September 1, 2021
Weasleys' Wizarding Weezes

George Weasley rummaged through the box, looking for a rather clever Pygmy Puff. His graying hair feel in his eyes and he cursed silently. George was a happy man; his wife and children put that timeless grin on his worn face. That smile waned each time he stepped into Weasleys' Wizarding Weezes. The shop had been his first love, but the many inventions reminded him of Fred. Fred was the other twin now, the dead twin, the long forgotten twin. Each morning, George came in through the front door. There, surrounded by the classics and best products, hangs a life-sized portrait of Fred. Underneath the picture, a small plague says: Fred Weasley. Our beloved prankster.

George's blue eyes had glazed over with his wandering thoughts.. A cough filled the space and George straightened up and turned about to see Mrs. Haggleton.

"Why, I'm sorry, Mrs. Haggleton!"

"It's fine, Mr. Weasley. I came to pick up the order of Witch Products for my daughter."

"I'll be out in a jiffy."

With long, quick strides, George headed into the crowded and overly-cluttered back room. Boxes lined on every wall and stacked near to the ceiling deterred his progress. A table in the very back corner especially for call-in orders lay empty save for one box. It was marked with 'witch products' and 'Haggleton'. Scooping up the box, George hurried back to his customer.

"Mrs. Haggleton, your package."

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley. How much do I owe you?"

"Twenty galleons even."

The squat woman reached into her oversized bag and handed George a pouch. "Thank you, Mr. Weasley."

"No, thank you, Mrs. Haggleton. See you in a few weeks!"

Just as George pushed up his sleeves in preparation to search for the missing Pygmy Puff, a silvery substance floated in front of him, breaking his stride.

"Please report to Hogwarts immediately, Mr. Weasley."

Sighing heavily, the father rolled his eyes and headed off to grab his cloak. Freddy's gone too far this time and on the first day of school, George huffed.

"Damn, where's my cloak?" George muttered as he rummaged through the room. "I'll just go without it."

Closing his eyes, the Weasley apparated away to the gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As George appeared before the gates, he looked through the crafted metal bars at his wife talking with an unknown professor.

"Angelina?"

"George. Come on and let's see what our son has managed to destroy this time," Angelina said pointedly. She gave her husband a glaring look and then winked saucily at him. It was instances like these that made George want to give her a good kiss and kick her ass at a game of Quidditch.

The professor who had remained silent waved his wand and the gates squealed madly. George sidled up to Angelina, slipping his hand into hers. They ascended the stairs and entered the front door of Hogwarts. After the Great Battle, George had assumed that he would never step foot into the school again. It held so many good memories and one particularly terrible one. The notion of never seeing Hogwarts had vanished when Freddy Weasley terrorized students and teachers the moment he entered the school. Heading for a vaguely familiar office, George scanned the halls, reliving pranks and adventures of daring do.

"The Chosen One."

"What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Weasley. That is the password for this year. Please, the Headmaster is waiting for you." And with that, the still unnamed professor swept away down a corridor and disappeared.

"Well, Angelina, let's go."

Spiraling up and up, George could feel his stomach lurching. Ideas of the worst kind ran through his mind. What if Freddy flew off a professor's face?
They arrived at the topmost stair and a door swung opn, a sign for them to enter. Whirly things and hissy instruments still adorned the office. Familiar things were a welcoming sight and George breathed a calm breath...until he glimpsed Headmaster Flitwick's face.

"Headmaster Flitwick, where's Fred?"

The small man coughed...and coughed again. George squeezed his wife's hand and proceeded to step forward, towering over Flitwick.

"Mr. And Mrs. Weasley, have a seat, please."

"I have a business to run, Flitwick. What has Freddy managed to flow up this time?" George received an elbow to the ribs.

"O...Okay. Today on the train there were several...incidents. We believe that exactly five students were abducted..."

"Oh, no," Angelina moaned.

"No, no. Fred was not abducted. During these unfortunate events, three students were...umm...you see..."

"Damn it, what?" George growled.

"Well, three students were mur-mur-murdered. One of those students was your son. I am truly sorry for your loss. I will give you two a moment."

George was speechless, utterly speechless. He turned to his wife expecting her to be skeptical. No, her face was right red and she was crying and gasping for breath.

"Oh, no. Hell no. Headmaster, take me to my son. Now."

"Of course, Mr. Weasley."

George yanked Angelina out of her seat. She collapsed on the floor at his feet, sobbing like a child. He couldn't understnad why she was crying. Obviously their son was not dead; it was a cruel, elaborate prank. Exasperated, George scooped Angelina up into his arms and rushed after the tiny Headmaster.

The entire procession was a blur. George didn't register the burning pain I his arms from his wife's weight. He didn't notice his labored breathing. Adrenaline pumped through him; or perhaps he still had it after all these years. Angelina was wrapped around him; her tears had completely soaked his shirtfront. It was warm, but not a comforting warm - it was an alarming sort of warm, a warm meaning danger.

Finally, the hospital wing was in sight. The father rushed ahead of the Headmaster and burst through the doors. At a bed in the rear of the wing, a crowd stood around a bed. George barely heard their quiet sobs. He broke into a run, Angelina still in his arms. The crowd parted for the parents and the twin saw his worst nightmare. There lay his son, arms and legs askew, eyes wide open.

"No."

Gently, the aging man laid his wife in the chair beside the bed.

"No, no. Please, no."

Friends and family members that had surrounded the bed crept away, except for a small, frightened girl. The pair failed to see the girl's presence and she said nothing. Echoes of their footsteps resounded in the wing, amplifying the sickly death.

"My son, my Fred. You look at me, boy. LOOK AT ME!" George was screaming at his perished son.

No answer.

Angelina whispered, "G-George. Let's take him home."

"We're not taking him home," George replied. "He has classes. He won't get off the hook so easily."

"George, Freddy is dead. Dead, he's gone forever."

"D-d-Dad? Daddy?"

Beyond their grieving world, the parents saw their youngest child standing at the bedside. Her complexion was nothing but red, swollen with tears. There, she had been there all along, and they had practically ignored her. George turned to his little girl and said, "Hi, Roxanne."

"Why didn't you say anything to me?"

"Dad...Dad's sorry, baby. I'm trying to deal with your brother."

Roxanne stopped for a moment, her mother's dark eyes boring into George's face. She pursed her lips and hissed, "You don't get it, do you? Freddy is dead. Dad, he's dead. FACE IT!"

Roxanne began to cry anew and raced to a far corner, sobbing.

The Weasley man took another glance at his son and burst into tears. Heart-wrenching tears that flowed down his face in rivers. He dropped to his knees at his wife's lap. This reality was beginning to sink in and he didn't understand, couldn't comprehend the truth. One Fred taken from him, now another? Laying his face in Angelina's lap, George cried. He cried not just for his son, but for his twin. He cried for Angelina and for himself; for his mother and his father; for his siblings and his son's cousins. George Weasley let the tears roll down his face.

Wiping his face, the father stood up and reached for his son. Without a word, he gathered his son in his arms. George walked to where his daughter was curled up, and with Fred still in his arms, knelt down, "Roxanne. Roxanne. Please, Dad is very sorry. Why don't you go get Mum and we'll go home?"

Roxanne looked into his eyes and sighed. A few more gasps later, she rose and ran to her mother. George watched his precious family. They were his one and his only. He would be damned if this would tear them apart. He loved those two women so, so much.

Glancing at Angelina and motioning with his head for her to follow, they walked out of the hospital wing, another deceased Fred in their arms.

September 1, 2021
Mansion in the forests of Cornwall

A ripping sensation ate at his arm. The pure, unadulterated pain was unbearable, yet he had to bear it. Opening his mouth to scream, James Potter found that his mouth was gagged. Eyes closed tight, disorientation consumed the boy. James could have sworn that mere minutes ago he had stood in front of a man who welcomed him to hell. Well, this was worse than hell. This was hell's worst nightmare.

What James did not know was that it was hours after his talk with the boss man. James started to shake violently. His entire body jerked and twitched; he gnawed at the gag, grinding his teeth as hard as he possibly could. At the juncture where his legs connected with his hips, James sensed an immense burning. Thousands of hot pokers stabbed him in this sensitive area. He couldn't pinpoint all the places where he ached, because his body shrieked everywhere. Feet, hands, back, face, it all wailed at him. Silent, but deadly pain. James's body halted its insanity and that's when he began to slowly register his surroundings. Without opening his eyes, the oldest Potter child used his other senses to investigate. I'm naked.

Naked and on a table of steel, James listened intently. He heard a grinding sound - something hard grinding away at something equally as hard. The sound was disgusting, revolting. It sounds like the snapping of bones. Ever so slowly, James opened his eyes. Staring at a typical ceiling, he darted his eyes left, then right. Fuck. Instruments, tools, foreign things, familiar things. Those on a table to his left looked like medical instruments from Muggle movies he'd see with his dad. And there, on a long table, were computers on top of computers. Some were ancient and dated, others were new. Wires tangled together and resembled James's mop he called hair. Have I been taken by Muggles?
Next, James tried to sit up. Surprisingly, he could. Cautiously, James observed his prison. He knew that there was someone on the far side of the room by that terrible sound, but they hadn't noticed him. James reached to take off the gag and almost choked when he glimpsed his hands, his arms. They were muscular, bulging with muscle on top of muscle. His hands had to be twice the size of his face.

"F-fuck."

"Doc, doc, he's awake! Hurry, hurry!"

Shouldn't have said anything, damn.

Several faces appeared in front of him. He was shoved down and before he could fight back, restraints were put on his hands and feet.

"How do you feel?"

"Are you hurting?"

"Can you move your arms and legs?"

Questions bombarded at James, the lot of them taking a hundred miles a minuted. One by one, they shut their mouths and looked at him expectedly.

"What. In. The. Hell. Is. Going. On." James punctuated.

"Get the boss, someone."

A face disappeared and James glared at the "doctors." There was no way this was happening. It's what Dad would call science fiction.

"Well, the little child has finally decided to wake up from his nap," Aeron said.

A glare from James, no answer. Aeron peered over the edge of the steel operating table at his captor. His was right in James's face, his warm breath a disgusting smell to behold.

"Oh, in a pissed off mood? Good."

James resisted the urge to spit in Aeron's face and instead spat, "What's going on and why the hell do I look like this?"

"Think we should tell him, docs?"

A hearty laugh from the peanut gallery later and James had no answers. Flexing his new, confusing muscles, James tried tearing at his bonds.

"Now, don't do that buddy. Want some answers? Fine. You see those new arms and legs? Courtesy of the docs here. They're from a nice, strong man. And now, they're yours."

With that, James listened as Aeron walked away, snorting loudly. The boy turned left and right, left and right, searching the faces of the men over him. This was ridiculous and there was no way out.

"We can't wait to start on your sister, brother, and cousins, mate. I bet the girls are pretty, yeah?"

"Stay away from my family!"

The doctors stepped away from James and huddled into a group. Whispered words escaped here and there; however, James couldn't make hide nor hair of them. The group rose up and quit their whispering. Plain as day, James heard one man say, "Wish the boys at home could see me now. I can't believe that after years of wanting to do something cool, I finally do it. Damn, boys, we're awesome as hell. We created something most would only dream of; he's the new Frankenstein."