DISCLAIMER: I'm just playing in the Harry Potter sandbox. If you recognize it from elsewhere, I don't own it.
"Basic Grammar"
The weather outside and the climate inside were at an odd juxtaposition. It was bright outside with the sun so high and not a single cloud in the midday summer sky. Brilliant rays of sun streamed in through the large windows, illuminating even the darkest corners of the store. But inside—inside the man sitting behind the counter—it was raining torrents, destroying everything in its path with alternating floods of agony and numbness.
Head bowed, arms hanging limp, George Weasley stared at everything and saw nothing. The till on the counter was smudged. Was it his fingerprints or Fred's? It was impossible to tell. He reached out lethargically, matching the size of the print. Yeah, it was his. Or it was Fred's. He really couldn't tell the difference.
Fred and George … George and Fred … Gred and Forge …
What did it matter anyway? The fingerprints needed to be cleaned. Unless they were Fred's, then they should stay. Traces of him would remain forever in their shop that way. But they could be George's. In which case, it was just a dirty till. But really, it was impossible to tell the difference.
For all George knew, he really was Fred. Mum or dad had put the wrong colored booties on their feet at the age of three weeks … Then George was dead and Fred was still alive. It really was impossible to tell the difference.
But whoever he was, he was only half a man now, only half alive because his twin was deep under a mound of soil in the little graveyard of Ottery St. Catchpole. And no one really knew how it felt to lose half of themselves unless they'd done it before, and George didn't know of anyone who had.
They had all been so sorrowful at the funeral …
Mum sobbing into dad's shoulder … Hermione's puffy eyes … Fleur's sheet of silver hair covering her face … Hagrid blowing his nose on a tent-sized handkerchief … Lee staring at the ground …
But no one really got it. They all filed past George, some clapping him on the shoulder, some breaking into hysterical sobs. But no one really knew what to do to make him feel better … except for one person. He walked up to Fred's coffin in line with everyone else and laid beside the white headstone a Hogwarts toilet seat.
For just one tiny, fleeting moment, George had looked up. He met Harry's green stare and they smiled, so very slightly, before Harry moved on and left George to feel yet another bracing thump on the back, as if somehow getting hit repeatedly would make Fred's death seem all right.
When they all had gone—and they had been most reluctant to do so—George wandered several plots over and looked down at the grave the Weasleys' visited once every year.
Gideon and Fabian Prewett
Together in life and death shall their memories live.
"Went out like heroes, they did. Like heroes," Mad-Eye Moody's voice growled.
It sounded like an echo to George's ears—ear, singular—an echo from a man who had been dead for nearly a year now. George's uncles, his mother's brothers, had fought and died side-by-side. He had always taken this for granted. But now he wondered …
Which one died first? Gideon or Fabian? Surely they were not lucky enough to be killed in unison. Death Eaters were not that kind. Had the one's death spurred on the other? Had he taken out twice as many Death Eaters in a minute to avenge his brother's death than he would have otherwise? Did he plunge into their number, screaming in fury and agony, with only the hope of seeing the green light of a Killing Curse and joining his twin?
And if he had been so lucky as to have been there when Fred was killed, would there have been any Death Eaters left to murder him as he did the same? Or would Percy and Harry have stopped him? Could any power on Earth have stopped George getting himself killed right then?
"George?" a familiar voice had said, very quietly.
But was there any need for that question mark anymore? No one would ever mistake his identity again. No one would ever call him Fred, not realizing that he was George. Because Fred was dead and everyone would always remember that. He would just be:
George.
Period. No question mark.
"Hey, Angelina," George said, not needing to turn around.
He'd known her voice for seven years. They'd shared classes, a common room, House table, and a Quidditch team. In the end, they'd even shared a brother. For awhile, George and Angelina hadn't got on very well, both of them wanting as much of Fred's time as possible. But they'd worked it out in the end.
"I wanted to give you some time …," she said, uneasily, as though she wasn't sure if she'd waited long enough to approach him.
Was that the new question mark? It wasn't a matter of his identity anymore. He was George. Period. But who was George without Fred? Did no one know him anymore? Did he even know himself?
Finally, George turned around. Angelina looked the same as ever, not haughty but confident, not calm but composed. She was holding in her hands a large quantity of Dr. Filibuster's No-Heat Wet-Start fireworks.
"A proper send off, yeah?"
Slowly, George nodded. And that made two who got it: Harry and Angelina.
Two. Two.
What a bitter number. He would never be two again. Not even if he got married. He would always be one short.
It would have been better to be one in the first place. Then he'd always be alone without any fear of losing the person closest to him. One, like his mate Lee, who had no siblings. Yeah, one would have been great.
Or three. Triplets, then without one, there would still be two to lean on each other. Three, like Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They always seemed to get everything worked out all right with three. Even during the rocky times, they'd always had someone.
Two. Two.
Two felt secure and whole. From two to one was a long fall. From whole to half had torn George apart. It was agony like no other. It was agony so great that it had left him hollow and numb.
Sitting here, in the store filled with products he and Fred had made together, with nothing but the memory of the fireworks display over Fred's eternal resting place, staring at the fingerprints on the till, the loneliness redoubled.
The Shiving Snackboxes—Fred's idea.
Pygmy puffs—Fred's idea.
Trick wands—Fred's idea.
The store was filled with Fred. From one wall to the other, his ingenious mind had built their business from the ground up. But Fred was gone now, and the store was empty despite the stocked shelves.
Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
Wasn't it amazing how the placement of one tiny apostrophe shook George to his core? One comma, one missing question mark, and his world had collapsed around him.
The bell above the door jingled, but George did not look up. He could only hope that it was a desperate Death Eater come to finish the job. Alas, it was not.
"George."
No question mark.
"I've come to see that you're not attempting to commit suicide with a Nosebleed Nougat."
George blinked for several moments, his eyes sliding back into focus. Was that … a joke from …? He looked up finally, both stunned and expecting, to see Percy standing on the other side of the counter.
"Why are you here, Percy?" George asked.
"Oh, you heard me the first time," the older brother groused. "I've made one joke for your benefit. Don't expect another."
"I did indeed. But really, Perce, did mum send you?"
Mum had been the last person to leave Fred's grave. She'd sobbed and struggled against Dad, getting out words like "twin" and "alone" between her shuddering breaths. But Dad had a higher opinion of George and had dragged Mum away to give George time alone to say good-bye.
"As a matter of fact, she didn't," Percy admitted. "I was in London to see Minister Shacklebolt."
Normally, George would have made fun of Percy for addressing Kingsley this way. But he didn't have the heart for it today. He only had half a heart left, and that half was hurting too badly to make jokes.
"Got your job back then?" George asked.
He didn't want this conversation to come around to Fred and how his memory would live on forever. George couldn't take that at the moment. It hurt too badly, and he was too numb.
"Actually," Percy began, looking shrewdly at George, who didn't notice, "that depends on … you."
George had enough feeling left to be mildly surprised. He didn't see how he could help Percy make that decision or even why Percy would hesitate to take his old job back. Being Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic—this time a competent, good Minister—would put Percy one step closer to his goal of world domination.
"It was mentioned by a few of our family that you weren't exactly the mastermind of managing this business. If you were looking for … I mean to say, if you needed someone with a mathematician's mind to handle the books …"
For the first time in weeks, George sat up straight and saw and heard clearly what was happening around him. It was as if Percy's words had wiped away a thick fog that had built up around George.
"Perce …"
Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
"… Perce, you don't care a thing for pranks. You want to be Minister of Magic, and you will be too, if you're Kingsley's Senior Undersecretary."
The older brother shook his head slowly. "Oh, that's not the job he offered me. Junior Assistant to the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office is where he wants me. Humility, he said, is a greater asset than power."
"Don't you mean humiliation, Percy?"
Percy shook his head. "No, I don't. But I didn't come here to talk about the Ministry, George."
Leave it to Percy to not want to talk about himself at the very moment it would have helped George out most. He'd always done inconvenient things like that.
"Thanks, mate, but I haven't thought about the future yet. I've barely got a grip on the present."
Percy nodded slowly. Whether he understood or not, George couldn't be sure. But he wasn't bleating on about cauldron bottoms and that was a start. But not the start of a business arrangement, that was for sure.
George knew Percy was only making the offer as penance. He would be back to work at the Ministry and climbing his way to the top just as he had always planned on doing. Bill was happy working at Gringotts, and now that the war was over, he was free to return to Egypt for adventure. Charlie was still in Romania, as in love with his dragons as ever. Ron, even without any NEWTs and completely average grades, was a highly bankable hero of the wizarding world. Ginny had far greater things ahead of her than a joke shop, that much George knew.
One. He would always be one.
"Mum's making onion soup," Percy said. "If you're hungry …"
Percy let the offer hang. At the door, he paused and turned back to look at the sign hanging over the counter: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. No doubt he was noticing what George had just been thinking about.
A misplaced apostrophe.
"Good night, George."
No question mark.
The End