A/N: I don't own any Harry Potter related characters or plot lines. Enjoy!
As far back as any one could remember, it had been Fred and George. George and Fred. The unbreakable pair. You could even ask their mother; from the day that they were born, there had never been a single fight between the two.
Every aspect of their brotherhood had been perfect. They hadn't needed words to communicate. They worked together better than two halves of a wheel. One could stop writing a letter mid-sentence, and the other could pick it right up, without even having to read it first.
Everyone assumed that they were the same, though, assumed that they were clones. That was very false. In as many ways as they were the same, they were also opposites. No-one many seemed to notice the opposites, but they most definitely were there.
In the Weasley household, when Molly had been over run with all of her children, lunch had consisted of peanut butter and jam sandwiches and juice. As they got older, she would lay out the bread, seven pieces covered in jam and seven pieces covered in peanut butter, and seven cups of juice.
From the very beginning, this was something that nobody but the twins understood. You see, George hated jam. He hated the way the seeds stuck between his teeth, and the way it made his fingers all sticky. Fred, on the other hand, loved it. What he hated though, was peanut butter. The way it stuck to the rough of his mouth, and made his mouth all dry drove him insane.
So when lunch time came around, George would stick two peanut buttered pieces of bread together, and Fred would grab his two jammed slices. It worked so perfectly, and not a single person noticed.
There were plenty of things just like that over the years. Fred liked curling up under the covers at night, and George liked the feel of the cool air as he slept, which gave them many a good nights sleep.
George preferred climbing and he had better eye sight, so he would always act as look out. Fred had better hearing, and could creep along silently, so he would usually be the planter or retriever for their latest scheme.
There was never a glitch, never a flaw. Life flowed around them like an ocean, and they floated peacefully along. School was just another step for the pair.
Of course, being Gryffindor's beaters was one of the high-lights, but they had had a secret passion at school. A well buried secret, Fred and George loved potions. The way they could work side be side, in perfect synchronization without words, made them perfect at it.
Cutting and slicing and stirring as one, mixing strange creations that no-one else in their year, and possibly in the whole school, could match. Even Snape, who would never say a good thing about a Gryffindor, had quietly praised their potions.
Even the war, with death around every corner, could hardly even touch the pair. When George lost his ear, Fred was the one who took it the hardest. For about five minutes. Then the jokes had rolled of their tongues like lightning. What did it matter? Fred did the listening anyways. Nothing could touch them.
And then Fred died. George had been under the Cruciatus before, and he would have welcomed it with open arms in exchange for the pain that tore him when he saw his brother, his best friend, and his constant companion, there cold and dead on the ground.
He shut down after that, eating and drinking only when forced to. He'd moved into Harry and Ginny's basement, and stared at the wall for a month. Eventually, the time came when he had to get up though.
Ron and Hermione's wedding was set to be a grand event. George couldn't not attend, and so he dragged his empty body to the ceremony, clapped at the appropriate time, and then threw himself towards the bar as soon as the reception started.
This was when it started. A very drunk George was suddenly clapped on the shoulder by a very drunk Mr. Diggory, and his empty world cracked open.
"Well hello there Fred! How's the joke business going, my lad?" The old man slurred out the words, but George froze.
"What?" His voice was strained from his depressed silence, but the drunken man didn't notice.
"Well, you're still running that shop, right Fred?" Instead of the expected, crushing sadness, George found himself nodding.
"Yes, sir."
And from then on, George would answer to his lost twin's name. Even though he began to live again, it didn't make his family happy. He still talked only when addressed, and he ate little more the bare minimum.
Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but as Ginny carefully watched, she saw no change. Every dead look in his eye, every refused plate of food, tore at her heart. This was her brother, who had always been so full of laughter and mirth. So she started doing dumb things.
One morning, she let a firecracker loose in the house, and howled with laughter as Harry chased it in his boxers. George's lips didn't even twitch upward. The pack of fairies she sent after Percy was hilarious, yet George simply blinked his eyes at them. She was running out of ideas, but she continued to try and force the dead look out of the sickly young man's eyes.
Everyone in the family worried as he slowly continued to draw in on himself. His mother winced every time he answered an accidental call of "hey Fred" and Ginny emitted weak whimpers every time he refused eat.
That was until, about three months after the great battle, she, for the millionth time, slid a plate full of food across the table to her shaking brother. The pale and thin red head's dead eyes flashed for a moment, and he slowly lifted his hands grasped at the peanut butter and jam sandwich.
He carefully raised it to his lips, before he took a small and tentative bite.
He was still alone. He still preferred climbing to sneaking. At night he still tossed and turned, throwing his blankets to the side. And he still missed Fred more than anyone in the world could possibly understand.
But maybe… just maybe, he could have both halves of the peanut butter and jam sandwich.