And I will try to...
My feet crunch on the broken pavement. A car alarm sounds in the next street, it makes me jump heightens my already over sensitive mood. I always feel like this when I walk around at night or in the early hours of the morning, though I am sure most people do, right now. I feel like someone is following me, but they are always too far behind for me to see. I turn around. I crane my neck trying to get a better view of the street that lies behind me. The end of it is cloaked in an inky black darkness. The blackness is impenetrable, as when you turn off a very bright light and your eyes are taking so long to adjust that all you can do is struggle around with your hands outstretched.
I walk up the many flights of stairs to my top floor flat and as my feet smack on the concrete stairs I hear another pair follow me up, always stopping when I do. They are very faint, coming from somewhere near my left and I don't dare to hope- to think that you are still with me because I have known ever since I stopped being able to produce my patronus that you are gone, gone where I can not follow. This always happens today, May the 2nd even though it was almost ten years ago. Ten whole years and yet every time I pass by a mirror I think I see your face, then the disappointment washes over me again; I realise that it's just me alone.
The foot steps are still following me up the stairs, but then I get to the front door of the flat. I had to expand the shop; we had too many customers they couldn't move around so well. I converted the flat into more shop space and, though there is a very tiny room left in the attic, I couldn't stay there, not without you. The memories are too much for me they swirl around my mind, confusing my senses. After you died I considered closing the shop, mum wouldn't have it though. She made me keep it open; I can't say that I'm angry that she did. After all I did it in your memory. I just can't get used to the fact that you aren't there to finish my sentences anymore. When I go home, to the burrow, sometimes I leave part sentences because those were the ones you would finish, the rest of them Ron, Ginny and Perce don't understand, it's only Harry who does; it's for all the wrong reasons though, he's lost so many people.
Just inside the front door there is a letter. Written in green ink and sealed with a black seal. I rip it open managing to cut my finger on the sharp edge of the parchment. Two sheets fall out, covered in the sharp handwriting. The letter reads,
Dear Mr Weasley
You are not alone. St Luke's Park 12:00 pm, tomorrow.
I reel backwards in shock, and in disappointment. The handwriting isn't yours. In fact I don't recognise it at all. The letter isn't signed; I think for a minute that this may be a trap. The thought is abandoned almost as soon as it enters my mind, it just doesn't seem likely that someone would ask me to meet in a park then kill me when they could just as easily kill me right here, now. I decide I will go and meet this person. They might know how to get you back.
The next morning I find myself on the pavement outside my block of flats. Just as I do most mornings I fling my wand arm out. There issues a loud BANG! From the end of the road, the knight bus appears.
"Mr Weasley, lemme guess, Diagon alley?"
"Not today Stan, thanks, St Luke's park in Chelsea. How much?"
"Err, seventeen sickles please."
I dig out the coins and put them into his hand. Inside, the bus is full of assorted, large squishy armchairs I take the one nearest the door and sit. The whole bus jolts and I am thrown, quite hardly forward. The next thing I know is that we are pulling up to the park. All the trees are full of little white buds and the daffodils and roses are just poking through, shooting bright bursts of colour into the hedges that line the many paths cutting through the park. It really is very pretty; there are a group of benches gathered around a large oak tree in the middle of the gardens. I pick one with its back to the entrances and sit down. Someone left a muggle paper on the bench; I pick it up and begin to read. There isn't anything very interesting in the news, I suppose when you are used to the moving pictures and the funny columns in The Daily Prophet then the boring, non-moving muggle newspapers seem awfully mundane.
I am just reading an article on the rising Greek debt when an odd looking bloke sits next to me. He looks at me crookedly; one of his eyes is smaller than the other. Then he smiles showing two rows of yellow looking teeth. He is in magenta robes and a tall blue hat with little yellow stars and moons on it.
"And this must be Mr George Weasley" he says in a high pitched squeaky voice, that sounds as though he hasn't used it in years.
"I-err, yeah that's me" I say, awkwardly holding out my hand. I mean well I used to think the most garish robes I'd see were Dumbledore's bright yellow ones he wore in my first year at Hogwarts.
"Chocolate frog?" he says holding out a box.
"Um-yeah thanks" I take it and rip open the seal; as usual the frog has a mind of its own and jumps to the ground. It's then when I notice the card inside, the guy on the card is Fred, and he's smiling up at me; waving cheerily. I feel the hot tears getting ready to spill out the corners of my eyes.
"That must be Fred then?" says the bloke.
"Uh- yeah that's Fred" I say breathing deeply.
"He's here, you know"
"What are you talkin' about?"
"Fred, your twin, is still here. You can't see him but you can hear him."
"How'd you know that?"
"Mr Weasley, a lot of people died during the war but not all of them left."
"Left where?"
"Here this world. The reason you can still hear your brother when you walk home at night is because, Mr Weasley, he is still here he cannot talk to you but the fact that you haven't let him go is keeping him tethered to this earth"
"You mean I could talk to him, if I wanted?"
"Well, I suppose, if you find a medium, who could hear Fred's reply"
"Are you- I mean could you do it?"
"Ah we arrive at the real reason why I wanted to see you today. I work for the Ministry of Magic, and it's my job to work out how the Veil works. I need you to come with me"
"I-err, ok"
"Take my arm, Mr Weasley"
"Oh, I can apparate" I say slightly perplexed. I haven't used side along apparition since I was fifteen.
"Not inside the Ministry you can't" he gives that look, as if to say oh you silly little boy, the one Percy used give Fred and me when we put dung bombs under his pillow.
I take his arm we twist on the spot then about five seconds later we arrive into the room with the veil in it. The man walks to the shimmering archway sits down and starts muttering in some weird language. All I can do is stand there looking around me awkwardly not sure whether to sit or stand, but I can't really interrupt the man, who is now standing and vibrating weirdly.
Then he just stops; opens his eyes and says "Look, in to the veil Mr Weasley".
I look and there, just inside the silvery white sheet is you. We stare at each other for a moment, you haven't aged a bit, you look just as you did the day you died. You're even wearing the same clothes. I realise then, just how much I have missed you, just how empty my life has been.
"Are you going to say something Georgie, or I you just going to look at me as though I have something nasty on my face?"
"Hey, Freddie." I say and look around at the man but he has retreated to sit in the back row of seats.
"How've you been then?" you say looking at me.
"You know, you've been following me, haven't you?" I say grinning now the awkwardness has passed.
"Well, just a little bit, you have got to pull yourself together man" you look at me and our eyes meet, I think I detect pain in them.
"I know, I guess I just needed you to tell me that"
"Yeah, well if I could touch you you'd be getting a lot more than words right now"
"Mr Weasley and Mr Weasley I am afraid I'm going to have to hurry you" says the squeaky little man.
"Look, Georgie, this really isn't goodbye after all" (A/N yes I know, I just had to put that in here)
"I know. I'll miss you though"
"So will I, this isn't any easier for me just cause I'm dead."
"Yeah"
"Just tell Perce that it wasn't his fault, okay... oh and tell mum I love her, she would never forgive me if I forget to say that, and tell Harry that if he hurts Ginny I'll kill him. Tell Ron that- just tell Ron that he is a great lil' bro. I love ya Georgie boy; we will meet again"
"Love ya two Freddie"
You wave one last time and fade slowly into nothing. For the first time in ten years I feel oddly at peace. I know now that if I had said a proper goodbye to you in the first place then maybe life might have been better for me. Tonight seems to have helped me get on with my life.
Because, it isn't really goodbye after all.
Fin
A/N I own NOTHING...