Echo | Harry Potter - George Weasley

Chapter 58: See Beyond the Sorrow

Year 5 at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Dorian Frazier's funeral was a small event for family and close friends that took place on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late July. The one detail that Shaye remembers about it most was how much the muscles in her face ached at the end of the day from how much smiling she had done. Shaye flashed a fake smile when she greeted each of the guests, when people told her they were sorry for her loss and when she had said goodbye to everyone alongside her mother. She spent the entire funeral smiling. 

Elise Frazier spent the entire funeral trying to hold it together. Shaye smiled big enough for the both of them. 

It was a beautiful ceremony full of happy memories and tearful farewells to a man that everyone had known to be kind and hard-working and honest. During the eulogy, Shaye couldn't help but think back to the words had Dumbledore had said in the wake of Cedric's murder. She wondered if everyone said the same thing at every funeral. She wondered if everyone, no matter how they really were while alive, became kind and hard-working and honest when they passed. 

She wondered if she would be remembered as kind and hard-working and honest when she died.

At the end of the day, Shaye and her mother returned to their home—a home that felt empty and foreign to them, the same way it had after Lorelei had gone missing—and went their separate ways. Shaye and her mother hadn't talked much since the summer had started. Shaye didn't know if it was because her mother was angry with her for not coming home right after her father had been killed or if her she blamed her for her father's death in the first place.

All she knew was that their relationship was not the same anymore. Maybe it never would be again.

The one conversation that had lasted longer than a minute and consisted of more than ten words between the two of them was when Shaye explained to her mother what had happened in the graveyard with Voldemort. This conversation had taken place within two minutes of Shaye stepping through the threshold of the home after returning from Hogwarts. 

Despite Elise's desire to reject the fact that her husband had been murdered by command of the Dark Lord himself, Shaye could see the glint of acceptance in her eyes. Dorian had lied to both of them about the reason for his departure. Now that the truth was out and Dorian wasn't around to blame for the mistakes he made, Shaye took the brunt of that weight onto her own shoulders. She didn't even mind. She would have done anything for her mother. After all, she was all she had left.

While Elise shuffled into the kitchen, probably to make a cup of tea and sit at the dining table like she did almost every hour of every day, Shaye trudged up the steps to her room. Her feet ached, just like the rest of her body, and she relished in the fact that she didn't have to smile anymore.

As soon as she stepped into her bedroom, her eyes drifted over to the pile of opened and unanswered letters from her friends. There were about ten from Hermione, three from Harry, two from George and even one from Ron. Shaye had read them all but had never been able to answer them. What was she supposed to say? She wasn't out having an incredible summer with adventures that were worthy of writing to her friends about. She was sitting in her bedroom all day trying not to cry. Her father's funeral had been the first time she had left the house in weeks. 

Shaye was a mess and she didn't want to have to burden her friends with that. Not until she absolutely had to, at least. So, for now, she decided to let them all enjoy their summers and when September rolled around again, she would pull herself together and focus on yet another year at Hogwarts. 

For now, she would strip off her black dress and pinching heels and crawl into bed. Erwin would chirp from the corner of the room until she eventually caved in and let him out the window so he could fly around for a while. When she got too hungry to sleep anymore, she would brave the kitchen where her mother was and get some food. When she remembered to shower, she would.