In the corner of his eye, there had been a flash of green light.
It's just the stress, it meant nothing, it meant nothing...
His head was shielded, his eyes were facing the ground, hands over his neck. There was no way to see most of what was happening in the space around him, so he could only hear. Footsteps, curses, crashes, screams; his own heartbeat, at least just as loud inside his throat. A sickeningly warm feeling in his belly, a dizziness in his head, the urge to throw up his insides, to spill it all over the ground, but yet, his mouth was dry. Somewhere inside him, there was the want to call out for his brother. Fred, he might have called, if only he could see where he was.
He didn't say a word, not a single thing out loud.
Silence.
One minute, two minutes, three; he stopped taking track by then, and after a long enough while, even the last rushing footsteps had finally disappeared, the last spell had been cast. Slowly, George lifted his eyelids, blinking wetly as he adjusted to the blinding, white light. Tears formed in the effort, and he wiped them off, as he finally found the courage to lift himself up from his hiding position.
There was nothing around him that could remind him of Hogwarts, anymore, only destruction.
Shattered pieces of wood were scattered over the ground, overturned tables, and chairs, broken pieces of glass laid out like traps onto their sharp edges. George was only faintly aware of the other people who, just like him, were only now coming out of their shock, looking around. The ground was sticky and wet, blood. A battlefield.
Taking a few steps forward, he went toward the spot where he remembered last seeing his brother in the heat of events. „Fred!", he called, this time out loud, and his voice had a certain edge to it, of impatience, annoyance.
In the midst of that sentence, his feet met a solid surface; solid yet soft. George looked down.
His breath caught in his throat at what he saw.
Red.
His face felt broken, a physical crack between him and his expression. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly, his jaw repeated the motion, and finally, his mouth formed into a toothy grin that did not reach his eyes. A painful dissonance to the sight in front of him.
His brother's eyes were open, painted red by the blood that was slowly running down his forehead. George fell to his knees, one arm numbly reaching down the large gash beneath his hairline. He was still wearing the same unearthly grin on his face when his fingers touched the blood. It was morphing into a grimace when he let his hand fully delve into the flesh of the wound, to cover it in family's blood.
And that bloody idiot didn't even stir.
A noise was ringing in his ear; laughter. It erupted from his belly like vomit, overdue, after the eighth glass of firewhiskey, and he couldn't hold it back. Yet instead of the acid sting of gut, bile, and the last thing he had eaten, the only smell that reached his nose was a subtle hint of copper, and salt. His breath hitched in erratic pattern, his laughter roared like it had erupted from a madman, and it was screaming, yelling in fanatical chords - Now isn't that hilarious? This is my twin laying here!
His hand was shaking, and he pulled it back. It could not bear the contact much longer, yet the separation made his stomach revolt, and put an aching pressure to his neck. There was no way to get hold of his laughter, it just didn't stop, and in the midst of it, his palm, drenched in blood, rested on his own forehead. It was covering his eyes, and slowly, he let it slide down his face. George felt the sweat on his skin, dirty, sticky, warm, painting a line down his cheek, his nose, touching his teeth...
Fred Weasley was dead.
That must've been his biggest joke yet.