This takes place over a couple of months. Unless specifically specified each section occurs a couple of weeks after the last.

Thank you thank you thank you to Evelyns Journey, fireboltwiccan and ljaybrad all of whom I shameless whored my story out to, begging for them to look it over for me. Special thanks to fireboltwiccan for the title. See I used one, now you don't have to break my teeth!!

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its colour.
W.S. Merwin, "Separation"

-

The towering, crooked house was silent, the way houses usually are at three o'clock in the morning. The fire place that had burnt brightly only a few hours before now sat cold, the burnt logs crumbling into powdery ash. The residents, all eight of them, lay quietly in their respective rooms. Some were talking in hushed voices, some were sleeping and others were staring blankly up at the ceiling. Of the two staring at the ceiling, one was a boy and one was a girl. One's breathing was ragged and choked. The other's deep and even as sleep began to overtake them. Just as the girl was about to close her eyes one final time before sleep took hold, the muffled thump from the next room startled her into an alert awakeness and she sprung out of bed.. Months of being on the run would do that to you. She waited silently to see if anyone else heard the noise and would go and investigate. When she realised that the duty fell to her she sighed wearily and twisted up her hair, using her wand to secure it in place. She glanced over at the other occupant in the room and observed her sleeping soundly. She tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her and skipping lightly over the floorboard that creaked on her way to the room down the hall where the noise had issued from. Where once it was called the Twins' room or jokingly 'the Lab' now it was called the Dark Room; an instant depression settling over anyone who came near it. It wasn't to do with one of the former residents of the room, now passed out of this world. It had to do with the one that had returned. His sadness and his grief filling the room til it seeped out through the cracks in the door and the floorboards, taking hold of anyone who got too close. Steeling herself against the wave that would hit her in the next step the girl soldiered on closer until she could hear the muffled sounds of a broken man crying.

Hermione didn't bother to knock; she knew she would get no response. She pushed the door open and took in the room. The walls, floor and ceiling were charred and stained. She sighed. One half was like it had been months ago when the house was abandoned; a Gryffindor banner hang over the bed, various posters of Quidditch teams hung on the walls and on the small nightstand a couple of pictures sat framed. In one two identical boys waved happily at the camera, standing out the front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezers. The other half of the room was a clutter of clothes, broken objects and general rubbish. The bed was a tangled mess of blankets and sheets, the pillow discarded on the floor. By it, on his hands and knees, hyperventilating and sobbing was George. Hermione kneeled beside him and forced him to look at her.

"Breathe," she said calmly.

George shook his head, not able to communicate any other way.

"George, listen to me," Hermione said in the same calm voice. "You're going to be fine but I need you to copy me." She pursed her lips like she was blowing out a candle and stared George in the eye until he copied her. His tears still flowing he watched Hermione's lips and copied her, taking shallow breaths. When his breathing had calmed his limbs failed him and he sunk to the ground and rolled onto his back. He stared at the ceiling once more, like he had been for the past hour and his tears dripped freely onto the hard wooden floor. Hermione sat next to him and after a while he pulled her down beside him so her bushy head was resting on his arm. He needed to feel another body in the room, if only for a minute. He needed to take comfort in something material if only for a moment.

George turned to Hermione and buried his face in her hair, his tears lost in her curls. Hermione, though shocked, wrapped her arms around him and whispered comforting words in his ear. He relaxed and the tears stopped before he abruptly pushed her away so hard she slip a couple of feet across the polished wooden floor.

Hermione sat up so that she was leaning over George.

"Thanks," he murmured. "Now get out."

"George let me help you…" Hermione begged softly. She hated the helpless feeling she got whenever she was around George. She knew she could help if he just let her. Not even her, anyone.

George reached for her and Hermione thought he might agree for a moment but then his hand dropped and he turned his head to look out the window.

"I'm fine, now leave me alone." Hermione hesitated, reluctant to leave him.

Eventually she sighed and left him to his self-pity. She made her way back to the room she shared with Ginny, skipping over the creaking floorboard.

"Hermione said she saw you last night," Ginny said.

"Don't sit there!" George yelled at Ginny just as she was about to sit on Fred's bed. He jumped up and smoothed down the invisible creases in the blanket where her leg had grazed the bedding. Ginny frowned at the somewhat crazy behaviour of her brother. She sat on the edge of the desk and watched as George tidied Fred's untouched side of the room before moving back to his side.

"George," she began. "You've got to stop this. You haven't let anyone near any of his stuff, you make mum bring up two plates of everything; you fix his bed if a fly lands on it. Look around, he's gone. He is not coming back!"

It tore at Ginny's heart to say this out loud but her brother needed to hear it. He had seen Fred's body, been to his funeral and seen it lowered into the ground yet George was living in denial, acting as if Fred had never left.

"Charlie said you've been talking to yourself again," Ginny continued when George didn't say anything. She watched as he tidy up his side of the room, throwing clothes into the hamper and repairing objects. He ignored her and just kept sorting through all the rubbish.

"No one wants to come in here. You grief has manifested and it takes a person over. Hermione's still in bed, depressed. You can't keep living like this. It's sending you crazy." And Mum towards a breakdown, she added mentally.

"I talk to Fred," George muttered, sorting through some parchments.

"What?" Ginny asked, not catching what he said. George put down the parchment and turned to the window and began running his wand over it, cleaning off the layers of dust and grime left over from their experiments. His back was to Ginny and she couldn't see his face.

"I said I talk to Fred, I don't talk to myself," he added, starting on the various stains on the floor; the ceiling he left alone.

"He can't answer you," Ginny yelled, getting angry now. They were all hurting and the weight of having to look after George was putting a serious strain on their mother. "He's dead George, he's not a ghost; he's just gone. Gone, gone, gone!"

Slap.

"Leave me alone!" George sneered as he retreated into the corner of the room.

Holding her cheek Ginny quickly exited the room; there was nothing more she could do.

Molly piled two plates full of food she knew would hardly be eaten and started on the journey up the stairs to her son's room. That was son's, not sons'. She knew her son was gone. Her Freddy. This was George's room now. This was the first time she had come up to the room in a couple of weeks, Ginny and Hermione insisting she needed a break. They were right. Constant exposure to the Dark Room had left her terribly depressed, on edge and her sleep full of nightmares. She stepped over the creaky floorboard and knocked lightly on the door. She was surprised when Hermione answered the door. As she stepped into the room to place the plates on the table she tried to hid her shock. The room was clean. All of George's mess was picked up and he had even managed to remove the stains from the floor and walls, something she had failed to do and had planned to paint over. Hermione moved the book she had been reading from the table and placed it at the foot of George's bed where he was lying on his stomach, reading an old Quidditch magazine. They hadn't been talking, just reading; existing in the same room together.

Molly smiled sadly at Hermione. She couldn't help it. Anything done in the Dark Room was done sadly. Hermione smiled sadly back.

Molly wanted to ask a million questions. What was Hermione doing there being number one on her list. No-one 'hung out' in the dark room. George wouldn't let them for starters and prolonged exposure to the room would pull you down into a depression sometimes taking days to get out of. She hadn't seen Hermione all afternoon and could only presume she'd been in here the whole time. Come to think of it, Hermione hadn't been around much at all these past couple of weeks except at dinner time. Whenever she questioned Ginny or the boys they simply said she was reading.

Molly studied George as he sat down at the table to have his dinner, wordlessly pulling out the chair beside him for Hermione to sit at.

At the sight of this, this display of something other then the crippling grief George usually displayed Molly presently bust into tear and fled the room.

George began eating, ignoring the bushy haired girl beside him but taking comfort from her presence.

Charlie sat up late one night unable to sleep, listening to the rain pounding on the roof. He was at a loss. He didn't know what to do with his life. After the war dragon taming just didn't hold his passion the way it used to. He'd been running Weasley's Wizard Wheezes but he was no inventor and without some input from George he didn't know how long he could do that for. It hurt him to be in the shop and could completely understand why George didn't want to go back. The place was Fred. It radiated his spirit. The customers had set up a board with messages to and about Fred on an unused section of wall in the shop.

It was hard for Charlie to look at George. Whenever he did he saw the brother he lost. He wondered if it was the same for everyone else. He wondered if George knew why no-one but Hermione looked him in the eye anymore. But yes, Charlie thought, he must. I mean, there's a reason his mirror is smashed to pieces; sprinkled on the floor like windows to the past.

Getting up, he made a beeline to George's room down the hall. Something had to be done about his little brother. He couldn't keep going on like this. Hermione had stayed in bed for three days after she had spent the afternoon with him. Ginny had taken Hermione's wand off her in case she tried to hurt herself.

He knocked lightly on the door but doubted George could hear him over the rain. He pushed the door open slightly and peeked in only to discover that George was asleep. Charlie frowned. George never slept. He was like the living dead, comatose half the day because he never got any sleep. Pushing open the door he walked over to get a better look at the sleeping George.

"Dreamless Sleeping Potion," he read the label on the phial by the bed. That was a good sign. It meant that George was trying. Trying to get better and he knew sleep was the way to start that process.

"I drugged him," Hermione said from the doorway.

Or not.

"That's not healthy," Charlie chastised turning to her, though really he was angry at himself for not thinking of it.

"Do you know what it's taken for me to get him to even let me spend time in there? Not talking or interacting, just being in there with him? You all think he just needs time to work through it. Well guess what? He's had enough time and it's becoming a problem. He's sick Charlie, he needs help. I was with him since Tuesday after noon. I only left his side to go to the toilet or shower. In fifty-six hours he would have slept a total of maybe four. He needed sleep and if you lot won't do what needs to be done then someone has to," Hermione whispered furiously. She shoved her wand at him.

"Here, it's not safe for me to have it after I've been spending time with George. The things I think and the emotions I feel... I can only imagine what he's going through."

"Where's Hermione?" George asked Harry four days later. Harry and Ron had been bringing him his meals and he hadn't seen Hermione since she had drugged him.

"Well…"

Harry swapped a look with Ron who lingered by the doorway. Ron nodded subtly and Harry continued.

"She's in the hospital. She - she tried to kill herself."

"What?" George demanded, sitting up in bed. "Why?" He looked to Ron when Harry didn't explain further.

"Why do you think?" Ron yelled suddenly. "She spends all her time in here with you! She's trying to help you and you couldn't care less. It's not working! I don't know why she even bothers."

"Ron…" Harry cautioned. He knew about guilt. George would be feeling it enough without having Ron rub it in.

"She tried to kill herself because she doesn't think she's helping? But I've been trying. I let her spend time in here with me…" George trailed off.

"Exactly! She did it because of this room. It's toxic! It's like poison George. It seeps into us like death. And you fuel it! It's like this because of you."

Ron stomped angrily away, deliberately planting his foot on the floorboard that usually squeaked except today it didn't dare.

"Is she alright?" George asked Harry quietly.

"She slit her wrists in the bathtub in the middle of the night; what do you think?"

Harry followed Ron's lead and stomped out of the room too.

George lay back on his bed, ignoring the food the boys had brought him. The tiny bit of calm he'd been feeling when Hermione stayed with him evaporated and a new heavier feeling settled over his heart, joining his grief until it almost strangled him; guilt. Not giving it a second thought he flew down the stairs, determined to go to Hermione but when he reached the bottom of the stairs his feet refused to take another step. As much as he willed it, his body just refused to cross the threshold into the rest of the house. He couldn't do it. Banging he head against the wall in frustration George gave up and returned to his room. He slammed the door and sunk to the floor against it, sucking in great lungfuls of air.

Ron had come down the stairs at the sound of the door slamming to investigate, tears still making tracks down his face. He hated his brother for doing this to Hermione. He hated that she had taken it upon herself to 'save' George. And as he stood on the other side of George's door listening to his brother's strangled cries he hated that he didn't have the strength to do it himself.

Angelina picked her way through the mess of George's room until she reached him where he was slumped in the corner staring blankly at nothing.

"What are you doing, George?" she asked kneeling beside him. He looked at her, his eyes bloodshot and puffy from lack of sleep and tears.

"I don't know," he whispered. She sat down next to him amongst the mess that had re-accumulated and leaned against the wall. Together they gazed across at Fred's side of the room.

They sat there, staring until the sun faded and the room turned dark. The moon shone brightly but its silvery rays didn't seem to penetrate the Dark Room and the two sat in darkness.

"I killed her," George's voiced echoed through the blackness.

"You mean him?" Angelina asked, confused. From what the Weasley's had told her he was harbouring delusions, not guilt.

"George, you didn't kill your brother; you weren't even near Fred."

"No," George shook his head. "I killed her."

Hermione, Angelina realised.

"She's not dead," Angelina said, horrified that someone had misinformed him.

"I know. But she could have been. If Harry hadn't found her…"

They resumed their silence again and Angelina felt the room's spell start to take hold.

"I can't stay for much longer,' she said, staring at a Gryffindor banner over Fred's bed that she could just make out in the dark.

She sensed George nodding beside her.

"He was in a dream I had the other night. We were at the Yule Ball again. He loved to dance," Angelina laughed sadly at the memory.

"Yeah," George smiled slightly. "He loved to get his groove on."

More silence.

"I talk to him," George confessed.

"Does he answer?"

"Not anymore."

"Have you seen her?" George asked. He had no new from the outside. No one sat with him anymore. They never really did but since the incident with Hermione they would just drop his food off and go again. He hadn't seen her in weeks.

"No, she went to get her parents I think."

George nodded.

Angelina reached for his hand and squeezed it. She stood up and stopped by the door, making out George's figure in the shadows as the light from the hall shone in.

"This room will kill you," she said before she shut the door behind her, cutting off the light.

George sat for hours after Angelina had left in the same position. The room slowly grew light as the sun's harsh rays penetrated the Dark Room. And still he stared.

It was well past midnight when Hermione arrived at the Burrow, portkeying straight there from Australia. She smiled at Ginny when she let her in and declined the invitation for company. Ginny nodded and headed back to bed. Her parents had decided to stay in Australia and though she was happy for them, returning to England without them broke her heart. The house sat silent as she made a cup of tea and went to sit in front of the dying fire.

George made his way down the stairs, pausing at the last, the familiar barrier stopping him from continuing further.

He was starving. Literally. Since Angelina's visit his family had stopped bringing him food. That was nearly sixdays ago and he had finally reached breaking point, determined to go and get his own food. Hand on his hips he started at the bottom step.

But no matter what he did he just couldn't get into the lounge room.

From her vantage point on the couch Hermione watched as George stood at the bottom of the stairs, one off from the floor, and stared determinedly at his feet. More then once his body lurched forward but still his feet remained rooted to the step. George turned and started back up the stairs. Hermione was about to call out when suddenly George came running down the stairs, tripping on the last one and crashed to the ground. With incredibly fast reflexes Hermione cast a silencing spell at George and the house remained oblivious, still cloaked in calm.

"They starved me out," he explained when he and Hermione were finally seated across from each other at the kitchen table, a sandwich in front of each of them.

"I told them to," she said, calmly taken a bit of her sandwich.

They sat in silence a while, eating there sandwiches. Hermione took their plates to the sink when they were done.

"I – I'm sorry," George stuttered. They were sitting on that damned bottom step, George not ready to go back to his room yet, Hermione keeping him company.

Hermione lifted up her wrists so the thin white scars appeared silver in the moonlight shining through the window.

"It's not your fault, though I doubt that will help."

He ran his finger gently over the scars, guilt washing over him until he could barely breathe. He'd been crying for weeks, months and just when he thought he had used up his last reserve of tears he started again. It was all just too much; his family had given up on him, he'd nearly killed Hermione, Lee still hadn't been up to see him even though he knew he spent nearly every breakfast there – he watched him walk up the drive to the back door. And on top of all that, all that failure that his life had become he still couldn't believe that Fred was really gone.

"He doesn't answer," he sobbed into Hermione's shoulder. "He's stopped answering."

He rubbed his back and brushed some hair out of his face.

"That's because he's gone."

Okay, George thought, this is it. I'm going to go down to the kitchen and have breakfast.

Last night had been the first step. Well, rather the first fall. He and Hermione didn't go back to his room. He couldn't. He could not physically force himself to go back through the doors Being away was like have a veil lifted from his eyes. He had finally accepted the truth his mind had denied; his twin brother was dead.

He'd spent the night in Hermione's room, formally Percy's. They had sat, much like he and Angelina had, not saying anything, George taking comfort in her presence once again. She'd left him about ten minutes ago after his mother called that breakfast was ready. She hadn't demanded that he come or offer to bring food back; the choice was his and he was determined to take the next step.

Charlie looked up as Fred came through the door. No, not Fred; George. Everyone stared as he calmly sat down in his old seat and reached for some food. Across the table Hermione smiled at him and Molly resisted the urge to fling herself at her son. Conversation started up again and George sat quietly eating his breakfast. When he was done he returned to Hermione's room. As soon as he closed the door he slumped to his knees. That one small act filled him with guilt. Fred will never have his mum's eggs again. He'll never go to the shop or pull another prank. He'll never get to fall in love and have babies with a beautiful woman. He'll never get to grow old.

George didn't hear the door behind him open. He did however look up when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Lee," he breathed, looking up at his dreadlocked friend. Lee kneeled down so he was face to face with George, the first time he had seen him in months. His hair had grown past his shoulders and his face was covered in what would be considered a beard in another week or so.

They didn't say anything. No one had a lot to say to George. His grief was contagious, leaving you speechless and depressed. Lee knew the twins better then anyone and he knew what this was doing to George. But he just couldn't bring himself to go and see him. Every morning he would come and have breakfast with them, stand at the kitchen door for a moment before leaving again.

Like George couldn't come down the stairs, Lee couldn't go up. That was until he had caught the back of George's head leaving the kitchen and Hermione had shocked everyone by informing him that George would be in her room.

The two men looked into each others eyes and grief and understanding passed between them.

Lee was the first to crack, tears springing to his eyes.

And suddenly the tables were turned and it was George's turn to comfort another. At a loss for what to do he enveloped his friend in a rough hug, viciously swiping at his own tears, murmuring all those comforting words people had been drilling into him for months.

Eventually Lee broke away and they resumed their positions from before, Lee's hands on George's shoulders.

"You need to stop this. It's killing you."

"It's hard, Hermione. Living, breathing, talking. It's hard. I don't think it will ever not be hard."

They were on their step again, the last one before the floor.

Upstairs the floorboard squeaked as someone walked down the hall.

The sun was shining brightly outside and they could see Ron, Ginny, Harry and Charlie playing a pick-up game of Quidditch.

"It's supposed to be hard. If life was easy everyone would do it," she joked.

George laughed, "Your logic does not resemble mine."

"It got a laugh, I don't care." She nodded and the matter was settled.

George turned serious again.

"I don't know if I can do this; living." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Right now I'm dealing by thinking well I'll just make it through the next second and the next one and the one after that. I'm fully aware of exactly what is missing every moment of every day and it feels like my heart has exploded."

"'Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.' Edna St Vincent Millay." Hermione offered George a weak smile.

George smiled sadly back and rested his head against the wall.

"Will you help me?" he asked, looking at Hermione.

"With what?" she asked, confused.

"Living."

The house was silent, the way houses usually are at three o'clock in the morning. The fire place that had burnt brightly only a few hours before now sat cold, the burnt logs crumbling into powdery ash. The residents, all eight of them, lay quietly in their respective rooms. Some were talking, some were sleeping and others were staring at each other. Of the two staring, one was a boy and one was a girl. Their breathing was quick and shallow. Down the hall a girl was about to close her eyes one final time before sleep took hold when the muffled thump from the next room startled her into an alert awakeness. She waited silently to see if anyone else heard the noise and was going to investigate. When she realised that the duty was hers she sighed wearily and twisted up her hair, using her wand to secure it in place. She tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her and skipping over the floorboard that creaked on her way to the room down the hall. Where once it was called Percy's room and then, Hermione's Room it now was jokingly called the Lovers' Room. It had to do with the fact that one resident in particular spent more time in there then in his own room.

Preparing to open the door the girl braced herself for whatever she would find in there and soldiered on closer until she could hear the muffled sounds of two people in pain.

Great, she thought, they're fighting again. They're worse then when she fights with Ron. Must be a Weasley Male thing.She swung open the door only to find not a fighting couple but her brother and her best friend tangled in the bed sheets on the floor next to the bed, their naked bodies wrapped around each other.

"Ginny!" George and Hermione screamed at the same time. "Get out!"

Thought I would end on a light note.