Posthumous
A/N. Written last year for a friend's birthday and dredged from the dark depths of my hard drive. Enjoy!
It's weird, this place.
Fred thinks it's almost like a meeting place, like they're all waiting there, waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever does.
Sometimes the place seems so small, like it's just him in this new world. And sometimes it's big, huge, and its full of people, just waiting. He supposes it's the afterlife.
Fred has seen Remus, and he looks different, younger, the scars that once adorned his face gone now. This is a place of healing, of regenerating, and Fred almost laughs aloud at the thought because you can't ever regenerate something that's already dead.
Fred sees Tonks, and her hair is back to mousy brown. But she doesn't seem to mind, she just walks with Remus, sometimes with her father, sometimes alone. She smiles at Fred, sometimes, when they see each other, and Fred smiles back, because that's what you do. He wants to ask whether she ever thinks of the son she left behind, but he doesn't because he thinks he already knows the answer.
He has seen Sirius, younger and fuller, laughing, talking to Remus and a man Fred supposes is Harry's father. And then there is a woman, a smiling woman with red hair and eyes the colour of emeralds, and she holds James Potter's hand.
Fred has seen Dumbledore, and Snape, and Mad-Eye, who's no longer Mad-Eye but just Alastor. Fred has seen the small kid who used to follow Harry around with a camera. He was of no age to go, but then Fred feels a pang because neither was he.
And then there's Alicia, who Fred didn't notice until he'd been here a while, but who knows how long that is? Alicia Spinnet, who used to laugh at his jokes and leave her essays in the common room for him to copy, who doesn't laugh now but just smiles, a bit sadly, whenever he brings it up. Mostly they walk, sometimes they talk, and Fred tries his hardest to make her laugh like she used to, because she reminds him of Angelina, and he reminds her of George, but they leave it at that and just keep walking.
And then once, just once, he fancies he can hear George. But George doesn't cry. Fred keeps this to himself, like he's treasuring it, because he's holding on to the one last thing that links him to his twin, because saying that over and over makes it a little less real. He's never been this far apart from George before, and he thinks that George is thinking exactly the same thing. And suddenly, Fred's back in his old room at the Burrow, and George is on the floor, not looking at him. Fred tries to say his twin's name, make any sound, but George doesn't turn around and Fred thinks dully that George has never ignored him before.
The mirror in their room is broken, and George's hand is bleeding.
Fred cries out, making no sound, and falls down next to his brother, his twin, his best friend. The floor is littered with shards of mirror and Fred wants to punch George, to call him a git, to hold him and protect him. But he feels a hand on his own shoulder and he turns around, and it's Alicia, tears running down her face. It's time to go and he can't stop it, but he can't bring himself to leave George.
But then, he thinks, as he and Alicia fade into nothingness again, he sort of already has.