where the devil don't go
It begins at an end, as all things do, because life is made of cycles.
He sees her in a castle turned graveyard, where the body of his identical twin lies on the long tables that they used to eat from. His family is one of many in mourning: the Great Hall is filled with the sound of muffled weeping and murmured condolences. But his own family has no condolence to give, only tears, and his mother heaves great, wracking sobs onto Fred's bloodied chest while his father stands behind her, eyes glazed.
George has no more tears. There is only an emptiness that makes him feel strangely apathetic to all the death surrounding him.
He stands and stares at his mother sobbing and wishes he could do the same.
A hand slips into his. George jumps and looks down at the dark-haired girl who holds his hand. Harry doesn't say anything and nor does he, both of them just staring at the dead and the living, and the invisible wall that separates the pair from both.
They take Fred's body home to be buried in the family plot, and somewhere along the way from Hogwarts to the Burrow, Harry slips away.
His mother putters around the kitchen, making tea in a way that makes George think it's just to keep her hands busy, rather than because she wants any. They stand with their cups, not drinking, all thinking about the same thing: there is a body and no one knows where it should stay until the funeral.
Someone mentions that they should put him in his childhood bed. There's not so much as an agreement as Bill just deciding to levitate Fred up to their room, to his bed, laying him down softly and pulling the covers over his unmoving chest, as if he were only sleeping. George follows him and loiters in the doorway, unsure what to do with himself and missing Harry's comforting hand in his own.
Bill finishes fussing with the covers. He and George stand next to each other by the door, looking at their dead brother; it's a surreal moment, like a replay from all the mornings the twins spent together in this room, only distorted. Like a nightmare.
The blood on Fred's face is very red against his skin.
George muses on the fact that if he had been the one killed in the battle, his body would have looked almost exactly the same as Fred's. And if Fred had lived, he would have looked exactly like George - excluding the ear, of course. The family'll get to see what Fred would look like growing up, at least. George can't decide whether it's a blessing or a curse.
That's the thing about identical twins, they're never two completely separate people. It's never bothered him before. But now that he's no longer a twin, he has no idea how to be an individual. He doesn't know how to fix the part of him that feels missing.
"We should wash off the blood," murmurs Bill, voice thick with emotion.
"Why bother?" George's voice is strangely light, as if they're discussing the weather, not their brother's corpse. "He's dead. He doesn't care."
George goes back to the flat to sleep. He doesn't think he could sleep in the same room as Fred's body, even cleaned of gore; it's too much to wake up in the morning and directly see that Fred won't ever again. To know that Fred's dead is one thing, but to live through it is another thing entirely.
Like when he steps into the flat, it hits him all over again. Fred will never step foot in here, in the shop, again. Fred will never help make another product for their shop. Fred won't attempt to sneak in late and spend another night with Angelina Johnson. Fred is dead. Fred is dead.
But George's eyes are dry and his heart is empty, and he hates himself for it.
The kitchen light is on.
It should worry him that someone has broken into his empty flat, but it doesn't. It seems quite unimportant in the scheme of things, after the battle, after all the death. So he just shrugs it off and walks in.
It's Harry. She's sat at his table, back to the doorway, wearing the same dirty clothes as earlier in the day, drinking firewhiskey straight out of a bottle. The easy way she swallows makes him absently wonder how often she's drunk it before.
"Harry?" he grunts, slumping into a seat. She passes the bottle without looking at him.
"George," she replies.
He takes a long pull from the bottle, coughing a little at the burn. "What're you doing here?"
She raises her left eyebrow and takes the bottle back. "Drinking," she smirks, taking another sip.
"Hmm," he hums. It's been a long day; he's not sure he really cares why she's here, so he's not going to bother asking and it doesn't look like she's telling. He takes the bottle when she passes it to him.
They sit in silence for a long while, passing the bottle. George thinks about explosions and walls falling and how it must feel to die crushed under the walls of a place known as home for seven years. He thinks about how fragile humans are, bones and veins and organs broken and ruptured and crushed. He thinks of how easy it is to die, and how hard it is to live.
"I miss Fred," he says.
"I miss them too." Harry whispers.
When he wakes up the next morning, his head is pounding and Harry is gone.
There's something about death that makes a home feel different, almost dead itself. George returns to the Burrow the next morning, still hungover, and there is a silence that has never been there in his entire life. His mother has made breakfast, but the kitchen is empty; it sits on the long table, barely touched and the bacon he eats is cold, and it makes him feel sick.
The lounge is similarly quiet, but it is less empty. Hermione and Ron sit on the old love seat, holding hands, comforting without words, and Ginny sits in an armchair by the fire, staring blankly at the wall. George decides to join them, seating himself on the other sofa, contemplating what must be a new development in Ron and Hermione's relationship. Ron's shoulders are too stiff for it not to be, like he expects to be made fun of.
He would say something, but without Fred, it just sounds mean.
Ginny looks over at him then, before her eyes start to water and she has to look away. He wonders if it is because he looks so much like Fred or because he and Fred are no longer together, like they should be.
"Are you okay, George?" Hermione asks, and her voice is so tentative. Like he's glass about to shatter, like they're expecting him to have a breakdown at any moment. If he was a good brother, a good twin, he would be, wouldn't he? But his brother is dead and he can't even cry for him, so he just nods, and wishes Harry was here because there's something about her that makes it easier to deal with.
Hermione clears her throat nervously. "Have you - have you seen Harry?" she pauses, briefly meeting his eyes before looking away. "It's just we haven't seen her since Hogwarts..."
His father comes in then, clearly hearing the question, and speaks before George thinks to. "I imagine she's busy with Kingsley, sorting out the memorial, sorting out f-funerals," he muses tiredly, looking for all the world as if he hadn't slept a wink last night. It's possible he didn't - George wouldn't have if he hadn't passed out.
"She was at the flat last night," he speaks before he is really aware of it, and all their heads snap to him. His voice is rough with disuse; he feels grateful for a long moment that it sounds nothing like the voice that he and Fred shared. At some point he will accept that he will always be looking at the future his twin will never have, but that point is not today.
Both Hermione and Ron frown. "But why would she come to you and not us?" Hermione mutters. We're her best friends, she doesn't say, you're not.
"And why didn't she come with you this morning?" His dad asks, pointedly not asking about her staying the night.
George shrugs. "She wasn't there when I woke up."
"But where is she then?" Ron demands, standing up in distress. George idly wonders if they realise their friend is legally an adult and definitely not in need of their coddling, if her whiskey habits are anything to go by. "What did she say to you?"
"I don't remember." He frowns. Ron's yelling isn't helping his hangover headache. "We were drinking."
Ron gives a bitter laugh. "Great," he says. "She has time to go on a bender with you but can't be arsed to see us!" He's let go of Hermione's hand by now, expressing wildly with his arms in frustration. George isn't offended, because Ron's eyes are red rimmed and it's obvious that he's just worried about his friend. George remembers suddenly that Harry died as well yesterday.
"Calm down, Ron," their father speaks quietly. "She'll come home when she's ready."
His younger brother sits back down and takes Hermione's hand again, and she leans her head against his shoulder and whispers words too quietly for George to hear on the other side of the room. Ginny continues to stare at the wall. His father grasps his shoulder for a moment, comfortingly, before leaving the room and ascending the stairs. The room falls into silence again and George settles back into it, wishing Fred would just pop into life again like Harry had, a grin on his face for fooling them so well.
They pass the time like that, sitting in silence. Throughout the day, the rest of the family trickles into the lounge, except their mother who solemnly clears up breakfast and makes lunch, then disappears upstairs once more, likely to sit with Fred's body. George doesn't even attempt lunch; he hasn't felt hungry since before the battle and it seems too much effort to chew and swallow. Even the few who get lunch eat only a small amount of it before finishing.
George notices how they all avoid looking at him, and can't blame them. He can't bring himself to look in a mirror either.
It's only after a few hours of trying to ignore his mother's sobs echoing through the house that he has to get out of there. He decides to go through a walk, mumbling something on the way out and receiving only silence in response, although he expects little else.
He opens the door and there she is again, staring up at him with those green, green eyes. The grimace she gives him is probably meant to be a smile, he thinks. Neither of them speaks for a long while, and George doesn't move out of the doorway. She doesn't try to make him move, or try to explain why she left or why she hadn't come earlier.
Instead, she says: "I want to see his body."
George doesn't know why he goes with her to see Fred's body. He already knows what he will find; he has memorised his twin's face, stiff and pale with death, frozen from decay by preservation spells. The cuts are fresh in his mind, along with the paths of congealed blood, and he sees the limbs stiff with rigor mortis when he closes his eyes. This is not his brother, not anymore, and he owes nothing to it.
But he goes with her. She holds his hand again, and doesn't let go even while his mother crushes her in a hug.
His mother leaves them alone in there, closing the door on her way out. Harry's grip drags him towards the body; the two of them stand there, looking down at Fred, his face illuminated by the sun streaming in through the window. The body's been cleaned up as much as possible, he notices, although there's no way to heal any injuries. The large gash on his forehead - the one that probably killed him - gapes open and shows the broken skull beneath it, the broken brain that won't think of anymore ingenious ideas. He tries to not look at it.
"I wonder whether it hurt," Harry asks, voice quiet.
George is struck by a moment of intense irony. "Wouldn't you know?" he snorts.
She looks at him, frowning. "It's not the same," she says.
"You both died."
She reaches out the hand that's not holding his to touch Fred's forehead, centimetres away from the gaping cut. He tries to not imagine the feel of the cold, dead flesh under her fingers. "But I came back," she whispers. Her hand draws back to her chest, and she hugs him desperately, but her body does not shudder with sobs and nor does his.
Bill ends up doing most of the funeral arrangements.
It's probably for the best, since both their parents aren't in the right frame of mind for it, and no one else particularly wants to. George doesn't think Bill does, either, but he's the eldest and he feels like it's his job to keep the family together when it's falling apart. Fleur helps, organising the flowers and coffin, while Bill deals with the invitations and everything else. They're an efficient pair, and the funeral is set for two days.
Though she tells them that she'll be staying at Grimmuald Place, Harry ends up at George's flat. He doesn't mind having her, especially when she shows him the fresh bottle of firewhiskey in her bag.
They sit in the living room this time around, ending up on the battered sofa that smells unpleasantly of cats. Harry lets him open the bottle and have the first drink, instead taking off for the bathroom to get changed into her pyjamas. He briefly wonders whether that means she's going to spend the night. He's not all that fussed, either way, if he's completely honest.
Firewhiskey is extremely potent, and even the few mouthfuls he takes while Harry's gone cloud his head with drunkenness. Harry doesn't take long to catch up with him, being smaller in stature, with a lower alcohol tolerance. The night shirt she wears swamps her, and he thinks it might be Ron's from the Chudley Cannon's logo and the eye-wateringly bright orange colour of it; he doesn't think he's ever appreciated just how petite she is until then.
"Why'd you come over mine, then, Potter?" he asks, curious, and unable to stop himself.
She burps loudly, and grins. "Misery loves company, Weasley." She raises the bottle as if making a toast.
They both laugh stupidly and settle back into easy silence. They keep sharing the drink, falling further and further into drunkenness. After a while, Harry looks deep in thought, and George wonders what she's thinking, especially when she begins to chew her lip.
"You alrigh'?" he slurs, certainly tipsy, if not drunk.
"I jus'- I jus' can't stop-" she hiccups. "Thinkin'- thinkin' 'bout Fred, you know?" She takes a deep breath, as if she plans to keep speaking, before closing her mouth and shaking her head, taking the bottle and gulping.
"I'm gonna mish 'im," George tells her, unable to articulate the sheer devastating fear he has of being alone, without Fred for the first time ever.
"When- I died," she leans in, like she's about to tell a secret. Her breath blows on his ear, and it's warm. "It was nice. Shoulda stay'd there," her voice is very quiet.
George doesn't say anything, because he doesn't know what to say to that. He could tell her that sometimes he wished he'd died instead of Fred, but there's been enough death. He doesn't need to say anything, in the end, because she keeps talking.
"I hope he's happy, Fred," her voice is wistful. "An' - an' the res' of 'em too!"
And then she passes out on his chest.
When he falls asleep, his dreams are filled with Fred, and what he imagines Fred's death was like, having not been there. The corridor is smoky at the edges, and the shadows created by flickering flame torches are longer, more menacing. Through the windows, the world is on fire and all he can smell is smoke and burnt flesh. Fred is there, of course, and so are Percy, Harry, Ron and Hermione, all sufficiently battered and bloodied by their previous battles. They're running from something, all of them, and the ground is creaking and shaking.
Ahead of them, figures emerge, sinister and cloaked in black, like Death Eaters. They throw spells, and Fred and Percy are drawn into a daring duel. Fred's opponent throws green death spells, but his brother dodges and snaps back clever little spells that also never seem to hit. Fred looks invincible.
And then, as if in slow motion, the explosion hits, and the walls begin to crumble. Percy ducks out the way. But Fred, he's buried underneath it, blood pooling around his body, into the stones, as the life leaves his eyes. And those eyes are so identical to his, but blank with death and blaming him: you should've been here, it should've been you.
This time, when he wakes up, panting slightly, she's still there, sleeping on his shoulder with her arm draped across his torso. Harry looks younger when she sleeps, not like the girl who spent last night drinking firewhiskey with him. The baggy orange shirt has shifted during the night, the neck hole gaping across her shoulder and revealing pale, unscarred skin. She looks peaceful, and he doesn't want to disturb her, but he needs to go to the loo.
He hopes to wriggle out of her hold without waking her up, but as he slowly manoeuvres out of her grasp, she grips tighter and snuggles closer to him, one of her legs intermingling with his own and locking him in place. George groans, and resigns himself to waking her up, because he is rather quite desperate.
"Harry," he nudges her. "Harry, wake up," he pokes her until she stirs awake.
He can tell the exact moment she really wakes up and realises where she is, because she jumps off him and flushes. Part of him wants to stay and tease her, but most of him just wants to pee.
When he comes back, she's sat on the sofa with her head in her hands, running her short dark hair through her fingers. He can't help but notice how she actually manages to make the garish orange of the Chudley Cannons look good.
"Nice to see you when I woke up this morning," he snarks, even as he moves to get some water to clear out the feeling of cotton balls in his mouth. Even though his head hurts, he feels better today than yesterday, as long as he doesn't think about his nightmare. He pours a glass of water for Harry too, and passes it to her while he drinks his.
"Do you want me to make some breakfast?" she asks between sips. "I know you're pants at it."
He shrugs. "Sure."
While she goes to the kitchen to make breakfast, George flings himself back onto the sofa, snuggling into the residual warmth from their bodies. He lies there and listens to Harry bustling around in the kitchen and tries not to think of how Fred used to try to make breakfast in the early days of their living alone, before they started ordering from The Leaky Cauldron. When the nightmare starts to fill his thoughts, he punches himself in the thigh and goes to sit at the kitchen table.
Harry moves around the kitchen like she actually knows what she's doing, which surprises George, since she's so skinny. He tries not to focus on the hem of that horrible orange shirt as it lifts with her movements.
"You know," she says, turning around with two plates of food. "You really need more food. Your cupboards are practically empty."
Eggs on toast. He takes the plate and raises an eyebrow at her. "Food's not really been a priority recently."
Harry blushes, embarrassed. Her gaze falls to the table's surface. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he mutters through a mouthful of toast. George likes to think Harry understands, at least a little bit.
They go to the Burrow together, dressed in yesterday's rumpled clothes and smelling like whiskey. Percy frowns at them from the kitchen table, but doesn't say anything, just takes a sip of his tea and turns back to his newspaper. Harry's holding his hand again; she leads him into the lounge and sits him in the chair by the fire, lighting it with a wave of her wand. She squeezes his shoulders and leaves.
He sits there for a while, staring. He is very aware of the body several floors above, but his bones feel as though they're weighted with iron, too heavy with guilt to foray to Fred's side one last time. The guilt is a strange thing, he finds, like an ache in his chest, the heart of the emptiness that he's felt since finding Fred's body among the dead in the Great Hall after the battle. He doesn't know how life works without a twin, and every second of life that he sees that Fred doesn't makes him feel guiltier still.
The fire crackles mockingly.
"George?"
He snaps his head to the voice. His mother is there, poking her head around the door, and her eyes are swollen and red-rimmed from the tears that shine on her cheeks. She tries to smile, but it is a hollow, pathetic thing. George doubts his mother will ever smile the same. He doubts he'll ever smile the same again, either.
He thinks he hates Fred then, for dying. And himself, for not dying.
"Are you hungry?" his mother asks, softly, carefully.
He finds himself shaking his head. When she starts to protest, he speaks: "Harry made breakfast for me."
"Oh," she says. She looks torn between confusion and appreciation. "Good." And she leaves.
The chair moulds to his back as he resettles into it. He stretches out his legs towards the fire, feeling the warmth soak through the material of his trousers. The sudden surge of anger makes his heart pound before it fades sharply at the thought that Fred's heart doesn't beat, Fred can't feel warmth anymore.
Because Fred is dead.
"Stop it." A hand smacks him up the side of the head. Harry seats herself on the chair's arm and folds her arms, looking away from his face. She's pulled her hair up into something like a ponytail and changed into fresh clothes, still overly large and ratty. but comfortable looking. He doesn't think she's ever worn something that fits properly since the Yule Ball, or even before that.
He shrugs. "Stop what?"
"Feeling so guilty," she manoeuvres herself so that she faces him, unfolding her arms to rest on her knees. "You didn't kill him, George."
He doesn't know what to say for a moment, so he looks away from her until he does. "I know. But it should've been me, I should've died instead of him."
And Harry doesn't say anything, just hugs him until he hugs back, and they sit there in front of the fire, listening to it crackle.
Harry accompanies him back to the flat. She turns on the lights with a flick of her wand and leads him to the bedroom that he hasn't entered since before the battle, fluffing the pillows and drawing back the sheets while he stands frozen in the doorway. Like so many times before, it takes her pulling him by the hand to get him to move. The steps he makes are soft, unsure, as though walking on sacred territory.
Part of him feels like his life will forever be like this: defiling areas of his life that used to belong to Fred.
This flat used to be just the twins'. George's memories of the place used to be exclusively of him and Fred, and it feels like he's starting to replace those with new memories, ones without Fred. Like he's replacing Fred, like he's forgetting Fred. George wonders if that's what will happen, if he will wake up in ten years and not see Fred in his reflection, not acknowledge or even feel the ache where Fred should be. It seems wrong that Fred can only belong to the past now.
He realises he is clenches the sheets of his bed in his hands, and smooths his hands out consciously. Somehow, he's found himself sat on his bed. Harry has placed his pyjamas on the quilt next to him, and she's rummaging about in his bathroom for something.
And George is angry at her, furious at her for being here when Fred isn't. She isn't his mother. She has no right to be here, mothering him, acting like she understands what it's like to lose a brother, a twin. How dare she, he thinks, re-clenching his hands. She walks back into the room, holding his toothbrush and toothpaste, about to speak -
"Get out!" George screams. "You can't replace him! How dare you - GET OUT!" And he's standing, pointing, red in the face from his anger, and it feels good to see the shock and hurt on Harry's face as she drops the toiletries in her hands.
But then her face closes up, and she tries to speak again: "I'm -"
"GET THE HELL OUT!" He screams again, moving forward to physically make her go, but she finally appears to get the message, striding out of the room before he can reach her. She doesn't look back.
The slam of the front door is incredibly satisfying.
For the first time in what feels like a while, he wakes up without a hangover, and he's in his bed. Alone. And there is an owl pecking at his window.
When he lies there, trying to fall back to sleep, the owl continues to peck and claw at the window. Eventually, he groans, rolling over to glare at the owl. His limbs feel heavy as he moves them to get out of the bed, shuffling slowly to the window and unlatching it, untying the letter from the bird's leg with stiff fingers. As soon as the letter is in his hands, the owl hoots snootily and flies away.
"Stupid bird," George mutters to himself.
The letter is written on a rolled up scroll of parchment, course against his fingers, wrapped together with twine. He undoes the twine, and stretches out the scroll to read his eldest brother's script: George, the funeral is at midday. Don't be late. Bill.
It's a bit of a shock that the funeral is today. It doesn't feel like enough time has passed since the battle, and what little time has passed has been a haze through which he has drifted listlessly. He shakes his head to clear it, and lets the letter fall onto the floor, clamouring to find his wand to check the time.
10:42.
The robes hanging in his wardrobe are hardly appropriate to wear to a funeral, he finds. But he has little else and no time to buy anything new, so he takes picks a plain black set and heads to the shower. It's his first shower in a few days, and his hair is full of grime from the battle that he's not noticed until it's swirling around his drain and colouring the water brown. The water feels good on his skin, like it's washing away stress he didn't know he had. When he steps out of it, his head is clearer.
And his stomach is rumbling.
He dresses in a hurry, rubbing his hair dry with the towel. Just like Harry told him yesterday, his cupboards are empty of anything suitable for breakfast - and the brief thought of Harry makes him grit his teeth because he is still furious that she's tried to understand his pain, to invade in his grief. He decides to grab a meal from The Leaky Cauldron.
During his short walk to the pub, he notices how even just a few days since the war ended, the Alley feels brighter, friendlier. There are not lots of people about, but the people that are there do not walk with their heads bowed and a run in their step; they meander, taking their time looking at the few remaining window displays and talking with their companions; and there are no stalls with fake protection amulets and untrustworthy owners, praying on the scared masses for profit. Several of the shops, including his own, are still boarded up and are closed, but it feels like the start of something new, the start of life after the war.
He thinks it's an awful shame Fred will never get to see it.
The Leaky Cauldron has remained remarkably untouched by the war. The doors are the same and the interior is just as dour as ever when he enters it, with Tom the bartender cleaning mugs behind the bar like an ever-present fixture.
"Morning Tom," he greets quietly.
The barkeep flashes George a toothy grin, before setting down his cloth and the half-clean mug on the bar's shiny surface. "Good mornin' to you too, Mister Weasley," Tom replies. "What'll it be this fine mornin'?"
"Full English," he says, absently fishing around his robe pockets for some money. After a short but fruitless search, he frowns and comes up empty, looking up at Tom with an apologetic shrug. "Sorry, guess I'll have to pass."
Tom just keeps smiling that toothy grin, and reaches out to pat George's shoulder, "Nah, son, this one's on me.", before waving him away to a table and heading into the kitchen. George chooses a booth in a dark corner, away from most of the other patrons, although there are few at this time of day. He passes the time that it takes Tom to bustle out of the kitchen levitating his plate of food and a glass of orange juice by tracing the circular rim stains on the table's dark wood surface.
"Cheers," George mutters as Tom places the overfilled plate and glass in front of him.
"Think nothing of it! 'T'is the least I can do for a war hero like yourself." With that, Tom bustles away, back to his glass cleaning, leaving George sat there, staring after him.
He does not feel like a war hero. People like Dumbledore are war heroes, not him. He's just some lucky sod who fought against some Death Eaters and managed not to die. He sighs and pokes at the fried eggs on his plate, suddenly feeling very unhungry.
Fred used to be the one to get him out of his moods. But Fred's dead.
George eats the food because it's free, and tries to pretend it doesn't taste of ashes in his mouth.
When he apparates to the Burrow, Ron's pacing agitatedly outside in dark robes. Ron looks tired, with thick bags under his eyes and a scowl on his face as he paces, hands shoved into the robe's pockets, but he's obviously alert, since he pivots towards George as soon as he hears the pop of Apparition. The crease in his forehead relaxes just a smidge at the sight of him, but the scowl doesn't lighten.
"About time you got here," Ron snarks.
George doesn't answer, but checks his wrist for a watch that he is not wearing. He swears quietly.
"You're not late." Ron says, looking at his own watch. "We're starting in five minutes, though."
George nods and starts to walk towards the front door. "Who're you waiting for?" he calls when Ron doesn't follow.
"Harry," Ron calls back, and continues with his pacing.
It's an overcast day. Utterly unremarkable, neither too hot nor cold, without sun but also without rain. Very unlike his twin, he finds himself thinking as they file into the orchard, who was remarkable in every single way.
Bill and Fleur haven't chosen to bury Fred in the normal graveyard where most of the family is buried, but in the Burrow's garden, in the orchard they used to use as a quidditch pitch in the summers. It's a nice idea, keeping his body at home. They've placed the grave at the edge of the orchard, underneath a sprawling apple tree, and it's a peaceful place. He thinks Fred would have liked it.
A small collection of seats have been placed before the coffin and the deep hole in which it will reside. George finds himself pushed gently into one by his second eldest brother, and the seat is conveniently in the middle of where the rest of his family decides to sit; he does not know whether this is for his benefit or for theirs, and decides it does not matter. The remaining guests stand behind the seated family members, all staring at the dark wooden coffin where Fred will lie forever.
Sitting makes him very conscious of the fact that he has never been taught funeral etiquette - especially not for his own twin's funeral. That he suffers through it alone makes it worse. He and Fred had always been equally clueless, and equally able to make fun of the other for their cluelessness.
But now he fidgets alone, unable to position himself in a way that makes sense when Fred's body is less than three metres away from him.
He wishes suddenly that he was drunk. He's sure Fred wouldn't mind, and even if Fred did, he's not sure he cares anymore.
Kingsley Shacklebolt is conducting the service. George dimly remembers that Kingsley is the Minister of Magic now, and wonders whether he offered to do the service or was asked by Bill. The practised way in which the man steps up to the coffin and lays a soft hand on top convinces him that either way, it was a good choice, because this man knows what he is doing and the words he speaks are careful yet suitable. And Kingsley has always had a nice, reassuring voice.
He lets the voice wash over him, eyes not leaving the gaping hole behind the coffin. He starts thinks about how it will be awfully lonely for Fred, to be stuck in such a hole for eternity. But then he takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly, chanting Fred is dead, Fred can't feel, Fred is dead, until the words don't feel like a slap in the face.
By the time he tunes back in, Kinglsey has long since finished speaking and it looks like Bill, who must have stepped up to say some words on behalf of the family, is nearly finished as well. George curses himself for zoning out on his twin's funeral, on any moment he has left with Fred. He clenches his fist against his thigh, angry at himself, and focusing on Bill's words.
"The world will definitely be a darker place without Fred," Bill says, eyes resting along with his hand on the shiny wood of the casket. "May he rest in peace."
Like all the Weasleys, Bill has the look of someone who has not been sleeping well; dark bruises lay stark underneath his eyes, which are slightly bloodshot, and his skin looks sallow in the daylight. George imagines he looks much the same, except Bill looks much more put together, with finer robes and groomed hair tied into a ponytail on the nape of his thin neck. When he walks back to his seat, he is embraced by Fleur and George imagines the solemn comfort the two of them share is the reason that Bill is coping, at the very least.
Kingsley nods. "We have seen that a light has been extinguished that may never be replaced with Fred Weasley's death. His sacrifice shall never be forgotten, and nor shall he, for he lives in our memories and our hearts. We must now live in the spirit that he lived his own life, with laughter, because to do otherwise would only belittle the gift he has given us with his death."
While he talks, Kingsley walks closer to the coffin, waves his wand and levitates it carefully into the hole behind. It settles quietly on the dirt ground. The moment it leaves his sight, George is hit with a staggering finality of this moment, cemented further when Kingsley takes a hand of the dirt piled by the side of the hole and throws it into the grave, onto the coffin, murmuring the symbolic words: vitae ingredior nox.
Life goes into darkness.
Kingsley motions to George's father to step up next. Like a morbid procession, they follow their patriarch to the dirt pile and throw it into the grave to rest with Fred, so that their touch will be with him always. A bit strange, he thinks, since even living people can't feel through wood. But he takes a handful and mutters the words as the dirt falls where Fred's head would be lying beneath the wooden lid; it reminds him of their Herbology classes, where they'd spend more time throwing dirt than actually working, and he has to step back before emotion overwhelms him. For the first time since seeing Fred's body in the Great Hall, George feels tears form.
Standing in the throng of his family, he watches the rest of the attendees drop a handful of dirt into the grave through blurry eyes. Having been sat at the front and arriving first, he has not seen the crowd of non-family members who had filtered in behind, and he is filled with warmth at the sheer amount of people that are here. It is proof that Fred mattered to more people than himself and his family.
At least until Harry steps up, clothed in a fine black robe, her small, pale hand brimming with dirt. The sight of her makes him angry, reminds him of how she is trying to replace Fred in his life, of how she came back and Fred didn't. But George does nothing here. Funerals are not places for confrontation.
Even though he is very tempted when he hears the words that she throws her dirt with: "Mischief managed, Fred," she whispers, and George's heart pounds.
After all in attendance have thrown their handful of dirt, Kingsley fills the rest of the grave with a grand wave of his wand. The chairs disappear with another wave, and the man gestures to George's mother to lead the guests to the wake being hosted in the Burrow.
George is one of the first moving. He is both keen to have a drink and to avoid Harry, since all the words he wants to say to her would make his mother upset. The firewhiskey bottle he picks up is one of many in the kitchen, bought by the family in preparation for the wake, and he picks up another for later before he ambles to one of the tables set up outside. He chooses one that is far away to reduce the risk of actually having to talk to anyone, friend, family or otherwise - he neither needs nor wants condolences.
It works for a while. Through bleary eyes, he watches people congregate and chat, offering comforting words to the various family members dotted around, pointedly ignoring Harry as she speaks to Ron, Ginny and Hermione by the chicken coup. He gets steadily drunker and begins to pay less attention to everyone else.
"You mind sharing that?" The voice is accompanied by a body slumping uninvited in the chair next to him, and he blinks blurry eyes until he recognises the person there.
Angelina Johnson, looking stressed in her dark robes. Her eyes are red-rimmed.
George grunts, passing her the unopened bottle. He's not in the mood for talking, not even with Fred's girlfriend, or whatever they were. He takes another gulp, revelling in the harsh burn it brings, even as it just burns his throat and not the emotions whirling around in his head like he'd hoped.
The pair of them drink in silence for a long time. People leave, some settle down at other tables, reminiscing and chatting. His family congregates at one table, with Harry and Hermione and Fleur, but George can't bring himself to be part of that. He is neither ready to give or receive support from people who will never understand the emptiness of losing half of yourself.
He's busy trying not to cry when Angelina speaks again. "Are you gonna reopen the shop?" she asks, not looking at him.
George frowns. He hasn't really thought about it, with Fred's death occupying all his thoughts. It's what they had always wanted, to own their own joke shop, and they had fulfilled that dream. But it had been their dream, not solely his. If he reopens it, he will have to get help that is not from Fred and it feels like that is just another way to defile Fred's memory and ruin what he had done in his short life. But to not do anything would surely ruin all their hard work anyway, to let it all go down the drain when they had worked so hard...
"I don' know." he tells her, hardly articulate in his drunken state. "Maybe," he adds.
And she leaves it at that. George is glad.
He is glad for the easy camaraderie that settles between them, born from years of friendship. It doesn't need to be filled with unnecessary speech. Angelina does not need to ask how he is feeling and nor does he need to ask her; her grief is in the bags under her eyes, the greasy sheen of her hair, the unkemptness of her appearance. They are the people that Fred has left behind.
Eventually, Angelina takes a final sip and leaves, squeezing his shoulder in farewell.
Grass has already begun to grow over Fred's grave, like it's been there for longer than a day, when George settles himself next to it. He leans against a hollow in the base of the apple tree, legs stretched out, arms cushioning his head against the hard bark, and closes his eyes to block out the sun. His head throbs dully with the remains of a hangover.
He has left the clean up operation that the Burrow has become. Tolerating his mother's loud, disapproving voice is hard on a good day, let alone after a night of heavy drinking. And it is still hard to be there, to see the ghost of Fred everywhere; he hopes it'll get easier after a while, remembering.
He sighs.
The orchard is peaceful. It feels very separate from the bustle of the Burrow, its own microcosm. In it, wind blows softly through his hair, like fingers gently carding through it; birds chirp all around him, lilting and shrill; and the sun's heat lingers on his skin pleasantly. Fred loved days like this.
But dead people don't care about the weather, he thinks, flinching.
"What're you doing out here?" Someone calls from a distance.
George's eyes snap open, scanning the orchard for the source of the voice. He finds it at the entrance in Ginny making her way over to him.
He shrugs.
"Yeah," Ginny says, nodding. "I couldn't stand it either."
She flops herself down on his left, stretching out her legs so that one of them rests on top of George's own. It's weight is a solid, comforting thing. Ginny leans back against the tree and doesn't speak, just closes her eyes.
Unlike most of the silences he finds himself facing, this one doesn't feel suffocating. This is where they have both chosen to be silent because there are no words that needed to be said, rather than the silences where no one can think of words to fill them, where no one wants to mention the dead twin. It's the long moments where they scramble for something, anything, to say that make George upset; Fred didn't die to live in lonely silences.
But, as always, family understands. Fred was Ginny's brother too. She's had to suffer through the well-meaning silences just as much as he has, as they all have. The thought makes him feel less alone. He closes his eyes as well, lowers his hands to rest his head upon the rough bark.
It's nice to just sit and exist for a little while. He doesn't think of Fred, or of anything really. In fact, his head feels strangely empty, free of anything besides the breeze on his skin, the earthy smell of summer, the warmth of Ginny's leg on his. The heat lulls him into sleep and he dozes on the fine line between sleep and wakefulness.
"What's happened between you and Harry?" Ginny's quiet voice startles him awake. She sounds uninterested and lofty, and when he shifts his gaze to her, she is looking away from him, towards the entrance of the orchard.
He considers her for a moment, frowning. "Nothing," he says just as quietly. It's not her business.
"She's just trying to help, you know." Ginny tells him. She turns her head towards him, and their eyes meet. "And whatever you did, or said, it's not 'nothing' to her. George, you're my brother, but she's like a sister to me and you've hurt her."
The silence that now follows her words is tense and heavy and for the first time, George is the one who doesn't know what to say to fill it. It falls upon them, settling heavily on their shoulders, heavy as the knowledge that Fred's body lies to his right, six feet below the ground. The knowledge that his words have hurt Harry fill him with some shame.
"Hasn't there been enough hurt already?" Ginny whispers, so quiet George nearly doesn't hear her.
Harry answers the door with a baby in her arms.
It's not what George expected to see when the door to Grimmuald Place opened. The very idea of a baby, a tiny little innocent life, inside such a cesspool of darkness and evil makes him feel slightly uncomfortable, as if the awful history and attitudes of the Black family will be passed on to this infant through too much exposure. The house just has a vibe.
And there is the matter of where this baby has come from. It's not Harry's - he can see it in the awkward way her arms are positioned around the bundle, the tenseness in her face, the worry that she will break this fragile human. And her clothes are bedraggled in a way that suggests that she is overwhelmed and too encompassed in this baby to care about her own comfort or appearance, not that Harry has ever been particularly vain.
Harry is not the kind of person who could hide being pregnant, anyway. She's too petite for it; a baby bump would stick right out on her skinny body. The Prophet would've loved a pregnancy scandal involving the Girl-Who-Lived. And she's not stupid enough to have a baby during a war.
As she steps aside slowly and lets him into the dark hallway, George tries to remember anyone who had been pregnant. It is only when Harry's closed the door and shifted her bundle slightly that he can see the light spattering of blue hair that he realises.
"This is Teddy," Harry says, before he can. "Teddy Lupin."
"Hi Teddy," George's voice is scratchy. He clears it. The baby blinks.
Harry walks past him into the sitting room where they once waited to hear if Arthur Weasley had survived a snake attack, and he follows, somewhat nonplussed. She ignores the bassinet, settles into an armchair with Teddy in her arms, and stares up at him in a way that silently asks what he is doing here, standing in the doorway to the room nervously.
He clears his throat again. "I came here to apologise."
They both remember the last time they spoke. George thinks of the way Harry's face closed off that night, and how similar her face looks now.
"It's fine," she tells him blandly. "You're grieving."
He sighs, finally coming into the room and sitting on a chair opposite her. "So are you. It doesn't excuse what I said."
She looks away from him, down at Teddy. She strokes the soft skin of his cheek. "No," she whispers. "It doesn't."
It's the way Harry says it - as if she knows logically that George is in the wrong but doesn't truly believe what she's saying is true, as if she thinks him yelling at her for nothing that she had done is in any way acceptable - that makes George clench the hands resting on his thighs into fists. George is angry. He can see no trace of the fierce woman who defeated Voldemort in the girl opposite him, timidly holding the baby, looking deep into its eyes as though they are her only anchor.
But he cannot decide whether he is angry at himself for hurting her or at Harry, for not fighting for herself.
He stares at her, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, until she looks up at him. Harry's eyes are incredibly green, he notes. He cannot hold them for long and stares down at his clenched fists as he consciously unclenches them, speaking in a low voice. "It's just - I just felt like you were trying to replace him, you know? Like you were pretending you understood..." he trails off.
"No," The brittle, bitter quality to her voice makes him look up, slightly worried. This Harry is different to the one he is used to dealing with, more fragile. "What could I possibly know about losing people I love?"
George starts, slightly panicked. He knows Harry has lost people, but it's not the same; losing your family is always so much worse than anyone else. "I didn't mean -" he begins, thinking of how to phrase it in a way that Harry will understand.
Harry snorts. "But you did. My parents are dead, aren't they? I've never had a real family, right, so what do I know about losing a family member?"
It's very easy to forget that Harry is an orphan sometimes. She's never made a big deal out of it, she's just always been Harry Potter, singular, but it's never really hit him that it's because there are no other Potters to make them a plural. Yet, even despite that, her parents died when she was a baby - George thinks it'd be hard to miss what you never remembered having. The closest she's come to losing family is Sirius and he was more a father figure than anything else.
But those green eyes are boring into him and his agreement die on his tongue. He shakes his head in frustration, trying to reshape the words into something less biting than you don't even remember your parents, you have no idea what it means to lose a brother.
Before the words come, Teddy starts to cry. Teddy has Harry's attention immediately; she begins to rock him, shushing and making soothing noises, looking slightly helpless. George feels kind of sorry for her, this girl who is clearly in over her head. He moves to help her, towards the bassinet to get a toy to placate the baby, but Harry's cool words make him freeze.
"You should go home," she says, not looking up. "I'm sure your family will want to mourn with you."
Teddy's cries follow him as he leaves the house.
"Why didn't you tell her to bring Teddy here? Mum'd be able to help her," Ron tells George through a mouthful of beef stew. He gestures with his fork towards their mother, stirring a pot on the hob, who nods in agreement.
George shrugs. The stew in front of him seems entirely unappealing. He sweeps his fork through the thick chunks of beef listlessly, moving them around his bowl, unable to convince himself to take a bite. The image of Harry looking so helpless, clutching at Teddy so desperately, makes his stomach twist into knots.
"She told me she didn't want to interrupt our mourning." George mutters into his bowl.
Out the corner of his eye, George sees his mother and Ron share a concerned look across the room. He sighs heavily. He just wishes Harry had understood, that she'd accepted his help, that she'd not made him feel so bloody guilty.
"But Harry is family," His mother says. She places the ladle on the counter and comes to sit next to George, twisting her hands together fretfully on top of the worn table surface. Molly Weasley has always been a worrier. "She should be with us."
George shrugs again, making an indistinct noise in his throat. He sets down his fork on the table. Suddenly, he feels slightly sick.
I've never had a real family, Harry had said.
But if, as his mother had said, Harry was family, weren't they her family? Wasn't she as good as a Weasley? But she's not a Weasley- he shakes his head, clearing that thought. Family isn't always determined by blood or last name. Harry is more family to him than the cousins he is related to, the cousins whose names he can't even remember, and the thought makes him think.
George's been so angry with her for thinking she could understand his pain. She'd just been trying to help him, Ginny had said, and she had helped during those first nights after the battle, drinking with him and sympathising; she'd come to see him instead of Ron and Hermione. And he'd hurt her. Like she wasn't hurting enough, because she had known Fred and she'd been mourning him too. He'd told her she couldn't understand when perhaps she understood better than most.
He shakes his head. It's been hard, these past few days. He feels lost and confused and sad and alone and angry and empty and guilty, and it all swirls inside of him like a raging storm until he thinks he's gone mad. If only Fred were here, he'd be able to help George understand how to make everything alright again. When Fred was alive, everything was better.
Fred wouldn't have been such a mess. Fred wouldn't have lashed out at Harry. He'd always been the smarter twin, the better twin; Fred would have understood that Harry was part of the family and that family doesn't rip itself apart when they need to be together.
George lets his head fall into his hands. Why is this so hard? "I should've been the one that died. Fred wouldn't mess things up like I do. I'm so bloody stupid!" His mother gasps and moves to comfort him. But he doesn't deserve her comfort and leans away, getting out of his seat and striding out the front door.
He finds himself by Fred's grave again.
It's the first time he's come at night, and the marble tombstone marking the grave gleams brightly in the moonlight from the orchard's entrance, looking ethereal beneath the sprawling apple tree. George hesitates in his steps several feet away. He doesn't feel like he's worthy enough to sit next to Fred again, like Fred would be judging him and rejecting him, and he's not sure he can deal with that on top of everything else.
But George is a Gryffindor and he walks slowly towards the grave, a curious bubble of desperation, guilt and anger building in his chest.
His legs give out a foot or so away from the tombstone. George can't help but notice that if he could see Fred's body, he would be kneeling at Fred's feet, like he's begging for forgiveness. Maybe, in a way, he is.
"I'm sorry for living while you died, Fred. It should've been me. If only I'd been there... Merlin, no twin should die alone..." He's sobbing by the end of it, heaving gasps that wrack his body and hurt with the intensity of the movements. It's almost like all those moments when he hasn't been able to cry have come out in one huge outpouring and George can't control himself. He buries his face into the grass and the dirt, his cries muffled by the ground, and weeps for futures lost and the mess that has become his life.
He cries himself to sleep, curled on the grass above the buried body of his twin.
The next funeral George attends are the funerals of Nymphadora and Remus Lupin. All of them go, dressed in their black robes, and they sit squished together on one bench in the middle of the crematorium. There are few enough people in attendance that they could have spread onto two benches, but they don't. The close contact is comforting, at least to George.
At the front, Harry sits with Andromeda Tonks and baby Teddy, whose hair cycles through a shocking selection of vibrant colours. Harry looks as tired and stressed as she did the last time George saw her, although the way she gripped Teddy in her arms when greeting the guests into the crematorium was firmer, more natural. George thinks he can understand why Harry is looking after Teddy when he sees Andromeda and the glassy sheen to her eyes. It's often been said that Blacks are prone to madness, and it seems that the madness of grief has finally claimed Andromeda.
She has, after all, lost both her daughter and her son-in-law, shortly after her husband was murdered. It is not much of a surprise.
His mother fusses over all three of them, inviting Andromeda over for tea and telling Harry to come to the Burrow if she ever needs help with Teddy. George is greeted with a cool nod and ushered onwards.
The benches they sit on are hard and unyielding, but that is easily ignored in light of the two wooden coffins positioned on the stage at the front of the hall. A large, animated picture on an easel of either Remus or Tonks has been situated at the end of their coffins. It's hard to correlate the happy, smiling people in the photos with the dead corpses about to be burned. This war has robbed them blind.
Kingsley is conducting again. Even from a distance, the man looks weary; George wonders for a long moment how many funerals Kingsley has attended, or conducted. He tries to remember how many bodies were in the Great Hall after the battle but no numbers replace the memories of bodies stretching far across the room, bloodied and torn apart and cooling. There must be a number, but it is unimportant when the answer is clearly too many.
Too many dead, too many hurt. Too few survivors.
George clenches his fists hard throughout the service, so hard the uneven nails dig deep into the fragile skin of his palms and cut deep enough to bleed. The throbbing pain doesn't stop tears welling in his eyes. All this funeral has done is remind George that Fred is just one of many dead.
Behind the crematorium, under the cloudy sky, the two coffins burn in their pyres.
The Black family funeral rites are unusual, as are most of the old pureblood family rituals, but there is a certain peace that comes from watching the flames consume the pyres and the bodies within them. Named after the stars, the Blacks had their bodies burned so that their souls and magic would return to the world and the sky from which they came. While Andromeda Tonks had been disowned, and had not even named her daughter in typical Black fashion, she chooses to say goodbye to her daughter and son-in-law with the traditional Black funeral rites.
It is Andromeda who levitates her daughter's coffin out into the open air, to the pyres, followed by Kingsley Shacklebolt levitating Remus', and it is her who casts incendio on both. The fire consumes the wooden structures ravenously, climbing upwards until the bright fingers reach towards the sky.
"Vitae ingredior nox," Andromeda says, stepping away from the pyres.
Harry, still holding Teddy in her arms, stands beside Andromeda, whispers the same phrase. Tears work their way down her cheeks.
The rest of the funeral attendees, George included, each mutter it themselves. They all stand behind Andromeda, Harry, Teddy and Kingsley, just watching the fires burn until they burn out, leaving only ashes to be carried away by the wind, and it is as if Remus and Tonks never existed at all.
There is no wake. The guests disperse quietly from the crematorium, some going to offer condolences to Andromeda Tonks, some leaving without a word. By the time George's mother has pulled Andromeda into a hug, the woman is a wreck, crying as only a mother who has lost her child can, emitting noises that are more animalistic than human. George, like everyone else, can only stand helplessly and watch this proud woman fall apart, even as Teddy suddenly begins to scream in Harry's arms, which just makes her wail louder.
"Oh Teddy, hush baby," Harry whispers, rocking the baby as he keeps crying. She turns to Ron and Hermione, and says, "I'm going to take him back to Grimmuald Place." Then she hastily strides away into the crematorium, to the single fireplace with a connection to the Floo Network, George assumes.
When Teddy is gone, Andromeda Tonks appears to calm down slightly. Her sobs are still heavy and awful to watch, and her hands grip on to his mother's robes desperately, but it seems like the strength has left her, that she's crying only because she cannot stop herself anymore.
"It's okay, it's okay," his mother whispers to the distraught woman.
"It's not!" Andromeda sobs, pulling back slightly. "I can't- I can't even l-look at him w-without seeing- seeing her! My baby! My baby!" She slumps in his mother's arms, and his mother throws them all a look that George knows means leave.
And he is glad to leave. This woman's grief is awful, inconsolable, and George feels like the longer he stays, the likelier he is to join her in breaking down, and if he breaks down, he's not quite sure he'll ever be able to pick up all his pieces again.
When George walks into the sitting room of Grimmuald Place, it is almost like he never left a few days ago. Harry is once more sat in the old armchair, rocking the wailing Teddy in her arms, although she now looks less helpless and more tired.
George stands in the doorway until Teddy calms down and falls asleep in Harry's arms. Then he clears his throat softly. Harry looks up at him, sighs, before carefully taking Teddy over to the crib and settling him into it. She casts a spell silently over it, before walking out of the room and leading him down into the kitchen, where an old house elf is making a bunch of china plates wash themselves.
"Kreacher," she calls to the elf. "Would you watch over Teddy for me?"
The old elf nods and scuttles up the creaky stairs. "Kreacher would be honoured to watch over Master Teddy, Mistress."
With Kreacher gone, Harry slumps into one of the seats at the scarred kitchen table, and stares at him, lacing her hands together. He takes a seat himself and looks back at her.
George has already noticed that Harry looks tired, but staring at her now makes him realise how heavy the bags under her eyes are, how stressed and ill she looks. Her skin looks sallow in this light, her hair limp and messy, and her lips are chapped and broken. But the sense of fragility is not as strong now, as if she has hardened her heart once more.
"Well?" she prompts dully, like she's expecting a confrontation. She's wary, George realises.
"I was wrong." he tells her. He looks into those green, green eyes and holds them, even as they furrow in confusion.
Harry licks her lips. "You already apologised."
He shakes his head, keeping eye contact, almost desperate to make her understand. "I was wrong to say you didn't understand. You do understand. Of course you do! Merlin, you are family in every way that matters."
Harry looks away first, shaking her own head to refute him. "I- I-" she starts, but when words fail her, she simply shakes her head again, more vigorously.
George takes hold of both her small hands. They are tiny within his, delicate and brittle, and it is hard to think that this tiny bird-boned girl vanquished a Dark Lord. "I just feel all these emotions, Harry - and sometimes I think I'm going mad - and I had all this anger and I took it out on you - fuck!" He yells, breathing heavily. Harry looks at him with wide eyes from the tight grip he holds her hands with. He loosens his grip instantly, and when he starts to talk again, his voice is softer. "I'm sorry, I'm such a fucking mess... Those first few days, you helped me so much, you really did. But I just kept on thinking how unfair it was that you got to come back - thank Merlin - but no one else did and you were just there like you were trying to replace him and I just feel so guilty for being alive when Fred's gone and I miss him so much, Harry," he rambles, tears in his eyes.
"I miss him too," she whispers, giving his fingers a squeeze. "You have every right to be angry at me. If only I'd killed Voldemort sooner, they'd all still be alive!"
George gapes at her, shocked. "No!" he gasps. "You stopped more people being killed, you did the best you could-"
"Too many people died, George. So many died because I didn't stop him fast enough." She pulls her hands away, puts them on her lap, and looks away, speaking in that brittle, bitter voice again. "I'm not worthy enough to be a Weasley, even an honorary one."
Those words hang in their air between them as Harry starts to cry and George's own tears start to spill over onto his cheeks. This isn't how it is supposed to go. He is supposed to tell Harry how much she means to him, to the Weasleys, and they're supposed to go back to the Burrow together and help each other get through this, like a family.
Harry isn't supposed to break down. Nor is he.
George moves without really thinking about it, pulling Harry to her feet and wrapping his arms around her. Her body shudders against his as she cries into his chest, and his tears fall into her hair as he rests his chin on her head; he thinks back to when Harry saw Fred's body and how they hugged there, both unable to cry.
Now he feels like he will never stop crying.
"Never say that," he tells her through his tears. "You are family."
The damage sustained to Hogwarts during the battle is staggering. George doesn't remember it being this bad on the night, but he supposes he was a bit distracted to evaluate the architecture.
Walking up to the castle allows them all time to have a look at the castle they have all called home at some point in their lives, and the parts of it that have been affected by battle. The most noticeable thing on the outside are the scorched patches of stone caused by misfired spells, which several people are firing scouring spells at around the castle. Overall, the external structure seems relatively undamaged, except for one of the towers that has a hole in it, but the internal damage is horrific.
The wall between the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall is almost entirely collapsed and the staircase fares little better, half broken and covered in bloodstains and scorch marks. The damage extends further, if he'd care to look, but Professor McGonagall greets them then and George finds it a relief to block out the ruin that Hogwarts has become.
"So," George begins. "When's Teddy going to go back to his grandmother?"
It's a question that's been bugging him for a while now and it seems like a good time to ask, while they work next to each other, clearing debris from the Entrance Hall. George knows that Andromeda Tonks has been an emotional wreck over the death of her daughter and he understands that adding a baby to that is not a good idea, but surely at some point, Teddy will be looked after by her.
Harry gives a one-shouldered shrug, using the other arm to direct bricks into a pile with her wand. "I'm not sure he will. Andromeda can barely look after herself and I'm not prepared for another child to grow up in a home where they aren't cared for and loved as much as they deserve to be. Especially my godson."
"So who's going to look after him?" George asks, sending a sideways glance at Harry, who lowers her wand and faces him.
"I will, of course." she says as if he were dumb. "I'm his godmother."
George holds up his hands in a peaceful gesture. "I didn't mean to offend you. It's just you're so young..."
Harry laughs and goes back to moving bricks. "Isn't that what you guys are for? Isn't family supposed to help each other?"
The happiness that George feels then is better than a hundred cheering charms.
It doesn't get easier. There is no such mercy as time healing all wounds for George; each day is a whole new fight against his guilt, the image of Fred, his dead eyes staring, whispering it should've been you.
But fixing Hogwarts is something that helps George get out of bed in the morning, even on the particularly bad days when his limbs feel like lead and ghosts haunt his mind. Having a purpose, knowing that people are relying on him, makes it easier to ignore his own pain.
That's why when Harry tentatively brings up reopening Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, George honestly considers it.
George hasn't entered the shop since before the battle.
It doesn't look any different. The merchandise sits exactly where it was last placed, all in order, untouched by dust and hands alike. Fred's preservation charms are only beginning to dissipate, the soothing, homely feel of his magic enveloping George as he unlocks the door; he chokes back a sob at it.
It may look the same, but everything else has changed.
George stands in the doorway, trying to work up the strength to walk further in. He's glad he came alone. It means that he can take everything in, savour the moment, remember Fred in the way that he should be remembered.
Fred had loved this shop – they both had. It was their baby, their life's dream. Some of the best times in their lives had happened in this shop.
George takes a few slow steps into the building. Each step is loud on the wooden floor, strangely so, almost as though mocking the lack of laughing children and happiness that had filled this place before.
He stops in front of a shelf of Skiving Snackboxes and his finger traces the handwritten description note, written in Fred's hand.
The range of sweets that make you ill! Then, in smaller writing, (not seriously ill, just ill enough to get you out of trouble…)
George chuckles despite himself. Some memories of Fred are easier to handle than others, he finds.
He turns away from the shelf, strides into the middle of the shop floor and looks around at this marvellous place that they have created together. He thinks of all the hard work that went into it all. He thinks of all the good memories they have here.
"I can't let this die too," he tells himself.
His mother cries when George tells her he's reopening the shop. But George has no idea whether it's from happiness or sadness and, looking around at the equally clueless faces of his siblings, they have no idea either.
So George hugs her instead and the way her arms clutch him in desperation let him know it is exactly what she needs.
"It's what Fred would've wanted," he tells them from over his mother's head, patting her back awkwardly.
Bill nods in agreement. His mother cries harder.
"We'll help in any way we can," Ron says, and Ginny nods firmly in agreement.
Hermione smiles at him. "And Harry will help, too."
George looks around, noticing for the first time that Harry isn't here. He continues to pat his mother's back absently. "Where is Harry, anyway?"
From her place against his chest, his mother makes a small noise and pulls back slightly. She wipes her eyes, lips trembling slightly, and clasps George's arm comfortingly before she steps away and visibly reigns herself in.
She looks around at them all. She clears her throat. "Harry's at St Mungos," she tells them quietly.
There is a moment of silence in which they all think the worst, and then all speak at once. The indeterminable mix of voices doesn't appear to startle Molly Weasley, who has spent years raising seven boisterous children, but makes Hermione flinch slightly. His mother raises her hand to gain silence and they all listen.
"Harry is not a patient at St Mungos, nor is Teddy," she explains, and the brief relief George feels is almost a living thing then, before he realises his mother is not finished. "Andromeda Tonks has had a breakdown."
"It's pretty serious," Harry tells him, after taking a mouthful of firewhiskey. "They think she's going to be there for a long time, if she ever leaves at all."
They're in the sitting room at Grimmuald Place again and night has fallen a long while ago. Teddy sleeps soundly in the crib by the sofa, having already fallen asleep in Harry's arms by the time they returned a few hours ago, drool escaping from his small mouth. The only light in the room comes from the fire and in it's warm light, the room could almost be called cosy.
George takes a sip of his own drink, brought up by Kreacher a half hour ago. "That bad, huh?" he asks.
Harry gives him a blank look. "She was clawing open her skin with her own nails. She doesn't know where or who she is anymore." She sighs. "Andromeda is a danger to herself."
"And unable to look after Teddy." he concludes.
Harry doesn't look at him when she nods, focusing on the crib by the fireplace. Teddy looks very small in it, and George realises for the first time how much responsibility it is to look after a baby.
But George remembers the first time he saw Harry with Teddy, the way she was so afraid of breaking him, how she was totally focused on helping this little human even at the expense of her own needs. He doesn't think anyone alive will love Teddy more than Harry does, and that'll be enough for now, until she gets used to the hard realities of parenting.
"I'm not sure I can do it," Harry's voice is very quiet, so quiet George wonders if he imagines it at first. "What if I'm no good?"
George leans over, takes hold of the hand not holding a glass and squeezes it. "We'll help you," he tells her. "Isn't that what family's for?"
Weasley's Wizard Wheezes reopens in early August, after over a month's work of preparations. The sun is bright over Diagon Alley, and it makes the small golden plaque next to the doors gleam brightly. George smiles when he sees it.
In loving memory of Fred Weasley, it says.
The whole family's gathered outside the doors with him at twelve o'clock, next to the uncut banner. Behind them, filling up the street, is a crowd of onlookers, reporters and potential customers, here to see the reopening of a shop sponsored by Harry Potter.
Of course Harry's with the rest of the family, Teddy in her arms. She smiles at him and he turns to address the crowd. It's time.
"Witches and wizards!" he begins dramatically, capturing everyone's attention. "Welcome to the reopening of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!" And with an elegant flourish, a pair of golden scissors appear into his hands and he cuts the lime green banner stretched in front of the doors, which open welcomingly at his words.
George steps back as the crowd begins to enter the shop, talking loudly amongst themselves. It is good to see the shop busy with customers again. Some are already lining up at the register for Verity to process their purchases.
He enters the shop with his family and pauses to watch everything just aside from the entrance, thinking of how Fred would've loved to see this.
A hand clasps his. He looks down at Harry, who smiles back at him. "Fred would be so proud," she tells him.
"I hope so," George replies.
And maybe it's not perfect, and maybe it can never be perfect again, but it's a start.