Susan Bones had a lot of questions.

On the one hand, this was not a particularly shocking state of affairs. She was, after all, a teenager. A teenage witch. A teenage heiress to a noble magical house. That in itself led to enough questions to be getting on with, even with the occlumency lessons she had been receiving for the well over half her life now.

But lately, the questions that kept playing through her mind were a little more… well, was there even a word for them? Crazy didn't do them justice. Insane was closer.

She sighed, twirling her wand idly in her fingers as she lay on the floor of the playroom at Bones Manor, her overstuffed fluffy Dragon wiggling slightly, readjusting itself as she was using it for a pillow. The wand span quickly in her fingers, looking like the tops of muggle Heliflopters that were often featured in various wireless dramas that always involved the heroes chasing baddies on broomsticks and having to avoid dozens of the muggle contraptions moving at breakneck speeds… no, focus.

Hazel. Unicorn. Good for Divination. A useless subject near enough, a combination of spells that were either so impractical as to deciphering the future's possibilities as to be useless, or so scarily useful that they had been banished since the fall of the Second Magical Empire, lost in time and only surviving in popular myth and metaphor. Pointless.

Or was it? She frowned, clenching the wand now and stopping its idle spinning in an instant, and bringing it closer to her gaze, eyes narrowed and every so slightly biting her lip as she examined it like she'd never truly seen it before.

She had signed up for Divination, more because it connected her to her family history than any particular desire for the class. Auntie hadn't been enthused, but she'd also signed up for Arithmancy and Magical Theory, so her aunt had let it slide with nothing more than a talking to if she was sure she wanted to do this. She did. She loved Auntie to pieces, but she was always so busy, and Susan had never known her parents, sometimes it felt like she wasn't really Bones enough to one day be Head of the House and all that its legacy entailed. This, silly as it was, felt like some small way to fix that.

She let out a sigh, flicking her wand and uttered Tempus, watching the numbers float upwards before fading away. 10:02. In another hour she would need to get ready for the Greengrass Winter Festival. She scowled. She and Greengrass were going to have words, and this time without it ending in her owing Daphne any favors!

Greengrass was the source of her angst over the first term anyway. Because she too had been in Divination. She had even laughed airily at Susan's joke that maybe their Divination wands would finally come in some use, or maybe even had compelled them to take the class in the first place. Daphne had acted as if everything at the end of last term didn't matter a jot! And then, for three months, had sat in the hazy, smoke-filled tower listening to Professor Trewlawny go on and on and on about all sorts of nonsense (half of which seemed to target Daphne's betrothed), and spent her lessons examining not tarots or tea leaves or crystals… but the other students.

She looked so smug! Like she was happy the class was useless and none of them were doing much more than looking at wet tea leaves and guessing shapes at the bottom or trying to sound spooky while waving hands over crystal balls that didn't so much as predict the weather.

Daphne, she was fairly sure, was making sure than nobody was actually learning Divination. Which meant Lord Slytherin, she was absolutely sure, was making sure that nobody was actually learning Divination.

Which meant that somewhere, somehow, there was Divination to be learnt.

Not for the first time since coming back for the hols, Susan's mind began to ask the most frightening question of all.

What if I'm on the wrong side?

It was a very un-Hufflepuff question to even ask, let alone contemplate, but ask and contemplate it she did at least in the privacy of her own mind in her own rooms. She dared not even think about it the first time it worked its way into her mind back in September, lest Virgo somehow see it.

Which, given the unspoken fear of what Virgo might be capable of doing, was really Exhibit A that maybe she was, in fact, on the wrong side.

Harry Potter was Lord Slytherin. Harry Potter was a time traveler. Harry Potter needed to be stopped. So to stop him, they… used a murderous beast to petrify students, to frame Harry.

What if Albus Dumbledore had done the same thing last year?

What if John Potter had done the same thing last timeline (Merlin!)?

What if the only reason she thought Lord Slytherin was a baddy because a lot of people – people on her side! – kept doing bad things and trying to frame him for it.

It was an absolutely ghastly thought. And it kept eating at her. Was she doing the right thing? Was she working against the real good guys? But if she swapped teams would she still be betraying her friends? Was she going to be a traitor to someone no matter what she did? What would Auntie do – if ever there was a role model for doing the right thing, it was Amelia Bones.

Her auntie had stood up to Albus Dumbledore, the leader of the Light and the most powerful wizard in the world. Her auntie hadn't 'betrayed' the Light by doing the right thing.

Right. She got up, brushing down her robes as her fluffy dragon flew back into the toy chest. Sure of purpose, she marched back through the house, down the corridor to her bedroom where the Bones' House Elf, Jispy, had already lain out her winter robes. Looking at them gave her another surge of determination, and she looked up into her vanity to see her fourteen year old reflection give her a determined nod in return.

---

Greengrass manor was alive with the sound of merrymaking. Susan walked through the light dusting of snow through the manor grounds, past a group of wizards performing a pantomime, a group of witches even younger than her chattering about the chocolate frog races, and a booth – she stopped, doing a doubletake – selling Weasley Wizarding Wheezes. And yes, that was Fred (or maybe George?) talking animatedly to three wizards twice his age about an array of brightly packaged potions he was gesturing at.

She shook her head and continued forward. She didn't have much time. John was getting ready for The Hunt and the Malfoys had not shown up this year, but she didn't count on Daphne having oodles of spare time at her own family's event. She needed to act now.

There she was! Slightly to the side of the main avenue of the grounds, standing with Hermione Granger, Tracey Davis, and Ginny Weasley. Harry… Slytherin… Harry, was thankfully nowhere to be seen, but Susan didn't count on her luck lasting that long.

She approached, not drawing attention to herself but not trying to hide either. Davis noticed her just as she got within speaking range, raising one dainty eyebrow and bringing the conversation between the four girls to a halt.

"Heiress Bones, how are you?" Daphne began. "I hope you're having a lovely time." She sounded every part the pureblood hostess, as if she had no idea of the existential turmoil roiling around inside Susan like a swarm of drunken doxies.

"Heiress Greengrass, Heiress Davis, ladies," Susan replied, graces coming as naturally as flowing water. "I was wondering if erm, if I might have a word."

A moment of silence. "If you like," Daphne said slowly after a moment, clearly judging the weight of every word. "Although would you not prefer to wait until your Mister Potter were available? Surely if this concerns him –"

"No, " Susan blurted. "It's just me. I just um, have a few questions. Nothing like that!" She interrupted her own thoughts at Hermione's look.

"Perhaps a bit of privacy would be in order. Heiress Bones – Susan, would you like to follow us to my playroom? I fear the cold is getting to me."

Susan nodded, a little confused as to why Tracey looked so amused at the idea of Daphne getting cold.

"I'm afraid I haven't the time," Ginny said with an impish grin, "I need to get ready for the hunt myself, so I'll see you all later." And without another word, Ginny turned into a cheetah and sprinted off, earning a tut from Daphne, a giggle from Tracey, and a Hermione rolling her eyes and a hushed, "Honestly!"

Susan said nothing. That was another thing. Harry's… Lord Slytherin's girls were all animagi! Oh, Hermione and Tracey weren't, but Susan wasn't sure she believed that for a minute. If Daphne, Ginny, and Alex were all animagi, then it absolutely stood to reason that Hermione and Tracey were as well. There was no way they weren't.

Ok, Virgo also was, even if it was still a secret. But it had somehow just happened, or at the very least, she wasn't sharing how to do it with John or herself. Internally, she pouted.

Yes, cool magical upgrades probably wasn't the best reason to swap sides, but on top of everything else, it was an insult to injury it really was. Such dark thoughts filled her mind as they walked into Greengrass Manor and winded through the main part of the house, up a set of stairs until they reached a playroom that looked surprisingly much like her own.

Using her occlumency to order her thoughts as best she did, she looked at the other three girls, expressions of amused curiosity looking back at her. Another realization slammed into her – these girls did not view her as a threat. A powerful witch, certainly. A respected… rival?, perhaps. But even with her special dueling lessons, her knowledge of Time Travel (which they might know about), her knowledge of the Basilisk events (which they definitely did know about) and everything else… without John and Virgo, they did not see her as a threat.

She could not say the same about them. Animagi. Duelling prowess that had one-upped her every time it had come down to a one-on-one fight between her and any of them. One of them betrothed to Lord Slytherin, another one actively being courted by Harry, and the third was rumored to have Lord Slytherin arranging her betrothal… and that wasn't even including Lovegood, or whatever other secrets might be going on behind the scenes.

Her hands shook slightly as fingernails bit into palms.

"Susan? Are you alright?" Daphne was looking at her with slight concern now.

"Oh yes, sorry." She felt the tips of her ears heat up, hidden thankfully beneath her hair.

"I was just asking, what can we do to help you?"

A thousand questions begged to be asked. Weeks spent processing them through her occlumency had given her a specific list to ask in a specific order, with various subquestions depending on particular answers or vagaries.

It would mortify her for days later therefore when the words that first slipped out of her mouth with the tactfulness of a confounded hippogriff were:

"Why didn't Harry choose me?"