Work Text:
i.
Inhale, exhale. Keep breathing. You’ve made it this far, through this much, so just keep breathing.
Ignore the pain in your leg, the pain in your head, the pain in your chest because he is dead, just keep breathing.
Inhale: a flash of a smile on the back of your eyelids. Exhale: a voice in your ear when it’s late and you can’t sleep.
Just keep breathing. Just keep moving forward.
ii.
Can you say it? Can you let the words reach the tip of your tongue without letting them curl back in?
Don’t be afraid, they’re words. They can’t hurt you.
Say it.
“…dead.”
They look at you. They want to know more. Say more. Who’s dead?
“…he’s dead…”
Not good enough. One more time. Last try. Who is dead?
“Fred… Fred, he’s dead.”
(Has it sunk in yet?
He’s not coming back.)
iii.
You dream of him the first night.
(He’s smiling, but you’re frozen. Cold. Alone. He’s smiling up at you from the ground, last laugh on his lips.)
And the second night.
(He’s laughing, a real laugh. It’s the morning before, and sunlight is streaming through the window and into his hair just one morning before, less than 24 hours and you cannot fucking go back)
The third night you don’t sleep.
(He is still there anyways. Always)
iv.
You will not lose to the despair. You have never given in, never given up and now is no different. There is always a way.
Time turners: “Destroyed.”
Spells: “There are none.”
Enchantments: “No, not quite.”
You would be laughing at yourself if you could see it. So frantic, so crazed. Nothing fazes you, remember? You’re unflappable. Untouchable. All you need is yourself, yourself and brother, you see. And he’ll come back. He has to. He always has, always will.
(You would be laughing at yourself, because untouchable is not the same as invincible.)
v.
The master of death looks at you with bright eyes.
“What you are looking for, I cannot provide.” He says, and you are reminded that he is two years your junior besides being the savior of the known world.
“There…” you say, voice catching in your throat, “there has to be some way to get him back.”
The master of death looks at you with dead eyes and says: “There is always a way.”
vi.
(During the interlude they said find your dead, treat them with respect and so you ran to the Great Hall in the hopes that you wouldn’t find that your worst nightmare had come true.
During the interlude you burst through the twisted and dented doors to a room full of death and grief and no flashes of tall figures with red hair weaving their way through the weeping crowds.
During the interlude you sit on a box and refuse to look anywhere but the doors, because he will come running in looking for you.
He enters the room; your heart lurches. You stand up and stumble towards him.
But then you see him and you crumple to the floor, shaking, with your heart dying in your chest.
His arm is dangling limply off the edge of the stretcher they’ve brought him in on and you feel like throwing up.)
vii.
You whisper your last words to him through a sob in the echoing hall where you first saw him laid down.
You tell everyone a different story as to what it was.
(To Mom: “I’ll miss you.”
To Dad: “Why?”
To Ron: “I’m sorry.”
To Percy: “Goodbye.”
These are all lies. The truth?
“Take me with you.”)
viii.
The door opens to a yawning, menacing darkness and though your heart is racing you step inside.
No one will stop you. You’re not supposed to be here, but no one will stop you either way. Not now.
Your footsteps are loud in the cavernous room and the echoes make you feel like you’re being followed; like someone else with the same gait and rhythm and step is walking behind you, just out of sight.
The veil moves gently in a breeze that does not exist, and though it you swear you can see flashes of red hair and twinkling eyes.
You step through.
ix.
They will find a note in your room and they will not understand.
They will weep and wail and grieve the loss of you as well, so soon after your brother and so soon after the war. They will not understand, as they have never been
capable of.
They cannot understand what it means to be missing part of yourself, to be detached and separate and empty when it is all said and done.
While they weep and wail and grieve, green eyes will remain dry and green eyes will understand.
x.
The truth of the veil is:
There is nothing behind it.
The truth of magic is:
There is always something you can create.
The truth of you is:
You see red hair and blue eyes and similar features in places other than mirrors and whether it is true or not, wherever you are and wherever you should be, you will
never leave, never.
The truth of the lie is:
You couldn’t ever leave if you wanted to.