Alone
Nefertiri's Handmaiden
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any names from the Harry Potter books and franchise.
Note: I've needed to put some closure on Fred's death since I read Deathly Hallows in July. It took me six months before I sat down and wrote this, but once I started it just came pouring out.
To Fred Weasley.
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George Weasley had never really known the meaning of the word 'alone.' When he looked around him, there was always someone there. His friends, his parents, his billions of relatives and cousins, his brothers, his sister. His twin.
In the end, it would always come back to Fred, wouldn't it?
From the first spark of existence, he had a companion. A brother, a friend, a partner. They were so close that sometimes it was difficult to know where one stopped and the other began. The weren't two people, they were a unit. A pair. The Twins. Fred and George. FredandGeorge. Gred and Forge.
Which one was he, again?
The one still breathing.
Ah, that was right. He was the one that was still alive. He was the one left behind, it seemed. He was the one standing in what had once been their room and was now his room.
God, it felt as though part of him was missing.
In that moment, for the first time, standing by himself in his childhood room which still smelled of gunpowder and other unidentifiable substances, he knew what it was to be alone.
And in that moment, for the first time, the tears came. Hot tears streaming down his face. A profound sort of confusion in his heart, in his soul.
Where was the rest of him?
His legs guided him past his bed, then the other. To the window. As he looked out, his eyes were pulled to a small freshly turned pile of dirt in the back corner of the yard. His mother had said she would plant rose bushes.
George could barely see the color of the stone through the tears, but he could remember the words written there.
Fred Weasley
Son, brother, friend.
Hero.
His legs collapsed on him, and then he was sitting on Fred's bed, head in his hands, dripping tears on his shoes and that burn smudge on the floor.
Then his father's arms were around him. He'd not known his father had come in, but he couldn't care. Couldn't be ashamed. Not now. He could only turn into his father's arms and cry with him for his brother and best friend. "Dad," was all he could manage through the tears, "what am I supposed to do now?"
He didn't know how long they sat her, his father rocking him gently as he's done when George was just as little boy with scraped knees or hurt feelings. He could feel his dad's tears falling into his hair.
When he finally composed himself enough to pull away, he wiped at his wet face with his sleeve.
His father looked at him as steadily as a man who'd just lost a son could. It was funny. George had never noticed how strong his father was, before. It was the kind of quiet strength that wasn't noticeable until it was needed.
"Georgie," said his father, using the pet name he hadn't used since Fred and George were six. "we're all here."
George could only glance at the floor and nod.
"You- uh- You don't have to sleep in here, if you don't want to. Ron- Percy- Charlie will be- any of them will be willing- "
George thought for a moment.
"Naw," he said quietly. "I reckon I'd ought to get used to it, hadn't I?''
"Alright," said his father quietly. "We're going all be downstairs in the kitchen for a while. Your mother is cooking. You know how she gets..." His father attempted a smile, but it fell through.
George shook his head. "I- uh- I think I'll stay up here a while."
His father nodded gently, and left the room silently. George curled up on the bed of his dead twin.
He needed to be alone.
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The roses on the bushes that his mother had planted with her own hands and watered with her own tears flowered for the first time the next spring.
Strangely, no one had been surprised to see that the roses- they were supposed to be white- had bloomed in the exact shade of flaming red Weasley hair.