Author's Note: I'm not sure this really needs an explanation. I just had to vent my feelings about Fred's death. :'(
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his fabulous world do not belong to me.
WARNING: This is SLASH and TWINCEST. Not your ship? Get off now.
Without Him
George stared, unable to blink or look away. It wasn't possible… it just wasn't. Never, in his entire life, had he been alone. And now… George gazed at Fred's white face. His freckles stood out starkly, and his mouth was straighter than it had ever been in life. Sure, they'd joked about his ear – what's one ear? There's a reason you have two of them – but he'd never thought – neither of them had really thought…
George had always thought, quietly, in the back of his mind, that he and Fred had to be together, always. He'd held an unspoken belief that, in contrast to Harry and Voldemort, when it came to him and Fred, neither could live unless the other survived. Life without Fred – he didn't know what it was, and he'd never wanted to find out.
But now – for the first time, Fred had gone where he, George, could not follow. And no matter how tightly George clung to his empty body, regardless of everything he whispered in his twin's deaf ear, Fred could not come back to him.
Percy was wringing his hands as tears washed over his cheeks. "He – he was laughing at me," he kept choking out. "We were laughing, together, and then – then–" George couldn't help thinking how cruel it was, that he should regain one brother just as he lost the brother that he could not live without – his twin, his other half, his soul mate, Fred.
He wished they would all go away – wished they would leave him alone with Fred, let him try to do the unthinkable, the unimaginable, to say goodbye. Percy, with his hand-wringing, the last one to whom Fred ever spoke; Mum, sobbing all over Fred's chest; Dad, who George had never seen cry before; Bill, ignoring Fleur's attempts at consolation and staring silently into space; Ron, gripping Ginny as they both cried openly. They had all lost a brother, a son. But George had lost everything he ever had.
Neither of them had known quite how it happened. They had both dated girls, starting at the appropriate age; they were both interested in girls, to be sure. But there was a big difference between being theoretically attracted to someone and actually having said someone's tongue in your mouth, as they discovered. Nor were they gay, exactly – it was just that neither seemed able to have any kind of intimate relationship with anyone except the other. They'd always been brothers, best friends, partners in crime and in business. So when the time came, it seemed only logical that they should also fill this new role of lovers.
It had been undeniably perfect – the way they fit together, mirror images, pieces of the same puzzle; the way they knew what the other was thinking without speaking a word; the way they shared everything, so they never needed to keep secrets. They had never understood how other people did it – living as individuals, alone…
George sighed. Wasn't twenty too old to learn to be unique? He leaned down and kissed Fred's cold cheek for the last time. however long it took him to catch up, his twin would be waiting.
End