SPH Writing Prompt for Week Six
Written from the point of view of Fred, looking in on the Weasley's Family Christmas.
"But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view."
To anyone but Fred, George's crossed arms and tight-lipped smile are just a sigh of exhaustion. But Fred knew better, what he saw was the self-destructive emotional state he once knew in himself.
Anger. Rage. Sadness. Despair.
All the things he had felt at the prospect of losing the other piece of his soul. When Fred looked on at his twin from the translucent world he now belonged to, he saw the mirror image of his once mortal flesh. He looked on to see his twin looking haggard and worn down, a sign of the war that ravaged his weary mind. He was once again keeping it at bay for the sake of his family, or so he thought. George was tired of being coddled and indulged because of what happened. He had just wanted to move on. But now it was the tenth Christmas since Fred's passing, one that seemed to hit particularly hard for everyone. But with George it was the worst of them so far. He couldn't escape that nagging feeling, the feeling of emptiness that followed him around like a shadow.
For nine years now there has been a brightly knitted sweater with a large F in the center. And year ten was no different. Except this year the sight of it makes George want to destroy the room. Tear down that retched tree, the knick-knacks on the fireplace mantle, and the tea and cookies sitting on the small living room table.
It's all meaningless with the empty space that threatens to overthrow George's life, his sanity.
Fred watches as George slips silently and unseen from the room. There's an outburst from the kitchen, his mother is worried.
"Has anyone seen Fred's sweater? It was just here on the table," Molly says, distress playing out on her features. He knows this is her way of coping; keeping his presence in the family with the only way she knew how.
Fred follows George silently, walking unseen through the place he had once loved more than anything. All he was now was a pale apparition on the landscape of colors that are life. To him the magnificent Gryffindor red and gold were now washed out and watery. The sky was no longer blue, the grass no longer green. Everything was pale and listless; just like the world he existed in now. Empty and hallow. The only thing there now was the color blue. The color of the sadness washed over him like there was nothing left. No love or hope, just sadness and the color blue.
The sight before him was heart wrenching. George was on his knees in the middle of the backyard, sobs fighting their way out of him like nothing Fred had ever seen before. His chest heaved at the force, his eyes were stained red from tears that now stained his cheeks. Incoherent mumbling was all he heard except for occasional "Fred" that broke through. He was broken and there was no way to fix him.
Seeing his other half so distraught from his own doing, from his death was devastating. He could not comfort him; wrap his arm around his shoulder like they had done as kids.
He dropped to his knees besides his twin to see the Christmas sweater with an 'F' clutched in his hands. Wringing it together with both hands, George brought it into his line of sight.
"Why? Why did you have to leave me?" George said, voice strained with emotion. "I can't go on without you. It's not the same."
Fred simply said, "I'm always with you, Georgie. I never left."
Those words drifted through the air, reaching George like a whisper of the wind. He felt that peace he's been searching for since Fred's passing. Feeling his twin's presence there with him in the grass was the push he needed to find his solace. He now felt that cathartic release of emotions that were pent up over the course of ten years. With this, Fred vanished seamless as the wind that whips around, as the rain that falls from the sky, and as the moon that shines above during a dark night. His final disappearance would go unnoticed to all except George. Even though he couldn't see Fred or talk to him, his presence next to him was enough to last him until they met again someday.
George looked upward to see a shooting star blaze across the skyline, leaving a trail of orange behind it. Fred had been right, he'd never left him.
Fred was all around him, he was his anchor and his best friend, and he would never leave him. *Not until the the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, would George ever truly be without his twin again.
*This is a quote from the lovely Game of Thrones books, all credit to GRRM, "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before."