George knew he needed to do it. It had been a year. He couldn't keep the sign like that forever. But he was still in denial. Changing the sign would make it real, more than anything else had. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. All he had to do was shift the apostrophe over one letter. Such a small change. But he couldn't do it. Not yet. It was still too soon.

A sob building in his throat, George gave up for the day. He had known he wouldn't do it. Just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Defeated, he went back inside the store, heading straight upstairs to his private rooms. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. It had been a long time since he was.

George sat silently, staring at the wall. This had become a common pastime of his. He would lose himself in his head, sometimes for hours or days. He barely ate. He couldn't sleep.

He didn't care.

Today, his mind was drawn towards horcruxes. Tearing yourself in two was hard enough. Ripping off seven pieces of your soul, losing seven pieces of yourself forever, must be excruciating. He had thought that he could never understand how Voldemort had gotten so lost, how he had become so soulless.

That was before he had lost a part of himself, had his own soul ripped brutally in half.

His employees knew not to interrupt him when he got like this, so he was rather startled when he heard a sharp tapping sound. It took him a moment to realize that it was coming from the window. Silently, he stood and crossed the room to let in the owl that was waiting impatiently outside.

The owl was carrying a letter, along with a small package. George untied it with little curiosity, although it grew as he read the letter.

George,

You know the story of The Three Brothers. I assume you know what the Deathly Hallows are as well. The wand, the cloak, and the stone. Everyone knows the wand is real. And you know about my invisibility cloak. It's been passed down in my family for generations. It's never faded. It's never torn. The spell has never worn off. Dumbledore figured it out long before I did. But it's fairly clear to see. If the first two exist, it would make sense that the third would as well.

George stopped reading, heart pounding. Surely he couldn't mean...

If the first two exist, it would make sense that the third would as well. I broke a promise to Dumbledore when I went back for this, but I couldn't just leave it knowing what it could do to help you, and so many others. It won't bring him back. You're smart enough to know that he can't stay. But you can have a chance to say goodbye, as well as reassurance that it's not goodbye forever. I would tell you that he would want you to live a full life, do all the things he never got a chance to. But I'll let him tell you himself.

~Harry

George stood there in shock. Slowly, he opened the package. An old ring dropped onto the table. The crack through the stone made the marking on it hard to see, but George could still make it out. A circle inside of a triangle. A vertical line through the center. Trembling, he clutched it in his fist and closed his eyes. Holding his breath, he turned it over three times in his hand.

But he didn't open his eyes. Because it wasn't, it couldn't be real. And he wasn't ready to face the bitter, crushing dissapointment. So he stood, stone in hand, eyes tightly shut, not breathing, until a voice finally broke the silence.

"So, are you ever going to open you eyes, or what? Because I have a lot of things to do, you know, and I don-"

Fred was cut off by the crushing hug of his brother, who had begun to cy for the first time in a year.