from his and stood.

He was naked and hated it.

He put his hands on the windowsill muttering, "Bloody hell."

Susan's eyes were grey as her fingernails and soft. "Harry—"

"I've told you what Professor Dumbledore told me," said Harry quietly. "That I was able to do the things Voldemort couldn't because I could love—because even though terrible things happened to me, to our friends, to all those people—I was still able to—" He pressed his knuckles into the wooden sill until they were red. "And I've been—and we've been—how I can say I love Ginny and want to marry her if I could do this? How can I not think maybe Professor Dumbledore was wrong about me, that I'm not better than he was. That I'm no better than they are? How am I happy when I'm—"

"Are you?" Susan cut in. "Happy?"

"No," said Harry.

Susan sat upright on the bed. "I don't mean right this moment, Harry." She gave her wand a swish; clothing and bedsheets floated from their discard piles and started to arrange themselves neatly. "I meant when you're with me."

"Yes," said Harry automatically. He frowned. "Yes," he repeated. "Susan, you know—you knew—about me and Ginny, but you never asked me why we..." He flailed his arm about at the room.

Susan watched him quietly for a time, long enough to make Harry start to think she was going to snap at him for snarling her up again.

Instead, she said, "You're really very good at loving everyone all the same. And you really can't figure a way to hurt someone who doesn't have it coming."

"Why would I want to do that?" said Harry, his brow knitting.

Susan giggled.

It was an odd sound coming from her; he'd really only heard it a few times. Once while they had been at Hogwarts. Twice when he'd done something terribly embarrassing by mistake.

"There are different sorts of love, you know," said Susan matter-of-factly. "And some have to go both ways or else they don't work."

"And you're the authority on that, are you?" asked Harry, suddenly, inexplicably, incensed. "That's the sort they've got locked up in that room down there?"

Susan raised an eyebrow at his tone. "I work with time, Harry."

"I know that."

She smiled as though he'd stumbled right past some great secret, and shifted over to pull the drawer of her nightstand open. After a moment of rummaging, she came up with something in her fist.

"What's that?" asked Harry.

"A coin," said Susan, holding up one gold galleon.

"A coin?" said Harry.

"Yes, it does the same thing as the one you'd given us during fifth year." She held it out for him. "Only two, though, and I've got the other."

"Susan," said Harry, "I don't understand what a fake galleon has got to do with our situation at present."

"You should go to Exeter," said Susan. "And Ginny will be back by the time you've wrapped it up, I expect."

"Susan."

She stood and pressed the coin into his palm. "It goes both ways, but I've got mine sorted out." She folded his fingers closed.

"This is a real galleon," said Harry, running his thumb along the edge of the coin. He stared at it. "Isn't it?"

Susan prodded him. "Let me know when you've worked it out."

 

1476 words

 

Spoiler

Starts off a bit… odd? Like the description is very descriptive and I can feel the muggy heat and the sweat dripping down his back and onto the sheets. But it was also awkward to read? I think it’s a ‘polish your prose’ thing.

After that, when Harry is describing knowing her a bit too well, it starts to flow better and I’m more engaged.

I’m not a fan of Susan here, but that’s fine. She comes off as believable and that’s all I can ask. I can empathize with Harry here—he’s hot, doesn’t like it, and being forced into awkwardness. The conversation makes sense and flows fine but doesn't really grab me.

But it took me a minute to realize that he’s still with Ginny—I glossed over that at first, reading the line wrong—and I guess… eh? The story is reasonably written but... I guess it's not my thing?

There's nothing to make it stand out I guess, but it's fine in general.