Susan watches as Peter leaves the glade after having received a lion's kiss on the forehead from Aslan.
"Susan."
She will never be able to forget this; the sound of her own name spoken with the low, rumbling voice of Narnia's creator as he looks at her with golden lion eyes.
"Aslan," she answers him and holds back all the protests that the child in her wants to scream out loud.
"You, as you older brother, has grown too old for Narnia. Your place is now in your own world, in London, amongst talking humans and silent animals. You, like your brother, have a part to play in that world. This is not a banishment, for you will return to Narnia one day, but rather a quest for you and you alone. Do you know of what I speak, daughter?"
"I'm not fully sure yet, Aslan, but I will know in time," Susan says honestly, and the lion laughs his soft rumble.
"Just so, my gentle queen of the radiant southern sun, just so."
And he kisses her on the forehead and sends her to join her brothers and sister.
#
England, at first glance the minutes after returning, seems dull and void of colours and life. But Susan closes her eyes and recall the feeling of basking in the rays of the southern sun one glorious day in Narnia, and when she opens her eyes to the train station that is so very English, she sees sparkles everywhere, life and so many colours, and she knows what she's to do.
#
It is difficult, watching her siblings talk so openly about Narnia even now, when time has gone since they spent their last time in the magical land. Susan keeps the ache in her heart away and the liquid of tears in her eyes at bay. She is to be gentle and calm, but sure and radiant as the southern sun. She is to live here and now and to put Narnia out of mind, but close to heart, because only by doing that can she succeed. And she can never explain her reasons, just as she knows Peter cannot explain his.
But it is still oh so very difficult, even when Susan sees a hidden understanding in Peter’s eyes, and hears a tired acceptance in Edmund’s voice, and feels the warm embrace of knowing in Lucy’s arms.
#
She is alone. There is no one but her in the house. And no one but her will be. They’re all gone, and she is alone, and the sun cannot break through the cloud of despair around her. Susan sits on the coarse carpet in the hall and on the floor is a telegram from the police and one from the firearms. Both have the same initial message clouded in different words: her brothers and sister and parents are gone. There was a train crash. She needs to come and collect what is left, and to make sure it is them, but that is just a formality. It’s a formality, and Susan laughs and laughs until there is no air left, and cries until her eyes are dry.
#
A very distant, very old relative shows up from out of nowhere – Susan has never heard on seen of her before – and helps her sell the house, keep certain things, and tells Susan that there is a small guestroom waiting, and then they are off to the outskirts of London in what feels like no time at all, but it really has been days, and Susan is dry of tears and words, and sits through the journey in silence.
#
Old ‘Aunt’ Perenelle is gentle and kind and almost, just almost, gives Susan the feeling of Narnia at times. She cannot explain it, so she just accepts it in silence.
Somehow, she is not at all surprised when Perenelle one day after dinner, drags Susan into the living room for a cup of tea, places her in the red armchair, sits down opposite in the blue armchair and says, while pouting tea as it is the most normal small talk in existence:
“You do know that, when your time on earth is up, you will enter Narnia again and see your family, don’t you child?”
“Who are you?” is all Susan can say in reply to that, not at all surprised but slightly confused, because she truly does not know who Perenelle F Dawson is.
“I’m not a Pevensie, and you and I share no blood whatsoever.”
“That… really isn’t an answer, at all,” Susan says, and Perenelle winks at her.
“It’s another answer, child. But, since you do ask so very bluntly, I shall be blunt in return. I am Perenelle Flamel Dawson, here in the nonmagical world I go by Dawson only, and everyone thinks that F is some embarrassing middle name.”
“Flamel? Nonmagical world? Are you… are you that Flamel? I mean, his wife, or sister or something? And you, you’re magical?”
“Oh wonderful, Susan, so quick and without fuss! Indeed, and yes! Now, I usually do not interfere with the lives of others, but you have a certain kind of magic within you, child, and you cannot go unaided in the world. So, I have come to help you and then when I have done so I shall return to the magical part of the world.”
#
Susan basks in the rays of the southern sun, lets it fill her with warmth and magic. It was one of the first thing Perenelle taught her, and it has been ever so useful during the years. At 53, Susan still feels as a very springy 30 year old. She has always believed that 30 is the age around which when one really matures fully. The October sun is soft yet warm and she wriggles her toes in the sandals. Nowadays, people call it old age, her never wearing much clothes because she is always warm. They know nothing, and Susan isn’t about to tell them anything. Besides, 53 isn’t old. Not in her world.
#
Susan feels it the minutes the sun is up on November 1st, 1981. Something is wrong. The sun urges her up, out of the house, away on the London subway to the central station. The earliest train to Surrey doesn’t leave until late midday, and Susan curses the recent delays in trains. She waits for hours, walks in a nearby park and takes in more of the sun’s warmth and magic. She will need it; she knows that much.
The bus from the train station in Surrey out to an unknown goal – Susan only knows the direction to go in – is uneventful and stressing. Susan follows the heated pull from the sun and gets off on a street which name she forgets at once because it is not important. She walks and walks, and as the sun travel down the sky, it gives her the last warmth and magic for the day, the last bit of knowledge she will need.
The neighbourhood is dull, and there is a sense of wrong all over the dark street. Susan waits patiently, hidden in the shadows of two houses. She knows very well how to stay out of sight, how to remain unseen from magical people. Her magic is different, more precise, than theirs, and so it is not easily seen or felt by these magic people that wield wooden wands and uses Latin spells to work magic.
They have left a child outside. In November. With no magic to keep the cold away. Susan almost wishes the magic people where still here; she would very much enjoy roasting them. The little boy is asleep in her lap, and the sun’s heat is slipping from her to him with ease. It will stay well hidden, emerge when needed and then go back to the depths of his being. Susan wishes she could do more. And then, she think while rereading the embarrassing letter that was with the boy when she picked him up, she decided that she will. After all, who better to protect a magic child tha a magic adult?
Susan Pevensie walks away from Privet Drive number four in the cold November night, but neither she nor little Harry Potter feels the chill. The warmth of the southern sun hold a promise of a future that will be good, and in its light no evil can dwell.
The tiny part of soul nestled in the scar on the child’s forehead burns away, and Susan can feel a weak scream of protest. It matters not. She caresses the child’s scar, pours more sunshine and warmth into it, prays to Aslan, and feels Narnian magic at its best. The scar vanishes. The evil is fully gone and will not have any means by which it can return to the little boy.
In a dark room with shelves upon shelves with glimmering orbs, the prophecy concerning Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort vanishes into nothing.
At number four privet drive, Petunia Dursley sleeps on, and she will not be disturbed by a child on her doorstep when she awakes.
At Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, Albus Dumbledore shivers, but shakes it off as old age, not knowing that his well made plans just have gone up in smoke, like when one pours water on a very hot sunlit street.
In Susan Pevensie’s home, little Harry Potter turns over in his sleep, snuggles closer to the presence of warmth, and even though he is asleep, he somehow knows he is safe.
#
The sun rises on the second day of the eleventh month, and Susan pulls back the curtains in the bedroom and lets the light fall on the bed. The toddler squeals and tries to catch the sunbeams as the wall on the bed linen, and far, far away, as if in a dream, Susan hears the gentle roar of a lion.