A/N: I finished Deathly Hallows a few days ago, and it tore my heart to pieces. The result is this very fic. Forgive me for the lack of betaing and poor editing, but I was so emotionally drained after writing it that I couldn't deal with editing. Please review! Constructive criticism is welcome.
Fred had known something was wrong the minute he arrived at the Burrow. At first he attributed the squirming in the pit of his stomach to a side effect of the Portkey, but as he walked inside and bile bit at the back of his throat, he knew it was something else entirely.
The second Fred and his father entered their home, Kingsley Shacklebolt rushed into the kitchen, blocking their way into the sitting room. Even his natural stoicism couldn't hide the panic on his face, and Fred couldn't bear it any longer.
"What happened?" he asked, in a voice far feebler than his own, because deep down he already knew the answer. He had known it from the very start.
"George was hurt," Kingsley replied, eyes flitting back and forth between Fred and Mr. Weasley, unsure of whom to address. "He's alive, he's in the other room."
Fred didn't feel relieved, but suddenly emptied, as if someone had pulled a plug and let everything inside of him just drain out. He took an unconscious step forward, but Kingsley did not move.
'I'm sorry," the Auror said, "but I have to check that you're really—"
An explosion of noise tore through the kitchen. Pots and pans flew off of their shelves and collided in the air, and the silverware leaped from the drawers like a crude imitation of fireworks. Shocked, Fred saw that his father, who cowered under a single glare from his mother, had his wand pointed at Kingsley and a murderous glint in his eye.
"I'll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I've seen my son, now back off if you know what's good for you!"
Not needing to be told twice, Kingsley allowed the redheaded men to pass into the sitting room. What Fred saw made him feel as if he'd just eaten an entire box of Puking Pastils. There was George, lying bloodied and unconscious on the sofa, with a gaping hole in his head where his ear should be. Fred felt himself walking towards his twin, oblivious to everyone around him. He gripped the couch tightly, leaning on it, because for the first time in his life he could not lean on George.
Not George, he thought with anguish. Please, please not George. Why did it have to be George? He didn't want anyone else to have their ears cut off, of course, but he couldn't help thinking that it would have been easier if Lupin had been the one bleeding on the sofa while he and George stood in the corner, together.
At that moment Fred saw George stir, rejoining the waking world, though his eyes remained resolutely shut.
"How do you feel, Georgie?" Mrs. Weasley whispered. Fred watched as George's fingers clumsily probed the side of his head.
"Saintlike," George murmured after a few moments.
"What's wrong with him?" Fred croaked, his voice sounding about as good as George's head looked. Fresh waves of fear were coursing through his body, and he gripped the couch so hard that his knuckles were bone white. "Is his mind affected?"
"Saintlike," repeated George, and finally he opened his eyes and looked into Fred's, into the eyes that were identical to his own. There was something pleading in each pair of orbs—George pleaded for Fred to get the joke and Fred pleaded for George to be the same. "You see," George continued, "…I'm holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?"
Mrs. Weasley burst into tears, and Fred had half a mind to join her. But that wasn't how the game worked. His part was to continue the joke. There could be no more sappiness.
"Pathetic," he told George, a look of fake disappointment plastered on his face. "Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?"
A grin broke out on George's pale face, and Fred knew he had played his part well.
Convinced that George was all right, people began filtering out of the room, waiting for those who had not yet arrived. As the minutes dragged by, most took up a place in the yard, gazing skyward for their missing loved ones, until it was just Fred, George, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley left in the sitting room. Fred couldn't help but wish that his parents would leave and let the twins be alone. Perhaps it was unfair, but George was his, and right now he just wanted it to be the two of them.
"Come on, Molly," said Mr. Weasley at last, gently pulling his wife to her feet. "We should go wait for the boys." Fred looked at his father, who nodded to him. He understood.
Mrs. Weasley, however, looked scandalized by the idea of leaving George's side. "Oh, I couldn't!" she exclaimed, wriggling a bit in her husband's grasp. "No, no, I have to stay here."
"You should go, Mum," George said, his voice still weak. "Go wait for Ron and Bill. I'll be all right."
Mrs. Weasley stared at him for a few moments, then burst into a fresh wave of tears and threw her arms around him.
"MUM!" George exclaimed, mustering the strength to sound indignant. Mrs. Weasley broke away, gave him a sloppy kiss on the forehead, and allowed Mr. Weasley to lead her from the room.
Fred couldn't help but grin at the disgusted look on his twin's face. Carefully, George shifted his long legs on the couch, making room for Fred to sit while he wiped the remnants of Mrs. Weasley's kiss from his forehead. Fred took the seat uneasily, as if coming to close might somehow break his brother.
George could sense his concern, Fred knew. They knew each other too well to hide anything. The game began again.
"So, how do I look?" George asked, making a ridiculous face and tilting his head to better reveal the hole.
"Corking," Fred replied dryly. "Although this does make the earrings I got you for Christmas sort of useless."
George cracked a smile. "And you thought my joke was pathetic!"
This was their game. Perhaps "game" was not the best term for it, because it was so ingrained in them that it was simply a part of their personalities. They made each other laugh and they made others laugh. The laughter made them enjoy life and allowed them to endure it. It was how they supported one another, and to them it came as easily as breathing.
"You know, we could probably come up with something to replace that ear," Fred said after a moment. "Like, a Non-Extending Extendable Ear. Blimey, I bet we could put you're old ear to shame!"
Fred saw George's eyes light up. "You know, that's not a bad idea. I bet we could even add some extra features, like a radio that activates when Mum starts screaming at us."
"Brilliant."
For a few minutes they talked their newest endeavor, christening it the Exceedingly Excellent Ear Project. After that, though, they lapsed into a comfortable silence, taking comfort in each other's presence. They did that sometimes, just sat silently together, though anyone familiar with their vociferous natures would hardly believe it. But Fred and George had never really needed words to communicate with one another.
Fred glanced at his brother, and saw that his eyes had closed and his breathing had deepened. At same time, he heard a commotion outside, and knew that another member of their party must have arrived. He began to rise from the sofa, intending to look out of the window and see who had come, but he suddenly felt a surprisingly strong grip on his wrist.
George was only half-conscious at best, but he made a valiant attempt to look into his brother's eyes. "Don't leave me," he muttered, barely audible.
Fred felt as though a knife had pierced his heart. Quickly he kneeled beside the sofa so that he was at eye level with George. "I'm not going anywhere, mate," he said.
George's features relaxed noticeably, and his eyes slipped shut once more. Fred felt the grip on his wrist slacken. Without thinking, Fred pressed his forehead to his George's, allowing himself to be close to the person he loved more than anyone else, to the brother he'd almost lost.
"You're stuck with me, bro," he whispered and, though he was sure George could not here him, he though he saw the hint of a smile grace his twin's face. Fred just smiled back.
George had known something was wrong before he entered the Great Hall. It was as though a chill had passed through him, even deeper and colder than walking through a ghost. He wasn't sure how long he had felt this way; he had been so caught up in the battle that he hadn't been paying attention to the nausea growing in his stomach.
It only took a moment to spot his family. A dense cluster of redheads was standing around something, around someone who had been placed in the row of the dead. George stopped walking. He wanted one more minute, just a few extra seconds of denial. But he couldn't stand still for long, because Percy had spotted him, and was waving him over. George didn't bother to identify the family members he could see, because somehow he already knew who they were mourning.
As he approached, people turned to look at him. Their eyes were filled with pity and tears, and they hurried out of his way, as if his circumstances were contagious. George just wanted them to go away. It was harder to pretend when everyone knew your world had collapsed.
George finally reached his family, and Bill, who had been standing between him and the body, moved aside. There was Fred, lying on the floor with Mrs. Weasley sobbing on his chest. George wasn't sure if he'd fallen to his knees or if he'd kneeled willingly, but the next second he was much closer to Fred's still face. He was paler than he should have been, but there wasn't a mark on him; he could have been sleeping. George stared hopelessly at his neck, looking for a sign of a pulse. There was none.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there, just staring at his twin. Maybe this is a new game, he thought. Maybe if he just sat here long enough, Fred would get bored and open his eyes, laughing at the looks on their faces.
George didn't move to touch Fred, and he didn't cry. He couldn't feel, he couldn't breathe. Fred was older by a minute, he remembered suddenly. He just sat there, unmoving, because Fred was older and George didn't know how to live in a world without his brother.
Sometime later he'd heard Voldemort's victorious declaration, and had been swept onto the grounds with all the other living people in the castle. He'd thrown himself completely into that moment, and into the battle that followed, because he understood it. For a little bit of time he was permitted to forget about who was lying in the Great Hall, and he could pretend that Fred was somewhere near him, dueling with a Death Eater.
George had joined the mass of excited embracing when Voldemort had finally died, once and for all. He could remember lifting Harry to his shoulders along with Lee Jordan, and his mind wandered to the time when, after winning the Quidditch Cup for the first time in seven years, he and Fred had done the same thing. And just like that, the celebration was over for him.
George was one of the first people to reenter the Great Hall. He kneeled beside his fallen twin in the same spot as before. This time George raised a trembling hand and touched Fred's face, the face they shared. Fred's skin was colder than his own, but it was still warm, and George suddenly realized that Fred's face bore the hint of a smile. Something that was more desperation than hope came to life within him.
It's just another game, he thought frantically. It's all part of the game…
George took Fred's limp hand in his and leaned closer to his brother, so that their foreheads were almost touching.
"Hey Gred," he said softly. "It's Forge. I know you think you need your beauty sleep, man, but this is ridiculous." He watched his twins face, but the smile did not grow like it was supposed to. George frowned. This wasn't how the game was played. Fred was doing it wrong.
"Listen mate, it's all over. Voldemort's dead, most of his Death Eater prats are too. Harry won! So, you know, any time you want to wake up, it would be absolutely spiffing…"
People were filing back into the Great Hall. Some part of George realized that it wasn't exactly sane to have a conversation to your dead brother. He stopped talking, but didn't move away from Fred. He could feel his family and friends gathering around them. He could hear them crying and comforting one another and he felt a sudden, violent urge to tell them to leave. Didn't they understand that Fred was his? Didn't they know that they were intruding?
George looked at the smile still clinging to Fred's lips, and he remembered all the smiles that had come before it. He remembered Fred's laugh, which was so much a part of him that he was sure he heard it echoing off the endless ceiling of stars above them. He thought of their Quidditch victories and their escape from Umbridge, of the business they had created and the half-finished Exceeding Excellent Ear the two had been working on. It had always been Fred and George, George and Fred, a package deal. As he felt the heat seep out of his twin's cooling body, George wished that it could be Fred and George just one last time, that he could lend his brother some of his own heat and keep him warm.
He was starting to lose control, and he knew it. He could feel the tears burning his eyes at last, and he wouldn't be able to hold onto them much longer. He tightened his grip on Fred's hand.
"Don't leave me," he whispered, his voice breaking. A single tear fell from his eye and landed on Fred's pale cheek. It gave the illusion that Fred was crying too, that he was mourning the separation with his brother as well. George guessed that this was appropriate; they had always done everything together, so why should this be any different?
George rested his forehead on Fred's and let go. Tears poured from him as he let out a low, guttural sound that was made entirely of anguish. He cried and cried, and Fred cried with him, their last shared act as Fred and George. Even through the flood of tears George could see the ghost of a smile that lit his brother's face. The game was over, but George couldn't help smiling back one last time.