smile at a stranger, my dear boy
"no longer easy on the eyes, these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below who turned your way and saw something he wasn't looking for – both a beginning and an end. but now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident."
It's been seven months now – or has it been eight?
You don't really know.
You don't remember you. You don't remember the way your voice sounds, or the color of your eyes. The taste of your lips, the feeling of your socks on your feet, the colour of your hair, or the amount of freckles on your own nose. No, you don't remember yours, but you do remember his. You remember your twin brother so well, and he's all that exists with you now.
You know it, however deep it may be buried, that when your mother asks you if you want a cup of tea, she's really just asking Fred.
When Dad asks you to help him out in the shed, or when Ron asks you to come down for dinner. Even when Harry or Hermione come rushing around the corner, and they apologize for bumping into you.
They don't know it, though – but you see it. The forlorn echo in their glassy eyes. You could laugh at it, but you won't. So instead of facing up to it, you sit in your room. It doesn't belong to him anymore, so it's just yours. The emptiness of it all finally catches up to you, and you don't like it much. It's as if he just left you behind, just now.
You stare out the window, and you meet a tree in the field, the tallest of them all. You and Fred used to climb it, and jump down, drifting down like feathers. It was only when Mum came outside that she noticed, and you felt good because Bill used to embarrass you in front of the Lovegoods by insinuating you were a squib.
Well, you and Fred. Even your memories seem singular now.
You suppose it's because of him not being here that you're suddenly remembering all of these things.
Leaves fall from the trees in copper spirals, torrents of wind doing a ballroom dance with dead foliage in its own bit of cold beauty. There was the one time when you fell out of the tree, and you broke your leg. You remember it clearly, and your brother wanted his leg broken too. You had to talk him out of it before he was about to fling himself from the tallest branch, and it was a narrow escape before your mother came outside to check on you.
But that's different, that's not something you want to remember. Your brothers devotion to you, the fact he wanted his own right leg broken – well, it just means you should be dead, too. So instead of that, you should remember something else. Something nice and beautiful, something you'd want in a scrapbook.
Hogwarts letters.
Befriending on the train.
Bogie-flavoured beans.
Sorting ceremonies.
Nice, beautiful things.
Pictures on the walls wave back at you identically. It's another thing you miss; another thing you'd care not to remember – you're going to leave, now. Leave the room before it all hits you once again like a ton of bricks; ersatz feelings are the way to go, and you wouldn't have it any other way.
Well, you would.
You'd have it a certain, special way, where you've got a living brother, and a spot at the dining table that isn't gathering dust, but is having a seat warmed with a lovely little spirit you call Fred.
But, you can't have it that way, that's quite impossible, even if you do live in such a magical world. You come downstairs, for what seems like the first time in a month or two. You haven't really been paying attention until recent, when Hermione came out with a shiny silver band on her finger and a proud, lip-glossed smile on her face, and Ron looked around as if suddenly things weren't that bad anymore.
You've watched your little brother grow up and you've watched yourself grow old.
Even though you don't really look at yourself – you might just think he's right next to you, it's all a dream, but there's still that small, disgraceful part of you that says you're not allowed to dream if he can't. You used to share your dreams with him and only him, but what good is it to do it on your own?
"Good morning, dear," says your mother, looking unnatural. It's only just occurred to you that it is in fact morning, you've been up all night. "You're up early – would you like something to eat?"
Your hands feel the skin just above your ribcage and you begin to wonder when you lost so much weight. You wonder if it was an overnight sort of thing – a snap of the fingers – or if you just stopped eating for a while. Stress on the body, it works in mysterious ways. Or quite possibly, maybe you're just depressed and careless.
Your mother doesn't wait for your answer and fixes you a plate of eggs and a roll, something else and a glass of water. She smiles at you when you eat, and you notice that it's actually the first real meal you've ingested in a long, long time. Smiles from the walls – those photos. They start to scare you a little bit, because they're long-gone, those people. Those smiles. They're different now, and you think the future is a frightening place.
This house is a frightening place, with memories adorning everything there is around you, something tying it back to your heart with the silk strings of his laughter, his smile, his eyes, his touch and his scent. Nothing really belonged to you and only you anyways – you shared it all.
You stop eating and you stare at yet another picture.
There are too many of those, you think, too many memories – or pictures, for a better word.
Your mother notices, oh yes, she does. So she kisses you on the cheek to make it all better, as if you were once again only six years old. Only, it doesn't make anything better, if not worse. She's pretending it's alright; you're pretending to feel whole and not just some meagre dividend; everyone you know is pretending that you're actually Fred.
You don't notice you're cold until your warm – wrapped up in a hug. She pulls away and grabs a mug. The sound of warm water pouring, and she comes back with the sugar bowl too. She laughs in that one, motherly fashion as you add unnecessary spoonfuls of sugar into the cup, the sound correspondingly sweet. Even though it's fake and you know it, you memorize it and store it in the back of your head. You play it over and over because it's familiar and as warm as her hugs and the cup of tea you're holding.
You drain the cup, and go to sit in the living room on the musty old couch you spilled some kind of juice on when you were seven. Fred was there, too. He was everywhere. He flashes you a toothy grin, and whispers for you to run as the drink falls onto the fabric of the sofa. You grab onto his arm and dart the other way, because Percy's footsteps – all too familiar – are coming down the corridor, and he's going to tell on you.
You miss it deeply and you break down, right then and there. Tears spill from your eyes and you wonder why everything's become such a mess. You wince because you hurt, and you bite your lip to keep the tears from coming even more. Blood draws from your lips, and you hate yourself for letting your guard crumble once more.
You go upstairs and look in the washroom mirror, and you face him. You face George Weasley, the person you knew so well, the person you used to be, instead of a breathing memory, disintegrating your own spirit. You face a man in the mirror, a man with dark circles under his dulling brown eyes, bloody, cracked lips and sallow skin. Miserably frank, you've never looked like this before – how can you be you?
But you get over it because you need to.
"Goodbye, Fred." you whisper, something you've never truly wanted to say.
The man in the mirror gives you what you've come for – a smile.
However forced or torn it may look, it is there, and it's real.
"Goodbye."
A/N: So, my first time writing like this, and I thought it turned out well. I like it, personally. The lyrics at the top are Death Cab's Brothers On A Hotel Bed, and I thought they matched this perfectly. I don't own them or Harry Potter.
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