This is a little something I wrote for a different site and have just gotten around to posting. Tell me what you think and I might post more.
When everything is said and done there are always people who are forgotten about. People whose stories are always left untold. It's true that you can never get all of them. But, there are some that really need to be given some sort of importance.
They were told, that everything was going to be alright now. That everything was going to back to normal. Whatever normal meant for them. But, for George Weasley nothing could ever go back to normal. Normal meant making new products for the joke shop, normal meant playful pranks and banter, normal meant never having to sleep alone. Normal meant Fred. And without Fred, there was no normal.
Diagon Alley seemed to be painted in greys. In truth, it was actually quite bright and colorful. But, to George Weasley, the whole world was grey. He hadn't been to London since... well, in a while. He hadn't been to London in a while. His feet carried him in circles around the Leakey Cauldron, before he finally went back inside.
In his room, he was greeted by the comfort of Firewhiskey and other strong muggle liquors that he'd developed a taste for. Fairly quickly, the edges of his vision blurred and the room began to take on a melting sort of feel, where the peeling paint on the walls became long monochromatic rivulets of sweat, or tears.
George did not wake until the knock of the door came. With shaking fingers he struggled to pull open the handle. He had a fierce headache, though he didn't remember ever being drunk. Well, he didn't remember ever being that drunk.
Standing outside, waiting rather patiently, was a familiar face, though it took him a minute longer than normal to place it through the pain of his hangover.
"Charlie," George mumbled, motioning for his older brother to come inside.
"Brought you something," Charlie murmured gently, using the tone that one might use when visiting a sick, or elderly relative.
"Thanks." George accepted the contents of the brown paper bag gratefully. He opened it and pulled out some thick reddish mixture, which he uncapped and drank half of in one gulp. The taste was disgusting, but his vision cleared almost instantly, and the pain in his forehead began to fade. "How'd you know where to find me?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"You come here every year," Charlie replied, using the same quiet tone. George shook his head, trying to remember if this was true or not. He suddenly felt very foolish, and decided to preoccupy himself with crinkling the paper bag into a small paper ball.
"So, how's the family?" George asked, without actually caring about the answer.
"They're well. Fleur's had a baby." The last part was said with a bitterness that didn't go un-missed by the younger Weasley brother.
"So I take it Bill's thrilled."
"Yeah... anyway... Ginny and Harry are planning a wedding, as soon as Ron and Hermione have their's, and you're invited of course."
"Yeah... got the invitation a while ago, fraid' I've lost it..."
Charlie nodded, not quite sure what to say. He guessed (probably correctly) that George would not want to go to the wedding, or would forget to go.
"Erm... and Percy is rather taken with that Penelope Clearwater girl... suppose' we're the last to be married then..."
George made a sound that was halfway in between a bark and a sob.
"So... um... I spose' I'll be getting on then..."
George bobbed his head up and down in response. Charlie stood and made for the door. When he reached the threshold, he paused.
"Take care Georgie..." he murmured, and then left.
It took George another two hours to attempt to leave the room again, and by now it was nearly ten at night. He stepped into the streets with a small parcel clutched in hand, and began making his way toward the main row of shops that was so familiar to every Hogwarts student.
His footsteps echoed painfully hollow and lonely on the cobbles, reminding him how much things had changed, and yet, how much things had not. How much life had moved on when he felt like the world should have died with his twin.
The building where he was now stopped at was the only shop on the street of it's kind and once upon a time it had been the only beacon of light in a drab and dangerous world. Now, it was boarded up, and desolate, a painful relic of a not-so-distant past. George pushed the key into the lock, and of course it clicked, though he half expected it not to. It took him a brief and awkward moment to push his way inside, for the parcel was bulky and the door half stuck shut with disuse.
Inside, everything was as he remembered, except, perhaps, that everything was a bit dustier, and there was a vague scent of mold in the air. Most of the items were still shelved, left where they had placed them before they'd been forced to flee to safe houses. What might have been the beginnings of a half smile skirted across George's face for a moment, and then it was gone.
George ascended the stairs slowly and methodically, taking his time with each movement, as though trying to savor each second of time, even though if he were to be honest, he felt nothing. Upstairs, the old flat felt to him like watching an old time muggle movie. Pushed into stark reality in the clear April moonlight.
George sat on the floor and crossed his legs, like a child might. He opened the parcel and pulled out nothing other than, a birthday cake, and two bottles of Butterbeer. George lit two candles, one for himself and one for Fred.
The flickering candles seemed to cast a warm light on the room, even though they were tiny. A gentle breeze appeared to flit across the old wound, where George had once possessed an ear. And a quiet voice seemed to whisper, "Happy Birthday."
But, he could have just imagined it all. He could have just imagined the way another presence seemed to fill the room. He could have just imagined how he no longer seemed to feel that missing half of himself. He could have just imagined all that happened next as well.
Yes, it's quite conceivable that he dreamt up the invisible hand that crept its way up his shirt, and began to gently tweak the nipples there. He could have just been so drunk that it only seemed as though ghostly fingers seemed to brush his crotch, and squeeze the arousal there.
But, George highly doubted that. "Fred" he moaned.
"George," the silence whispered back. Somehow those fingers that he was imagining had found their way to his zipper and now were climbing inside of his pants. George let out a sound that might have been a keen. "FRED!" George said again, this time there was something more desperate to his voice.
"S'al' right Georgie." And now those fingers were into his boxers running their ghostly way up and down his aroused sex, and George was moaning, and squirming beneath the touch, because he needed this. Whatever this was.
The hand that was not a hand took a hold of his cock and began to pump, long even strokes, up and down. A finger rubbed across the opened and weeping slit at the top and George thrust his hips up into that non-hand.
"Stop teasing me!" George cried.
"But, it's our Birthday, and I want to make this last," the not Fred, moaned into his ear.
"Fred!"
The hand increased the pace, sliding up and down, faster, and it felt so good and George was moaning and keening and whimpering and the Not-Fred was laughing and then George came because he couldn't help it.
"Did that feel good Georgie?" Not-Fred said directly into George's ear. George collapsed onto the floor, and nodded.
"I miss you Fred," he whimpered.
"I know..."
"Happy Birthday."
"Happy Birthday."