So this is just a one-shot about George coping with the death of Fred and how Harry tried to help him... sorta. Well, just read, that's easier for me than to try to explain.
"You get used to it."
George almost jumped. He'd noticed it when Harry sat next to him, but that must be almost an hour ago now, and he hadn't really expected him to speak anymore. Than again, Harry always surprised. George stared ahead, past the hills, past the horizon. He'd expected them to send someone after him when he went up on the roof a few hours back, still he was surprised when Harry joined him, sat next to him without a word and they sat glaring at the horizon together. A full minute passed before he responded.
"What does?" He croaked out. His voice was hoarse from not being used for over a week, his mouth and throat dry. Funnily, this was the first time he noticed.
"The hole in your chest... The ache in your heart... The small reminder at unguarded moments, saying 'He would've liked this'... You get used to it." Finally George looked at Harry, but he wasn't looking back at him. Harry was looking ahead, still, a pensive expression on his face. He looked back at the horizon.
"How do you know?" His voice broke, but he wasn't ashamed, not in front of Harry. He'd been there, he'd lost everything. "It was different for you... I- I've lost... me." From the corner of his eyes his saw Harry glance at him.
"I think that just might make it easier." George looked at him, and for the first time their eyes met.
"Easier?!" Harry nodded, breaking their gaze and looking away again.
"You know Fred, like you knew yourself. He was yourself. You know his every thought, shared his every memory, and feel as he feels." George stayed quiet. It was nice of Harry to try to comfort him, but he didn't exactly see how knowing Fred would make losing him easier. If anything, it should make it harder. "You'll miss him, and you'll know exactly what you're missing, but you won't have the regrets of not knowing him." George chanced a glance at Harry, from the few things he'd caught from conversations in the past two weeks since the Final Battle, Harry'd had regrets about Dumbledore's death.
"I grew up without knowing my parents. I loved them, I lost them, but I never knew quite what I was mourning for, never knew quite what I was missing out on. And so I didn't only mourn my parents as the persons they were, I mourned for them as the roles they would never fill as my parents and I mourned for never getting to know them." Harry stopped and took a deep breath. Before them the sky grew darker as the sun set. "Then I lost Sirius." The statement made George feel as if a knife twisted in his stomach. He remembered the way Harry had been when the picked him up at the train that year. He'd smiled and acted tough, but no one missed the look in his eyes. The defeated look, the hurt, the inexplicable lose he'd endured. "That was even worse. Much worse, really. With Sirius I'd gotten a taste of what it was like to have a parent for the first time in my life... He was my dad, my brother, my friend. But I didn't know him, I barely even got to spend time with him. I never asked questions I wanted answered, never asked questions I didn't know if I wanted the answers to. And when he was gone, I-" He broke off, running a hand through his hair. "For most of that summer, before I got here, I just lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, refusing to eat and talking to no one, not that I had anyone to talk to. I tried to get over his dead in a similar way as you're trying now..." George could feel his gaze on him, but didn't turn his head to meet it. "But I realized it wasn't what Sirius would've wanted me to do... He would've wanted me to move on, live on and keep fighting." He gulped painfully as George finally turned. "And Fred would want the same." George barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Plenty people had told him that already, he'd expected the Chosen One to come with something better. He looked at the horizon again.
"It's not that easy."
"Believe me, I know. It's not easy, it'll never be easy, but you'll get used to it. It can take months, it can take years, but you'll get used to it." Years. He couldn't even think of another day without Fred, let alone years missing his twin.
"I-" He gulped, not sure if he was ready to admit it out loud, especially to Harry. He knew if he thought rationally, that Harry had lost more than he had. Harry had lost EVERYTHING, with no exceptions. But in a way, so had he. His everything just came in fewer people. "I don't want to get used to it." He looked at Harry. "I want him to come back."
"If I thought I would be doing the right thing by bringing Fred back, I would George." But even the Chosen One can't revive people from death, right? "But both you and he wouldn't be happy. He belongs to the death and can never live amongst the living again, and you would torture yourself by seeing him so unhappy." Something like anger flared inside George, and he was almost stunned at the emotion already foreign in his body.
"But you died as well! And you came back! All those people died, how come they're not here? Why don't you belong to the death?" He glared at Harry. It's not like George wanted him death. Of course he didn't. But it was bloody unfair that Harry got to live when Fred didn't.
"I'm the exception, George, not the rule... I've always been the exception, and I'll always be the exception. You can't outsmart death." No, George couldn't outsmart death, of course not, no one but bloody Harry Potter could. He knew he was being unfair, but life was unfair. Fred's death only proved that.
"He's happy where he's at now, George. And he'll be waiting for you, and when it's your time, you'll see him again..." He resisted the temptation the push the younger boy of the roof. The younger boy speaking like an old man. Speaking as if he'd seen and done everything already...
"How do you know? You never been there, have you?" Than again, Harry probably had seen and done everything. Bloody git.
"I have, remember. I died, you screamed that at me." George winced and turned back to the horizon. It was completely dark around them now, and the first stars where appearing above them. "And than I had the choice, stay in this wonderful peaceful place, where nothing could hurt me, stay with my parents and Sirius... Or I could go back. Back to the hurt and the pain, back to risking my life and saving the world." And weren't it for his freaking nobleness he wouldn't have left that place. "Fred didn't have that choice, so he stayed in that wonderful peaceful place, learning pranks from the marauders and laughing with Tonks."
"Are you sure he's happy? Can he see us?" Harry laughed softly next to him.
"Yeah. You're the one who creates your hereafter, and I don't doubt Fred's would be great fun." Harry looked at him again, and this time George immediately met his eyes. "And they can see us, and I gotta say that I think that if Fred saw you right now, he'd say something along the lines of: 'Bloody wanker! Don't waste your life when some many have been lost already...'" George chuckled, for the first time, since- For the first time without Fred.
"He'd say that." He stared at the ceiling of stars above them, marveling in the idea that Fred's hereafter could be somewhere up there. Heaven was in the sky, right?
"And I agree." He smiled wryly.
"I'm sure you do git." Next to him Harry chuckled lowly, before getting up and walking towards the trap door. "Tell them I'll be down in a sec." Harry paused and looked back, and George turned his head to the horizon one more time.
"Oh, and maybe tell them to put a mattress down there as well." He waved towards the ground, and when Harry answered he could hear the smirk in his voice.
"Very funny, George. But don't you dare jump." George smiled.
"I won't. And Harry?" One of the stars twinkled brightly and he imagined it being Fred's hereafter, where he held a party for everyone they'd lost.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks." He heard Harry open the trapdoor, and a small smile came on his face as he added, "Don't forget about that mattress, though."
"Oh, shut up!" George laughed, for the first time alone, but up in that star where Fred's hereafter was and where Fred was having a party, he could hear the echo of his twin. Harry closed the trapdoor loudly, and George grinned at the star.
"Don't worry Fred. I'll get used to it."
So, what did you think? Please leave a review, I'd really wanted to know what everyone thinks!
xoxo
Naomi