Written for Omniocular's August - Summer of the Squid Challenge. Many thanks to Xanthophillippa for the beta.
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In the beginning, George thought it was funny. Once he was allowed out of the hospital wing, he went down to the lake, swinging his bat and conjuring a practice bludger.
"Oi, Fred," he called, and batted the bludger out over the water. It hung in the air for a long moment before starting to fall, slowly spiraling as if searching for a target. Then a bright orange tentacle popped out of the water and thwacked the bludger back towards the shore. George grinned and settled his grip on the bat.
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The next afternoon he was joined by a few others, now on brooms - Ginny, taking a break from sitting by Harry's bedside in the hospital wing; Alton Summerby, the former Hufflepuff seeker and the only member of the flying squad to have escaped injury during the battle; Dennis Creevy, still as fascinated by the lake as he had been his first night at Hogwarts. Seeing the group, George summoned a Quaffle in addition to two practice Bludgers, and the four of them played keep-away against both Fred and the lake's regular inhabitant.
"All the girls said he was an animal in bed," he joked to Dennis as they batted a Bludger over a line of Fred's bright orange suckers. "You know - super strong and with too many arms to keep track of. 'Course, they said the same about me, but I didn't have to go and prove it." When the sunlight began to fade, George leaned out to give Fred's left tentacle a rough pat before leading the fliers back to shore.
That night in the Gryffindor dorms, George dreamed of being underwater. He watched the pale green weeds waving peacefully in the current and wondered why he felt so afraid.
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The pattern continued for the next several days. After breakfast, George would amble up to McGonagall's office and ask if the healers had made any progress in reversing Fred's condition. After getting a negative answer, he would turn towards the hospital wing and spend some time reading Quidditch magazines and generally attempting to cheer up Ron, Harry, and Hermione, who were all still recuperating and confined under Madam Pomfrey's orders and his mother's formidable gaze. After the first day Hermione had complained about so much Quidditch talk, he brought her the notes he and Fred had made towards developing a new charmed candy, Licking Lollipops, which consisted of an animated candy tongue on a stick that licked back at the consumer. So far, they'd only managed to make it twitch a bit, which was strange enough that Hermione thought it was an intriguing challenge.
Then after lunch he would gather anyone interested and head out to the lake for a pick-up game. Now others joined them - Zacharias Smith, mostly silent though his mouth had finally been restored by the Healers; Tonks, who used her metamorphmagus powers to grow a tentacle from her right arm; Morag McDougal, using her new magical eye to gauge the position of the underwater animals, one bright, one dark. George led the games, occasionally setting himself with Fred and the squid if there got to be more people than the two could handle, and kept them all entertained with an endless litany of squid jokes, each more obscene than the last.
Tonks, particularly, loved to hear him tell - and embellish - the one about the squid, the Muggle, and the (now former) Minister for Magic. The image of the Muggle suddenly squirting ink all over Cornelius Fudge had her almost falling from her broom every time.
At night, George dreamed of the lake, journeying through endless meals of small fish, tangling his many arms with the tails of mermaids and spinning them until they squealed with delight. He dreamed he had a twin, a greenish version of himself, whose tentacles spiraled around his own until they were like a candy cane in front of his eyes. Brothers, he thought, and wondered why it was such a sad word.
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After a week, George was feeling more than a little bit anxious about the whole situation. He and Fred had never been apart, physically or mentally, for this long. Healer Pye continued to reassure him, but George was beginning to see obvious nervousness in the man's eyes as he said, "just be patient" for the seventh time. The next morning he woke to Ginny's voice.
"George! Get your lazy bum up!"
"I'm Fred," he mumbled, half asleep. "Honestly, can't you tell your own brothers apart?" There was silence, and he came fully awake, remembering. "Oh," he said, opening his eyes. Ginny looked like she was about to cry. "Thanks, Ginny. I'll be down in a minute."
That morning he skipped his usual trip to the hospital wing and spent the hours instead in the library, researching reversals of unusual spell combinations. Nothing seemed to bear any relation to his problem, however, and, skipping lunch, he went down to the lake, dispirited.
"Gred," he whispered, crouching and trailing his hand in the water. He'd always preferred to be Forge in their name games; he'd told Fred it was because "Forge" had a strident, forceful ring to it, but secretly it was because it was closest to his real name. George had always had a secret fear of losing himself, of becoming Fred somehow, or worse, becoming Fredandgeorge, a weird intertwined animal with too many appendages to control. Now it seemed like the opposite was more likely - that he would be George, just George, forever.
A green tentacle slipped quietly out of the water and tentatively patted his hand. George remembered their speculation in second year.
"Doesn't the Giant Squid get lonely, Hagrid," Fred had asked, "all by itself in the lake?"
"How could 'e, with you lot always around makin' trouble?" Hagrid had joked, and they'd let the subject drop. But George hadn't forgotten.
"I wouldn't begrudge you a brother," he whispered as the tentacle coiled further out of the water as if it wanted to draw him in. "But did you have to take mine?"
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At dinner the Healers broke the news - there was nothing else they could do. Fred was lost to him. Late that night, dreaming again, George relived the moment it had all come crashing down.
They were swimming, full of Gillyweed and saturated with translation charms so they could communicate in the squid's own tongue. Above the water, the battle raged, and their task was to enlist the squid's help, badly needed in a fight against so many dangerous creatures. The Death Eater seemed to come out of nowhere, and his wand shot forth the Confundus Charm before any of them, squid included, realized what was happening. The next moment the Death Eater was thrown from the water by a combination of a tentacled shove and George's Expelliarmus.
But the damage was done. Before George's eyes, the charm took hold of Fred's mind and he writhed, twisting in pain and uncertainty. His body changed, grew.
George woke, feeling the pain and fear as acutely then as he had that first moment in the hospital wing, coughing moldy water from his lungs and feeling around as usual for Fred's humming mental touch.
Tears in his eyes, George tossed the covers aside. I'll do it, he thought. Triplets are better than twins. He threw on a dressing gown and grabbed the last of the Gillyweed before heading out into the cold, cloudy night, down to the lake.
At the water's edge he desperately raised his wand in one hand and gripped the Gillyweed in the other, the Confundus Charm heavy in his mouth. The wind blew the clouds across the sky and for a moment, the moonlight shone through. George froze. Against the dark of his surroundings, the light revealed two sets of concentric ripples in the water as two things beneath the surface moved together in unison.
"Damn you," he wept, and threw the Gillyweed out into the water. As he turned away, two sets of tentacles raised themselves to wave, simultaneously, goodbye.