SHIVER ━ A George Weasley Story

prologue

[ p r o l o g u e ]

The air was sweet with the mixture of smells; lavender, salt, and the scent of grass after a summer rain.

A man and child walked hand in hand, the little girl swung around her father's arms in circles, screeching and giggling in delight. Daisy chains tangled in her blonde hair, and a crown she had made adorned upon her father's head, collecting shells of many assortments for her bedroom windowsill. It's just the two of them walking along the dunes in the late-afternoon sun, the wind off the sea beating down on them, making their grins chapped.

It's always been this way; just the two of them, Daniel Mallard and his bright-eyed daughter Rosie, in their quaint village, on the sleepy seaside in Cornwall.

✵

They have a routine; rise early in the morning to get a walk along the shore before her schooltime, dropping her at the gates bright-eyed, red-cheeked, and in a tangled mess of hair brought upon by the cool sea breeze. He waves his daughter goodbye for the day, his heart aching, watching her sprint inside.

He spends his day in his cottage, writing, and painting; a retired art history professor and academic who yearned for a sleepier existence and found it, leaving behind the race of the city. He was a man with a mild temper, an introvert by nature who enjoyed the serenity their lifestyle offered. He was a marvellous artist himself, and Rosie spent hours on the weekend watching him paint, and at times he would take her under his wing and show her how he drew his landscapes. Watercolours were his favourite. On warmer days he would take his easel outside to get an idea of his next picture. He had a steady flow of clients who he had built over the years, his work renowned across the country.

He often got caught up in his work, and the morning sprawled into the afternoon, busy with his occupation, which he could get lost in for hours. The grandfather clock chimes three and he begins his walk back to the school gates to await Rosie's departure from school. He would often take the added effort to surprise Rosie with a treat from their local bakery, holding it behind his back as she comes running out of the school gates and barreling into his arms. Berry and custard pastries were her favourite. She sees her father standing there, and she barrels towards him in a hug, not yet at an age-old enough to feel embarrassed by the affection given to a parent. It's this innocence he wants to hold on to forever.

"Dad!! Look, I drew you a picture! Look!".

"Did you, love?"

"Yes! I used watercolours as you taught me! It's you, and me, and we're standing outside our home".

They walk back home, Rosie sprinting to her father's piano as she bursts through the door, itching to run her deft hands over the keys. The ivory of the keys stained with age cracks lining it like a river. The deep red woodwork itself splintered from the sun and wood stain. It was an old instrument her father fell in love with long before she came along. Her father played so elegantly. It was mesmerising to her.

Rosie had been committed to playing like him for quite some time, but there was a magic in the way his larger hands ran over the notes, barely skimming but creating a soft angelic tune, with little effort apparent. Her favourite pieces he played were the more mournful, lamented tunes.

"Scales first, love" Daniel reminds his daughter from the kitchen where he makes their cups of tea, hearing her jam the keys between her small fingers, impatient to play the new tune he taught her the previous day. She'd started drinking tea with milk like her dad, taking the habit after noting that all intelligent people in the books she read drank tea religiously. It made her feel mature, refined like she had some wisdom to impart, of which she truthfully had none from her short span of life. But she could imagine she did.