A/N: This one-shot is completely based on the fanfiction "Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness" by Thanfiction. It will not be comprehendable if you have not read the works within it's trillogy. As such, it contains spoilers for "Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness" as well as "Sluagh" and "A Peccatis." This was written for the Facebook Group promt "Overcoming Hardships" during our prompt-a-day week. The next few days prompts will be uploaded here as well.

Prompt 1: Overcoming Hardships

Everything about that day was etched like a scar into Hannah's mind.

She knew it was long over, knew she was being ridiculous, that it should have been the battle that haunted her, not that single day. There had been no blood, no tears, no loss…

Just that awful, stung, painful look on Neville's face when he had been relieved of command. Hannah had tried, oh Merlin she had tried to talk to him. Tried to make him see she didn't want to hurt him, but he wouldn't listen. Growing exhausted with the combined efforts of avoid him and trying to stay with him, she'd eventually turned to letters in the hopes that he would listen to her then, when she was no longer a figure imposing on his boorish sulking.

Dear Neville,

I know you're probably never going to open this, but if you do, please hear me out. This first thing I want to say is that I love you more than you will ever know- and believe it or not, that is why I had to agree with the others to relieve you of your duties as our Fearless Leader. Because Nev, I love you so much it scares me. It scares me to know that I would do anything you asked, as would the rest of us, even when you're in a position like you are and making orders that are much too dangerous. But you have to know that, while that may be the reason the others agreed to relieve you, that wasn't it for me at all. You are breaking inside, Neville. Falling apart and ruining yourself every day. You need to look in the mirror and see what we all see. We see determination that is borderline insanity, and that is the harsh truth that I won't apologize for saying. I'm not a healer, I'm in no position to tell you what you need, but if not as your girlfriend then as your friend, please believe me when I say you need rest. You need love. You need someone to be there for you, to talk to, to listen. I've always wanted to be that person, Neville. And I'm so sorry if it hurts you that we had to act now.

I love you,

Hannah

But he never read it. That one or the others that she sent, trying more desperately than she should have to make him see the truth in front of his nose.

Hannah had her arms crossed, staring at him, her bare foot tapping the floor steadily as her green eyes seemed to glow with anger, but she said nothing. He fumbled, at a loss for words, then smiled hopefully. "I'm really sorry, Hannah. I didn't know – "

"Can you not read?" she asked icily.

"I didn't look at the letters until tonight, until just before I came here, honestly," he admitted.

"Why not? Do I only get the privilege of communicating with you if I am willing to agree with you on everything, is that it?"

His head sagged. "I didn't know you were trying to help."

She threw her hands into the air in a motion of exasperated disbelief and snorted. "In heaven's name, Neville, what did you think I was trying to do? Gloat? Rub it in?"

"Explain exactly why you'd thought I wasn't good enough to lead the D.A. That you still loved me even though I couldn't handle it, even though I wasn't as strong as you thought I was." There was no self-pity in his tone, just a matter-of-fact resignation that seemed to stop her in her tracks.

"I thought the same as everyone else…that you were pushing yourself too hard and needed to be stopped one way or another before you killed yourself. You're not weak at all, you're too strong for your own good. After everything you've done for us, why would I ever think you weren't goodenough to lead?"

He had been a bit right about what those letters meant, of course, but that wasn't what echoed in her mind still today. Hannah's worst memory, the biggest hardship she ever had to overcome, besides the loss of her mother, was fearing that she was going to lose him. That day amongst the D.A. was the first time she knew the true fears of a lover, and that fear continued on and off for a great many years.

He squeezed her gently, turning her to look directly into the green eyes he loved so much. "It's only three more years. Then they'll have more people who want to do this, and they'll be able to let me and Ron and a bunch of the other ones go who just agreed to play stopgap after the veterans had been pretty much wiped out."

"And then no more waiting up? No more dark wizards?" Her fingers skimmed over his forehead again. "No more wondering if I'm going to get you back in one piece every day? No more 'sorry, Hannah, that's Need-To-Know'?"

When the incident about the Sluagh was eventually solved, Hannah finally had time to slow down on worrying and just live life. But the one thing she had grown to realize was that maybe, the greatest hardships to overcome weren't the sudden losses, the instant deaths, the gruesome battles. Maybe, just maybe, they were the little fears that grew over time. And in suffering them, maybe one learns to overcome them.

Hannah understood now, why she had been left with a sense of dread ever since the end of the war, and it hadn't been because of the horrors she had seen, it had been because of her own love for her husband.

But they were worth it, weren't they? These hardships. She had a man who would never leave her, never stop loving her, never disrespect her. A man who was a great father for her children.

What hardships could possibly make something like that not worth every last one?