The Lone Weasley Twin
Summary: Explains what becomes of George after Fred's death
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters (except those I make up… like George's kids).
A/N: I tried very, very hard not to include slash in this and I'm not sure I totally eliminated it, but I put up a valiant effort. I think if you squint a lot and use your imagination and grasp at a few swirly-straws, you may be able to see some slash. Kinda. If you're, well, like me.
More than anyone else, George Weasley was the most effected by Fred's death, and with good reason. For nineteen years, they'd never really been apart. They had shared the womb, a bedroom at the Burrow, the house dormitory, a room at the House of Black, and the little studio apartment above the joke shop. Their minds seemed to be one, so alike they finished one another's sentences and could have whole conversations with simple looks.
George had known immediately when Fred had died. He'd felt it, like he'd lost part of himself. Something that was more apart of him than his lost ear. He felt the awareness at the back of his head –the one he had always known to be Fred –rip away from him, their connection break, followed by an almost overwhelming urge to follow his brother for one more great adventure.
He might have passed out because he didn't remember the rest of the battle, not Harry's supposed death or the final destruction of Voldemort. He didn't really remember anything prior to Fred's funeral, but he could remember looking down at his brother's still body and breaking down into sobs. He didn't know how to go on without his twin.
Lee Jordan became a pillar of support that George clung to. Lee had been Fred's best friend, George aside, and had been broken as well for a long time, nearly as lost as George himself. But, slowly, Lee moved on past the grief whereas George fell further and further within his own, utterly lost without Fred.
No one had seen George Weasley so much as smile in the two years it took Harry to ask Ginny to marry him. George had attended the wedding and offered them quiet congratulations, but no emotion crossed his face. Afterwards, he returned to his cold apartment and stared at the wall. Beneath him, the joke shop had been closed since the battle. George couldn't bare to enter the shop, nor could he stand to sell it. It had been their dream, his and Fred's. It seemed wrong to continue on without him, yet he couldn't let it go, either.
The Weasley family, from Aunt Muriel down to Fleur, Harry, and Hermione, watched George fade away, severely saddened but unable to think of what to say or do. George rarely spoke to anyone, usually only his parents or, for some odd reason, Percy.
A few months after Harry and Ginny's wedding, Hogwarts' new Headmistress McGonagall offered Mr. Weasley the position of Muggle Studies Professor. He was utterly delighted, but accepted only with the condition that George would be allowed to go with him so he could continue watching over his son. Minerva agreed.
The problem was, George didn't particularly like Hogwarts anymore. It wasn't the same without Fred. There was no one to sneak off to Hogsmeade with, no one to nick food from the kitchens with, no one to bug Filch with. The Weasley twins had been the best beaters Hogwarts had ever seen, but without Fred, George found Quidditch utterly pointless. It didn't help that George usually felt a bit nauseated by the fact that Hogwarts was where Fred had died.
Usually, George spent his time outside. He'd developed a morbid fascination with the Forbidden Forest and spent almost all of his time within it during the five years he stayed with Arthur at Hogwarts. He learnt its secrets and knew it as well as the centaurs.
He was walking along the outskirts of the forest when he found it. Round, dark green, polished stone. He had no idea what it was, for he'd never really listened when Harry talked about the war, and when he picked it up, he gasped aloud when Fred appeared before him.
Tears swam in his eyes and George thought he might have finally lost it, seeing as he was almost sure his dead brother stood before him.
Fred looked young, like he had the day they'd flown from Hogwarts together. He didn't have any of the weariness the war had brought to his face, only looked carefree and happy, with the mischievous glint in his eyes that George had missed so much.
"Forge! 'Ello, most holey."
"F-Fred? Is it really you?"
"Course it's me! Can't touch yah, mind. I'm still dead. If I weren't, you better believe I wouldda whomped yah by now. Worryin' Mum, barely talkin'. Yeh stopped smiling, George! You promised me, remember? Just like I promised you. We'd keep smiling, no matter what. Yah can't stop livin' just cause I'm dead."
"You don't understand, Fred! You, you were ripped away. I felt you die! And, and nothing funny anymore. Nothings worth smiling about without you."
"Yes, there is!" Fred insisted. "Yes, there is. You lived! Bill and Fleur had a baby, that's worth smiling about. Another Weasley. Ron married Hermione and yeh didn't even tease him! Harry and Gin are raising Teddy well and Gin's gonna have a baby, too… That's worth smiling about. Voldemort's gone and the sun is shining. You gotta go on, you gotta keep smiling for me, George. Smile because I can't but I still wanna."
George nodded slowly, "Okay, Gred."
Fred looked down at the stone in George's hand. "Throw it into the lake and never think about it again."
George nodded and Fred followed him to the lake's edge. Fred smiled brightly at him, eyes twinkling.
"I'll be waitin' for yeh, brother."
"Goodbye," George whispered, voice cracking. He threw the stone as far as he could, Fred disappearing as soon as it left his fingers.
Staring out across the lake, George smiled.
George ran into Parvati Patil at Ron and Hermione's, celebrating their baby. He'd never really known the younger girl outside of the fact that she was a Gryffindor and Ron had dated her best friend, which was why he'd been so surprised when she came up to him.
"You always feel it, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"When you lose a twin. Padma died at the battle of Hogwarts, too."
"Oh… I'm sorry." George realized the girl before him might be the only one that could fully understand his pain.
"Twins of magical birth are linked through more than blood, you know. Their magic is connected… That's what they told me in St. Mungos… I ended up there right after the battle… I wanted to join her."
George didn't say anything more then, but she seemed to understand.
George and Parvati married a year later. She helped him get Weasleys' Wizards Wheezes up and running again and George came to realize his new wife was much better at management than he was. Soon, business was booming again and they were giving Zonko's a run for their money.
Parvati gave birth to twin boys not even a full year after their wedding. Two healthy baby boys named Fredrick and Gregory. Two years later, as if they didn't have their hands full already with their sons who were every bit as mischievous as their father and uncle, Parvati had twin girls, Padma and Penelope, who immediately had their Daddy under their beck and call. George was well aware that he spoiled his girls rotten, but he just didn't care.
Their children grew older and moved on their own, none of them traveling far. Fredrick and Gregory helped with Weasleys' Wizards Wheezes, coming up with ideas that made George proud and put some of his products to shame. They both married and had kids of their own; seven boys between the two, and George and Parvati enjoyed being grandparents. Padma went on to work in for the Ministry as Head of the Department of Mysteries. Penelope married Neville Longbottoms' son and enjoyed being a mother to her six children.
Parvati died first at ninety-seven, passing on peacefully in her sleep. George lived for another seven years before he, too, passed on.
George had always wondered about death, ever since he'd lost Fred. He'd been astounded when he'd opened his eyes to what looked like a fog-filled joke shop.
"'Ello, most holey… Told yah I'd be waitin' for yah."
George grinned when he met Fred's eyes. "Sorry I kept yah waiting, brother."
Fred shrugged. "I've kept myself busy. You're lookin' good…Can't really call yeh holey anymore, though, can I?"
George looked down at himself, astounded to find not his old, wrinkly self but the body he'd had at seventeen. He raised his hand up and laughed when he felt his ear, the one that'd been missing for about ninety years.
"Well, let's go then… Got people to terrorize and you're wife's a waitin'."
George grinned and followed Fred out the door of the shop and continued on.
The End
A/N: Being as it seems that the stories I never mean to make people cry with always seem to make them cry the hardest, I'm sure this was a tear-jerker. At least to a small degree. However, my intent and purpose was never that. Fred and George are right up there with my favourite characters and quite a few of my favourite characters ended up dead. Sirius, Severus, Dobby, Remus, Fred… Only Draco and George ended up living and I intend to write a fic with Draco as a main character eventually, but my I decided I had to write this… Fred and George are usually thought of by a lot of Harry Potter fans as one singular unit. I was sure that after George lost his ear that J.K. wouldn't touch either of them and sobbed my eyes out when Fred died. I was plagued with the question of what would happen to George without Fred, would he be able to cope without his twin… And thus, this was spawned. I hope you all enjoyed it. Its definitely not my best piece of writing, I don't think, but it was rather hard to organise my thoughts so soon after finishing the book. This was completed at about 8:30 pm on the 21st, roughly thirteen hours after I'd finished Deathly Hallows, but I promised a friend I'd let her be the first to read it after she finished the book herself.
For anyone who knows me and what I usually write, I debated heavily whether there'd be any mention of Harry and Ginny together. I absolutely hate Ginny Weasley. Usually, I'm a slasher (though there are a few HP het pairings I like, such as Ron and Hermione or pretty much anyone with Luna) and most prominently I'm a Harry/Draco shipper. I know J.K. was never going to end the series with Harry with Draco, but if he had to be with a girl, why couldn't it have been Luna? Why did it have to be Ginny? Anyway, after much debate, I decided to just ignore my hatred for Ginny and just put them in. For anyone who might have glared at the screen when they read them together, please know that I would have been glaring myself, had it not actually been my own work. I feel your pain and as soon as I work out exactly how I'm going to get Harry and Draco together and still stay as true to Deathly Hallows as I can, I'll have a Harry/Draco fic (a one-shot if nothing else) out there.