Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. I just like to torture them and well, mostly myself by writing stories like this one.
"Hey honey," Ron said as soon as he appeared in the fireplace of the Weasley House, surrounded by green flames that quickly diminished. He kissed his wife's head and got directly into the bedroom to get rid of his uncomfortable work clothes, leaving his briefcase next to the door.
"Hi Ron, how is the Ministry doing?" Hermione replied, not even lifting her eyes from what she was reading, a heavy leather bound book, which probably involved more than a thousand pages.
"Busy, crowded, you know, same old stuff," Ron's voice came from the bedroom. "Are you still reading that stupid muggle psychology thing?" he asked and laughed, walking back into the living room, now in sweatpants and a t-shirt.
"Ronald! It is not stupid and it is not just for muggles! There are things in here that refer both to muggles and wizards just the same, you know. For example, there is the Kübler-Ross model," she protested.
"It sounds complicated and its name is weird, but elaborate please," he said and grinned at his wife's passion for both knowledge and equality.
"Well, according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, when a person is faced with the reality of impending death or other extreme, awful fate, he or she will experience a series of emotional stages," Hermione quoted the book by heart, happy that someone showed some interest in what she was studying.
"Which are?" her husband asked, actually wanting her to explain this weird-name-model thing to him.
"Stage one is denial. Denial can be conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or the reality of the situation. Denial is a defense mechanism and some people can become locked in this stage."
George woke up in the middle of the night, as he had been doing his whole life whenever a new prank or trick idea came to him in a dream. And like all the previous times, the first thing to do was call for his brother.
"Fred, I just had the best..." he started, turning to his side to face Fred's bed. Because that was what was left there, an empty bed. It was clean and made as if the boy was on a trip and would eventually come back, his laugh echoing throughout the house like it always did.
George felt a familiar pain in his chest, the pain he had felt all the other times he turned to speak to his brother and found no one there, or left a sentence unfinished, waiting for someone to add the last few words. And with that pain he turned his back to the place his twin had been sleeping for twenty years but would never again, doing his best to go back to sleep. Maybe that whole thing was a nasty, nasty nightmare. Maybe everything would be better in the morning.
"The second stage is anger. Anger can manifest itself in different ways. People can be angry with themselves, or with others, and especially those who are close to them. It is important to remain detached and nonjudgmental when dealing with a person experiencing anger from grief," Hermione continued, now opening the book to make sure she didn't say anything falsely.
"I'm done cleaning the garden," George announced as he walked through the kitchen door at the Burrow. His face was pale, making his ginger hair seem even brighter, and his expression blank like it had been throughout the previous months.
"Okay, thanks George," his mother replied, not bothering to turn her head and look at him, completely focused on her cooking. "Oh, by the way," Molly added just before he reached the staircase, "we're going to Andromeda's later, to see her and Teddy."
"I don't care," George said, sounding extremely exhausted. He walked a few steps up, but his mother talked again.
"George! That child lost both his parents, we should be-"
"AND I LOST MY BROTHER, OKAY? MY TWIN BROTHER. I THINK I CAN BE EXCUSED FROM STUPID VISITS," he yelled and ran up to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
"Give him time," said Charlie who had been around long enough to understand what had happened. He hugged his mother who had a few tears streaming down her face and stroked her hair. "Just give him some time; you know what he's going through."
"What comes next is bargaining. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it's a matter of life or death."
"Hey, Harry."
"Oh, hi George. I didn't notice you there," Harry greeted him, turning to look at him, leaving a half-packed suitcase lying open on the bed. Now that the war was actually over and most people had almost recovered from the shock, he, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna had decided to go on a trip around Britain. After everything that they went through during all those dark months, they felt like they deserved some vacation.
"Can I talk to you about something?" George asked, leaning against the wall next to the door with a serious look on his face.
Harry got a bit upset by the solemnity of his voice, but was eager to help as always. The Weasleys were his family, after all. "Sure."
"Just to make sure I didn't dream about this or something... the Tale of the Three Brothers which mum used to read us is real, right? I mean, the Deathly Hallows."
"Yes, they were actually real," Harry reassured him, still not sure what the man wanted from him.
"And where is each one of them now?" George asked. "I don't want to become Master of Death or anything, don't worry," he quickly added. "Just curious."
"Well, I still have the Cloak," he started, tilting his head towards his suitcase in which the heavy fabric lay. "I returned the Wand to Dumbledore's grave," he continued, seeing no point in lying to someone he trusted. "And the Stone- George, no," Harry said, finally putting all the pieces together.
"Come on, Harry, you're my last hope," George said with clear despair in his voice. "I just- I just want to see him, talk to him one last time. One time and then I'll throw it away," he continued, tears making his eyes glow in the light of the old lamp that hang from the ceiling.
"It wouldn't be one time, George. The Hallows are powerful objects. Don't you remember what happened to Cadmus Peverell in that bedtime story?" he tried to make him change his mind. "George, that thing almost made Dumbledore go mad too. And let me tell you, it wouldn't be just one time. You can't just abandon the thing that unites you and your loved ones, even if it is in the wrong way," he said, suddenly remembering an eleven-year-old spending an entire night in front of a mirror each person saw something different in.
"It would be just one, really, I swear! Just see his smile once again, please," he begged.
"Even if I wanted to give it to you, I can't. To answer your question, I dropped the Stone in the Forbidden Forest the night I went in there to face Voldemort. I never went back to seek it. I'm sorry, George."
"Yes, yes, of course you are," was all the man said in a low voice, before leaving the room.
"Well, the fourth stage is depression. It is a kind of acceptance with emotional attachment. It's natural to feel sadness, regret, fear, and uncertainty when going through this stage. Feeling those emotions shows that the person has begun to accept the situation."
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The rhythmic ticking of the old clock hanging on the wall was the only sound in the small dark room in the Burrow. Distant voices could be heard from the kitchen, where Mrs Weasley was teaching Fleur how to cook some delicious baby food for little Victoire and the baby laughed loudly every time two-year-old Teddy Lupin changed his face or the color of his hair. In the garden, cheers could be heard every time Harry or Ginny scored or screams of terror whenever Hermione thought she was about to fall off her broom, as the group was playing Quidditch. But George Weasley couldn't hear any of it.
Back at Hogwarts, at the beginning of their sixth year, rumors had spread around the castle that a girl from Hufflepuff had been diagnosed with clinical depression during the summer. George had been one of the people who shrugged it off, not bothering take the whole concept into consideration. After a while, he started noticing the girl between classes. She didn't look sick or anything. She just looked... sad. Constantly sad, like she couldn't find the fun in anything. And George just couldn't understand that. He was the kind of person that created fun, even if there was none to be found. The person who cracked a joke and made everyone in the room laugh. And the fact that there was a person that wouldn't laugh, no matter what he said or what prank he and Fred pulled was way out of his range of understanding.
Now he got it, though. He got it because he was finally feeling the same way. Staring at the ceiling, he felt like his room, the one he once shared with his brother, was full of dementors, threatening to give him their fatal -well, worse than fatal- kiss. In the back of his mind there was a part that was still sane. It was small, but it existed. And a tiny voice there screamed, screamed for him to pull himself back together. Why? Because honestly, at that moment, he would have preferred a dementor kissing him.
Anything would be better than the numbness that had taken over his body and soul. Anything would be better than that never ending sorrow. Anything would be better than the feeling that he would never laugh again. Smiling and laughing seemed like the most foreign things to George. He had finally understood that Fred was gone, gone for good. He would never come back. The only way he could see him again was in old photos and of course, in the mirror, but they both hurt too much.
George never wished he was dead instead of his twin. He would never want Fred to go through everything he was after his death. And because of that little sane part of himself, he never tried to end this and finally be with him, even though he thought about it. He didn't do it because he knew Fred would be so terribly disappointed in him if he did. So a dementor's kiss was the best solution. You can't feel pain without a soul, can you?
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
George gathered all the power he had left, picked up his wand from the mattress next to him and cast a spell non-verbally, something he had managed to do very few times in the past. The clock fell from the wall and shattered into dozens of pieces on the floor, while he made no effort to clean them. The clock was a constant remind that life went on, and for George it didn't.
"And finally, acceptance comes," was all Hermione said as she finished the chapter and closed the book.
"Hey Freddie," George whispered as he approached his brother's grave, the sun setting in the west. The date was 2nd May and the place that was crowded with grieving friends and relatives during the morning was now empty. The man preferred it, it was much more peaceful and calmer.
"So, it has been, what, three years since you died?" he started, sitting on the ground and embracing his knees. "Still haven't forgiven you for that, you know," he laughed weakly. "Just to let you know, I'm dating Angelina, I hope you're okay with that. If you're not, please don't give my ear a hard time up there, it wasn't its fault." There was a small pause there, as George wasn't sure of what to say. There were so many things, but they all seemed to be stuck at his throat. So he just stood up and walked away. Well, at least tried to walk away.
"Hermione finished Hogwarts and she is studying muggle psychology now," he said, walking back to the tomb and standing over it. "There is a thing in her books, called the Kübler-Ross model and it's pretty much the only thing she has read to me. I mean, over and over. Many times." He took a deep breath as he felt his eyes filling up with tears. "According to that model, there are five stages of grief or something. And I've went through them, so I guess that Kübler-Ross had a point. But she said the last stage was acceptance. I say that's crap." He stopped again and cleared his throat. "I will never accept the fact that you're dead, Freddie. Yes, I go around like I'm okay, but I'm not. Yes, it hurts less to think about you than it did the first few months, but I don't think it will ever stop hurting. Today I made some fireworks for Victoire's -Bill and Fleur's daughter, in case you don't get informed about everything up there- birthday party and I pretended to be happy, but all I could think was how much I wanted you to be there with me. You're such an idiot for dying, Fred, and I will never accept it." He wiped aware a few tears that had streamed down his face. "And I love you. Sorry I didn't get to remind you more often when you were here," he said, his voice suddenly low. Just before he turned to leave for good, his eyes lingered on the tombstone.
Fred Weasley (1st April 1978 - 2nd May 1998) Beloved son, brother and friend.
That was so similar to what was written on all the other graves in the cemetery and George was actually surprisingly angered by it. How could a person that was so loved during his entire life have something so simple written on the place he rested? If they had let him carve the tombstone, he could have written so much things. All the good and bad times the two of them had spent together, how Fred could be an idiot, but the most wonderful person he knew at the same time. The pranks they pulled at Hogwarts, the nights they comforted each other while Ginny had been kidnapped, Fred's first date with Angelina and how anxious he was about it. The day they left Hogwarts after sabotaging Umbridge's exam, their shop in Diagon Alley. Homemade firecrackers, their mom scolding them and laughs echoing throughout the Burrow. There were so many things George wanted his brother to be remembered for, but they could never fit on a simple headstone.
However, one thing should definitely be there. It just seemed wrong without it and George was surprised he hadn't noticed it earlier. So he knelt down, took out his wand and with a simple movement of his wrist two more words appeared at the bottom of the stone.
Mischief Managed.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! This is actually the first fanfic I have ever published, so some reviews would be great!