Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Warning: This chapter contains self-harm. Skip the last few paragraphs if this makes you uncomfortable.
A/N: Here's the next chapter! I really enjoyed writing it, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it too!
Colourless
George woke to the faintest of sunlight streaming in through his window, tugging him from sleep. He was never sure whether he was glad to wake or not. Every night he dreamed of Fred, cold and dead in the Great Hall; every day he had to get through the day without him. It was hard to say which was worse.
He sat up, trying to gather his thoughts. "Get ready for the day," said the list he usually left by the side of his bed, prompting him when he forgot what came next. Then was "Eat breakfast" and after that "Open the shop". Those were simple enough.
"Get ready for the day," he said to himself, making his way towards the bathroom. That meant brushing his teeth – not looking at the mirror – and showering and dressing. It wasn't hard. Really.
"Eat breakfast," he read once that was done. He glanced towards the tiny kitchen, the stove where they'd earnestly attempted (and failed) to cook, and the dining table where they'd sat together and laughed over nothings just because they were happy. The thought of eating made him sick to the stomach. It couldn't do any harm to skip breakfast for one day, could it?
He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten breakfast, actually, but he was sure it didn't matter.
It's a good idea. Keep at it.
Open the shop. That meant going downstairs, smiling at Verity when she said, "Good morning, Mr Weasley, and how are you today?" and giving her some sort of appropriate response. He'd flip the sign on the door and joke around with the shop's steady flow of customers.
He took a deep breath and then walked down the stairs at the back of the building, opening the door to the shop and slipping back into the real world. Verity was just entering by the front door. She hung up her coat on a peg and smiled when she saw him. "Good morning, Mr Weasley, and how are you today?"
"I'm good, thanks, Verity," George responded automatically. He walked over to the door, flipped the sign and leaned against the wall for a moment, relishing the last few moments in relative privacy. He'd loved the shop before. Now it was just hard work and painful memories.
The next item on his list was "Do inventory". That meant retreating to the back of the shop, where they kept Defence products and paperwork and a new shipment of potions ingredients. Verity was perfectly capable of keeping the shop going in the front; he could allow himself a little more time hiding in solitude.
Beetle eyes. Lizard skin. Doxy blood, which they'd found no earthly use for until Fred had thought to incorporate it into some of the Skiving Snackboxes.
Suddenly the bottle seemed very heavy and George set it down on the little desk, fighting the urge to bury his head in his arms. That counted as showing weakness, breaking, and breaking was forbidden.
"You know one of the worst things?" Ginny had said to him a while back. "I keep on forgetting. What his laugh sounded like and the colour of his eyes. The ways you two were different."
George hadn't forgotten, couldn't. He remembered Fred's infectious laugh and he knew that his eyes were darker than his brother's, softer and older now. Fred's eyes had been uncommonly bright, every emotion visible in them, and George could see them every time he closed his own.
He remembered the way Fred's hair used to fall across his forehead when it had grown too long and the sound of his footsteps when he was angry. He remembered his twin's impossibly wide smile, the warmth of his arms and the way he curled up tightly when he slept. He remembered, too, the dark nights when Fred had dreamed of nameless terrors and crept to George for comfort, shivering with fear that his twin had thought to be irrational. It hadn't been.
George remembered Fred's flair for Charms, how he seemed to instinctively know the way spells pieced themselves together. He remembered Fred's wand, identical to his own and six feet under like its owner.
In short, he remembered too much and the memories were everywhere.
Listen to the plan. I'm right. It's the best way.
He shook himself, making a note of the Doxy blood and then continuing with the methodical, mind-numbing work. When he had finished the inventory, the list told him it was time to "Man the shop" for a while, during Verity's lunch break.
This was the hardest part of the day – seeing the pity in the eyes of strangers as they handed him their money and he bagged up their goods. Sometimes he wondered if they came to the shop because they liked his products, or if they thought they were doing their good turn for the day by supporting the poor, grieving twin-without-a-twin.
George wasn't angry, not really. It wasn't their fault that they'd come out of the war unscathed.
He could tell it would be a difficult day, because his eyes were pricking and his throat seemed to be permanently tight. It was so hard, every day, trying to be strong for his family and keeping his composure throughout every painful meeting with people from his past. But enough of that. He had no time for self-pity.
No well-meaning friends had dropped by today, thankfully, and when Verity came back to the shop George gladly gave his place at the counter to her and fled upstairs to the flat. Mistake: he saw Fred leaning against every doorway, sitting in every chair, and by the time he reached the kitchen George was shaking all over. He pulled the list out of his pocket to remind himself; the next thing to do was "Eat lunch". With the memories everywhere, it seemed as impossible a task as bringing Fred back to life.
He wandered over to the cupboard, pulled out an orange that had been lying abandoned there for a few days. It looked fresh enough, but it probably wasn't healthy to be eating it. It might give him food poisoning, after all.
Well done, George. Who needs lunch, anyway? The less you eat, the better the plan will work. Perhaps you can go and buy the ingredients tomorrow afternoon. Monkshood. Hellebore. You know the list.
He knew the list. He'd written it a few days before in a moment of weakness, before locking it ashamedly in a drawer in his cupboard. He could remember every word of it, though. It was not the sort of list one forgot.
"I know the list," he repeated out loud. "Yes. I'll do that. Who needs lunch, anyway?"
Next he had to "Stay in the shop" for a while – not talking to people, necessarily, but being there. He could answer Verity's questions and wander through the aisles, avoiding customers' gases and righting products that had fallen over. It was dull work, but it passed the time.
George made his way back downstairs, glancing around warily as he entered from the back again. The shop was so crowded that there was barely space to breathe and he instinctively scanned it, looking for a head of red hair. He had no desire to see his family today.
Letting out a breath of relief when nobody he knew seemed to be in sight, George let himself sink into obscurity as the crowd swallowed him. He could see young women exclaiming over love potions and small boys gaping at prank items, all of them packaged in pinks and oranges and eye-catching yellow. Colourless, every last one.
The world suddenly shifted into grey and George looked around in a panic before stopping short. Standing a few metres away was Fred, clear as yesterday with his red hair and brown eyes. He was smiling, but every time George took a step towards him he only seemed further away.
By the time he'd reached the end of the aisle, George could no longer see his twin, and it took every scrap of determination he had to keep himself from sitting down on the floor and sobbing. "It was a hallucination," he breathed. "Not real."
You can make it real. You know that.
The next item on his list was "Invent", so he retreated to the lab tucked away in a corner of the shop and looked around bleakly. He had recently discovered a sheaf of notes on Colour Charms that Fred had written, and these past few days he had been perusing them carefully in the hope of finding where his Invisibility Potion was going wrong. They were useful, but —
He was deep into the notes when he heard the door creak open and looked up to see his mother walk into the lab. Inwardly George sighed. He couldn't do this, didn't have the strength to pretend any longer.
Soon you won't have to.
Outwardly he smiled. "Hello, Mum. Sorry I wasn't out in the shop, but I really need to finish reading these."
His mother moved closer and ran a gentle hand through his hair. "No worries, dear. I don't have much to do with none of you at home, so I thought I might drop by for a visit and see how you were getting on."
"Really well," George lied. "I've been feeling much more cheerful since Christmas."
"That's good to hear, dear. You're sleeping well?"
No, I have nightmares every night and I'm scared to close my eyes but I'm so tired I can't stay awake, George thought. "Yes, Mum."
"Eating regularly?"
George thought of the untouched food in his cupboard and of the plates and cutlery gathering dust on the shelves. "Yes, Mum. Three meals a day."
She smiled and leaned forward to hug him. "Well, then. I'd best leave you to your work. You're coming for lunch on Sunday?"
George had no idea which day of the week it was – he should check that. "Of course."
He kissed his mother on the cheek and showed her out of the shop before returning to the lab and hiding his face in his hands. How much longer could he go on like this?
Not much longer. But you don't want to, do you?
George shivered and returned his attention to the notes, but his twin's familiar scrawl was blurring beneath tears. He took a long, shaky breath. Crying was weakness, and he couldn't show weakness.
Once his hour of inventing time was over, George's list told him to "Close the shop". He made his way out into the main shop to see that Verity had shooed most of the customers away and was putting on her coat. "Oh, Mr Weasley," she said brightly. "I was just closing up."
"Thanks, Verity," George said gratefully. "I'll finish up round here; you go on home."
She smiled at him, stepped out into the swiftly emptying street and Disapparated. George flipped the sign on the door once more, turned off the lights and, finally, went back upstairs to the flat and the loneliness.
The next item on his list was "Eat supper". George was at last feeling hungry, so he took some soup out of the cupboard and found a pan to heat it in.
Don't. Don't. The plan will work better if you don't eat, you know that.
George set the pan down uncertainly.
And do you think you deserve it, anyway? People who kill their twins shouldn't eat – it's just wrong.
George shivered and backed away. Maybe he wouldn't eat after all.
Next on his list was "Go to bed", but although the sky was dark it was still ridiculously early. That left him stranded, without a set list of things to adhere to. Before, he and Fred would have sat down together for a bit, relishing the few short hours when they could just talk without any demands on their time. George remembered the way Fred would lean against him or put an arm around his shoulders and he'd close his eyes, feeling warm and complete. The world had been colourful then. Now it was grey and dull.
He was crying, quietly but without pause. Fred was gone, gone, and George missed him so much, too much. "Come back," he whispered. "Please."
Nothing happened.
George scrubbed at his eyes and wandered over to the tiny bathroom to wash his face. When he glanced up he somehow caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, the reflection he had avoided seeing for many months now, and something snapped.
He'd known that his magic was spiralling out of control, but he wasn't expecting the flash of purple light nor the sudden crash of tinkling glass. He screamed, then, because he was going mad and he knew it, this was the proof, and when his vision cleared he found himself kneeling on the floor with shards of what had been a mirror scattered all around him.
He reached for one lying near him, flinching at the two brown eyes that stared back at him from the glass. No matter that he was older and sadder, because those were Fred's eyes still.
Do it. You know you want to. It will help.
He glanced at his bare forearm and then at the menacing sharpness of the broken glass, hesitating a little.
Do it!
Very carefully and slowly, George drew the glass down the length of his arm, and the blood was very bright against his skin.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed that, and please review! Look out for the next chapter, in which Ginny receives an interesting letter, and we see how Bill has been faring. (Something else will happen too, but I can't tell you everything, can I?)
~Butterfly
