Molly clung to George like she would never let go, echoes ricocheting through her head from every direction. It was hard to remember that 5 of her 6 sons, 6 of her 7 children, were still alive. It was hard to remember because as she looked at Fred, lying in his coffin all clean and neat, eyes closed, wearing his suit, like he might be asleep, except for the part where he wasn't, the number that sprang to mind was 4. 4 twins in her family. Fabian, Gideon, Fred, and George. And only 1 was left.
Arthur had been her anchor when her brothers died, solid as a rock and as in love with her then as he was today. George was her anchor now. George, 1 of 4, the only twin left, and someday people would never know because he wasn't 1 of 2 anymore. He wasn't 1 of 4. He was 1 of 1, her miracle child, the one who had survived when no one else in her family had, at the loss of a twin, the loss of everything.
George was crying again. George was often crying, usually silently, as if he'd forgotten that crying was supposed to be loud, or maybe as if he wasn't crying at all, but his eyes hadn't figured out how to stop the tears. Percy was in his room. He wouldn't come out. He said he'd come to the funeral itself, but as it was, he couldn't look. Not again. Not anymore. He thought it was his fault.
The others were in a clump. Bill, Charlie, Ron, Ginny. Hermione was wound halfway around Ron because there was a funeral a day, now, and there would be until all the dead were buried and grief was everywhere. Harry, squashed in with the rest of them, was clicking the clasp on his watch - once her brother Fabian's, open and shut and open and shut and open and shut, because that was what he did at wakes and viewings and funerals. and she knew it without having to look.
Fabian hadn't been that way with his watch. He'd just been . . . careless. Careless in a thousand little ways, just like the rest of them, like Gideon and Fred and George and her arms tightened around George again because Merlin, she could have lost him too. And maybe it would be better in a way. When her brothers died fighting for the Order - so close to the end of the war that, like now, she had mourned while the rest of the wizarding world celebrated.
But that had been her, just her, her and Arthur and a very few others mourning her brothers or the shattered memories of the Longbottoms, still alive, but gone all the same, or James and Lily Potter, the very, very last of all the deaths. Now, everyone was mourning, and somehow it was harder, when the celebrations, if they were out there untainted, were far, far away from here. She couldn't even watch other people around her being happy. She just watched everyone else mourn.
Her children fell apart and pulled themselves together and fell apart again, more than they had before. Bill had been ten when his uncles died, and he'd understood what had happened. So had Charlie, who was eight. But Percy? The twins? Ron? Ginny? They'd had no idea. She doubted George even remembered the funeral. He'd been three. Ron had been toddling, Ginny had been two months old and she'd held herself together for her little ones.
She'd been glad that most of her children didn't understand what was going on around them. She'd been glad that her parents were already gone. She'd been glad that her brothers had gone together, because there was comfort, at least, in being the only one who hurt. Now, all of that was gone. Now everyone she knew was in mourning and, worst of all, there was George. He was everything either of her brothers could have been if only one of them had made it, and more, and watching him hurt more than anything.
When she lost her brothers, she'd tried to think of how brave they were. How proud they'd been to be part of the Order, to be fighting Voldemort themselves, actively and in person. She'd tried to remember what Alastor Moody had told her about them - "they fought like heroes" - and she'd tried to remember that they'd chosen to fight with the full knowledge that, like most of their friends, they might die for it. She'd tried to think about the fierceness in their eyes when they talked about how they were going to keep her safe, her and Arthur and the boys and the whole rest of the world. She'd tried to picture them as heroes, doing their best work for the Order and giving up everything for it.
She'd failed, all those years ago. She'd still hurt no matter what she tried to think about or how many times she told herself it was worth it or it was what they wanted. Now she wasn't trying any of that at all. Now she just grieved, and worried about the sons and daughter she had left. Now the twins were all running around in her head, Fabian and Gideon and Fred and George, and the memories echoed back and forth until it was all a muddle. The muddle hurt, too.
Fabian and Gideon had made it to see her youngest child the day she was born. Their robes had been ripped, their faces dirty, their arms bandaged here and there, still bloody from fighting, and they'd come anyway. They'd told her Ginny was beautiful and introduced themselves to their niece, but they hadn't held the baby because they'd been filthy and exhausted, and she'd realized after they died that they'd never actually held her at all - they hadn't had time.
They'd swept Fred and George up onto their backs, two twins with two two-year-old twins, and they'd asked Bill and Charlie and Percy if they were excited to have a sister instead of another brother and they'd listened very solemnly to the answers, but always with a twinkle in their eyes, because her brothers had been every bit as expansively jovial as her own twin sons. And then Fabian had checked his watch, freshly dented for the millionth time because he was never terribly concerned about banging it, or himself, really, against things, and he'd said they had to go.
Two weeks later, they had made it back to see the family for Percy's fifth birthday and they'd brought him a big present and all the other kids little presents, but Ginny had been tiny and Gideon's arm had been injured and if Gid couldn't hold the baby with his arm the way it was, Fabe wasn't going to do it either - her brothers did things together or not at all. They did things right or not at all. And if they couldn't do a thing all the way, they simply didn't do it.
Gideon and Fabian had never missed holidays or birthdays if they could help it. They had always been great with the kids (the memory of them that never quite seemed to leave was the way they'd sat on the floor with Fred and George clambering all over them and Percy and Ron trying to pile in because they wanted time with their uncles too). They had been huge and bright and they had shone like stars, and they had always made her feel small and dumpy and not at all grand, and she hadn't even minded because she'd just been glad that they were around.
When they died for the Order, in pursuit of their cause, she'd wondered if it was what they would have wanted all along, even though it wasn't what she'd wanted for them. And maybe it had been. And maybe it had been worth it. And maybe that was how they would have wanted to be remembered. But wherever they were now, they were sure to be with Fred. They'd never have abandoned one of their own. Not an Order member, not a scabby-kneed and embarrassing sister getting picked on at school and certainly, certainly not one of their nephews.
They were up there together, now, 3 of 4 twins, and part of her feared that if she ever let go, George would go off to join them. It was only right. They were so very much alike. But she needed him, because 1 of 4 was terrible, terrible, terrible, but it was better than losing them all. She needed George for George, but she also needed him for Fred, and Gideon, and Fabian.
All four of them had killed Death Eaters and protected friends and family and tried to save the world. And when they weren't in the business of saving the world, they'd lived and laughed and loved and they'd done it all with their whole hearts, and that was what she needed now. She needed to learn to live and laugh and love again, just as her son had done, just as her brothers had done, just as they would all do. Some day. When all the dead were buried.
She wiped her eyes dry one last time and rearranged her grip on George so that he could more easily cry into her shoulder and she thought, for a tiny fleeting moment, as she looked out the window, that the other 3 out of 4 might be watching. Her twins. Never to be forgotten.