The Other Half, Afterwards
by Blood Red Tulips

I both lived in, and hated my dreams. Though perhaps that was something dangerous, considering the fact hating your own life made you a slight suicide risk.

I dreamt every night, with dreams so vivid, that even in some deep comatose of sleep, I could see every colour, I could taste the wind and feel the molecules of everything touching me, and me touching them.

Nothing escaped me.

I dreamt of things that I had lived, I dreamt like I was a man living between the folds of time, and that it was my duty to confuse the past, the present and future, so I lived in a constant state of imbalance. I lived like some time traveler, with no purpose, but to drift between dimensions of my mind.

It made me delirious, even in sleep. Perhaps, you would think that you couldn't remember the intensity of being lost, while you slept, but the thing is, I remembered it. I remembered with a striking pain, how lost I was. It was as if being lost was something that made me have direction – I was lost in both my dream worlds, and the real world. I knew, that no matter where I went I had lost my sense of capability.

I did continue, though.

In the days – I continued.

I don't think, that people believed I did, but it felt like I was moving. Not moving anywhere, but blinking, moving in place. Running on a cresting hill, which seemed to tilt and tilt until I was climbing.

The nights, though…

I did not climb.

I ventured. The time traveler was in place, and it was like every time turner that had been smashed to smithereens in the Department of Mysteries was in my sweaty, eager hands – and I moved across the plains of past, present and future with a dull sense of loss and a sick sense of curiosity.

I dreamt of war – the past.

I dreamt of times of peace – both before, and now.

I dreamt of… where I could be – and saw an expanse of whiteness that was blinding, as I teetered over the edge of some freakish mountain.

Most of all, I dreamt of my best friend…my brother…my twin… and he seemed to meet up with me, wherever I headed off to. He, had the sense of direction. He'd meet up with me, in some hallway at Hogwarts or another, and he'd grin and walk with me, the same loping gait I had, but I only recognized it now that he wasn't here with me everyday…And he acted like he knew exactly where we were headed, so I walked by his side, and we talked about the most useless crap: about Dad's toasters, about Quidditch and how much the Cannons were so craven when it came to getting hit by bludgers, and how Ron just had to go jump of his broom for liking them, and how Hermione, should totally be the one to knock some sense into him or something.. and…that…

That was reassuring.

I mean, we were born together, quite literally – I had never been apart from him my entire life – and then suddenly, it was -

Well, it was a bit like being severed in half. Just like I said, my other half. Gone.

The thought of it, was… like being poured in ice, and being heated from the inside too. Like hate, but both sides of it, you know? That… uncontrollable anger, and that quicksilver sadness that ached. It was just like that, but it wasn't hate at all… How could I hate Fred for dying on me?

I couldn't.

But, I couldn't avoid the feeling of it either.

I couldn't avoid the dreams… either, now that I thought about it.. I always seemed to have them, and I always met up with Fred and he'd clap me on the back, and I felt distinctly better, but even more lost, because there was a voice of reason in my head, that sort of whispered, so its breathy voice tickled the insides of my skull:

'He's dead, George. This isn't him, not really. He's dead, and you are chatting with a figment of your sad, sad little broken mind.'

When I first heard that voice of reason in my head, I had woken to the early morning light that trickled across my room – now monk-like; with a stark white bed and no posters and only a lamp on the floor – as if I were trying to rid myself of everything that had any meaning, and I breathed in, harsh, crass breaths, and I stank of sweat and when I put a shaking hand to my face, I could almost feel the lines forming… I had aged, so much.

I felt ancient – as if this had been my prison cell of sleep and reality and the fine lines between, for centuries.

The room, I was in, was a part of the flat, Fred and I had shared over the joke shop downstairs.

It was where the shadows of him lived.

It was probably why I had so many fucked up dreams.

'Cause he was stalking around every corner of this house… even when I had stripped his room and given everything away to various people… Bill… Ron… Harry… They all wanted a piece of Fred, when, I felt like laughing bitterly, a piece of him was right here. I guess they all saw it, but failed to mention it.

Why would you want his bloody bed sheets, when if I hid away my lack-of-an-ear, he was right here in front of you?

Sick. Very sick, but it was true.

So, I stopped sleeping at my flat, after that morning.

Because then the walls whispered to me: 'He's dead, George.'

And I couldn't stomach being lost, and hearing whispers, because it meant that St. Mungo's was in the not-so-distant future, and to be frank, I knew too many people in there already, and I wasn't down to socialize with any war heroes who'd gone around the bend like myself.

Not in my agenda. Nowhere was it in my plans to see how everyone was just as screwed up as I was.

So, instead, I asked the sweet shop girl who now practically ran the joke shop (along with Perce and Ron, but they only stopped in to do the book keeping or the heavy lifting. I paid her well for running the shop like she did too, despite the family's rebukes that I was practically giving away the money. She was kind, and I gave her the trade secrets, because I didn't want to create anymore jokes without Fred laughing his ass off at our mistakes… and also because I wanted to reap the benefits of the shop, without having to look at it everyday. They didn't seem to understand that it was not the same, not the same at all) to live in the apartment, making it easier for her to get to open the shop, and come home... She happily agreed, thinking it was pure generosity, or maybe I had some miraculous leap of faith and I was on my way to a bigger, and better place… and…

that was when I started visiting Angelina.

Now, it was good at first. We talked, about Fred.

Always, Fred.

She'd give me a cup of tea in her messy little flat, and I'd nod along to her words, and frown when her voice cracked, but I didn't feel like I was listening… Not really. Then she'd watch me, and it would still the air, and she'd move towards me…

And her copper skin was soft… and her full mouth was even softer.

Her hair, matted, because she always forgot to brush it out in her grief, was pliant in my hands.

She'd touch my cheeks with her calloused, yet gentle fingers, and she'd avoid my lack-of-an-ear, and she'd press her tear-streaked face to my cheek.

I think I loved her.

I don't know.

Love's a synonym for confusion, and confusion was like a second skin to me right then…

But, Merlin, she pressed her dark, beautiful skin to my face, and my heart would throb a little less. It would hurt even less when she undressed, on my very lap… and I'd touch her and grasp at her humanity, and she'd brush her face to me again and whisper his name like a mantra, as we moved against each other:

'Fred. Fred. Fred. Fred...'

I would close my eyes, and let the pain in my chest take over everything, until it caused a very numbness to my fingers, and I could forgive myself.

I wasn't really touching my dead brother's girl, if I couldn't feel it, right?

But, I laid in bed with her one night, and let my eyes close, and the lost feeling stayed and grew and expanded, and there, in dreamland, Fred met me as always, this time by the backdrop of the destroyed Hogwarts castle.

'Fred. Fred. Fred. Fred.'

Angelina's voice echoed across grounds, whose lush grasses were burned and bloodied, but relatively abandoned except my brother and I.

'He's dead, George. Your brother, he's dead.'

I frowned slightly at Fred, wondering if he could hear the slow, tormented voice that made the grounds shake, as he crested a hill at a sudden run, beckoning me over, before disappearing over the slope.

'He's dead, George. Your brother, he's dead.'

The voice of reason spoke with a sadness, as if it were upset to have to tell me that awful truth.

I tasted the cold air of my dreams, and shook as the singular feeling of warmth and sadness overtook me.

I woke, that morning, shaking, as Angelina called my brother's name in alarm, while I crawled to her girlish bathroom to vomit in her toilet bowl.

She didn't seem to realize, I wouldn't respond to Fred's name.

I was George, after all.

I wasn't him.

Needless to say, I never slept there after that. No matter how many owls she sent me.

Her walls had begun to whisper too.

Just a drabble. It really felt awful to write though - I couldn't imagine losing my other half, my constant companion. I hope I never have to. Feel free to leave your thoughts or comments in a review, in any case!