shattered | f.w, d.m

eight years

Fred.
8 years later - October, 2006.

—

He woke up at the sound of light chatter.

He opened his eyes slowly and ran his tongue across his dry lips to wet them. His head lifted from where it knocked back and his heart felt like it fell out of his rear end.

"Kez?" Desperation and obvious terror fused through his words. He shot up from the chair and his wide eyes frantically darted around the room. "Keziah?"

She wasn't in her cot. The sheets were messed and the indent of her head was in the pillow, but she was not. Her wand was still on the bedside table.

"Where... what..." His voice hushed down in confusion and panic. He jogged out of the Hospital Wing and glanced around the corridor. "Keziah?"

His voice echoed back to him and the students in the corridor just stared at him before dismissing him.

She wasn't in the corridor. If she was going to her dorm, she would have woken him up. She would have woken him because they needed each other, a lot more than usual lately due to certain events.

"Keziah?!" Fred didn't care that he was shouting like a madman and running down the corridors, searching for her. "Keziah, where are you?!"

"Freddie?" George turned to him, where he stood on the side of the hall with their friends. "What are you doi—"

"Have you seen Keziah?" Fred cut his brother off  hastily.

George's eyebrows furrowed. "What? No—"

"Have any of you seen Keziah?" Fred's worried voice almost rose as his breathing became shallow in horror.

At their murmurs of useless no's, he darted down the corridor in a full-on sprint. He was shouting her name, checking the closets and classrooms. He screamed at the top of his lungs for Keziah as he raced down each hallway in the castle.

Each corridor. Each floor. Each room. And each time, he heard nothing back.

At this point, his heart was pumping painfully with fear and worry and anguish. His breathing was ragged and his eyes were wet with tears of confusion and panic. Because in all the space he searched, he also didn't see Draco. Draco, who was supposed to be dead. Fred watched Keziah bury his body after sawing him to pieces.

So what the fuck was going on? He knew the entire thing was driving Keziah crazy. What was Draco doing? Was that even Draco? Did he hurt Keziah? Where was she?

Fred stopped at the wall as he panted and tears blurred his eyes. The pressure against his lungs was so violent as he sought to choke down the sob rising from his chest. He fell against the wall and shook his head. He sputtered from his lips and dropped to the floor in complete misery.

His head knocked back against the stone wall and his hands tugged at the roots of his untidy red hair. The tears fell down his temples and his body nearly trembled.

"Keziah!" His shout shook with emotion and frustration.

Fred gasped awake and shot up from his bed.

Like usual, he woke up abruptly in a cold-sweat and his breathing staggered. He patted his chest and his own face to gather his thoughts that once again, it was just a dream.

The same dream he had been having since Keziah disappeared eight years ago. Not a dream. A nightmare, really.

He thought it was his own voice in his nightmare echoing in his head when it was only his phone on the coffee table.