Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any associated settings, characters, or events; all rights belong to J.K. Rowling and publishers and whatnot. Also, I am very new to this world, and not necessarily part of the fandom, so forgive any mistakes in terms of canon compliance (and if you would be so kind as to let me know if you spot any, I would appreciate it).
Cover courtesy of the quite creative and completely cool Phoebe594.
This one-shot is a sequel to my other one-shot Mouse in My Pocket. If you've read that, you can skip the bolded text; if not (and you don't want to), here's a brief summary: Arthur Weasley gave George a toy mouse from a muggle joke shop, trying to help him in his grief over his twin by making him laugh and catching his interest. George, who was having trouble with the transition from "we" to "I," latched onto the mouse and the expression about having a mouse in one's pocket and began carrying it around and pulling it out to make people laugh whenever he slipped up and forgot that Fred wasn't there. That single mouse began a collection of toy mice, mainly ones George created for his own joke shop, and something of a tradition in which he presented a new mouse at Fred's gravestone three times a year (their birthday, the anniversary of Fred's death, and Christmas). Some of the mice have stayed on the ledge at the base of the stone, under protective charms, and George jokingly declared baby Fred II as another of his little "mousies."
"Hey, Uncle Freddie." The speaker shuffled his feet in front of the gravestone, then abruptly crouched, drawing in a deep breath. "I, uh, I got some bad news. Dad—" He broke off with a sniff and paused to wipe his eyes. "Dad's not doin' so good. He, uh—It's his mind, it's . . . He's losing his memory. You probably already knew that; they say it's been happenin' for a while, but, uh, it's gotten bad now. He probably won't be visiting you again.
"Thing is, he's not losing his old memories, just the newer ones, and he—Well, sometimes he wonders where you are, and other times, he thinks I am you, and it's . . . hard. I've tried telling him the truth before and it—It's like he's losing you for the first time all over again and it's worse than I expected.
"He's my dad, and I've always thought of him as so strong, you know. I thought nothing could ever break him, but I was wrong. I saw him when Grandma and Grandpa died, and Uncle Bill, and this was so much worse. Telling him, it was like I tore his heart out and told him to try to function without it, like there was just this vacuum inside of him.
"I guess I never realized before how much your death affected him. Not really. He's always talked about you, and I always felt like you and your death were some kind of shadow over my life, but by the time I came along, I guess he'd healed quite a bit, because . . . He always said twins should never be separated, that that was a special bond, but I never really understood until I saw the look on his face when we had to tell him, again. His world ended.
"That's why he won't come see you for a while; we're gonna try not telling him when he forgets, so we won't be showing him your grave, either. I think—I think you'll be seeing him soon anyway." He sniffed again, and breathed out a chuckle that was also a sob. "Too soon for me, no matter how old he is.
"But don't worry, I'll take over in the meantime."
There was a moment of silence.
"I don't know if he ever told you, but he's got all those mice he carried around all those years lined up on a shelf in his bedroom. Sometimes I see him looking at them and I wonder if he remembers them more than he does me." He looked down, shifting a bit to relieve cramped legs.
"When I was little, I didn't know why he carried them, I just thought it was another weird dad thing. Once he explained it to me, I remember I was so certain I understood what he was trying to say, and I said, 'Oh, so they're a replacement for Uncle Fred.'" He laughed wetly. "He got this look and he said, no, no one could ever replace Uncle Fred, because people aren't replaceable, certainly not by something as silly as cheap toys. I never told him how much that meant to me, what he said that day, because I never told him that sometimes I felt like I was just another replacement for you—Fred the Younger, just another mousie—but I think he knew, somehow. He told me that day that people are unique and the way we love each of them is unique." He sighed.
"I can't tell him how much things like that mean to me, now. I've missed my chance. Dad always said you'd be willing to lend an ear, though." He laughed.
"Anyway, I thought, if he knew, Dad would want you to be updated. He'd want someone to keep you company, to remember you. And I thought . . ." He trailed off, going to his knees and pulling something from his pocket. "I thought he'd want you to have this, or you'd want to have it, or . . ." He stopped. Sighed. "I want you to have it."
On the ledge at the bottom of the headstone, sat a handful of mice, preserved by charms over the years. Reaching out, the visitor shifted one apart from the rest and nestled an identical one next to it, then drew a wand and carefully extended and reinforced the protective charms.
"That's one of the original line, that's why it looks the same. Dad always said twins shouldn't be separated and since he can't be here . . . I thought at least . . ." He trailed off and sat a moment longer in silent contemplation before saying, so quietly it was almost lost to the wind, "Dad gave me that mouse, so that I could have one of my own." He looked up and smiled a melancholy smile. "I want you to have it now. You look after that, and I'll look after Dad for now, and then we'll switch, deal?"
The sound from the shop below filtered up, but Fred Weasley couldn't bring himself to silence it. That shop was his dad and uncle's legacy, his inheritance, and he knew it had been one of the main things that had helped his dad through the grief of losing his twin. He could only hope it would do the same for him now.
Listlessly, his eyes wandered over the shelf in front of him, full of toy mice of every kind. The collection had grown from its original purpose over the years, from mice his dad had collected three times a year in memory of his Uncle Fred to mice the entire extended family had collected and given to his dad on random occasions, both to honor Uncle Fred and to let his dad know they were thinking of him. They'd become less Uncle Fred's thing and more his dad's thing and a family thing and each one was full of memories.
There was a muggle toy mouse, fur nearly worn off, a limp, colorless stretch of fabric that might have been a tail lying next to it.
The first enchanted toy mouse his dad had built, damaged by Aunt Hermione and the cat he could barely remember for himself but knew through stories from Uncle Ron and Uncle Harry to be pure evil. They joked about that cat all the time and every time his dad had pulled out one of his mice in front of Aunt Hermione he had clutched it protectively, exaggeratedly exclaiming his concern that she would go at it again; so many memories with that one, so many connections to family.
The mouse he'd gotten ahold of as a teething toddler and swallowed the eye from; the eye his mom had rescued from his nappy the next day still not sitting properly. His dad had always claimed that he had no idea how Fred had gotten it, that he must have taken after his dad and gotten into crazy mischief at a very young age, but Fred had long suspected his dad had given it to him to chew on and hadn't realized the problem until the eye had gone missing. He would never know for sure now.
The mouse he'd tried to flush down the toilet as an angry six-year-old, bitter at his perceived place in the family as an echo of his dead uncle and blaming it on both the uncle—reachable only through the mice his dad carried—and the dad who clung to his dead twin through those mice. His mom had tried to yell at him for clogging the toilet and creating a huge mess, but was distracted by his dad's laughter until she eventually joined. He'd still been made to clean up the mess, sulking and complaining and crying, but his dad had sat outside the bathroom door and tried to cheer him up the entire time. Come to think of it, that was probably how his dad had figured out his issues with Uncle Fred.
The mouse he'd made for his dad's birthday when he was eight, paper and glue, and the one he'd made when he was nine out of ceramic sat proudly next to one another, Roxanne's (better) attempts at imitations alongside. He remembered working so hard on his, so determined to make his dad proud and happy and to show him he loved him with the thing that had become a symbol of love in their family.
Two teacups, the ones he and Roxanne had transfigured into mice at school (or at least the one's his dad believed were theirs when he somehow convinced McGonagall to give them to him), displayed next to the "other" mice as a memento that his kids were "gifted." His dad had always praised their accomplishments, no matter how small.
The muggle computer mouse that had fascinated his dad, cord trailing uselessly down over the edge of the shelf, brought back memories of Aunt Hermione teaching them both about computers and the internet and other muggle things. His dad had always made a point to include him; as he grew older and realized his dad wanted him around, he was able to look back on those memories with much more fondness than he'd felt originally in some cases. He'd never apologized to his dad for thinking badly of him like that; he wouldn't have the chance now.
Mouse after mouse after mouse.
Memories of him and his dad working side by side in the shop, his dad showing interest in each of Fred's creations, no matter how silly he knew them to be now, flew through his head.
Memories of his dad's letters while he was at Hogwarts, always interested in what he was doing, how he was feeling, what he was thinking, and always willing to help him out with anything.
Memories of his dad calling him "mousie" with so much love.
Memories of flying with his dad, of degnoming Grandma's garden, of breakfasts and dinners and lazy afternoons, of vacations and bad days . . .
He'd thought he'd cried out all of his tears, but he found now that he was wrong.
"Hey, Dad. Hey, Uncle Fred." He knelt in front of the twin gravestones, carefully setting a bag by his side. "Can't say I'll be presenting mice like clockwork or anything, 'cause that seems like something that should stay special to you two, but I won't forget what they mean and I won't leave you without any, Dad."
He shuffled closer, reaching for the mice lined up along the bottom of Uncle Fred's stone. "Dad, you might not know this yet, but me an' Uncle Fred had a deal." He pulled one of two identical grey mice away from the others, and looked down at it, turning it over in his hand. "He was gonna look after this little guy while I looked after you, and then we'd switch, that was the deal, and now that you're . . . there, with Uncle Fred, well, it's only fair. I think . . . I think the best way to look after it, though, is to leave it with the best man I know, so here, Dad—" He leaned forward to place it at the base of the other stone. "Here you go. That was the first mouse you gave me as a kid and it meant a lot to me and I just wanted to you to know that," he said, voice thick with tears. "His name is George Two and you look after him, now, ya hear?" He paused a moment.
Clearing his throat and sniffing, he reached for the bag, dragging it forward. After a brief search of the contents, he emerged with two identical copper-colored mice. "Fred Nine and Fred Nine," he announced. Then he turned to Uncle Fred's headstone and said in a confiding tone, "You may not know this, but these are the two mice he carried without fail to every event that required formal clothing. He always said it's called 'dressed to the nines' for a reason. My first Yule Ball at Hogwarts, he loaned them to me, you know." He sniffed again. "Anyway, Dad always kept them both together, 'cause he said twins shouldn't be separated, but now that you two are together again, I think it's only fair that you each have one." Leaning forward, he placed one on each stone, then sat back for a moment.
Clearing his throat once more, he pulled another mouse from the bag, grey and torn and singed. "Fred Three, the first mouse you built, Dad. The start of something great." He laughed wetly. "I may not remember much about Aunt Hermione's old cat, but I know this little guy is lucky to have survived Aunt Hermione herself. Probably only did because she wasn't sure it wasn't a real mouse and she doesn't like to hurt little furry things.
"You told me once that this mouse sort of represented you, what with the missing ear—" He fingered the spot where said appendage should have been. "—and the missing tail that's supposed to represent Uncle Fred." He looked at the stone that had also represented his uncle for so long. "You're not missing your tail anymore, Dad." He paused. "Wonder if you're missing your ear?" Shaking his head, he placed the mouse next to the others and reached back into the bag.
He emerged with a mouse covered in yellow fur with purple squiggles and green circles scattered across it; it matched one already sitting at the base of Uncle Fred's stone. "Fred Ten, the changer. You aren't—" He stopped, drew a steadying breath. "You aren't changing without Uncle Fred anymore, Dad, so I thought you might want this little guy." And that one joined the others. He sat back and looked at the four mice at the bottom of his dad's headstone, three of them matching ones on the stone next to it. "Another set of twins to keep you guys matching, at least a little." He sniffed again, pulling out a tissue and taking a moment to pull himself together.
Two more came out of the bag, one made of paper and glue and barely resembling a mouse, the other ceramic and only slightly more recognizable. "I'm gonna take care of most of your mice, Dad, don't you worry. But I thought I'd give back the ones other people had given you, if they wanted them as keepsakes to remember you by. Aunt Fleur took back that dainty little ceramic thing you kept breaking and telling me not to tell; I think you should know that she always knew. She said she knew when she gave it to you that it would probably get broken and she thought it was funny. She said you always made her laugh and she thinks looking at that little mouse might just remind her of you and help her to laugh still.
"These ones though—" He looked down, turning the two objects over in his hands. "I made these for you, do you remember? And I have all the others, but I want you to have these. I—I always wanted you to have them, they were meant for you." Turning the ceramic one over, he read the stilted inscription on the bottom, "'From your little mousie with love.'" And with a sniff, he put the two mice at the base of the stone.
"Okay, just one left for each of you." He pulled two last mice from the bag, both a sickly yellow-green. "Another set of twins, maybe better representations of you two than any of the others," he announced. "Fantastic Farters. The second version. I set the trigger word for each as one of your names, Fred and George." At each name a cloud of gas erupted from one of the mice, the same color as their fur, and he grinned, setting the correct one on each stone. "Mischief managed."
I was trying to get the muse going again and she decided to write this for some reason? I don't know, but when you're trying to coax the muse out of hiding, you write what she wants to write, so here we are.
Hope you enjoyed! Comments, critiques, and constructive criticism are more than welcome as I am always looking to improve!
Have a happy day!
M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng