Word Count: 348

"He's dead," Daphne says, shaking her head. The color drains from her face, and fear makes her voice crack. "He's supposed to be dead!"

"I know," Susan whispers. "But he's back."

Susan waits for that allegedly, for the doubt, for the Ministry-approved rebuke of the possibility that You-Know-Who is still alive. It doesn't come. Daphne must know, deep down, that it's true.

They walk along the Black Lake in silence for several moments. Daphne's delicate fingers fiddle with her green-and-silver striped tie. Susan wonders if it's a nervous habit, or there's something more to it. She doesn't ask.

"You must think I'm such a coward," Daphne says with a laugh. She pauses and picks up a smooth stone before skipping it across the dark water, leaving ripples in its wake. "Typical Slytherin, aren't I?"

Susan shakes her head. She takes Daphne's hand gently in hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "No," she says. "It's okay to be afraid. I am."

She remembers the stories of the first war. It was before her time, but her father and aunt have told her about the horrors, about the deaths, the suffering, the pain. Susan had always been glad it had been before her time.

Now, here it is, and she is more terrified than she can ever say.

"Where do we go from here?" Daphne asks, sighing heavily and deflating slightly.

Susan moves closer, pressing a quick, chaste kiss to her girlfriend's lips. "I don't know," she admits.

She wishes she could say that she has all the answers, that she knows without a shadow of a doubt what to do and that they'll be okay. All she can do is follow her heart and hope that it steers her in the right direction.

"All I know is we go together," Susan adds, resting her head on Daphne's shoulder.

Times are growing darker. She can feel it in her soul, and she can see it in the way her aunt worries and frets.

But she has Daphne by her side, and Daphne feels like home, and that is enough.