George Weasley didn't laugh at all when the D.A. sent communication that the battle was just about to begin.
No one laughs in a war.
No one laughs when death's raging all around and the dearest person to him in the world is - would you believe that? - just around there. No one laughs when a very close explosion makes the castle's foundation quiver and a bad, bad feeling makes him foreshadow the worst, and probably he never even believed in that crap about empathic bond between twin brothers but in that moment he does indeed. No one laughs when minutes go by and his brother isn't back yet to the place where they decided to meet to fight side by side, aghast at the idea of being apart in those fatal moments.
No one laughs when his father looks at him in that way while he's entering the hall, and puts a hand over his shoulder and tries to catch his gaze before he looks a little further.
And no one, no one laughs when he sees his twin on the floor and he hopes with all his strength that he's mistaking. No one laughs in the moment he realizes that he doesn't even remember the last time he ever saw his eyes because, God, he didn't think that it would've been the last one.
He didn't laugh for quite a long time after that night, George.
No one laughs when he says his goodbyes.
He wondered instead how could anyone still laugh. How the hell could people still want to go to the Wizard Wheezes and buy anything. He wondered what could still be funny on earth.
Then, on a day like any other, George Weasley found out with great surprise that, maybe, laughing was still possible. It was at a meaningless party to which he had been dragged, when someone told one of the awesome jokes that he and his brothers always told. Everybody looked at him oddly, when he laughed. They were almost frightened. He was more frightened than them all.
But George had just understood that life could still, in spite of all, stubbornly be funny. For example, when a too little wise and too curious client stuck the wrong candy in his mouth and got so red in the face you'd have thought he was about to choke. Or when Percy tripped on that evil step that still fucked him after all those years and glided with his bottom down the entire staircase.
He himself was surprised by how easy it was to laugh; he had forgotten. George could still laugh, no, he had to. Sure, he didn't resign himself. Impossible. He would never resign himself. But there was no need to. Simply, he had to keep on laughing.
From that day on, George laughed every time there was the chance to, telling himself he had to laugh double because he had to do that for Fred too. And every time he did, a soft pain to the pit of his stomach unfailingly reminded him what was wrong, what was missing to that situation to be okay, and then he laughed a bit harder to drive away that pain, like a child humming his favorite litany when he must go through a dark room in order to keep away the monsters who inhabit it.
And every child always managed to keep away the monsters of the dark rooms, until those simply didn't scare him any longer.
Well, I'm back on this. Yeah, never got over it. Damn! This was inspired by Regina Spektor's "Laughing with". Please, leave a little review for me? :)