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I.
She can't close her eyes without seeing the spell blast hit Astoria in the chest—her eyes widening—blue eyes searching hers in disbelief, in confusion. Always, she sees the end of her own wand pointed as her sister flies through the air, striking her head on a stone jutting out of the wall.
Always, she sees her sister fall, the life extinguished before she hits the ground. Her eyes vacant.
This vision, this memory, lives inside Daphne, and it's eating her alive. She's never told the truth about what happened to anyone, and even though it was an accident, everything about her life will break if the truth is found out.
When she sees her sister's body before her now—her lifeless eyes, her blood-stained hair—she barely blinks. Those around her gasp, but Daphne merely stares. The blood seeps into the carpet, one arm folded unnaturally underneath her, eyes wide and empty.
They all have demons from the war, fears that haunt them. But nobody else accidentally killed their sister. She is empty inside, drifting through her days without purpose or hope.
Someone conquers the Boggart, and Daphne walks away. Nobody tries to stop her; they know she is still grieving, but they have no idea how deep her grief goes.
How all-encompassing it is.
How destroyed she is.
She walks aimlessly, her eyes seeing nothing but the memory of Astoria falling, over and over—the question in her eyes. Astoria had no idea she was seconds from her death, that she'd never have a chance to ask why Daphne sent that spell towards her.
After a while, her path is blocked, rubble strewn over the corridor. She is far from anyone else; she hears nothing, sees nobody. Only then does she collapse to her knees, grief taking hold and wrenching sobs from within her.
Then, because she can and there's no other outlet for her quiet, secret grief, she stands and starts blowing apart the rubble. She shatters boulders and reduces huge sections of fallen wall to dust.
It is in this frenzy that she sees a shimmer, a flash of pale light, and she freezes, wand still pointed at a rock.
The rock seems to flash, and she blasts it—just like she'd blasted Astoria into the wall—then screams when she sees a figure curled up where the rock had been.
The figure straightens, puts a transparent finger to his lips. "Please! Don't scream!"
Her heart is pounding, but it's only a ghost. She presses a hand to her heart, breathing deeply to slow her pulse. This ghost looks awfully familiar, and as she stares at him, recognition dawns. "You're that Weasley, aren't you?"
Fred grimaces. "Don't say anything. I don't want my family to know I'm here."
"Why not?" She thinks about Astoria, about how much she wants to see her one last time, to tell her it was an accident, that she'd been terrified and thought a Death Eater was chasing her. She'd never meant to hurt her. She'd give anything, do anything, for the chance to tell her sister the truth.
He frowns and shakes his head. "I want them to move on. Even though I apparently cannot."
She blinks. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not a ghost. Or so the other ghosts tell me. I can't move beyond this spot in the castle. I don't want my family to know I'm here. And I don't want to spend the rest of eternity in the place where I died."
She glanced around her now, really taking in the space. "You died here?"
He points; she can just make out a dark spot on the floor. "Laughing at my brother."
"You look like a ghost."
He shrugs. "I'm not. None of the ghosts know what I am. But I'm stuck right here. I can't move around like the rest of them."
A thought strikes her, and her heart starts thundering. "Are there other ghosts from the final battle?"
He gives her an impatient look. "Did you hear anything I just said? I'm not a ghost, and—"
"Right. Sorry. But you've talked to ghosts. Have any of them mentioned any new ghosts?" She is more hopeful than she has any right to be.
"I've not heard. But ghosts don't form instantly. I didn't. Whatever I am." He sounds annoyed.
"So then—she might be here? Where she died?"
"Who?"
But Daphne is already running, flying towards the dungeon where Astoria fell. She shouldn't hope, she's been down that hallway a dozen times, but she can't help it.
Her chest is heaving when she rounds the corner. The wall is completely intact; there is no dried blood on the floor. "Astoria?" Maybe she's been hiding, like Fred had been. Maybe—
But she knows, deep down, it's not true. She stares at the jut of rock where Astoria's head split open and feels like she might faint. It's like losing her all over again.
II.
She seeks him out because she knows that the Gryffindor ghost has been talking to him.
"Weasley?" She pulls her wand when he doesn't respond. "Come out or I'll start blasting the rest of these rocks. Then you'll have nowhere to hide."
He pokes his head out of a wall. "You bellowed?"
"I want to know if your ghost friend knows anything." She crosses her arms, angry, defensive. Angry because she already knows the answer to her question.
"Er, no. He said there were no ghosts or post-mortality beings sighted after the Final Battle. I'm sor—"
She blasts another rock and storms away, tears streaming down her cheeks.
III.
She starts visiting him. She still has hope that Astoria will turn up as a ghost somewhere, if only to haunt her, and he is the only ghost she has ever spoken to.
She can tell he's lonely too, that he desperately wants to talk to someone. She knows she is the last person he would choose, but she is who Fate has given him.
When he realizes she's a Slytherin, he refuses to speak to her for a week.
Then near Christmas, he tells her the Gryffindor ghost whispered a word as he was leaving one night.
Shade.
Daphne is in the library first thing the next morning.
It's three weeks before she finds something, and it is only a brief mention in a book describing psuedo-magic.
Shade: an evanescent or unreal appearance. Not quite a ghost.
A gasp escapes her lips as she reads. Her fingers trace the words, her breath caught in her throat.
Another week of more focused searching reveals a short paragraph.
A Shade is not a ghost nor any other post-mortal being. It is more like an imprint left behind. Unlike ghosts, a Shade can be recalled to life under certain conditions. However, they are so improbable as to be nearly impossible. Details can be found, nonetheless, in some of the older grimoires.
She has to tell Fred, of course she does. Astoria would want her to. Astoria, who was always a much better person than Daphne was. Who saw the good in people. Who wanted to believe the best. Who probably died believing the worst of her older sister.
Daphne furiously wipes tears away and hurries to where Fred resides.
He is stunned upon reading the passage. He paces the corridor furiously, and she watches in anxious trepidation.
Finally, a bargain is struck.
"Do you know how to find one of these grimoires?" His eyes, which she can tell were blue, are hard as steel and full of determination.
"Maybe. Probably. But why?"
"Because I want to come back! I can't stay here forever, Daphne." She watches in amazement as his pearlescent glowing hand runs through his hair, each strand falling right back where it had been before the action. Exactly how it had been when he'd died.
"Why should I help you?"
He blinks, truly surprised. "Why wouldn't you?"
"Just that simple, is it?" She crosses her arms and fixes him with a glare. "I'm just... supposed to help you? Just like that?"
It's clear to her that that is precisely what he expected—precisely what he would do in her place.
She feels a stab of guilt. Astoria would have already said yes, be busily planning and plotting and analyzing. But all she can do is stand there, irrationally angry with him that he might have a chance at life again while her sister remains absolutely dead.
Five words almost pour from her lips, but she stops just in time, because in a flash, she can see the result: he would close down, stop talking to her, ignore her. Worst of all, he would feel sorry for her. She doesn't ask him what's in it for her because that would mean the end of whatever this is. He is too noble, to good, to tolerate her selfish tendencies, and she realizes that losing this connection with him might destroy her.
"I'm not agreeing to anything. But what would you want me to do?" It isn't in her nature to give of herself for someone else, but Astoria would want her to. Astoria would want this. And since Astoria isn't there to force Daphne, she'd have to agree without any help.
He stares at her hard for a long moment, then his features soften. They begin to hatch a plan.
IV.
There are days like today when she feels like she's drowning. Like getting out of bed is impossible. Like she can't take a deep breath no matter how hard she pulls air into her lungs. There are days when she skips classes, skips meals, barely moves at all.
One thought gets her up today. One person. One Shade of green.
Fred's shimmery glow has gradually become green instead of blue. They don't know what it means, but Daphne has applied to Draco Malfoy for help with the tome she needs. He promises he will get it, and they await the owl.
She stumbles through the halls until she reaches Fred's abode, then collapses in the dust, prostrates herself, welcomes each tiny pinprick of pain from each tiny shard of stone.
Her sobs wrack her body, and she forgets everything except the drowning weight of her pain.
Then Fred is there. She feels the warmth of his ethereal form, which is nothing like a ghost at all. He rests his hand on her back, sits in the dust beside her while she pours out her anguish.
"Why do you cry?" His voice is the softest thing she's ever heard.
All she wants to do is unburden herself of the weight of her guilt, but speaking aloud the truth might make it somehow final. She would be acknowledging, in words scratched across her tongue, what she had done. There would be no going back.
But she must; she's slowly dying from the inside out, and who better to tell than a ghost? A Shade? Someone who didn't exist in the world the same way as she; someone who by his own admittance couldn't leave the spot where he'd died. There would be no danger, really, in confessing to Fred Weasley's afterlife.
So she does. When her sobbing subsides, she tells him everything—sees it all once more, watches her sister die for the thousandth time.
Fred doesn't move while she talks, only keeps his arms around her. One hand slowly draws circles on her back. When she has spilled her deepest, darkest secret, she must likewise share her greatest fear: that somehow Astoria believes she'd done it on purpose, and that she can never, ever apologize or tell her the truth.
Then Fred brushes her cheek with his thumb, the warmth of his touch a welcome presence.
"I'm living my deepest fear—if you can call this living." His breath is somehow warm against her skin.
She pulls out of his embrace and looks at him curiously. His eyes are hooded, almost completely closed. "What's that?"
"Being separated from George." He swallows hard, blinks rapidly. "That was always what I saw when faced with a Boggart. My brother, my best friend—dead. And me not able to follow him. George leaving me behind." He barks a bitter laugh. "And here I'm the one that's gone on, and he's living my nightmare. But George was always stronger than me in some ways. Of the two of us, I'm glad it happened like this."
Daphne reaches for him, feels her hand fall through him, feels his warmth, as though he were somehow alive still. Impossible, she knows. Yet it comforts her as nothing else has been able to since Astoria's death. Her hand slides down his luminescent green arm, stopping when she reaches his hand. It is the warmest part of him, and she can't help but think she feels something more than warmth when she threads her fingers through his.
V.
"Draco just got the book." She sits on her favorite boulder and presses her hand on the inky black cover of the ancient book. A pulse of magic rushes through her, and she knows somehow that it's safe to open.
Fred is there, watching. She can sense him. It's a great comfort to her, even though he isn't flesh and blood.
Fingers trembling, she turns the pages, knowing it could be days before she finds what she's looking for. But the very first page is nearly blank with only a single question written on it:
What do you desire in these pages?
She stares, unsure how to answer. Then a picture of a knife forms just below the question, and she shudders. Of course; a drop of blood. After Conjuring a silver blade, Daphne punctures her skin, letting a few drops splatter onto the page.
They disappear, and seconds later, the pages turn rapidly of their own accord, stopping finally on a page reading only "The Shade."
"Fred!" She gasps, fingers trembling as she turns the page. There is so much there: lore and history, legends and myths. Story after story of attempts to reclaim a Shade; one tragic tale after another ending only in heartache.
In the end, however, there is a simple spell coupled with a warning.
She hungrily takes in the words, desperate for absolution. If she can save him, Astoria will forgive her. She'll see somehow, and she'll know the truth.
"Oh!" Her hand flies to her mouth, dread settling in her gut.
"What is it?" His hand on her shoulder, a pressure as well as his usual warmth. He leans over, trying to read.
"It... says in order to reclaim a life, there must be a piece of you still in the world."
Fred goes very still; the pressure on her ceases.
"And you have to have died laughing." She frowns. "How odd. What are the chances of that?" She glances over her shoulder to look at him. But he is gone.
VI.
If there's one person who can help Daphne, it's Hermione Granger. She doesn't tell the other witch what she's doing or why, lets her assume it's about Astoria.
"That sounds like what Voldemort did. When he split his soul to create Horcruxes." Granger is matter-of-fact, but Daphne doesn't understand.
"What's a Horcrux?"
"A piece of a person's soul, created with Dark Magic when that person kills someone. I'm guessing Astoria never murdered anyone?" She says it darkly.
Daphne grimaces and shakes her head. No, only me. But she knows without a doubt that Fred never has either.
Granger pulls the book closer, a long finger trailing down the page. "No, this isn't the same thing. But Daphne, I don't think this is what you're looking for. Have you... I mean to say... Astoria isn't lurking around the castle, is she?"
Daphne shakes her head. "No. Not Astoria." She thanks Granger and returns to Fred.
She hasn't seen him since showing him the book, but he is there, waiting. Somehow, he looks more yellow than green now. His eyes dance with some secret thrill.
"It's George!" He cries when he sees her. "He is the part of me that's still here!"
She blinks, pulls the book out of hiding, flips to the page she needs. "Didn't you say you died laughing?"
He beams at her. "Percy made a joke. First one I ever heard from him."
Her eyes fly wide. "So then... it's possible. You've met the two nearly impossible requirements."
They stare at each other, her heart beating wildly as she gazes into his pale blue eyes. Hesitantly, she puts her hand on his chest. It's not quite solid, but she can't push through, as with a ghost. He brings a hand up to cup her cheek, and when she leans into the touch, there is resistance.
"Do you want this?"
He hesitates, then nods. "More than I can say."
She turns her head slightly, pressing her lips against his wrist. "Then we've got work to do."