A/N - This was written for the John Green Appreciation Competition on HPFFC. Below is the quote that inspired it. Fred Weasley is my love, that is all.
"Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there.' I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful."
It was in this moment that George Weasley realized how much last words can mean.
On the night he found himself sobbing next to his lifeless twin brother, so many things came into clarity. Life and its darkness had at last come upon them. The twins so full of light. Their mission to bring hope and laughter in the depths of this war had died along with his brother and George felt like he had died also.
All he could do was continue to replay the moment in his mind. He didn't care how much it continued to hurt him. That moment was the last moment of Fred's life and it hurt just the tiniest bit less than the dead eyes below him. Fred's dead eyes. Fred who was never coming back to smile with him again.
"You're joking, Perce! You actually are joking—I don't I've heard you joke since you were-"
The sentence he had never finished. Never would they know the last joke Percy had told. Fred would never hear Percy joke again, he would never laugh again, never make another person laugh the way only he could. And in this moment George was certain he himself would never develop laugh lines. The joke was over. It was all over.
And it hurt. Fred used to make him laugh so much his stomach clenched, smile so much is face hurt. Now Fred was making him cry so much that all he felt was pain. Why? Why? Why? Why did it have to be Fred?
Why couldn't it have been him instead? Anyone but Fred.
Behind him he could feel his family mourning too. His mothers sobs shook him, made his tears flow faster. Ginny, Ron, George, Percy, Charlie, Bill...now there were only six. The Weasley's and their six children. Number seven lost in a war that looked as if it would never be won.
A hand was on his shoulder. For the briefest moment George looked up. It was Percy. Percy. For once George was so happy to have Percy here. They shared something now. Both had been there. Both had seen. Both were hurt. Percy's eyes said a million things that words couldn't. Tears were leaking out and he wasn't trying to stop them.
"—I don't think I've heard you joke since you were-"
That was it. And he was gone.
Those words, Fred's last words, Fred's last thoughts, Fred's last smile….they repeated in George's head like a song. One of those songs that brought weaker men to tears. Well, now George was the weaker man and Fred's song had brought him into a flood of tears that he wasn't sure would ever end.
It had hit him then.
He would always remember Fred's last words.