Title: Withered
Author: Audioaesthetic
Rating: T just to be safe
Summary: TheoN/SusanB. "Stop and smell the roses, Susie," Aunt Amelia always said. "You'll miss them when they're gone."
Author's Notes: I haven't updated in ages, mostly due to school and arranging college - I'm graduating this month, by the way! Hooray! - but here's something simple to sink your teeth into. I'm actually rather proud of it. Hope you like it.

She hasn't written all summer. She's probably dead.

"You should talk to her, Nott. She glares at me when I go near her."

"That's because you're a twit, Malfoy."

"Aah, yes, but I do so like 'em feisty. ... Besides, one of us has to shag someone tonight."

"She wouldn't shag me. She seems like a nice girl."

"Nice girls like bad boys, Nott. It's because they don't know what bad really is."

He's in his Common Room right now, not sleeping. He won't be asleep for another two hours, she knows. Later than anyone. The boy was an insomniac. She wonders if he has any idea that she's there, in the same building as he is.

"Hello, Bones. ... Now, now, no need to look so snippy."

"You're a prat, Nott."

"Oh? And why's that?"

"... I'm not going to sleep with you, so you might as well go back to Malfoy and your stupid party. I don't know why I came, and I'm leaving now. ... Stop following me, I'm not going to shag you."

"That's nice. I don't actually want you to. I just wanted to let you know that ribbon looks pretty in your hair. It goes with your eyes. That's all."

"Oh... thank you. ... Are you leaving?"

"I thought you wanted me to go."

Theodore's face still smarts from the fight with Zabini. He made a fool out of himself, Malfoy said, protecting a Halfblood's name. We all have Halfbloods, or even Muggleborns, we grew fond of, Malfoy said, but they're persona non grata now. Theodore can't go around punching Slytherins for calling Susan Bones his "Mudblood lay."

"They'll start to think you'll have a heart, Nott," Pansy had said, teasingly. What's so bad about that, Theodore wanted to know. Pansy just shrugged. "A heart's a dangerous thing to have now-a-days."

"My, my, aren't you just everywhere I am, Bones."

"I'm beginning to think you're following me, Nott."

"You don't seem very adverse to the idea. ... Also, I've noticed you haven't stopped wearing that ribbon. Trying to impress someone, Bones?"

"Hardly. Right now I'm just trying to reach that book. If you'll excuse me..."

"Hey Bones?"

"What now, Nott?"

"You are quite impressive, you know."

Hannah disapproves of course. "He wasn't good for you. I wish you would let him go."

"What makes you think I'm holding on?"

Hannah just shakes her head, and not for the first time Susan regrets informing Hannah about him. Best friends tell each other everything, Susan knows, and in this day and age secrets between friends are fatal. And even as she wishes she could have him, she knows that some things are more important. Susan was never good at choosing sides.

"Now who's following whom?"

"I'm not following anybody, Nott, I wanted to talk to you, so I was looking for you. It's what normal, decent human beings do when they want to have a normal, decent conversation with someone."

"Hmm... sounds boring."

"Okay. This was a bad idea."

"No, no, I'm only joking. I'm actually intrigued about these 'decent conversations' of which you speak, seeing as I've obviously never had one before. Tell me, did you say that because of me, individually, or because of your prejudice against all Slytherins?"

"I... I'm not prejudiced."

"You just think we're scum."

"I think you've got a lot to learn about the way the world should work."

"And you've got a lot to learn about the way it does work."

He runs over that conversation in his head so many times he wonders if it's real anymore. He thinks about the kiss she planted urgently on his lips after he said that, the way her hair got caught in his mouth and he stumbled until the wall behind him caught him. He remembers her haste, the pressure of her lips, the smoothness of her hair, caught between them, and the way she didn't seem to care. His stomach turns at the thought of it, and she's always made him feel so unbalanced.

"Theodore..."

"Are you sure?"

"You keep asking that. I didn't think Slytherins asked permission."

"Well, I didn't think Hufflepuffs wore such revealing knickers. Tisk, tisk, Susan."

"We have a lot to learn about each other."

They went so fast the first time. Everything about it was necessity and speed. Yes, it had taken them months to get that far, stealing kisses in between the reclusive shelves of the library, heavy petting in the corners of empty classrooms, but the act itself was so rushed. Susan wishes she'd taken her time, hadn't pushed it so hard. She wishes that about a lot of things these days.

"Stop and smell the roses, Susie," Aunt Amelia always said. "You'll miss them when they're gone."

"Why don't you fight, Theodore?"

"Fight for what? For Dumbledore? For Potter? For truth and justice and anything else?"

"If nothing else, why not for me?"

"I don't bloody take sides, Susan! I'm not killing anyone, especially not my family and my friends, for you or for anybody."

"I'm not killing for you, either, but I'd be willing to die for you."

"... This isn't how it's supposed to be. Promise you won't die."

"I'll write you, Theodore. I'll be okay."

She didn't write him that summer, and that was one promise she'd broken. He is sure she's broken the one about being okay, too. She's probably dead, he thinks, and says so to Pansy when she asks if he's okay. "I'll probably never see her again, that's all."

"You'll be okay, Theodore. I promise."

"I don't care about me anymore."

"Tell me again, Theodore."

"I'm sorry, I forget. What was it you wanted to hear?"

"Oh, shut up. You know very well. Don't be a tease."

"Says the girl with the lace underwear hiding under her Hufflepuff veneer."

"Just say it, Theodore. ...I need to hear it."

"I love you, Susan."

"I love you, too."