When Susan Bones is nine, she tastes champagne for the first time. It is New Year’s Eve, and Susan’s mother lets her have a sip from her glass. The liquid is at first bitter on Susan’s tongue, but once she swallows, warmth spreads down her throat, to her stomach and then out to her fingertips and toes, until her entire body is wrapped in a soft blanket. Her insides are warm and comfortable, and her head is not present at the moment, but rather somewhere else. Her mind feels just as fuzzy and warm as the rest of her, and she begins to understand why adults so enjoy alcohol. Susan is comfortable and happy, her worries all forgotten. That night she falls asleep quickly, and has the best sleep she’s ever had.


Susan is ten when her mother brings her to her first party. It is a society party, where all the rich and influential wizards and witches are present. Susan and her mother pick out a wonderful red dress, and Susan is allowed to wear her very own pair of high heels for the first time. She gets her hair curled, and her mother lets her borrow some lipstick. Susan feels grown up and sophisticated. When she walks down the stairs, her heels clicking and clacking with her, all the guests turn to her and tell her she looks pretty, beautiful, adorable and like a young lady. Susan has never felt happier, but she doesn’t feel the way that the champagne made her feel. No warmth is spreading to her fingertips, and her mind is very much aware.



When Susan is eleven, she receives her Hogwarts acceptance letter. Her mother cries tears of joy, her father’s eyes are twinkling and her Aunt Amelia tells her that she has never been prouder. Susan cannot remove the smile on her face. It is plastered there, and later her face will hurt, but she won’t care. Susan is surrounded by smiles, joyful laughter, and with the letter clutched in her hand she feels as though she is part of something, something great. Her future is bright and clear. She has all the options in the world, but that doesn’t matter to her. What matters is that everyone is smiling at her, telling her that they love her. Susan feels as though it is all a dream, but thankfully, it isn’t. She is unbelievably happy, but no warmth spreads throughout her body.



Susan is twelve when her parents decide to give her a pet. She is allowed to choose any animal she wants, and when she enters the Magical Menagerie, she is overwhelmed with all the choices that await her. Cages line the walls and crowd the floor. Cats, owls, rats, toads and just about every other animal imaginable screech, scratch, scream and scramble. Susan studies every animal carefully, but when she sees the black cat licking its paws in a corner, she just has to have him. When Susan first has the big kitten in her arms, everything is surreal. She has wanted a cat for years, and here she is, with her very own pressed against her chest. The cat is warm and comfortable and Susan immediately adores him. Once he looks into her eyes a feeling of true love bubbles up inside of her and she is afraid it will spill over and she might explode. But the feeling of great love and adoration brings no warmth, no fuzzy mind, and no perfect sleep at night.



When Susan is thirteen, she considers suicide for the first time. It seems as though everything is going wrong for her. Her grades are slipping downward, her relationship with her family is hanging on a very thin thread, her social life has ceased to exist, she can’t sleep at night because of the scary escape of Sirius Black, her cat has disappeared and her body is doing strange things without her permission. She doesn’t like it, any of it, and she just wants to get out. She wants to leave her life and get another one, where she can start anew, and erase all her problems. Susan wonders what Heaven is like. Perhaps she will have the feeling of warmth spread throughout her entire, difficult, strange new body and leave her happy, unworried and safe. The only thing that keeps her from jumping into the cold lake with her school trunk is that God might not like suicide and would send her to Hell, where there is no champagne and no feeling of a fuzzy mind. Susan wonders if there is champagne at Hogwarts.


Susan is now fourteen. It is December twenty-third, and she thinks she will be sick of mistletoe, Christmas trees, whispers of presents and worried letters from her mother begging her to change her mind and come back for Christmas and New Year’s. But Susan ignores them; she believes that she will become ill from being with her family for too long. She is tired of them and everything else too, in fact. Almost everyone except Susan has gone home for the holidays. She has only seen a few other students. She likes having the castle almost all to herself. With its firm walls, long silent corridors and heavy doors, it gives her comfort when she cries into her pillow at night.


It is midnight. Susan gave up all hopes of sleep an hour ago. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Susan can’t seem to get it out of her head. Christmas Eve should be spent with family and friends. So should the entire Christmas Break, actually. So far, Susan has spent it exploring the castle, staring out the window and winning the occasional chess game against her fellow Hufflepuff Eleanor Branstone.



Tired of tossing and turning in her bed, Susan gets up, slips her cold feet into her slippers and wraps her robe around her slim form. She has many times before wandered around the school at night, and tonight she only follows routine. She walks soundlessly through the corridors, inhaling the sweet aroma of the old castle. Everything is peaceful at night when everyone is asleep but her.


Susan stops in the middle of a corridor and closes her eyes. She breathes slowly. In, out, in, out. Only at night is Susan truly calm. Everything is perfect. No tension, no stress, no voices, no laughs, no smiles, just peace. No one yelling at her, no mistakes to be noticed, no worried family, no one to disrupt her thoughts, no one to say-


“Bones, what are you doing here?”


Susan’s eyes snap open. Standing before her is the ghostly pale face of Draco Malfoy, staring at her.


“I-I’m- I was just taking a walk,” Susan stammers.


Malfoy raises an eyebrow. “A walk? At this time?”


“Yes,” answers Susan. “What about yourself? What are you doing here?”


“I-I…” Clearly, Malfoy doesn’t have a good reason for being out of bed at this time either. “I was actually taking a walk too,” he confesses.


“Oh.”


“Yes.”


They stand, staring at each other. Both are sleepless and restless, trying to clear their minds and sort out their lives.


“Well in that case, I’ll just go to bed,” Susan says and turns, prepared to return to her hopeless bed and cry for reasons she doesn’t understand.


But a hand catches her wrist, stopping her. Susan looks down at the hand; it has long delicate fingers, with perfectly trimmed nails. Considering her bitten, pink nails, Susan is slightly jealous.


She turns back to Malfoy impatiently. “What?” she demands.



He smirks his infamous smirk and points up. Susan follows the direction of his finger. “Mistletoe,” he says teasingly.


“Oh, honestly,” she mutters, and tries to tear herself free from his grip, but it only tightens.


“There’s no escaping your fate, Bones,” he whispers, coming closer. Too close. “You have to kiss me.”


Susan is nervous, she has never kissed anyone before, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to do it right. Besides, she doesn’t even like Draco Malfoy.



“No, I don’t want to,” she says quickly.


“Never kissed anyone before, Bones?”


“I…” she trails off. It is true enough.


“I don’t bite,” he says, leaning in. Susan wants to say something in protest, but it seems that she has lost her voice. Her heart is pounding in her ears, her stomach feels queasy, and her breath comes faster and faster the closer Malfoy gets.


His eyes drift closed, and she supposes that she ought to do the same. Her eyes are closed and her mind focused on what is about to happen. It feels like it’s taking forever for Malfoy to lean all the way down. His grip on her wrist has loosened; he seems to have forgotten about it. She can run, if she likes, but her feet aren’t moving.


Then it happens. His lips brush hers softly; they only touch slightly, sweetly. He draws away again. They stand, looking at each other. Susan’s lips are tingling, as though his lips have left an imprint on her own.



Suddenly, a warmth starts spreading from her stomach through her arms to her fingertips, down her legs to her toes and up her throat, until her entire body is warm and comfortable, and her head feels fuzzy and in the clouds. She doesn’t know how it happens, but suddenly she smiles and he smiles, and Susan’s last though before Malfoy leans in again is ‘Perhaps some things are just as wonderful as the taste of champagne.’


Fin.