Echo | Harry Potter - George Weasley

Chapter 53: Nevermind the Nightmares

Shaye didn't know any of the details surrounding the death of her father. Not because she wasn't trusted with them or because the adults in her life thought she was too young and fragile to handle them, but because there simply weren't any to tell. Plain and simple, it was a complete and utter mystery.

Dorian Frazier's body had been found on the doorstep of the Ministry on the morning of December 24th, Christmas Eve. The Ministry originally investigated it as a warning, but that had come up as a dead-end seeing as no one could figure out what the death of a simple wizard who worked in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures could possibly be a warning about. Moreover, whatever Dorian had been doing when he was killed wasn't Ministry related at all, which proved that he had lied about his trip away from home being work-related. 

There was a slew of questions that surfaced as a result of Dorian Frazier's death; a slew of questions that Shaye would have normally been eager to investigate. This time, however, the mystery was much too personal to deal with. The death hadn't been some random Ministry employee that she had never met. It was her father. So instead of being curious and eager, Shaye was heartbroken and devastated. 

Shaye wasn't quite sure how long she had laid in her bed after she returned from McGonagall's office the night of the Yule Ball. To her, time didn't exist anymore. The sun rose and set but she didn't seem to notice. Her only notion of the world around her was tied to the nightmares she had when she eventually fell asleep in between hours of crying and hours of lying motionless in bed, staring at the same wall, unblinking. 

The first nightmare Shaye had was more of a memory, but it was altered. She was standing in her dormitory, watching herself get ready for the Yule Ball and complain about the juvenile dilemmas she was facing. Shaye was screaming at her past self, telling the oblivious version of herself that she had more important problems to worry about.

"Dad is dead!" she screamed, the desperate plea falling on deaf ears. "Dad is dead and you're going to go dancing around with some stupid Durmstrang boy and pretend like everything is okay! Nothing is okay!"

Shaye watched herself and Hermione walk out of the room, smiles on their faces, excited for the ball. As the door shut behind them, Shaye sat up in bed, sweating bullets. Tears were streaming down her face. That was when McGonagall entered the dormitory, handed her a letter from her mother, and told her that she would do everything in her power to have her excused from the rest of the tournament.

Shaye took the envelope and blinked. The tournament ... she had completely forgotten about it. She knew the second task was quickly approaching but she didn't know what time it was, let alone what day it was. The snow was still falling during the evenings, which meant it was still winter. The second task wasn't supposed to be until the spring, so she had time. 

Time that she knew she wouldn't spend a second of trying to figure out what the clue in the golden egg from the first task was. Time she knew she would waste. Time she didn't even want to think about.

McGonagall left as quickly as she had arrived and Shaye opened the letter from her mother, lazily skimming it and only picking out a few keywords like 'distraught' and 'sorry' and 'come home'. She then threw the letter down onto the floor and disappeared back under her covers.

The next nightmare that Shaye could remember didn't start out much like a nightmare at all. She was riding a hippogriff over the Black Lake. Maybe it was Buckbeak, maybe it wasn't. She couldn't tell. She didn't care.

She remembered leaning over and dipping her fingertips into the cold, crisp water. She was smiling. She felt free and happy again, the same way she had when she had really been riding Buckbeak over the Black Lake the year previous. Her reflection glittered in the sunlight bouncing off of the water ... and then it wasn't her reflection anymore, it was her father. He was screaming and clawing at the surface of the water, trying to escape.