Written for Defense Against the Dark Arts in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments). This is Part 1 of that Assignment, and Part 2 will be posted as a second chapter to this.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all in this piece. No, not even the plot, I'm sure other people way more invested in Fred have done it even better than I.
He'd be lying if he said it was completely painless. It wasn't. Having an entire bloody wall fall on you is not exactly the most ideal situation.
But at least the pain lasted for only a moment. He was crushed by a wall, and only felt it for a second before he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Like, he couldn't even panic about feeling like he was floating in the middle of nowhere.
And then he woke up. His first thought was, What in the bloody hell? Didn't I just die?
Then he looked around.
He was only feet from his corpse. My corpse, Fred thought uneasily, this is crazy. Am I a ghost? He looked down at himself and found it to be true.
But why would I stay?
As he thought about it, he gazed at his corpse. Percy – bloody Percy – was kneeling over him, and Ron too. Harry and Hermione staggered towards his body, and Harry looked grave and empty, as if a turmoil of emotions were going through his head but he couldn't seem to display them on his face. Hermione had tears in her eyes.
George, he thought suddenly. It seemed like he hadn't much choice in returning, and that was probably the only explanation. He couldn't leave George behind.
But where was he? Fred turned and looked for him before remembering that they had split up.
The one time we split up, and this is what happens, Fred thought in horror.
There was only one thing he could think of doing. He had to find George.