Estelle Prewette was at the Burrow for the first time in years. She had loved the house and those who lived there as a young girl. She should have been happy to be there. However, her return to the Burrow was under circumstances that left little space for happiness.
Her father, Augustus Prewette had been Molly Weasley's nephew. Her mother, a French woman, had been responsible for somewhat of a falling out between them, causing Estelle to miss her yearly summer visit year after year. Her parents had been discovered dead at the Department of Mysteries, their place of work. Their deaths had been put down to an experimental spell gone badly wrong and had been responsible for Estelle's long-awaited return to the Burrow.
Having no other living family, Estelle had been sent to the Burrow for the summer holidays, where she awkwardly interacted with James Potter, a Gryffindor student who often pelted her and her friends with magically propelled paper as they worked in the library, and dodged around the famous Harry Potter, who was convinced that she needed emotional support, most likely at the prompting of Molly, who possessed the idea that losing one's parents at an early age was prime bonding material. It wasn't as though she didn't appreciate it, but Estelle hardly knew Harry and always got the impression that he felt rather awkward about badgering her with Molly's handed-down concerns.
Well meaning distant relatives aside and family tragedies aside, Estelle was pleased to be back at the Burrow. She had missed the crazy, messy, full of life house that was so far from her own. She liked playing quidditch with the many, many kids that seemed to appear out of nowhere. She liked venturing into Ottery St. Catchpole with Teddy and Victoire. Everything Estelle had done was so far different from how she normally spent her summers that it offered little room for melancholia. And yet, Estelle found herself looking over to see her father's reaction when George and his merry band of nieces and nephews did something particularly funny. She found herself looking over to her mother when Molly and Fleur began to argue. But they weren't there. She did her best to push down what sadness lingered from her parents' death the previous May. After all, school was starting in a matter of weeks and Estelle was coming into her fifth year and needed to focus on her O.W.L.s. As much as her Ravenclaw coping mechanisms seemed ridiculous to Molly and the rest of the Weasleys, Estelle found that the best way to move past anything was simply to ignore any emotions that came with it and focus on the facts. And the facts were clear. There was nothing she could do.
Her days at the Burrow had passed quickly and soon September was upon them. Estelle, however had had all enthusiasm for the school year robbed from her mind by a strange dream the night before. She had found herself alone, in shifting surroundings that appeared blurred as though Estelle had a screen surrounding her. As she walked, she heard an odd noise coming from beneath her and looked down to see long forgotten remains that resembled human bone structures. Maintaining her Ravenclaw tendencies even in dreams, Estelle, after getting over the initial shock of looking down to see bones, bent down and gently prodded a femur. The bone crumbled, though not in the way she expected it to. It seemed to turn into something dark and sticky. Upon closer examination, Estelle found it to be thick, dark blood, the redness hidden from her by the darkness of her surroundings. Swallowing her horror, Estelle regained her feet and continued on.
As she walked, the shroud that seemed to shield the environment from her view melted away, revealing a dark, twisted forest. At first glance, the place resembled the Forbidden Forest on the Hogwarts grounds, but as she continued on, Estelle realized it was far too cold and dark, even at night to be the Forest she was slightly too familiar with. Suddenly, Estelle heard a voice. It was joined by more, then faded to one again. The voice sounded familiar, yet unfamiliar, aspects of it reminding her of her friends, her parents, but at the same time sounding so different from anything she had ever heard in a way that made her stop in her tracks.
"He's coming," the voice hissed ominously.
She felt for her wand, but it was gone. Estelle stumbled through the trees with renewed haste, her curiosity replaced with fear. As she tore through the forest, the branches seemed to grow thicker, catching on her long brown hair and scratching her face as she ran. The voice continued to echo throughout the forest, but Estelle heard no footsteps or any indication that someone was following her. Suddenly, she burst through a thick clump of bushes to find herself in a large clearing. The full moon could be seen even though Estelle knew it wasn't astronomically correct. She stopped running as she saw another person standing on the opposite edge of the clearing. He was tall and thin, but Estelle couldn't judge any other features for he wore a long, hooded cloak that hid his face and was partly concealed in the darkness of the trees. The voices stopped. The forest and become eerily quiet, the noises of wind and animals moving through the trees gone. Estelle jolted awake just as the stranger reached up to remove his hood.
Estelle reflexively snatched her wand from her bedside table and pointed it around the room in panic until she realized that she was alone. Soaked in sweat, she lay back down in her bed, gasping, as she struggled to comprehend what had happened. The dream had seemed strangely real. She had been somewhere she had never seen before, somewhere she hadn't even seen pictures of. Pulling herself out of the camp bed that had been placed in the attic that was now empty of a ghoul, she walked over to her bookshelf and pulled a barely used copy of Unfogging the Future, a textbook that she had pulled from the shelves of Flourish and Blotts in a moment of sheer curiosity before instantly regretting the purchase. Though Estelle quite firmly believed that the subject of Divination was rather ridiculous, she was willing to resort to desperate measures to find an explanation. She thumbed through the book, looking a little into each of the elements of her dream and finding only gruesome predictions of death and violent murder. Rolling her eyes, Estelle pushed the book back onto the shelf and instead reached for the magical atlas she had been reading the day before. The atlas gave a few options that appeared to be similar to her dream, but none seemed to fit properly. Considering all she had to go on was 'forest', 'dark' and 'cold' Estelle was a little surprised that she had actually found anything worthwhile.
Pulling her wavy hair up to a bun, Estelle tugged two volumes of a magical history and a thick book of mythology from their shelves, hoping to find some forgotten creature or wizard within them that had inspired the dream. She settled herself into her chair after pulling a sweatshirt on to block out the cold of the attic and began to read. She hardly knew what to look for and the general idea of the man she had seen yielded many possible choices. Voldemort, for example, was often described as tall and thin and wore a cloak or long, trailing robes. Once again nothing seemed to fit what she had seen - no imagined, Estelle told herself, refusing to be so ignorant as to assume that the dream was real.
It could have be Leginimency, Estelle realized with a start, before dismissing the idea. Leginimens were very rare and who would want to use the power on her? Shaking her head slightly, she sank back into her chair and her book, determined to discern what had happened before the rest of the house awoke in matter of hours to disrupt her contemplation with the sound of their footsteps.
