Echo | Harry Potter - George Weasley

Chapter 48: Fairly Good Does Not a Champion Make

Tilting her head back against the tree she and Harry were sitting against, Shaye closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. The fresh scent of a cool breeze blowing of off the lake, paired the sound of Neville doing whatever it was that he was doing, lulled Shaye into an almost relaxed state of mind.

"Amazing," Neville commented as he observed something he had plucked out of the water. "Amazing." 

Harry looked up from the book resting in his lap and sighed. "Neville. You're doing it again."

"Right, sorry," Neville apologized, unaware that he had been admiring his plants out loud.

Opening her eyes again, Shaye scanned the various items that Neville had laid out on the ground. Neither she nor Harry was sure why he was collecting plants from the lake, but they had a hunch it had something to do with Herbology class.

"'Magical Water Plants of the Highland Lochs?'" Harry read the title of one of Neville's books. 

Neville nodded. "Moody gave it to me. That day we had tea."

"How nice." Shaye took the book from Harry and scanned the cover. "Little bit of light reading to go with your trauma, sir?"

Harry snickered.

Neville then looked past Shaye and Harry and gave a wave to someone. Turning around, Shaye saw that Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were heading toward them. Hermione and Ginny, she was fine with, but she wasn't so sure she had the energy to deal with Ron's foul mood.

"It's already been through enough people," Hermione told Ron. "Why don't you just go and talk to them yourself? Ron, this is your problem, not mine."

Shaye and Harry shared an intrigued look before standing up and taking a few steps closer. "This should be good." Shaye could sense the oncoming inconvenience. 

Ron whispered something into Hermione's ear, and as she walked over to deliver the message, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. "Ronald would like me to tell you two that Seamus told him that Dean was told by Parvati that Hagrid's looking for you."

"Is that right?" Harry grumbled before Shaye had a chance to decipher the message for herself. "Well ... what?"

Hermione shrugged and walked back to Ron. Ron whispered something to her again and she returned. "Dean was told by Parvati ... please don't ask me to say it again," she begged. "Hagrid's looking for you."

"What for?" Shaye asked.

"I don't know."

Harry frowned. "Well, you can tell Ronald-"

"I'm not an owl!" Hermione snapped before storming off with Ginny by her side.

Ron glared at Shaye and Harry for a few seconds before turning and following after the girls. Marching away, he couldn't resist peering back over his shoulder once before all three of them disappeared through the trees.

"I'm so sick of this." Shaye folded her arms across her chest. "This needs to end."

"Yeah, but how?" Harry was hoping Shaye had some sort of plan up her sleeve.

"I don't know but I'm going to give it a shot." Shaye started through the woods after the trio that had just left. Spotting their retreating backs among the trees, Shaye shouted for them to wait up.

Hermione and Ginny seemed genuinely interested in what it was that Shaye had to say but Ron, on the other hand, looked simply annoyed at her presence. 

"Listen, Ron, I'm getting really tired of this game you're playing at," Shaye told him matter-of-factly. "I don't know how many times Harry and I need to say this for it to get through your thick skull, but we did not put our names into that goblet! You want eternal glory so bad? Trust me when I say that Harry and I would gladly let you take our places if we could. We don't want this! We're scared! I don't sleep at night. Harry zones out so often thinking about the danger that I sometimes spook him when I speak. And you know what? If you need to stay mad at someone because that's how you truly feel, then stay mad at me ... but Harry needs you. He needs his best friend. So smarten up and start acting like one before it's too late."