A Lack of Something
By: qwertybob
April first. It was his birthday. It was their birthday, but he was celebrating it alone. His family wore grinning masks, singing some happy song for this happy day, but he knew, they all knew, it was far from it.
'I reckon a couple of drops of Ageing Potion might do it, George…'
He blew out the candles on his cake and silently counted them; twenty years old. Last year, he had celebrated his birthday with his twin, but now it was just him. Just another sibling in a large family.
He felt hands hitting his back, congratulating him as someone took the cake away to be cut. He couldn't tell who exactly was here; his mind was too focused on the person who wasn't. They would have planned fireworks, pranks, new Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes together, something other than this—this false sense of elation.
'Exploding Snap, anyone?'
George without Fred was like a clown without makeup. A Nosebleed Nougat without the antidote. He would bleed and bleed and it would never stop.
Before everything, one would have argued that George couldn't live without Fred and vice versa. George had to agree. You would say, "That's rubbish. George is alive right now!" But, really, you couldn't call this living.
He would still make jokes, but they just sounded incomplete without Fred countering up with another one. His family laughed hollowly at the sad attempts at laughter. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. You-Know-Who is defeated! Someone would say. But so is Fred, George would think to himself.
'Aaah, George, look at this. They're using knives and everything. Bless them.'
'I'll be seventeen in two and a bit months' time.'
'But meanwhile, we can enjoy watching you demonstrate the correct use of a – whoops-a-daisy.'
'You made me do that! You wait, when I'm seventeen—'
'I'm sure you'll dazzle us all with hitherto unsuspected magical skill.'
George wasn't sure what it was; hope, maybe wishing, or longing, but he was expecting his twin to come prancing down the stairs, yelling, "April Fool's! I'm still alive! I can't believe you fell for that, Georgie! I'm disappointed…Did you lose your sense of humour along with your ear?" Then he would playfully smack George on the head. But, George had lost more than a small part of his body; he had lost an enormous part of himself.
The rest of the party passed in a blur, opening presents, eating the cake inspired by Ginny; a rubber chicken. Hugging his mother, her eyes brimming with tears, he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. He shook his father's hand and George knew that his father missed Fred almost as much as he did.
No matter how small amount of hope, how absurd the wish, how shallow the longing, George couldn't help but glance at the stairs every so often.
He couldn't stand the faces anymore. He couldn't stand how pathetic he felt here. He hated that he was, for once, the one needing a little ray of sunlight in a dark tunnel. George knew that Fred would have called him a piteous teenaged girl or compared him to Ron. "Really, George. Pull yourself together," he would say.
It was too hard to pull himself together. He couldn't help it. He tried moving on, really, he did. But, it just didn't seem right. There was no point in George if Fred wasn't there with him. He tried playing both parts, but he was so used to someone finishing his sentences for him that he couldn't. It was just too hard.
Giving his thanks and saying his goodbyes ('I'm fine, Mum, really.' 'Yes, the apartment is clean.' 'No, Bill, I don't want to talk about it.' 'Tell Ginny I loved the cake.' 'Thanks, Dad. Really.'), he Disapparated to the apartment they had shared.
Experimentation of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes lay abandoned on the floor.
'Take it. It's for the joke shop.'
'He is mental.'
The bright magenta robes he so strongly insisted they wore were discarded on a chair.
'Muggle magic tricks! For freaks like Dad, you know, who love Muggle stuff.'
Their mother's knitted jumpers, every single one they'd ever received, stacked neatly in a pile.
'Harry's is better than ours though. She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family.'
Everything had always been 'their's. Their detentions, their jokes, their punishments, their success. Now, it was his? Everything was his. He still wasn't used to it.
'I just need to go to our apartment and get some things—'
'Your apartment, son.'
'What?'
'Not our, yours.'
A picture of Angelina Johnson and Fred at the Yule Ball back in sixth year was stuck to the wall with pictures of their family. He stared into the face of his brother, his twin, twirling a laughing Angelina. His face; bright, happy, living.
'Oi! Angelina!'
'What?'
'Want to come to the ball with me?'
He lay down on his bed, tired of looking at things that reminded him of what was now lost. He stared up at the empty, white ceiling, hoping that it would bring some peace. The longer he stared, the more it reminded him horribly of Fred's eyes: wide open, void of all emotions the Weasley twins were known for. He shut his eyes tightly, refusing to look at anything at all.
Although there was always going to be a terrible lack of something in his life, George knew it would never lack pain.
A/N: Okay, I reposted this, changing little. Mostly the ending sentence because it was a bit awkward.
So, you know what to do ;) REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! XD