Disclaimer: I've been forgetting to write these lately, but to clarify: I don't own Harry Potter, it belongs to the wonderful JKR.
"we are all a little fractured"
no sooner that I have won
i feel the storm clouds plotting against the sun
( oh! hark! ; lisa mitchell )
-:-
Roxanne can't imagine her father's twin. It should be easy – after all, they were identical – but despite the photos and the stories she can't picture him at all. He's insubstantial, like all those who were buried beneath the daisies in the May of '98; they seem more like a dream than reality.
She doesn't miss Frederick Gideon Weasley, not like those who knew him. She doesn't even see her father as particularly broken, because George isn't half of a matching pair to her, he's just 'dad'; he's complete the way he is because she's never known anything different. He is perfect as he is.
Sometimes she tries to envisage a world with her uncle Fred, but she's never quite able to manage it. So she listens to the tales, and each year holds her brother's hand when they visit the cemetery on the first day of April. She bows her head at Christmas respectfully hearing grace recited before everybody tucks into Gamma Weasley's luncheon, and in the sitting room she gazes in silent wonder at the enormous grandfather clock, one of its hands pointing to the ground.
Roxanne thinks of Freddie, her own brother, and can't imagine what it would be like to lose him.
When George finds her, she is sitting cross-legged before the clock, looking thoughtfully up at its face. A flicker of pain passes through his blue eyes as he takes in the single clock hand held separate from the cluster reading Home, but he squats beside his ten year old daughter nonetheless, not wanting to seem affected for her sake.
"Are you ready to go?"
Roxanne looks away from the clock to his face and nods. Standing primly, she straightens her dress, but then she turns to hug him, her arms wrapping around his neck. He rises, holding her close.
"I'm sorry, dad," she whispers into his shoulder.
"Me too," George says simply.
End.
Read and Review responsibly, please and thank you.