Chapter Text
“George is upstairs,” Ginny informs him when they’ve all (somewhat) collected themselves. Fred is thrown off balance a bit when just the name wipes the smile off of everyone’s face and they instantly become sober. He wonders why the commotion of his return didn’t bring his brother downstairs in the first place and the thought makes his stomach hurt.
“Is he okay?” Before the words even leave his lips, Fred knows that it’s a stupid question. His mum looks like she might start crying again and everyone exchanges uneasy glances with one another as if they’re hoping someone else will tell him the truth.
Without waiting another moment, Fred heads to the stairs, hardly noticing that both his mother and father are right behind him. “George?” He tries to call out to George, but fear quiets him and he can only whisper.
The door is closed and Fred puts a shaking hand around the knob, drawing in a deep breath before he goes to open it. He feels his father lay a hand on his shoulder.
George is sleeping, or at least Fred thinks he might be. He’s laying still enough, his breath steady and even. God, he looks like a horrible mess. He’s far too pale with dark shadows under his eyes. And has he lost weight already? Fred surveys his twin brother in dismay, reluctant to wake him if he actually is asleep because it looks like he needs about a month’s worth of sleep. The fact that the commotion downstairs brought about by his unexpected return had clearly done nothing to disturb him is perhaps the most worrying bit.
He sinks down on the edge of the bed, his bed, he realizes with a pang, and hesitantly touches a hand to George’s shoulder. “All right, Georgie?”
To his surprise, George’s eyes open right away and despite himself, Fred feels his lips turn upwards in a grin. His ecstasy is short-lived however when he actually sees how George is looking at him.
Eyes round in panic, George sits up, moving so quickly that Fred has no time to react when his brother gives him a violent shove off the end of the bed. He catches a glimpse of George reaching into his back pocket when their father cuts him off.
“Expelliarmus!”
George’s wand flies out of his hand. He looks momentarily stunned and then chaos erupts. Fred hears their mother cry out as she flings herself in front of him, shielding him from George who has a look of complete outrage and grief etched on his face. Again, their father stops him but this time forcefully. His arms wrap around his thinner frame, pinning his arms to his side and dragging him away from Fred and to the corner of the room. “George!” He shouts as George struggles to break free. “George, listen to me!”
“Who are you?” George yells, yells at him, eyes ablaze. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“George, George !” Their father implores, desperately trying to stop the tirade. “Stop it and lis-“
“Listen?” George interrupts. “Listen to what? Dad, that’s not- That’s not Fred. It can’t be.” His voice breaks and he sags a little in his father’s arms while staring at Fred. “That’s not Fred.”
“George,” Once again, their father speaks and Fred closes his eyes tightly for a moment, listening to the comfort and reassurance that has always been there. He can hardly stand to look at George who looks like he’s struggling between grief and anger and rapidly losing both battles.
George’s legs buckle and he slides to the floor, supported all the way by his father. He presses the palms of his hands tightly against his eyes. “Oh my god,” he moans. “I’m losing it, aren’t I?”
Fred quickly detangles himself from his sobbing mother. “It’s okay,” he says, but he’s not sure if he’s talking to her, George, or himself.
“Son,” Fred watches their father holding onto
George as if for dear life. Like he’s afraid of losing him somehow. And that’s when it hits Fred. The full impact of his actual death. It wasn’t just him his parents had lost.
“Leave us alone,” he says after a while, adding when both of his parents given him a stricken look,
“Please.”
“We’ll be right outside the door,” his mother tells him, reluctantly letting go. She presses a kiss to his forehead and hesitating before she backs away. “My boy,” she murmurs wonderingly. And when his father does the same, Fred forces a smile even though he wants to scream and put his fist through the wall.
This isn’t right. His father doesn’t cry. He’s not supposed to. And his mother, while always someone who has worn her heart openly on her sleeve for all to see, was also always one of the strongest people he’s always met. Now she’s crumbling before his eyes. His brothers and Ginny are all walking disasters, crying at the sight of him and then whenever he’s out of their sight. To say nothing of George who is borderline catatonic in the corner of the room right now. The joy that he grew up with and lived with for twenty years seems like it’s just been drained away completely.
His eyes are dull, completely empty. It’s like, Fred thinks with a shiver, staring into a void instead of at his own brother. George has absolutely no reaction to seeing him. Instead, it’s like he’s staring straight through him.
Catatonic , Fred thinks with a sinking heart. Ron was right. He chews on his bottom lip, at a loss for what to do next. It’s not something he’s ever experienced, being at a complete loss when it comes to George. They know each other at a level beyond the understanding of the rest of their family. One has always known what the other is thinking or how they feel, or what they’re about to say or do. But now, Fred hasn’t a clue.
“George.” When the name comes out in a hoarse whisper, Fred clears his throat and tries again. “George, it’s me.” George closes his eyes again. He hates the anxiety coursing through his veins right now, but he can’t seem to find the invisible thread that has held them together for their whole lives. George is right in front of him and he can’t reach him. The thought terrifies Fred.
What did you expect? Deep down, Fred knows his return could never have been entirely joyous, complete with fireworks and noisemakers. There had to be shock, disbelief, and tears of several different emotions. Ron had been with Harry, had witnessed Fred being brought back, and he had bawled uncontrollably for at least twenty minutes. But after that, after both Ron and Harry had calmed down enough to explain, it was supposed to get easier.
Sure, it still hadn’t quite sunk in. He had been killed. He was dead. Actually dead. For five days. His family had mourned for him. They were in the middle of planning his funeral for crying out loud. It was a lot to take in and Fred is certain that it’ll never completely make sense to him. But he desperately wants to undo as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. The rest, accepting what had happened to him and realizing that he’s in debt to Harry Potter for his whole life, that can all come later. After he fixes what was undeniably broken. They’ve all been broken, but not beyond repair. Not even George. Fred refuses to believe it even if his brother looks shattered past recognition.
“George,” Fred tries a bit more firmly this time and tries to ignore a small swell of panic when George just closes his eyes again. “George, you stubborn git. Open your eyes and look at me, please!”
He feels terrible calling George a name when he’s in such a state and he hates that something as simple as calling his brother a name makes him feel terrible. They’re brothers, after all. Calling each other names is a daily part of that.
Or at least it was.
“What do I have to do to get you to look at me right now?” he asks desperately. “How can I get you to hear me?”
George’s lips open and he whispers a word that escapes Fred. He bends his head down, frantically trying to catch the sound even though it’s already long gone. “What? he asks, unable to resist giving George the lightest of shakes. “George, what did you say?”
“Shit,” George repeats himself in a voice that makes Fred shiver. It doesn’t sound like him at all. “I’ve really gone off, haven’t I? Lost it completely. Completely mental.”
“I. . .” Fred stares at his twin, feeling as though he’s staring at a complete stranger and hating every second of it. He’s used to feeling like he’s looking in a mirror at himself. “What?” George opens his eyes again, and again Fred finds himself staring into a void. “What do you mean?”
“Crazy,” George clarifies, continuing to stare straight through him. “I’ve gone crazy. I’m hallucinating.”
Fred bites his lip again, this time hard enough to draw blood. “No, it’s me.” Maybe he’ll look more like himself, more real, if he smiles. But he can’t even work up a fake one. George really does think that he’s gone mad.
“This is quite an agreeable hallucination,” George says to himself because Fred clearly is not a part of this conversation. “Though I expect Mum will have a fit.”
He’s not real to George. He’s a vision brought on by lack of sleep, food, and more grief than Fred can stand to look at. He sits quietly and watches George continue to stare without really seeing. For the first time in his life, Fred Wesley is at a loss for words.
It’s not supposed to be this hard. Not with George. Life as a twin was so easy. Someone was always there to share a thought or finish a sentence. His mother used to laugh and say that they were actually one person because they were so similar and that’s why she couldn’t tell them apart. When George lost his ear, Fred had spent some time accepting the idea that they were no longer identical. Never the best at accepting change, he had sulked about it for days but hadn’t admitted how shaken it really left him. Knowing that George has spent nearly a week without him, Fred realizes that the ear means nothing anymore.
He hears a loud sniff and turns to see tears streaming quietly down George’s face. “Georgie-” heart aching, he tries to reach out.
But George pulls away and holds a hand out in front of him. “Don’t,” he says, gulping back a sob. “I-I can’t. You’re not real and I. . . I just can’t.”
Fred, ignoring George’s plea, inches closer until he can reach him, pulls him as close as he possibly can and then holds him as tight as he possibly can. Instantly, he feels George tense in his arms and tries to pull away, but he refuses to even loosen his grip.
“S-Stop!” George cries out.
“No.”
George hits him, surprisingly hard for someone who looks like a nice fresh summer breeze might blow him over. “Please,” he begs.
“No.”
Another thump on his back, harder this time. Fred winces. It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as his heart. George sounds like he’s really struggling for breath. For most, it might make sense to let him go or at least not hold him quite so tightly, but Fred doesn’t dare for fear of him shattering into a million pieces.
“I’m here, Georgie.”
Frantic now, George just shakes his head. “No,” he says with a sort of moan. “No, you’re not. Not really.”
He’s afraid to believe it. Of course, he is. Fred is still afraid that any wrong move or word would just erase all of this and he would having wasted Harry’s selfless act, go back to being really and truly dead.
“D’ you remember when we kids and stole Percy’s wand and tried out spells in here? Dad never quite got around to repairing all of the damage. On rainy nights I always got enough water on my head that I wouldn’t need to worry about showering. And Mom refused to replace the curtain after you set it on fire. Said that we deserved to wake up with the sun if we were going to be so careless.”
George might as well be Petrified he’s so still but even that would be too easy. Fred briefly entertains the idea of some sort of memory charm, but he can’t stomach it. So he just keeps talking, a steady ramble of words as more memories come tumbling back in.
“Do you remember when we were nine and buried Percy’s glasses in the garden?”
“Do you remember when we were eleven and Mum and Dad took just the two of us to Diagon Alley to get our supplies for our First Year?”
“Do you remember how relieved we were when we both got sorted into Gryffindor? Or at least I was. I never told you, Georgie, but I was so afraid we’d get separated. I didn’t care if we both wound up in Slytherin so long as it was the both of us.”
“What about the time I turned Ron’s Teddy Bear into a spider or when I gave him an Acid Pop? I thought Mum would never let me leave the house again and you sat up here with me the whole time.”
“How about the time we found the Marauder's Map and took it right out of Filch’s office? First-year too. We started out strong, we did.”
“Do you remember when Charlie used to give us secret flying lessons with his broom? And Mum thought that we were helping him clear out the old shed.”
“And Bill taught us how to shrink Percy’s sweaters?”
“Poor Percy. He did teach us how to tie our shoes. And how to tie a tie. Do you remember that?”
“Did Ginny ever tell you that you were her favorite brother? Because she told me, but I think she told all of us. I’m probably her favorite brother for real, ya know? Actually, she probably likes Bill or Charlie best.”
“Do you remember-”
“Do you remember when we were five or six and I almost drowned?”
George’s voice startles Fred badly. It startled him, even more, when his brother takes the opportunity to pull away from him, backing up until they’re a couple of feet away. It feels like miles. He feels paralyzed for a moment, too afraid to look at his brother. Instead, he just talks some more. “I do. I remember everything about that day because it was the first and only time that I thought I would be Just Fred instead of Fred and George. And I never let myself think that thought again even when you had to go and get your damn ear blown off. Because that thirty seconds, minute, two minutes, whatever it was, it was the worst time in my life. It was like-”
“It was like you were drowning too.” George interrupts a second time. “Like every piece of you had been stripped away and the bloody world was just carrying around as if nothing had even changed. Everything felt heavy and wouldn’t work properly. And you wanted to stop but it just. wouldn’t. stop.”
“It was such a small amount of time but it felt like an eternity.” Fred whispers.
“I never actually died though.”
George sounds betrayed and that hurts. Fred really does remember the terror of watching George disappear into the murky water. He remembers feeling like he lost a part of himself even though all of his limbs remained attached. He remembers crying before and after Bill saved him. He remembers everyone crying from fear and relief. He remembers the nightmares that George used to have afterward and how he’d wake up to hear his brother practically choking. He remembers sitting with him, calming him down until they both felt better.
“Will you believe that I’m real if I tell you that it’s because of Harry Potter?”
George snorts with laughter that lacks humor completely. “Believe me, I’ve imagined every possible scenario. The Resurrection Stone, Time Turners, even Professor Trelawney. And this isn’t the first time I’ve had a full out conversation with you. Or at least, whatever I can conjure up when I’m most desperate. This one is just more convincing than the others.”
Fred studies George closely. The sunlight streaming in through the windows bring attention to just how sickly he really looks. There’s a grayish cast to his pale skin and his cheekbones look more hollowed out. He looks extraordinarily tired, like someone with a terminal illness. It’s his eyes that really get to Fred though. They’ve always known each other’s thoughts and feelings. But now there’s something George knows that Fred doesn’t.
They can get past this though. They have to.
“George,” he says quietly, hating the way George flinches away. “I need to know. What’s something I can say or do. . . anything at all, that will convince you I’m real and not a dream or a hallucination or anything like that?”
George merely shrugs.
For a good while, they just sit on the floor together, neither one of them speaking or moving. Fred can’t take his eyes off of George who absolutely refuses to meet his gaze. But at least he’s not trying to push him away or hit him. Is it actual progress or is Fred just grasping at straws?
George picks at a loose nail in the floorboards. He traces the lines in the wood with his fingertip. He taps his foot in an anxious beat. It’s as if he’s just waiting for Fred to disappear and he’s desperately trying to keep his mind off of it altogether. Patience has never been Fred’s strong suit, but he’s at a loss so all he can do it wait.
His nose itches. His back hurts from sitting on the floor in a cramped position for so long. George looks like he might fall apart if he moves a muscle so he stays still, ignoring the itch and the aches. He tries to think about something other than the current moment to keep his mind occupied, but it’s like all the happy memories have been vacuumed from the room and all he can see is George sitting in front of him looking more like a ghost than a human being.
Maybe, in a sense, Fred does know what it’s like to lose his twin. But George got him back. He can get George back.
The Burrow is quiet. Fred wonders if their parents are still waiting outside the door. He hopes not. He just wants, needs it to be just him and George. Fred and George. Everything else is too constricted and claustrophobic.
“George,” he says after he can bear the silence no longer. “I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what you felt. . . what you’re feeling now, and I don’t know how to help you and that scares me. It feels like might lose you and that scares me. I’m afraid that I can’t fix this. . . fix you. But even if I can’t l, I want you to know that I’m here, I’m real, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t promise that,” George whispers back.
It’s the most positive response he’s received yet even though he’s pretty sure George is close to tears again . Fred inches closer, relieved when George doesn’t try to move away. “Look, deep down I know that it’s not the most practical promise, but when have we ever been practical?”
Much to his surprise, George actually laughs and it’s a real laugh this time. It’s too short and he’s definitely on the verge of tears, but it’s real and it’s a beautiful sound. George looks up at him, a spark of hope lighting up his dull eyes, and Fred holds his breath, waiting.
“Do you promise that you’re real?”
He sounds like a little boy. Fred can only nod his head and manage a quiet, “I promise, George.”
Then suddenly, George lunges at him, wrapping his arms tightly around him and nearly knocking him backward. Fred steadies the two of them first and then returns the embrace. George is shaking hard and not just because he’s crying. Fred holds his brother, feeling like the world has started to right itself.
Maybe he grew up in a house full of siblings and maybe they fought and laughed so much that he never knew a day of silence. Maybe he thought that it would always be that way. Maybe he knows now that he was wrong and that scares him. Maybe he knows now that they’re not invincible, not even himself and George. Maybe that scares him too. Maybe a lot scares him now when he never used to be scared of anything. Maybe his family, once whole and happy, is now broken. Maybe, even though he’s confident that they’re not so broken that they can’t be fixed, a huge part of them is forever changed.
Maybe he’s okay with that.