Author's Note: While contemplating the twins (and the Weasleys in general) I came up with this little idea. I may write more, I may not, depending on the reception.

After Death

Fred.

Was.

Bored.

Soeffingbored.

This didn't bode well for anyone. But who would have thought death could possibly be boring?

Yet, it was. There wasn't anyone he knew here. That was a good thing, of course — he didn't want his friends and family to die. But the downside of being the only Weasley casualty of the war was that there wasn't anyone to pass the time with.

In the two years of the Battle of Hogwarts, Fred had driven the gatekeeper mad by refusing to go either forward or backward. He'd been two busy exploring (and causing mischief, to nobody's amusement but his own). Often, he'd look to one side to share a laugh with George — until he remembered he was dead, and George was not.

It was a bittersweet ache, because George, his twin brother and best friend, was alive and living and laughing (at least, he'd better be, or Fred would have some serious words with him), and Fred was happy for that, but he missed his brother. And he felt guilty for missing him, because he really didn't want his brother to know what dying was like. Because it sucked.

No, really, he just wished he could be alive again, at George's side.

"When you put it like that, why are you still here?"

Fred jumped, spinning around to face the direction the voice came from. Sitting on the ledge across from her was a young woman in Hogwarts robes, the Hufflepuff crest emblazoned proudly on the front. She looked vaguely familiar, somehow.

"Who are you?" He asked, wary of unexpected new things here, but desperate for something to break the monotony.

Because moving on without George wasn't an option, but the waiting room wasn't the most engaging place ever. To put it mildly.

"Maddie Broekhart," she introduced herself, studying him like he was a particularly interesting Arithmancy problem. "I guess you don't remember me. I'm not surprised. It was a long time ago."

Fred shook his head. He was trying to remember, but he just...couldn't place her.

"Our second year, you and your brother were in the library trying to finish a Herbology essay. Normally you would have just ignored it, but George was really interested in the subject so you went with him to help him. You both got stumped, but you were too stubborn to ask for help." Maddie expanded, watching Fred to see if he got it.

And just like that, he could see the girl in front of him as an awkward twelve-year-old in pigtails, grinning across the library table at them. Offering help.

"So why are you here?" He asked. One encounter? That was all? One time helping with homework, and suddenly this?

Maddie Broekhart shrugged. "I'm not just here for you. But sometimes people need help moving on - or going back. That's what I do. I help people." A ghost of a smile (no pun intended) touched her face. "I am a Hufflepuff, after all."

Fred's mind was racing. He could see George again, and Ron and Mum and Dad and Ginny and Bill and Charlie and Percy -

"Can I come back?" He asked hesitantly. "In a few years - " decades, hopefully "when I'm...ready?"

Maddie grinned. "Of course you can."

Fred went back.

Maddie smiled. "And here I thought loyalty was a Hufflepuff thing."

Five decades later, Fred came back. But he wasn't alone.

George Weasley, looking not a day older than he had during the Battle of Hogwarts, was at his side.

Maddie Broekhart smiled at them, and led the twins - the twins, who were inseparable even by death - through the gates, to the rest they so deserved.