Disclaimer: I own no part of the Harry Potter universe.
A/N: Dedicated to my dog Rusty, who died the day before this was written. In the midst of the grief I found myself wondering why I hadn't known until my mother told me. I never thought of us as a whole, of course, but I loved him very much, and I hadn't even known when he died. I hadn't felt a thing. Those feelings of shock and guilt inspired this oneshot. Rusty, wherever you are, I love you and I miss you.
Invincible
Strange. I always thought we were invincible, somehow. We were identical. We were twins. We were Fred and George Weasley, and if we had to go we'd go together, dammit.
Or at least, that's what I thought. I thought we were one unit, that the bonds connecting us were too strong to break. That if anything happened to him, I'd feel it, and vice versa. Everyone seemed to think we were one unit, called Fred-and-George. I thought that too.
We knew it would be a miracle if all the Weasleys were unscathed, but somehow we always expected to be together. I wasn't too worried when we got separated during the battle, because after it was all over we'd meet, crack a few jokes and share a bottle or five of Firewhisky. After all, we were one unit, two halves of a whole. You can't break a whole.
I didn't know when Fred fell. I didn't know where he was, or even that anything had happened to him. All I remember is Ginny running towards me, tears streaming down her face, and grabbing my arm. I asked her what was going on, and she just cried harder. I didn't even feel anything then. No sudden sense of foreboding.
When I finally saw Fred's body, I couldn't believe it. I hadn't felt anything earlier. No sudden stab of pain and the conviction that something had happened to Fred. Not even the feeling that something was wrong. No, I hadn't even known until I saw his body. The grin he always wore was frozen there, below those unseeing brown eyes. I couldn't believe it. No-one could destroy the unit of Fred-and-George. We were supposed to be a whole.
I thought that if anything happened to him, I'd feel it too, and vice versa. But I was wrong. He'd died, and I hadn't felt a thing. We weren't two halves of a whole after all. We were two separate entities.
So why do I feel like half of me is gone?