A/N: As always, the Potterverse belongs to JK. For this story, I also grabbed a line from the Dialogue Prompt Competition (topic/44309/160011698/1/): "She was the best friend I've ever had; what do I do now?" It really helped me focus in on what I wanted this story to be about.

dolilyts - (v.) to lie with your face turned down to the ground [ukranian]

She visited every year. Not the same day, rarely the same time of day even, but always once in a calendar year. It was difficult for her to bear making the one trip, and more than one was entirely out of the question. It had been decades, but the pain of the loss was still fresh. Every time she returned, she returned to that fateful day as well.

"Hannah, we have to go! They're coming!"

She turned, only to see a cutter remove her friend's left foot. She cried out in pain, but bore a determined look as she began to run, pain etching her face each time the bleeding stump struck the ground. They ran into a classroom for cover, no more than a dozen meters away, Hannah trailing blood with every other step. Any attempt she could make to stanch the flow were unsuccessful, though she could only try a couple of spells before her friend cried out again. She looked into her eyes, those beautiful brown orbs that she knew so well, and knew what was coming before it could even be said.

"NO! I won't leave you like this!"

"Sue, you gotta. I can't run on this thing, and there's no sense in both of us getting caught and killed because of me. You know me, I'll fight until the end. If I see you again, it was meant to be. And if I don't…" she paused for another whimper of pain…"I love you, and I always will."

She had tears in her eyes as she gave her one last kiss, one last shove towards the door, as Susan ran away…

They said later that when they found Hannah, she hadn't been alone. She'd managed to kill three Death Eaters before a lucky Reducto broke her wand. The caster hadn't been so lucky, though, as the remaining piece had been shoved into his skull. it was believed that the blood loss had gotten to her soon after, as she had passed on lying facedown in the doorway, a trail showing that she had tried crawling out of the room, but was too exhausted to leave.

This year, for the first time, Susan had brought someone with her to visit. Following the war, she and Neville Longbottom had gotten together, bonded at first by their mutual loss of Hannah, but eventually they fell hard for each other, and had gotten married. They both visited her when they could, but never at the same time; Neville because his work left him up at odd hours, Susan because she wanted a more personal time with her friend. Only when their first daughter had graduated from Hogwarts did Susan finally bring the girl to meet her namesake.

It had been Valentine's Day, the day that Hannah had first kissed Susan. Of course, they had only been 6 at the time, so no one had thought anything of it. Except for Hannah, but she would only reveal that secret to Susan much later. Susan collected her daughter from the Ministry, and the two of them popped over to Brighton, where Hannah had been buried next to her mother, another casualty of the war. After leaving a bouquet of flowers for both of them, Susan stood quiet. Minutes passed, neither wanting to break the silence.

"She was the best friend I've ever had. What do I do now?"

"You have to give her closure, Hannah. She's tried very hard to get it from everyone else, even from her daughter, but she keeps coming back here every year. It can only be you, my child. Go to her. Only she will hear and see you."

"I'll do my best."

Susan blinked once, then again. She had heard of strange things related to ghosts, but even this was unheard of to her. They most often showed up days or occasionally weeks after death, but never years. Except she was very clearly seeing the ghost of Hannah Abbott sitting on her gravestone, and she believed that Hannah's ghost would have made itself known to her before now. So something very odd was happening here. She turned to her daughter, expecting her to have a similar reaction, only to find the girl frozen in place, along with everything else in the nearby area.

"She can't see me, Sue. This is just for you and me, mostly for you. I don't get to come back for very long, but I want to make the most of the time. You can't keep living like this, hon. Neville loves you, as much as he ever loved me. Your gorgeous daughter here loves you, and she's worried that you can't let go of the past, of me."

"And what about me, Han? You loved me, and I loved you too, and those bastards took you from me. Neville's a real nice guy, but he's not you. I needed you. I still need you, and I can't have you. I thought coming to visit once a year would be enough, but it's just not. I need more!"

"You need to get a grip, Susan. You have a wonderful family, a devoted husband, and you're wasting away your life on something that can no longer be. Not in the world you inhabit, anyway. And I swear, if you try and off yourself to come to where I am, you will never see me again. The woman I loved was smarter than that, and I hope for your sake that she comes back. Begging and pleading doesn't become you, girl, and maybe it's time someone said that to your face."

Susan was taken aback by the harsh words. In her heart, she knew Hannah had a point. The pain of Hannah's death still hurt because she had let that wound stay open and fester. She fell to her knees in despair, weeping for both what she had lost and what she had almost thrown away. She soon found herself wrapped in ethereal arms, Hannah whispering in her ear.

"Let it out, Sue. Let it all out. When this is over, I promise, you'll see me again. But that won't happen for a long time yet, and your family needs you here and now, not stuck back at Hogwarts with me. Love them, Susan, and they'll love you back, as I loved you and still do. We'll meet again."

Susan looked into the comforting face of her friend, and saw the truth in her eyes and her smile. She picked herself up off the ground and brushed herself off. She gave a light kiss to Hannah's ghostly hand, clutched tightly in her own, as her spirit began to fade. The world around her resumed its motion, and Hannah rushed over to stabilize her still slightly unsteady mother.

"Mum? Are you OK? Do you need to sit down for a minute?"

Susan took a good look at her daughter, a wonderful blend of her own features and Neville's. The young woman bore no resemblance to her namesake, and for perhaps the first time, Susan was glad that it was so. Her Hannahs were very different people, and it was high time she began acting like it.

"I'm fine, dear. Let's go home; a graveyard is hardly the place to be on Valentine's Day, and you know your father will have something wonderful prepared for us."

Feeling lighter than she had in years, Susan returned home, prepared to live the rest of her life looking up to the sky rather than down to the earth.