Fred was dead. That much was obvious with one look at him.
But other than that, not much had changed. Fred, you see, was a ghost.
"oi! Fred! Have you seen the trick glasses?" George called from another room. Fred, who was currently floating on his back near one of the bookshelves, shouted back to his twin "I think I saw them in the basement!" he heard a groan of frustration from his brother and laughed to came back into the room and looked up at his brother and rolled his eyes "what are you doing?" Fred had his head inside of a book. Literally.
Once, the sight of his brother as a ghost would have startled him, but George had seen his brother like this for six months now, and he was the only one in the family who knew.
"I'm looking at spells" Fred said simply, twirling a ghostly wand as he did so. "what're you looking at spells for?" George asked, incredulously, though he thought he might know what his brother was up to.
"no reason" Fred replied, pulling his head out of the book, and flipping over to look at his brother. His eyes twinkling mischievously. George laughed "well, whatever it is, you're obviously up to no good" getting a good look at the dusty old novel his face fell for a moment, he quickly turned and headed out of the room "I'm going to get those trick glasses" he called over his shoulder.
Fred sighed and stuck his head back into the book 'ghosts, and corporeal beings'
When George got to the basement, he sat down and leaned his head back against the wall. "why do you keep doing this, Fred?" he whispered to himself. Maybe ghosts had superior knowledge of magic, but what Fred was trying to achieve was impossible, right? George wanted it to work as badly as Fred did..but...it couldn't be possible, could it?