13 steps.

How hard could it be?

And what were 13 steps, really, if Fred was at the top?

Nothing, that's what.

And so George took a second step.

As soon as his foot made contact with the second step, he felt himself apparate again. George expected to land somewhere in Hogwarts again, where a collection of happy memories hid somewhere, in the same hiding places Fred and George had used in their seven years at the castle.

He landed instead on a cold, hard bed inside number 4 Privet Drive. He watched as a familiar-looking blue Ford Anglia appeared outside the window, which, of course, had bars across it.

"But you can't magic me out either-" A young Harry Potter was saying to Ron.

"We don't need to," Ron said, jerking his head towards the front seats and grinning. "You forget who I've got with me."

George got off the bed, knowing that if he had to see this, he wanted a front- seat view.

"Tie that round the bars," said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Harry. Fred always had a plan.

Actually, the rope had been George's idea.

As soon as the bars were off, the Weasley's climbed through the window.

George saw his 14-year-old self pull out a hairpin and start picking the lock on the door.

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," Fred said. "But we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

If Fred had been beside him right then, his Fred, not his memory's Fred, George would've smiled. But he wasn't, so he didn't.

And that's when he got an idea.

Very slowly, George walked over to the 14-year-old Fred. He touched him.

But, like he thought, George's hand simply floated through Fred. After all, you can't touch a memory, can you?

Perfect.

George reached into the pocket of his robes. He grinned as his finger closed around something small. A silver object. A magnetic metal.

A Muggle trick.

George walked up right behind his 14-year-old self. He stepped into the younger version of himself, passing right through it, as he knew he would. The memory of George's 14-year-old self was no longer visible.

Now there was only one George in the room. There was only one Fred in the room.

That made one Fred and George.

And, feeling more like himself that he had in seven days, George lifted the paper clip that he had found in his pocket and gingerly placed it into the keyhole. But the paper clip didn't float through the doorknob as if it wasn't there. George put his hand on the doorknob.

Solid.

He skillfully picked the lock , then followed Fred down the stairs. He got a sudden pang seeing his brother walking next to him again, but pushed it aside. He wasn't alone, not anymore. Because Fred was here, right next to him. Right here. Everything would be okay again. Everything.

But no matter how hard George tried, he couldn't believe that. So he just forgot about it, and let the moment take him.

Opening the door of the cupboard beneath the stairs, Fred and George simultaneously reached for Harry's suitcase, accidentally slamming their heads together in the process.

"Ow!" they both shouted. They looked at each other angrily, then grinned.

"Bumbling idiot," they both muttered at each other.

It wasn't until they were both lugging the suitcase up the stairs that George froze. The suitcase slipped through his grasp and fell on Fred's foot.

"Ow!" Fred shouted again.

George stared at Fred. They'd slammed their heads together. Slammed their heads together. In order to do that, you had to be solid. In order to do that, you can't be a memory.

George reached out and smacked Fred upside the head. Fred stared at him in mild shock.

"What was that for?" he asked in mock outrage. Or was it real outrage?

George frowned, feeling farther away from Fred than ever. He couldn't even tell if Fred was joking anymore.

"Nothing," George mumbled, earning himself a smack on the head from Fred.

Fred, still holding his own head, dragged the suitcase up the stairs by himself, grumbling the whole way.

George slipped back down the stairs and into the Dursleys' bathroom. He stared at the mirror, his mouth wide open in horror. Because fourteen-year-old George was staring back at him.

"Bloody hell," he mumbled, running his hand through his hair.

This was bad. This was very bad. What if he never changed back? What if he was stuck here, in these memories, forever? What if he never, ever grew up?

He smirked.

Well, then that was good. Because if he never changed back, if he never grew up, then Fred would never, ever die.

George touched his face, double-checking that he was, indeed, solid. Satisfied, he darted back up the steps after Fred.

Harry was in the middle of telling Fred and Ron about Dobby, the mysterious house elf. George walked into the room, and tripped over his own feet. He didn't think much about it, just straightened up again.

But then he remembered that he didn't remember tripping the time he, Fred, and Ron came here to rescue Harry. In fact, he didn't remember dropping the suitcase on Fred's foot, either. And he certainly hadn't run down the stairs to look at himself in the mirror. He'd changed his memory. He'd changed what happened before.

He'd changed the past.

What else could he change? A minute of the past? An hour? A day?

A death?

George pondered the idea as they all climbed into the Ford Anglia. But his thoughts were quickly interrupted by Harry's Uncle Vernon.

"THAT RUDDY OWL!"

Harry grabbed Hedwig, who he'd momentarily forgotten, and darted across the room. Uncle Vernon caught Harry's ankle just as he reached the window.

Ron, Fred, and George grabbed Harry's arms and pulled him into the car as Uncle Vernon continued to shout.

"Petunia!" he roared. "He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

"Put your foot down, Fred!" Ron shouted as soon as Harry was in the car, and the Ford Anglia suddenly shot toward the moon.

"See you next summer!" Harry yelled to the three Dursley's, who were now all standing at the window, dumbstruck.

The Weasley's roared with laughter, even George.

As Ron and Harry discussed the Dobby dilemma, George couldn't help stealing glances at Fred the whole way back, causing Fred to narrow his eyes suspiciously at George.

"You have something to tell me?" Fred asked.

"No," George said absently, re-directing his gaze to the window.

"Then why do you keep looking at me?"

George shrugged. Then an idea hit him. If he had gone back in time, if he knew everything that would happen in the next five years... did Fred also know? Had Fred gone back in time with him? And how would George be able to tell?

"Fred?" George asked quietly. "What's a skiving snackbox?"

They hadn't thought of the skiving snackboxes until the summer before their fifth year. If 14-year-old Fred knew what those were, then he wasn't really 14.

Fred frowned.

"I don't know," he said. "Why? Do they sell those at Zonko's?"

George shook his head, disappointed.

"No," he said. "They don't. Forget it."

Fred glanced at George curiously, wondering why he was sulking. George lifted his head and tried his hardest to act himself for the rest of the ride. After all, this would be his last ride in the flying car.

Or would it? He could change the past now, right? He and Fred had always regretted riding the train to Hogwarts, while Harry and Ron were flying into the Whomping Willow. What could be more fun?

George briefly considered that maybe that was a bad idea. But the thought that this could be his last great adventure with Fred convinced him otherwise. It was the perfect idea.

Remembering their current adventure, George looked briefly out the window, and realized how amazing it was to be racing in a car, this high above the ground, with the thrill of knowing they could be caught any second.

George laughed. He immediately clamped his hand over his mouth afterward, surprised by how easily it had come. He hadn't laughed in 7 days, and 2 steps.

George laughed. And it felt good.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," George heard Ron say from the back. "Said he needed him."

George, having not paid any attention to the conversation in the back, would've been completely lost had he not listened to this exact conversation five years ago. He vaguely remembered that Ron was saying something about Percy's new owl, Errol.

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," said George. With all of his confused emotions regarding Percy in the last 7 days, which all had to do with Percy abandoning them, then coming back in time for Fred to forgive him, then not saving Fred during the explosion... well, it felt great to be able to make fun of Percy again, the same way he had so long ago, when Percy was still living with them and was just an uptight older brother, not a family traitor. "And he hasbeen sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room....I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge....You're driving too far west, Fred," George added, pointing at a compass on the dashboard. Fred adjusted the steering wheel.

George allowed himself to enjoy the rest of the car ride, pretending he really was 14, and that he had no idea how this adventure ended. How everything ended... like Fred's life.

"Touchdown!" said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground.

The four of them got out of the car, getting more excited as they got closer to the Burrow. Nothing can compare to the feeling of knowing that one wrong step could get you caught. George had forgotten what it felt like, and now he remembered. It felt like laughing. It felt good.

"Now," said Fred. "We'll go upstairs really quietly, and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one need ever know we flew the car."

George froze, suddenly remembering what happened next. He tried to warn the others, but it was too late. She'd seen them.

"Right," said Ron. "Come on, Harry. I sleep at the - at the top -"

Ron had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other three wheeled around.

Mrs. Weasley was already marching across the yard, looking like a sabre-toothed tiger. A hungry one.

"Ah," Fred said.

"Oh, dear," George said.

Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next.

"So," she said.

"Morning, Mum," said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to-"

All three of Mrs. Weasley's sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them.

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone - could have crashed - out of my mind with worry - did you care? - never, as long as I've lived - you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy-"

"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred. George briefly wondered why Fred had automatically chosen Percy out of the three names. Because Percy was perfect, of course, but now George was starting to see a pattern, starting to wonder... could Percy's ultimate betrayal of their family somehow be traced back to Fred and George's pranks and comments? George quickly pushed the thought away, though. He and Fred had never second-guessed themselves before, had never wondered if maybe they'd taken something a little too far. Why start now?

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job-"

It seemed to go on for hours. And during her entire tirade, all George could do was wonder if his mother had spent any of the past 7 days regretting any part of this conversation.

When Mrs. Weasley finally let them back in the house, George felt a pang when he heard the old radio next to the sink announce that coming up was "Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck."

Maybe, just maybe, George regretted groaning whenever his mother had sung along to Celestina Warbeck. She hadn't done that in 7 days.

So, yeah, he regretted it.

"Flying an illegal car halfway across the country - anyone could have seen you-" Mrs. Weasley said as she gave them each a plate of fried eggs.

"It was cloudy, Mum!" Fred protested.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"They were starving him, Mum!" George said.

"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley.

George grinned. And. Fred and George. Fred and you.

Mrs. Weasley proceeded to order them to de-gnome the garden, but not before consulting Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests first.

"Oh, he is marvelous," she said. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book..."

"Mum fancies him," said Fred, in a barely audible whisper. George smirked.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred," said Mrs. Weasley, blushing. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."

"You want to know what I think of Lockhart-" George began, but quickly cut himself off when he remembered that Lockhart wouldn't be exposed as a faker until the end of the year.

As the other three went out to de-gnome the garden, George was struck by an idea. He grabbed a pen and snuck over to the stairs while no one was looking. He hurriedly scratched something into the stairs, on the second step. The first word that, for whatever reason, drifted through his thoughts. He threw the pen aside and ran to catch up with the others. The four of them de-gnomed the garden until they heard Mr. Weasley come home.

"What a night!" Mr. Weasley said as they entered the kitchen. "Nine raides. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned... I had to fix a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle... the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe-"

"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?"

Mrs. Weasley had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasley's eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife.

"C-car's, Molly, dear?"

"Yes, Arthur, cars," said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart and see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."

Mr. Weasley blinked.

"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if - er - he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth.... There's a loophole in the law, you'll find... As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't-"

"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"

"Harry?" said Mr. Weasley blankly. "Harry who?"

At that moment, George felt detached. It was just a small pang of loneliness, at first, but then it got stronger. He felt almost like he was drifting away. He was suddenly pulled backwards, out the front door of the burrow to the paddock by the apple orchard, where the Weasley's kept their Quidditch brooms. He flew by Ron, Harry, Fred, and memory- George, who were already flying on their brooms, Harry on his Nimbus Two Thousand, which was easily the best broom there. He smirked as he heard Fred comment to Ron, who flew into the air on his old Shooting Star broom at an achingly slow pace.

"Better hurry it up there, Ron," Fred shouted. "Wouldn't want to be outstripped by a passing butterfly."

And then they were gone. One minute they were laughing, the next, they no longer existed. Because, George realized, you can go back and you can be there, but at the end of the day... a memory is just a memory. You can't live in them, because those people don't exist. Not anymore. 12-year-old Harry Potter doesn't exist, 12-year-old Ron Weasley doesn't exist, and 14-year-old Fred definitely doesn't exist.

What was this, then? What did it mean? He wasn't watching a memory, not like a pensieve, because he was changing what was happening. He wasn't going back in time, because he wasn't using a time-turner, and he couldn't control where he went, or how far back in time.

George suddenly realized that Fred, Harry, and Ron hadn't disappeared. George had just apparated again. From the Burrow... back to the Burrow. He was standing on the second step, but he was 21 again.

Then George remembered what he wrote on the stairs. He kneeled down on the second step, and, sure enough, the writing was there. It was a little worn, but that was to be expected from five years of people stepping on it. If it had really been there for five years? It wasn't there before he apparated from the step. George wrote it while he was remembering something from five years ago. No, while he was living something from five years ago, he decided. And now, after he'd apparated back, the writing was still there. It meant something, George concluded. And he was going to find out what.

And the only way to do that, of course, was to take another step. So George raised his right foot off the second step, brushing his shoe against the word he'd written five years ago.

Home.