Just a small one-shot of something I thought should've happened after the wizarding war. Enjoy and please let me know what you think.
~The Lonely Geek
In memory
"You would've hated this. Everyone moping around because of you," George whispered. He bent down and placed a skiving snack box in front of the gravestone. "I miss you Freddy."
"You're right," A familiar voice from behind George said as George stood back up again. George spun around to see his twin standing in front of him.
"I-I, how are you here?" He asked, stunned. Fred had died 6 months ago in the Battle of Hogwarts. This wasn't possible. Fred couldn't have come back after this long.
"I'm not here," Fred replied, laughing slightly at George's confused expression. "I'm inside your head. No one else can see me."
"How?" George asked, looking around to make sure that no one was nearby.
"You needed me." Fred replied simply. Tears started to run down George's face as anger bubbled up through him.
"I needed you the day that you died. I needed you every day since. We all needed you." He screamed, running forwards, his hand raised to hit Fred.
"Because I'm still dead. You needed to grieve George. I may be here, but you needed time." He replied calmly. "You have every right to be angry, but if I could go back and not fight in the battle, I still would've fought. It was the right thing to do."
"It should've been me." George told him but Fred shook his head.
"You're strong enough to get through this. I don't think I would've been able to if it had been the other way round." Fred told him. "Besides, there's a reason why I'm here."
"What is it?"
"You were right, I don't want people moping around. We need to make them laugh again, which reminds me. You are not going to close our shop like you told everyone you were planning on doing. That was our legacy, with or without me, that needs to continue."
"But... it's so difficult. I'm going to sell up and do what mum always wanted and join the ministry. I'll probably have to redo my OWLs and take my NEWTs, but it's what's best."
"No it's not. Since when has anything stopped us causing mayhem. My death is not going to stop that. Just think about it, please?" Fred asked him.
"Fine," George sighed. "Why are you here then?"
"I think it's been far too long since people have had a laugh. We're going to do a prank, our biggest and best yet." Fred told him.
"Why? What's the point?"
"I want you to do it in my memory. When people think of me, I don't want them to cry, I want them to remember the smiles that we put on their faces."
"That's what makes us sad though, Freddy, we know that you'll never put another smile on our face again." George argued.
"Well this one needs to be the best ever then. I have a few ideas already," Fred grinned at his twin. "Come on, let's get back to the shop and we can work it all out there."
A month later
"Ready Freddy?" George grinned at Fred before he walked into the kitchen of the Burrow.
"When am I not?" He replied.
"Big day ahead," Mrs Weasley said to George. He had told his family that he wanted to redo his fifth year at Hogwarts and had written to Mcgonagall who agreed to let him, though he wouldn't actually stay at Hogwarts. "Make sure you eat plenty."
"I know mum," George replied.
"I'm so proud of you. Going back to school and redoing your OWLs. After..." She trailed off and choked back a sob. "Fred, I thought that you may end up throwing your life away, but your being so mature. My little boy has grown up." George smiled at her, wondering what she was going to say to him when she found out about the series of pranks him and Fred had planned for the day ahead. He grabbed a couple of slices of toast.
"I should go mum, don't want to make a bad impression," He told her and she snorted.
"They've already taught you for nearly seven years George," Mrs Weasley laughed slightly. "They already know what trouble you got up to." She walked over to him and gave him a hug that nearly crushed him.
"Oww, mum, I'll be back later when lessons have finished." He smiled fondly down at her.
"Mr Weasley, on time for possibly the first time." Mcgonagall smiled at him as he came out from the fireplace in her office. "Here's your timetable." She handed him a piece of paper. "Potions first with Professor Slughorn."
"Thanks professor." George said to her, knowing that he had to be quick if he was going to get everything done before his first lesson. He quickly hurried from Mcgonagall's office to the 7th floor so that he could get into the room of requirement and not be disturbed. Once there, he took his wand out and started muttering complex spells so that the first two spells were set in place. Then he quickly hurried down to the dungeons before he was late.
"Ah George, Professor Mcgonagall said you'd be joining us." Slughorn said to George as he walked in. "Just take a seat." He told him and George took a seat next to Dennis Creevey. Slughorn sat down at his desk and opened his drawer to get out the register, instead he brought out a handful of frogspawn. The whole class burst into fits of laughter, except from George who only smiled. He knew that this is what would be happening in every classroom throughout the castle and the best bit was to come. "Who did this?" Slughorn asked, trying to stand up, but he found that some sort of a sticking spell was on the chair so that he was stuck to it. This only made the class laugh even more. Dennis noticed that George wasn't laughing.
"It was you, wasn't it?" He asked him, but George just shrugged.
"Maybe." He watched as Slughorn pulled out his wand and performed the counter charm, so that he could stand up, but when he did there was a loud pop and bright pink glitter appeared above his head, covering him. Sighing, he tried to vanish it, but this only caused it to stick to him further.
"Very funny," He muttered. "Right, the instructions are on the board, I'll be back in a minute, get started." He said, walking out of the dungeons to see if another teacher could do anything about the glitter.
Throughout the day lessons were constantly disturbed by pranks. During lesson two a cloud followed all the teachers around and rained on them constantly. Lesson three random pieces of furniture kept jumping in front of everyone's paths, students and teachers alike. Lesson four stink pellets kept going off constantly and lesson five all the owls flew out of the owlery and flew around the school, disrupting all the lessons. All the teachers were still covered in pink glitter from lesson one. None of them had been able to get it off. George knew that they wouldn't be able to either because he put a sticking charm on it that would only wear off at midnight.
"Mr Weasley!" Mcgonagall called as he walked into the castle after his care of magical creatures lesson at the end of the day.
"Yes professor?" He asked, trying to look completely innocent.
"Was this you?" She asked him, gesturing to the glitter all over her.
"Pink really suits you professor." He smirked.
"Weasley!" She glared, but she wasn't really angry. It had been a long time since people had laughed as much as they had today. Then behind her a firework suddenly went off.
"Didn't know you were having a fireworks display." George said as she turned around to see multiple fireworks going off, some starting to go outside to the courtyard. George followed Mcgonagall as she went out.
"You never intended to come back, did you?" Mcgonagall asked, the corners of her mouth twitching into a small smile.
"Nope." George grinned, popping the 'P'. "Like I said before professor, I've outgrown education." By this point most of the school had gathered in the courtyard as this was where most of the fireworks were. "Accio broom." He called. Mcgonagall couldn't help herself but laugh as his broom zoomed from the room of requirement where he had left it earlier that day. George mounted his broom and kicked up so he was flying amongst the fireworks. "Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes will be open from tomorrow, discounts to anyone who manages to prank Mcgonagall." He shouted, grinning down at the headmistress who was still laughing, and with that he flew off out of the school grounds. Behind him, the fireworks began to form a sentence.
In memory of Fred Weasley and everyone who died protecting Hogwarts so that we could continue to laugh and live.
After a few minutes George turned his head and saw Fred flying besides him. "That went well," Fred grinned. "They won't be forgetting us for a while."
"And business will be booming." George added.
"You're going to be fine George, you don't need me." Fred told him and he started to fade. Tears began to fall from his eyes.
"No!" He shouted. He knew that Fred wasn't really back for good, but he didn't think that he would leave so soon after the prank. He thought that they would have more time. "I love you." He whispered then he started laughing at everything that had happened that day. No one would be forgetting Fred in a hurry.
