It was a funny thing, losing Fred.
Well, not funny at all, actually. The farthest thing from funny. The word that had been used a hundred times over to describe him in life was not the one to describe his death.
But it was strange.
He'd never thought anything could hurt so much. On his knees on a cold stone floor, blood dripping down his forehead and burns peppering his skin, but he hardly noticed those. Didn't care, as he held Fred's head in his hands and wondered how it had ever come to this.
A faint smile was still on his twin's face. He looked peaceful, amused, even, and George would've given anything to be lying on the floor next to him. Even in death, they should've been together.
The feeling started in the base of his stomach, that second he saw Fred fall; his breath caught, his heart skittered. It started. And then it spread. Hot and ugly and twisting, deep in his chest and his stomach and his heart. It pushed wrenching sobs from his throat, shook his hands and blurred his eyes. It was a monster, tangible and sharp-clawed, and it whispered in his ear.
Fred is gone.
His mother cried next to him, her hands clasped in Fred's sweater. His family was all there, circled about and grieving. But he was alone.
He was so alone.
And he stood alone, days later, at the funeral that was coming decades too soon. Ginny had coerced him into dress robes, smoothing the collar and his hair and not commenting on the fact that his eyes were wet. She pressed a hand against his cheek, her face lined with sadness.
"You can do this, Georgie. You can."
He couldn't.
When it came time for him to speak, he stepped up to the front, his knees weak. His hands clenched the podium, the only thing that kept him standing. He stared out, his eyes wide. The crowd was lined up in chairs, flaming red hair and tear-lined, freckled faces filling most of them. Dreadful Aunt Muriel was weeping in the third row, his mother crying silently in the first.
Harry was directly in front of him.
Why it was Harry that snapped him, he didn't know. But there he was, tired green eyes and a lightning scar, the face of the revolution. He looked so young, and so old, and George thought that Fred would've concocted a plan to distract him from all that had taken place. Involving a rabbit and a trick stair and a bucket of paint.
"Classic, this one is, George," he'd say with a wicked grin. "Gonna set wee Potter to right in no time. You in?"
A noise tore from his chest. It was half a laugh, half a gasping sob, and he fled before he could say a word.
No one came after him.
He couldn't return for two weeks, staying in the house and the yard and barely speaking. And then finally, in the emptiest part of the night, he could. Had to, needed to, and he stumbled from the guest room with Fred's last Christmas jumper hugged to himself. It had been his, originally; the slightly crooked G on the front beginning to wear. They'd switched them for fun and never switched back, and this one still smelt of his brother.
The walk down to the family cemetery was cold and silent, the only sounds a faraway owl and the pounding of his own heart.
It was easy to find the grave. He felt drawn to it, his feet crunching on dead leaves and moving of their own free will. The site was smooth and pristine, regrown by magic in a finger's snap.
He fell to his knees in the cold grass, tears dripping down his cheeks and goosebumps peppering his skin. But he hardly noticed those.
The words engraved on the tombstone pierced through his chest, and he brushed trembling fingers over them.
Fred Weasley
1 April 1978 - 2 May 1998
Brave to the end.
Wasn't that the truth?
Fred had been brave when they'd explored the Marauders' Map as kids. Brave when they'd allied with Peeves, who the other students cowered from. Brave when they'd struck out against Umbridge's regime, brave when they'd risked the Dementors to get news to the rebellion.
And yes. He'd been brave when he'd died.
"Why, Freddie?" George whispered, his throat tight. "I'd rather have you alive than noble."
A door slammed in the distance and he flinched.
He forced out a shaky breath, wiping his eyes harshly. "I'm sorry. That's not fair. I just..." His palm pressed to Fred's name. "We were supposed to go together. That was always the plan. Ninety-nine and still laughing. You were laughing. I can't laugh, not anymore." He bowed his head, his shoulders hunched.
"I know what you're saying. 'Chin up, George,' and hand me a Fizzing Whizbee. But you're not here, and I-" His voice broke, and he let his forehead fall against the tombstone.
"I'm sorry I couldn't say anything at the funeral. I should have. You know I love you, Freddie. More than I love anybody. And you know that you're the best friend anyone could have, and that without you I feel like I've lost myself, and..." He swallowed hard. "I just couldn't say any of it."
He inhaled sharply. The stone in front of him remained still and silent.
The monster reared up, boiling in his stomach and hammering in his ribcage, pressure building until finally he broke.
As he sobbed openly in the dark night, shards of him started to fall away. The chips and cracks that he'd been desperately holding together shattered, dropping in heaps onto the cold earth that covered his other half.
Fred is gone and you're still here. Fred is gone and you're alone.
It all swam in his head; stinging. The times when, in still-rare moments of mirth, someone had clasped his shoulder and said, "Remember when you and Fred..."
They stopped. Their laughs died. Their smiles faded. They stepped back and saw the haunted look in his eyes, and they fled. He would've fled, too, but there was no escaping himself.
And his mother's face, in the sparse lulls when she wasn't finding ways to be busy, looking at their portraits and crying.
"It's alright, George," so many people had said. He'd lost track of the dozens of survivors who'd wandered through his childhood home, unable to pierce through his haze. "Fred wouldn't want you to grieve. Things will get better. Don't let it beat you. Fred loved you. He knew what he was doing. Fred died fighting."
That was when he fled, but not before pushing them away roughly and demanding an end.
They didn't know. They couldn't know, couldn't understand, and they hadn't known Fred.
His brother, his confidant, his friend and partner in crime and the one person he knew he could rely on completely. What business did they have, talking about Fred? Consoling George about it, as if they had any idea.
He was holding the grief as closely as the memories, and he didn't want to share.
Fred was his.
The monster inside him grabbed a handful and pulled, dragging him down to drop his head on his aching knees.
His parting words died on his lips, with a final sob that was really a whimper.
I miss you, Freddie.