He doesn't fully, wholly realize that Fred is dead, gone - doesn't absorb the truth, the meaning of it - until months later, when the aftermath of the war has settled enough that jokes can be heard over the wails of mourners.
It's his first jest in too long. He smiles, opens his mouth, begins it. His family nod appreciatively. They lean forward.
Everything - every moment, from the amused expectancy in Ron's eyes to the motherly frustration furrowing Molly's forehead - is well-known, time-worn, familiar. Yet there's something wrong - something amiss. The pause is stretching until far past the norm.
What are they waiting for? What is he waiting for? -
Oh. Wait. The punchline. The finish. The completion of the whole.
George ransacks his brain - oh, come on, he's a comedian, surely he can tell one feeble little joke? - but there's nothing there except irony and tragedy and black, black humour because he was never supposed to end the joke on his own. He was never supposed to be on his own.
How does the clown end up laughed at? he wonders, as he flees to his bedroom in the ignominy of quiet, leaving that excruciating silence hanging over his family, his house, like the shroud covering Fred's body -
(out of sight, out of mind, except it that was true they wouldn't all be waiting).