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Albus escapes that summer. Even five years after the end of the war, the memories won’t leave him alone, and the Wizarding World places him on a higher and higher pedestal. He finds himself in the countryside, surrounds himself by the Muggles he once looked down upon, and tries to forget.
That is where he meets her.
He hears her story in town. Or, he hears the town’s version of her story. The large countryside house, still called the Professor’s House, was willed to her upon the death of Professor Kirke and in the accident that killed her entire family. She has lived there since, alone except for an old housekeeper.
Perhaps he is drawn to Susan Pevensie because she is so different from the gossips of the small town. She is elegant, refined, diplomatic. Or perhaps it is because she is as empty inside as he feels. He can see it in her eyes, behind false smiles.
She can see it in him too. That is why she allows him to join her for afternoon tea, again and again.
* * *
“My brother is the only family I have left,” Albus says one cloudy day. It hurts him to continue, but if he wants to know Susan’s story he must relinquish his own. If he yearns for a confidante away, far away, from the Wizarding World, he must learn honesty and trust. So he continues. “He blames me for our sister’s death.”
Susan regards him sadly. “My fa-,” she begins, and stops.
* * *
A few days later when the clouds have disappeared, Albus comes again. The sky is as blue as his eyes, and Susan says, “My two brothers, my sister, my cousin and his friend, and the Professor and Polly. Everyone who was tied together by a common experience but me. And my parents. My entire family died in a train accident except for me.”
Her eyes are as clouded as the sky is clear.
He wonders which of them is more fortunate.
* * *
“I think,” Albus says contemplatively, “that I will spend the rest of my life atoning for my folly.”
They share a look of utter understanding.
* * *
The weather is sweltering, and yet again the two sit at the table with their respective cups of tea. Tongues wag in the village, but neither pay it any mind.
“I was the only one spared,” she says, and her thoughts are once again on that fateful, terrible day.
He wonders at her tone. In any other woman, ‘spared’ would be the equivalent of ‘saved’. But Susan is not any other woman. From her lips, ‘spared’ sounds remarkably like ‘turned away’, or perhaps ‘abandoned.’
* * *
Albus slips sometimes. He was raised with magic. It is far more natural to him than the Muggle existence he has played at this summer. Susan notices; she must. She is far too observant not to, though she makes no indication of doing so.
He has absolutely no inclination to Obliviate her either way.
* * *
The heat wave has long since passed when he admits his next large secret. They are confidantes, or something like it.
“I’m a wizard,” he announces quietly.
Susan regards him over the rim of her teacup.
“I know,” she says calmly.
* * *
She is on the verge of telling him her own secret. But it is painful, and her part is shameful. She had called that land her home, once upon a time, and for a while now she can be called Friend no longer.
The end of their time together is drawing closer.
“My siblings and I ruled a land in a wardrobe.”
* * *
The confessions come swifter and run together now that time runs out.
“They forced me onto a pedestal and chained me there.”
“I was banned forever from my kingdom and my home for a reason I could not understand.”
* * *
Summer ends, as it must.
“You could come with me,” Albus says at their last tea.
“You could stay in this town,” she replies. “This world is no more yours than yours is mine. And perhaps this world is mine no longer, but it was once. My home,” she says, “is quite far from me yet, and you and yours can bring me no closer.”
“I know,” he acknowledges. But he had wanted to offer anyway. To give her a choice.
“Fare thee well,” Susan says, melancholy and strong, sad and queenly.
“Goodbye,” Albus says, and there are no words to tell her how he had needed her company, and how much he had appreciated it.
They do not meet again.