Late June 1998
George Weasley walked into the showroom at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. The shop had been shuttered and closed for the last six months after he and Fred had gone on the run from the Death Eaters. The shop looked like it was actually in pretty good shape, all told. He, Fred, and Bill had left some pretty nasty surprises for anyone who tried to break in. He waved his wand and the lights over the cash stand came on. He walked up the winding staircase to the door leading to the workrooms, running his fingers over the smooth wood as he went. It gave him a good feeling, one of the few he'd had in the last month.
The door to the workrooms was closed and locked. It had been the last thing Fred had done when they left. He had sealed it magically so nobody short of God could have gotten in without simply blowing the building up. He pulled a simple key out of the pocket of his scarlet waistcoat, crouched down and held it just so to the hidden lock at the base of the doorjamb. It had been Bill's idea to hide it in the bottom left corner where no one would look for a lock.
George stood back up and unlocked the normal lock, then turned the handle. There was a hallway leading to five workrooms. The first one on the left was usually used to adapt muggle tech and toys to something the wizarding world could use. The first one on the right was a fully-equipped potions lab that would have made even Snape green with envy if he had ever been allowed to see it, the great git.
The other two along the hall weren't devoted to any one particular purpose, but the last workroom belonged to Fred and George. They had started developing their products in their room at the Burrow and found they still worked best together even with all of the executive stuff they'd had to deal with.
George opened the workroom with the last password, bromista, the Spanish word for "Prankster". He looked around the room as he walked in. Half-finished projects lay on the two tables the twins used. A locked cabinet held their development notebooks. There was an idea board on the wall that held pictures for inspiration and problem solving. George walked over to Fred's desk and picked a set of fake teeth. Fred had purchased the muggle gag gift with the vague notion of seeing if he could enchant them to say different things.
George put them down and reached for the framed picture hung above the desk smack in the middle of the corkboard. It was a muggle picture of the entire Weasley family at the grand opening of the store taken with a camera Lee had brought with him for laughs. Even Percy was in it, looking pained at being seen in such an undignified location. George ran his fingers over the grinning face that mirrored his own. His heart slammed into his chest as the pain of losing the one person in the world who knew his mind and soul better than he did himself washed over him again.
He had known it would be hard to come back here, but this had been his dream as much as it had been Fred's. As painful as it would be to be here every day, he knew there was no choice. The store would open again. He would go back to creating new products for the store. Life would have to go on, in its own fickle way. George let his fingers drop from Fred's grinning face and turned away from his brother's desk. He sighed. "Ah, Freddie, this isn't going to be easy."
"Whoever said it was supposed to be?" George turned toward the door at the question. He could have sworn he'd just heard Fred's voice.
He shook his head at the empty doorway. "Great. Now you're cracking up, George Weasley."
"Nah. You did that years ago, mate." This time the voice came from his left. He looked over at the desk he'd just left. A hazy form sat perched on Fred's desk. It was tall and lanky with the vaguest hint of red hair. The ghost, for that's exactly what it was, just lifted a hand and waved at his brother. "Hiya, Georgie."
"Fred? Is that you?" George couldn't believe his eyes. Oh, sure, he'd had fun interacting with the ghosts at Hogwarts, but he'd never expected this. He couldn't help but reach out for the hazy ghost, not yet solid enough to make out features clearly. The ghost reached out and passed his hand through George's. It was cold and sent a shiver up George's spine.
"It's really me, Georgie. I'm here."
Tears stung George's face as he and his brother kept their hands touching. George would gladly deal with a spine-tingling chill if it meant he had his brother back. "Are you here for good, Freddie?" he asked.
"Sort of." Fred jumped and glided off the desk and stumbled as he landed. "Have to get the hang of this," he muttered to himself as George chuckled at the clumsy ghost.
"What do you mean by 'sort of'?"
George watched his brother's apparition get clearer and more distinct and settled on the chair to watch Fred prowl the room as he talked. "Well, here's how it works, George. I had a choice. Go on or come back. The way I saw it, that was no choice at all." Fred's face was clear enough now that George could see ghostly tears in his brother's eyes. "I couldn't leave you and the rest. Not yet, anyway."
George nodded. The family was everything to the Weasley clan. "Why'd you wait so long to show up? Mum is a mess."
"I know. I couldn't help it, though. I had to build up enough strength to show myself. I'm almost tapped out right now as it is so I'm going to have to go invisible again in a bit." Fred shook his head.
George looked confused. "But Nick and the Fat Friar-"
"Were centuries old." Fred finished his brother's thought. "Nick's been helping me, actually. I think he likes the idea of another Gryffindor ghost, although, for some reason, I'm not actually tied to Hogwarts."
George grinned at the possibilities. "Where can you go?"
Fred grinned back. "Here, obviously. Hogwarts and the Burrow." Fred's grin died. "I've been watching Mum. I couldn't talk to her until I…"
"Talked to me."
"Yeah."
The brothers stared at each other, words unnecessary even between two brothers separated by the Veil of Death.
"I'll lock up. Are you still strong enough to see her?"
Fred nodded. "I can last maybe another two hours or so."
George grinned. "I'll just tell everyone they're needed at the Burrow now." He chuckled. "Grand entrance or subtle?"
His brother grinned back. "What else, Georgie?"
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Molly Weasley was not pleased with her fifth son. He'd sent a rather cryptic floo message telling her he needed an emergency family conference, but hadn't told her anything else. If it hadn't been for the grin on George's face she would have told him off via floo. However, she had seen so few smiles on George's face lately that she'd been too surprised to get much in.
She heard the distant pops of apparating people as Bill and Fleur showed up at her door. She greeted them with hugs and kisses even as more pops happened outside her garden. Within fifteen minutes the whole family had arrived, except for the man who had called the damn meeting in the first place.
Percy flipped open the watch his parents had given him on his seventeenth birthday for the tenth time in as many minutes. He shook his head and tutted as he asked the question each of them had asked at least once. "Truly, no one has any clue what this is all about? I have a meeting in an hour."
Harry shook his head as he munched on a biscuit Molly had produced for her continually hungry brood. "He went to the shop alone today, that's all we know."
Molly put her hands on Arthur's shoulders as she said, "He was smiling."
"Are you kidding, Mum? He was grinning ear to ear when he got hold of me at the Ministry." Charlie's arrival had been a complete surprise since Molly hadn't known he was back in England in the first place. "It was like the old George…" Charlie trailed off as a pop sounded outside the house. All of the people in the parlor turned as one toward the door and waited for their errant brother.
"Ah, good. You're all here already," George said as he saw the assemblage. He looked behind himself, grinned and carefully shut the door.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You demanded we all come here at once, George, even Harry and I."
George reached over and slung his arm around the brunette's shoulders. "Well, Hermione, I needed all the family together and as much as it pains me to think you've been silly enough to fall for that idiot brother of mine…" George ignored Ron's cry of 'Oi!' as he spoke over it, "you're family. Same with Harry."
"Although, I still say we need to take him out to Dad's workshop and have a talk with him about how to correctly treat our baby sister. Right, George?" The people gathered in the room started as the ghost of Fred Weasley came striding through the closed door to finish his brother's sentence.
Every voice in the room but the twins' shouted at once, "Fred!" Molly's hands clutched her husband's shoulders to help herself stay upright as the ghost of her dead son came into the house grinning. No one moved otherwise. None of them even knew what to say as he walked (or was it glided?) around the room to stand before his parents.
"Hi, Mum. Hi, Dad." His grin faded as he waited for their reaction. "I'm sorry it took so long for me to show up, Mum."
Molly took her trembling hands from her husband's shoulders and walked around the chair to stand before Fred's ghost. She lifted her hand and laid it along the edges of Fred's ghostly cheek. She smiled tenderly even as a chill ran through her from contact with his ghostly skin. "Oh, sweetheart." Tears ran freely down her cheeks.
Arthur stood up and placed one hand on Molly's shoulder and touched Fred's with the other, shivering a bit at the contact. "Fred. How?"
Fred smiled at his parents, ghostly tears glistening on his cheeks. "I chose to come back as a ghost. What else could I do? I couldn't just leave this ugly git, could I?" Fred gestured backwards to his twin.
Arthur smiled at his ghostly son, nodding. "Welcome home, son."
"Thanks, Dad."
The awkwardness was broken and all of Fred's siblings, including Hermione and Harry, started talking all at once and crowded around the ghost. The Weasley family may have changed, but they were finally all together again.