Closed RP: Susan is Not Happy (and when Susan ain't happy, NOBODY is happy)

[usethepoker]

((Backdated to February 10, just after Stephen's popcorn-letter))

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part 1 of 2

[charlesmacaulay]

Charles had a key to Susan's room, just as Susan had one to his. While their informal loose little arrangement didn't strictly demand such a thing, it was convenient for each to have the other's key (plus it had the serious potential to irritate Camilla).

Of course he knocked first. "Susan, honey, you around?" When no one answered, he let himself in. She might be napping, or she might be out, and in the latter case she'd probably be happy to come back and find him waiting. Not overjoyed-happy, not puppy-happy, but happy in a calm mellow way that generally made Charles happy too. It was good not to be alone. She'd come in and he'd be playing solitaire at her desk and there'd be tea waiting along with him, and it was generally just nice. Her room was orderly in a homelike sort of way (not unnaturally tidy the way Henry's house used to be, God forbid) and it made him feel more ordered inside, to be there, sometimes.

Except when he let himself in today, it wasn't quite as orderly as he was used to seeing it. On the floor beside the bed sat a trunk Charles had never seen before. (He didn't make a habit of poking around under other people's beds.) The trunk's lid hung open.

Inside was a sword, and a space where something else might have gone.

What the ...? He found his answer on the desk. Oh fuck. That was the guy. Charles didn't know everything about it, but he knew some things, and he knew enough to know this popcorning would have thrown Susan for a serious loop. The way the letter was written, it could have been to anyone. It read like a holiday newsletter, something composed for mass consumption, nothing truly personal in it, and Charles guessed that made the loss sting that much worse. If Milly wrote something like that...

He wondered idly if Camilla had received such a letter too. She probably had. The same one, verbatim; and maybe Henry had gotten a copy. Maybe she's gone to see them? Susan and Henry hadn't seemed to be on the best of terms lately, much to Charles' satisfaction, but it would have made sense for her to go and see Milly.

The significance of the open trunk hadn't quite hit Charles yet, needless to say. No one had ever explained to him about the unique weaponry that went along with being DEATH. He closed the trunk and shoved it under the bed again the same way he'd do with anything valuable, the same way he'd have closed a jewelry box Susan left open; and then he went looking for her.

He found her stalking along a corridor between Ravenclaw and the main body of the castle. She wasn't Susan. Not the Susan he knew. And she was carrying a huge scythe. And Charles was suddenly very, very glad of two things: that she wasn't at Camilla's after all; and that she hadn't seen Charles yet either.

Change of plans. Definite change of plans. As soon as he was sure he was outside her range of attention, he broke into a sprint. He ran all the way to the Owlery.