He could feel the loss even before the last breath left his brother's body. One second he was sending a spell at a random Death Eater and the next he was falling. He fell forward, fingers brushing the ground but he kept moving until he regained his footing. There was no time to trip, he had somewhere more important to be.
Strength was no object as he fought to free Fred from the rubble of the explosion. There were no sounds but the empty echo where his twin's heartbeat used to be. Casting everything aside, he took his brother's still warm body in his arms.
He was choking, unable to breathe with half of him gone. Tears would be streaming down his face if only he could remember how to cry. But the only thing in his mind was Fred. He held on, willing his brother to open his eyes. He pushed with what was of his soul, the part that had been Fred was out of his grasp. He screamed his twin's name, over and over, unable to think, say, or feel anything else.
This was Fred. The sarcastic, quick-witted leader of everything they stood for. Fred was the idea man. George just went along with whatever he said. If George was feeling something, Fred would put it into action. How was George supposed to feel anything if Fred wasn't there?
He couldn't. His whole body was shaking; he was heaving and choking on the half of him that was suddenly missing. His lungs only worked for screaming Fred's name. Over and over. He didn't notice that it was lost in the chaos of the battle, he was too lost in the chaos of his head. He needed more words, he needed to form more words but all he could manage was that name.
He knelt over his brother's body and pressed their foreheads together. Not even the blood and sweat from battle could keep the two apart in this moment. There he stayed, unmoving except his shaking and gasping.
The hole in his heart, in his lungs, in his head. The Fred-shaped hole. The hole his twin had once occupied. He would never make a Holey joke again if he could just get Fred to open his eyes and tell him it was all a prank. A sick, fucked-up prank.
But he could feel it. Or rather, he could feel the lack of it. The connection, the bond they had shared since birth. The ability to finish each other's thoughts, and sentences, and feelings. They had two separate bodies, separate personalities, but one shared consciousness. One did not exist without the other, at least, they hadn't ever before.
"Fred." George choked out one last time before his world went black.