14.
14 steps.
7 days was not enough for 14 steps.
7 days since day 1. Day 1 being the first day he was 1. The first day George Weasley was one.
Never one. He was never one. Two. Always two.
8 days being the number since he was 2.
It wasn't the first time he had been at the burrow since day 1. It was, however, the first time he had been through the front door. Every other time he had apparated to the house, seen the garden he and Fred had de-gnomed millions of times, seen the field they had played quidditch on... every other time he had run away. But not this time, not now. Now George stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor of the burrow. Now George Weasley stood in front of 14 steps.
14 steps separated George from Fred, and Fred from George. Because George knew that Fred was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. He had to be. Because Fred always waited for George.
Always.
Harry's back… Harry's back…. Harry's back. That was the one thought that kept running through George's head. Harry's back. He should have been able to pull himself out of his grief for just a minute, just one minute to realize that Harry was back. That it was okay, because the boy who lived had lived again. But it wasn't okay. In fact, that only made it worse.
Fred and George had known Harry for a long time, and had grown quite fond of the boy. However, his frequent returns from the world of the dead had begun to annoy George. Begun to eat at his very soul, if you will. 7 brushes with death. 7. The magic number, George thought bitterly.
Really, in all fairness, it should have been Harry. It was his destiny, the reason he had fought Voldemort for so long. Plus, he had no family to mourn him. Sure, the Weasley's were as good as Harry's family, but it was harder to lose Fred than it would have been to lose Harry.
It was their own fault, really. Had it not been Fred and George who first found out he was Harry Potter? Who first told Ron who the boy with the jet-black hair was? And it was Fred and George who wouldn't let Ron sit with them in their compartment on the Hogwarts train his first year. If they had, would Ron have ever met Harry? Would they have ever become friends? But more importantly, would Fred and George have still fought in the Battle of Hogwarts? George stood, staring at those 14 steps separating him from his brother, and he realized something.
George had never climbed those stairs alone.
He looked up at the stairs again. They didn't stop at 14, they kept on going. Up and up until they reached the roof. However, it was only 14 steps to the landing where Fred and George's room was, and George knew that was where Fred was waiting. He could feel it, feel Fred calling him. He was up there, waiting for George like he always did. Always.
14 steps.
George took a deep breath and slowly lifted his right foot. Holding his breath, he placed his foot on the first step.
The first step.
Suddenly, George was apparating. Where was he going? Why was he apparating? Then it hit him. I'm going to see Fred… I'm going to see Fred! He's alive! He's calling me! I'm going to see Fred!
"Fred!" George called out as soon as his world stopped spinning. "Fred!" George realized he was at King's Cross station. He turned around.
Platform 9 ¾.
"I'm not Fred, I'm George!"
George spun around, searching for his brother.
"Fred!" George called, but the station was empty. He was all alone.
"Honestly, woman."
"And you call yourself our mother!"
"Fred!" George shouted. "Fred, where are you!"
"Just kidding, I am Fred!"
George heard the whoosh of someone passing through the brick wall of platform 9 ¾. This was quickly followed by a second whoosh.
Whoosh, Fred , whoosh, George. That's how it always was.
It was Fred, it had to be Fred. Fred was calling him, telling him to follow him through the platform wall.
"Fred!" George said as he flew through the wall. "There you are! I've been looking for y-" Except Fred wasn't there. The platform was empty except for the majestic Hogwarts train.
"Oi, Fred! C'mere and help!"
George spun around. Who was saying that?
"What's that?" George heard someone say. He looked at the train, and in the back of his mind he vaguely saw three figures loading their luggage. Two red-headed boys stood pointing at a lightning shaped scar on the forehead of a shorter, black-haired boy.
"Blimey, are you?"
"He is! Aren't you?"
George watched the two red-heads talk.
"What?" asked the boy with the lightning scar.
"Harry Potter!" Fred and George said together.
George felt a tear trickle down his cheek.
"No!" he shouted. "No, he's not! Don't talk to him! Fred! You'll die! Fred! Why can't you hear me?"
"Oh, are you a Prefect, Percy? You should have said something, we had no idea!"
"Fred, where are you?" George screamed.
"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it. Once-"
"Or twice-"
"A minute-"
"All summer-"
"Oh, shut up," George heard Percy say.
George looked up at the train windows.
"Now, you two- this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've- you've blown up a toilet or-" George heard his mom say.
"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."
"Great idea though, thanks Mum."
"It's not funny. And look after Ron."
"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."
"Shut up," came Ron's eleven-year-old voice.
George heard someone crying. He turned around and saw a ten-year-old Ginny crying into Mrs. Weasley's arms.
"Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls."
"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat."
"George!"
George stared at the two boys waving out the window of the train, tears now pouring down his face. Fred and George. But most importantly, Fred. George had never wanted anything more than he wanted to be on that train right now. Off to a world of magic, next to the most magical person in the world. Why couldn't George be on that train? Except, as he watched the train pull away he realized, he was on that train.
As the tears cascaded down his face, George felt himself apparate again. He found himself standing in the Great Hall, during what looked like the sorting ceremony for first years. Dumbledore was standing at the front of the Great Hall, and Harry Potter had the sorting hat on his head.
"Gryffindor!" the hat shouted.
"We got Potter! We got Potter!" George stood and watched as Fred and George yelled loudly, projecting their voices so that the entire Slytherin table could hear them.
George stared at the scene unfolding before him. He was going crazy, that was it. No one was calling him from the dead. He had to get out of there before he completely lost it.
George ran from the room, following the same path he and Fred had taken over and over throughout the years. George didn't even know where he was going, his legs just ran. They knew this path by heart.
Up the same endless flights of moving stairs they had always taken, past the moving portraits Fred and George had spent endless hours mocking. Voices followed him up the stairs.
"Run, Fred! Peeves is right behind us!"
"George, run! FILCH!"
"It's Mrs. Norris!"
"AAAAHHHH!"
George saw two boys running and tripping up the stairs, laughing as they passed him. George knew where they were going. The same place he was.
"And then he called me the Fat Lady! And I said, 'I may be a lady, but you sir, are no gentleman!" came the voice of the Fat Lady.
"He called you FAT?!" George heard a younger version of himself ask in mock surprise.
"What on earth could have possessed the old fiend to suggest such a thing?" came Fred's voice.
George watched the two boys talk to the lady in the large pink dress.
"I mean, sure. I can see how he could make the mistake of calling you a lady, but fat?"
"Exactly! Even if you have gained a few pounds lately!"
"It's nothing a little exercise couldn't cure!"
"Unlike those wrinkles on your face."
"Parenthesis have a place…"
"And it's not on your face!"
Fred and George both drew invisible parenthesis next to their mouths with their fingers, to prove their point.
The two boys faded away, but the Fat Lady remained. She swung her door open for George, for the first time in his life, not saying a word.
George walked through the portrait hole, watching as two red-heads came storming down the stairs to the boys' dormitories, both wearing blue jumpers with large yellow letters on them. F and G.
"We know our names are Gred and Forge!" George heard a faint voice echo in his head. George looked on as he and Fred walked over to Percy, holding up his jumper.
"P for Prefect! Get it on, Percy, come on, we're all wearing ours, even Harry got one."
"I – don't – want –" said Percy thickly, as the twins forced the jumper over his head, knocking his glasses askew.
"And you're not sitting with the Prefects today, either," said Fred.
"Christmas is a time for family," George finished.
They frog-marched Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his sides by his jumper.
George cracked a smile, turning to look at Fred. But he wasn't there. George felt his intestines collapse. His entire body stopped working. He had to check to make sure his heart was still beating. Fred's wasn't.
George felt himself begin to fall, thinking he would land on the big red cushions in front of the fire, but suddenly he was apparating again. He felt his feet firmly hit the ground. Disoriented, he looked around. He was back on the first step in the burrow. Had he been dreaming?
George stared down at the first step again. The first step. Because really, it was his first step. George believed it to be his first step back to Fred, who had to be waiting for him in their old room. But in reality, it wasn't.
It was his first step away from Fred.
I am going to add more chapters soon, of George going up all 14 steps. Please review!