QLFC Round 4 – Pet Me;
Arrows, Reserve Beater 2 – Write about losing a pet.

Trigger Warning for depression, depressive thoughts, depictions of mental health issues (thought spirals and the like), and implied suicidal thoughts.

Death Doesn't Discriminate (It Just Takes)

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," George whispers—it's the only volume he can manage without his voice cracking."You said we'd grow old together; you made me a promise. I feel like I've lost a piece of myself without you."

The ground is hard under his knees and the marble of Fred's headstone cool to the touch, but George barely registers these facts anymore. All he can feel is the numbness spreading through his chest, if numbness even counts as a feeling, that is. His brother, his twin, his closest friend in the world is gone and never coming back. They had spoken about becoming ghosts, about helping Peeves pull pranks on the students of Hogwarts, but neither had wanted to stick around indefinitely.

"George?"

He hears his name, the word slow and almost hesitant, but he doesn't recognise that it's Ginny speaking. Even when she puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, his eyes don't focus enough to make her anything more than a blur with shoulder-length hair.

She takes his hand and pulls him to his feet. For a second he thinks it's Bill—who else in his family is that strong with long hair?—but she speaks again and George recognises that the voice is female.

"George, please," she says. He doesn't like the desperation in her voice but he doesn't think he can even remember how to walk, how is he supposed to comfort her like this? "George, we're all hurting. You're not alone in this." Her voice cracks and George feels what's left of his insides do the same. "Please don't give up; we can't lose you too."

He wants to reply. He wants to tell her, "'Don't give up.' That's not as easy as it sounds," but the words only go as far as his brain. His mouth won't open, his voice won't work; he's used it up speaking to Fred one last time. His response dies on his tongue, and he lets Ginny lead him away to where the rest of the family are waiting to go home.

Five Months Later

Nobody can say George is doing well, but he's alive. He's alive, and from what he can tell, that's more than most people expected from him.

The first few weeks were rough on his family. He wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, wouldn't speak, and he barely moved. He just lay in his room staring at the empty bed where Fred used to sleep. It was still unmade from when they left for the battle, coral sheets that had been thrown haphazardly towards the foot of the bed and falling onto the floor; nobody but him had had the mental strength to enter the room, and what little George had left was zapped as soon as he stepped through the bedroom door.

Just over a week after the funeral, his family ended up having to take him to the psychiatric ward in St Mungo's when he passed out one night on his way back from the bathroom and fell down a flight of stairs. They kept him there for a month. He wasn't let out until he could be trusted to eat when he gets hungry and at least attempt sleep. He was given potions to take daily that he was told were based off Muggle antidepressants, a monthly check up with the healers to check on his progress and replenish his potion supply, and told to take dreamless sleep potions at night if he couldn't sleep.

Afterwards, he moved back home but he slipped back into his old ways. He stayed in his room and stared at Fred's bed, leaving only for meals and to fulfil basic hygiene needs. He was desperately lonely, despite being surrounded by his family. They wouldn't come into his room, and when they ate meals together, all George could think about was how there was a face missing. His mum wasn't coping at all. George would often hear her crying at night when nobody else was awake. He knew he was the problem, he just didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

It was Ginny that came up with a solution when she rather unceremoniously burst into his bedroom.

"You need to move out," she had said. "Mum doesn't think it shows, but I can tell having you around is too hard on her."

And he had. That afternoon, Ginny had helped him pack up his things and move them all back into his flat above Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He knew the name should probably be changed to 'Weasley's', but it wasn't open and couldn't face making the change just yet.

Before she left to go back home, Ginny ran down to Eeylops Owl Emporium and bought him a beautiful tawny owl.

"I'll let you name her," Ginny had said. "She's yours now as long as you promise to keep in touch with us.

George just nodded, then Ginny had left.

He stares at his owl now. It has been almost three months since she's been his owl, but George hasn't been able to think of a single name other than Fred. As he runs the feather of his quill through his fingers, he starts playing around with names in his head—they're easier to think about than the letter he's trying to write to his mum.

First, he tries Ginny, and then Molly, but it feels wrong naming her after his family members. Then he runs through the names he can remember from school; Angelina, Katie, Alicia. None of the names feel right, and George can't help but circle back around to thinking about Fred. Eventually, it hits him, and George feels a rush of energy he hasn't felt since before the Battle of Hogwarts.

Her name is Freda.

George isn't sure what causes the change, but as the weeks pass by, he's in lighter spirits, if only slightly. It could be the potions finally working, and when he goes for his monthly check up the healer certainly seems to think it is (even if her eyes are still full of mistrust), but George isn't convinced. He knows deep down that it isn't the potions helping, it's that he's no longer alone. He has Freda.

It's not her presence that does it, though. Not entirely. It's that he finally has something to do with his time, another living being to look after. She nips him when she's hungry and makes enough noise to rouse him from even his deepest thought spirals when she wants to fly. She keeps him distracted, and she gives him a purpose.

It exhausts him, too. It exhausts him so much that he's actually able to sleep. Of course, when he does sleep he wakes screaming from nightmares where the world around him is blood red, where his own reflection no longer exists because his other half doesn't, but he keeps his cauldron nearby to brew Dreamless Sleep as the healers suggested.

That's what he's doing when he first notices something is wrong. He hasn't slept in three days, and as he's lying in bed with his mind threatening to spiral out of control, he decides he needs to make himself busy. His wand is prodding at the embers below the cauldron, keeping it at the perfect temperature, when Freda makes a noise he hasn't heard her make before.

His attention is immediately drawn from his cauldron and he goes to investigate the noise—Freda is his closest friend after all. She's stretching her wings and making a bit of a racket as if she wants to fly, but she's only just come in so George knows that can't be the case. Her water bowl is empty and her food is running low so George refills them both. It doesn't seem to be the main issue, but she does quieten a little as she takes a drink. George shakes his head a little and decides it's probably a mixture of stress and exhaustion; he has been sending her on a lot of journeys lately.

George hasn't told anybody yet, but he's been thinking about reopening the shop. Freda has been in and out constantly with different letters being sent to all of George's old suppliers. He's not sure if he'll manage, but if taking care of Freda has taught him anything, it's that he needs to keep busy.

He gives her a few soothing strokes before heading back into his room where, luckily, the Dreamless Sleep he had been brewing wasn't ruined. Stirring it one last time, he picks up the cauldron and pours the contents into five empty vials. Four go into his bedside drawer, the fifth he drinks as he gets into bed. His room is still messy with the now empty cauldron and ingredients left carelessly on his floor, but he can clean that up in the morning.

He wakes at the crack of dawn and immediately can sense something is wrong. His room is in complete darkness so as he leaps out of bed, he kicks over his cauldron and steps in several potion ingredients. It makes a lot of noise, but when everything settles, the silence is back. But it's too silent. He should be able to hear Freda's beak clicking in complaint as the noise wakes her up, but he doesn't.

"Accio," he whispers, summoning his wand with one of the few bits of wandless magic he can do. "Lumos."

He pushes the slightly ajar bedroom door all the way open and freezes. The pieces of his heart that have managed to stitch themselves back together over the past few months shatter as he sinks to his knees and a distraught, "No," forces its way up his throat.

It's irrational to be this upset, he knows it is, but Freda is everything he has in the world, and now she's lying there unmoving and clearly dead, face down in the silver water bowl he refilled the night before. He just hopes she didn't drown, that it wasn't his fault. He doesn't think he could live with himself if it was his fault.

He buries her next to Fred, his family by his side the whole time. Tears pour down his face, but he hurts. He can feel how much it hurts, and that has to be a good thing, right?

Ginny asks him if he's okay and he says no. He knows now that it's better not to lie, that it's better to let himself feel these things. Ginny smiles as if she knows what he's thinking and he asks her for a minute alone with Fred.

"Hi, Freddie," he says when she's gone. It's a miracle his voice is holding up as well as it is, so he carries on speaking while he can. "You never met Freda, but take care of her for me, yeah?"

He pauses, his hand resting on Fred's headstone which he kneels beside. The usually cool marble is slightly warm to the touch from the sun's rays beating down on it all day, and the ground is simultaneously hard from the packed earth and springy from the grass.

"Sometimes, I miss you so much I can hardly stand it," he admits. "Sometimes, I think it's too much to bear, that I should join you." He takes a shaky breath. "But I can't do that to Mum, and taking care of Freda made me realise how much she's going through. A human is a much bigger responsibility than an owl.

"At first, I was just numb from the shock. Then it was pain. All I could think was 'what do you do when there's nothing but pain left inside of you?' I wanted it to stop, I think that's why I stopped taking care of myself. I wanted Death to take me. I know that Death doesn't discriminate, it just takes. I was lying there saying 'it's my turn, take me' but he didn't."

George gets to his feet, shooting a quick glance over towards his family where they stand huddled, waiting for him in exactly the same spot as when they were here to bury Fred.

He turns to face the newly dug grave belonging to Freda. "I'll miss you," he says. "Take care of Fred for me."

George sends Ginny a shaky smile as he heads back towards his family. The next few weeks are going to be hard, but he knows he has his family's support now. First, however, he has to find some way to repay Ginny for being there for him from the beginning.

Word Count: 2,095.

This is for:

Hogwarts Yearly Event – Insane House Challenge;
649. (dialogue) " 'Don't give up.' That's not as easy as it sounds."

Hogwarts Yearly Event – 365 Prompts;
133. (first line) "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Hogwarts Writing Club – Character Appreciation;
9. (character) Ginny Weasley

Hogwarts Writing Club – Disney Challenge;
C8 – Write about someone using Dreamless Sleep. Alt, write about someone with insomnia (I kinda used both)

Hogwarts Writing Club – Book Club;
Pine Sap – (trait) insomniac, (word) hesitant, (creature) bird

Hogwarts Writing Club – Showtime;
45. (time) dawn

Hogwarts Writing Club – Count Your Buttons;
W3. Hungry

Hogwarts Writing Club – Sophie's Shelf;
Vault 53 – (word) stress

Hogwarts Writing Club – Emy's Emporium;
P2 – (trait) lonely

Hogwarts Writing Club – Angel's Arcade;
Riku – (colour) silver, (word set) darkness, change, mistrust, (dialogue) "You made me a promise."

Hogwarts Writing Club – Lo's Lowdown;
C1 – (colour) blood red

Hogwarts Writing Club – Bex's Biscuit Barrel;
Cookie – (word) shooting, (character) Ginny Weasley, (hp type thing) cauldron

Hogwarts Seasonal Event – Days of the Year;
Newspaper Carrier Day – Write about an owl

Hogwarts Seasonal Event – Summer Prompts;
(dialogue) "Sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it."

Hogwarts Seasonal Event – Birthstones;
Sapphire – (dialogue) "What do you do when there's nothing but pain left inside of you?"

Hogwarts Seasonal Event – Fire Element;
(word) embers

Hogwarts Seasonal Event – Shay's Musical Challenge;
Movin' Out – Write about a war changing someone

Hogwarts Seasonal Event – Gryffindor Themed Prompts;
(character) George Weasley

Hogwarts July Event – Hamilton Mania;
1. (emotion) lonely
OP18. (dialogue) "Death doesn't discriminate."

Hogwarts Fortnightly Event – Canadian Craze!;
2. (dialogue) "It's too much to bear."

Hogwarts Northern Funfair – Ghost Train;
Compartment 24 – (emotion) grief

Hogwarts Eastern Funfair – Penny Slot Machine;
4. (character) George Weasley
6. (character) Ginny Weasley
61. (emotion) grief

Hogwarts Southern Funfair – Henna Tattoo Booth;
Location: Right Hand – (colour) coral
Tattoo: Skull – (location) graveyard
Style: White Ink – (quote) 'I plant roots so deep in the people I love that I always lose a piece of myself when they go.' – Beau Taplin