Dear Fred

Napalminthemorning

Write a letter from one OC character to another OC character on their birthday.

Dear Fred:

Today was our birthday.

I tried very hard to open this letter with a joke, because I wanted to keep you (me) smiling. Ron suggested the one about the Goblin, the Troll and the dancing teapot, but Ron is a regular cornucopia of lame jokes. You wouldn't be laughing at that one. You'd probably be rolling around groaning.

I'm not sure what, really, is the point of writing this. I don't know why I insist on trying to open up scars that are supposed to have healed. Maybe they never healed in the first place. Maybe I'm just a masochist. Heh.

It's been six months since –

Well. I'm sure you know it better than anyone, eh? I don't know how it works up there, whether you can see us down below running around being idiots, but here; I'll give you a leg up.

Harry's done a wizard job and You Know Who might be up there next to you. If he is, tell him to stay away from my bloody ear.

Things have gone back to normal; as normal as they can get, at any rate. Mum's been busy fussing over the lot of us like You Know Who's going to knock on the door any minute. She practically threatened to hex me if I didn't sleep under her watchful eye. The woman's crazy, I'm telling you, not just a demon in the kitchen. Plus, she's a complete miser. All the Galleons I earn, she insists on keeping half of it. I haven't the heart to tell her off.

(Sometimes I catch her watching me. But she's not watching me, really. She sees past the missing ear and the scars and the eyes, and she sees someone else, someone happy, joking, pulling the most outrageous pranks…she's looking at me and seeing you.)

Dad's busy at work – yes, there is still a Ministry of Magic, so you owe me ten Galleons, ha ha – rebuilding the ministry with Kingsley, who's become Minister of whatever's left. He doesn't come home as often as before, but he says it's worth it and later on, he'll spend all the time with us as he wants.

(Maybe he doesn't come home often because he doesn't want to be reminded.)

Hermione's taken something of an intelligence downgrade in the fight – must have been bashed on the noggin, I think, because now she's with that ickle prefect Ron, who, incidentally, is the new Weasley of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Business is raging, mainly because I've got Ron as a permanent display in the window. He thinks he's attracting customers because he's handsome, but mainly it's because he's very good at being a joke.

Harry is training to become an auror – fine, you were right – and he's with lovely little Ginerva, who also threatened to Hex me if I didn't start to cheer up. She's the WImbourne Wasps' new lucky charm, they're now top of the league.

Perce is working hard with dad, completely immersed himself in his thin-bottomed cauldrons and whatever they've got going now. He doesn't talk so much anymore, doesn't quite like to blow his trumpet after his disastrous decisions.

(Sometimes I hear screaming at night. I don't want to know who it is.)

(We're not all right. Underneath this façade, we're broken. We're not all right.)

I don't know why I'm writing this letter. Happy birthday, at any rate…!

Maybe it's because you understand what I'm trying to do. Maybe it's because you know me better than anyone, because you empathize, because you're…gone.

(Don't cry. Don't you bloody cry.)

This has been a long time in coming, but I need to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I wasn't there that day, wasn't there next to you. I'm sorry I wasn't there to jump in front, take the curse, or to kill that idiot who sent it. Because if I did you would still be here and laughing with everyone, happy as anything, and everything would be normal again, and there wouldn't be this big hole in my – our - lives.

I lie awake every night.

I don't dream anymore, I only have nightmares. Nightmares where you die over and over and over again, with that horrible, horrible blank expression on your face. It haunts me. Hurts me. Your face drives a bloody stake into my heart every time I think of you. I miss you more than you could imagine, I rip my heart out every time I see an old picture, what I wouldn't give to have you by my side once more.

I'm sorry, I'm rambling again. I tend to do that very often now. Heh. You want to hear a joke? I think a joke would be good now. Um. Why did the joker jump off the cliff? Because he was trying to be…dead…funny.

No. No. That wasn't a good joke, I'm sorry. Let's try another one. The chimera was just about to be executed –

(Stop this. Shut the bloody hell up.)

I'll stop trying to tell jokes now. They're not funny anyway.

You know Freddy, people have been telling me to move on, but either I don't want to or I can't. Sometimes I'll stare in the mirror, try to pretend that it's you. But that person in the mirror with the missing ear and the dead eyes has no smile on his face. You were always smiling, Fred. Always. I miss that smile.

I –

(I have made mistakes – )

(I am sorry – )

(I want to die – )

(I don't care anymore – )

(I love you – )

(I need you – )

I hope you're happy up there.

Today was our birthday, Freddy. It was always my favorite day of the year. You remember mum would bake that beautiful cake with the chocolate and the icing, and we'd laugh and say something funny to each other and blow out the candles, and Ron would eat half of it before anyone else?

Well, this year I blew out the candles alone. Our birthday's not my favorite day of the year anymore.

George.