The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms? Harry's mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all his senses must be lying—

The Deathly Hallows

.***.

Ron and Lee and George re-opened Weasley's Wizard Wheezes on August 1, in time for all the back to school shoppers who braved Diagon Alley. They unpacked and restocked the ransacked building and George talked quietly.

"I came up with the Snackboxes after Fred got sick and I went to his classes, pretending to be him."

Lee laughed, "I remember that. And then you got sick, and he had to do the same thing!"

"Of course I got sick. Remember how our whole year pushed our beds together?"

"Only because you and Fred kept sleeping in the same bed."

George just shrugged, a smile flitting across his face.

"Wait a 'mo," Ron interrupted. "You and Fred had different classes?"

George snorted and Lee said, "Well, one different class. Fred took Muggle Studies and George took Divination." He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't know?"

Ron shook his head. He'd assumed the twins had spent every waking moment together, though if he thought deeply about it, he would have known that wasn't true. Fred had always indulged their father his muggle obsession, and George had joined him and Harry on one of their many Divination Bullshit Nights.

George was already moving on to the next shelf. "Y'know we only sell saw Pygmy Puffs because Fred saw one the summer we went to Egypt. Remember that? We tried to lock Perce in a pyramid."

Ron remembered. That was the summer he'd gotten a new wand and new clothes and tried Egyptian coffee and kept an eye on Ginny and got a hug from Charlie, who had visited one weekend, who he hadn't seen in ages. He remembered sitting in a pub with half his brothers, watching as the other half tried to tame camels. Bill next to him, all smiles on his weekend away from the bank. "Ready for your O.W.L.s, George?" He's asked the twin sitting across from Ron, and the two had a long conversation about how to get through the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam with so many lousy teachers.

Once Bill left to try his luck at the camel, Ron had turned to the twin. "Fred?"

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you get him call you George?"

Fred had grinned and shrugged. "I'd spend half my life correcting people, Ronnie. At least he tried. Almost no one calls us by our names, you know. Afraid of getting it wrong."

Throughout the year, George would tell him more of the joke's origin stories. How when trying out the stupify-repellant cloaks, Fred had cast a spell that knocked George off his feet, slammed him into a wall. How he'd woken up in St. Mungo's. How Fred was pale and sick beside him. How the same thing had happened with the Canary Creams, except it was Fred who'd stayed a canary for so long that George, not knowing what else to do, brought him down to Hagrid. How old were you? Ron asked. Oh, fourteen, George said. Or fifteen.

Ron didn't go back to Hogwarts, though Harry and Hermione wanted him to. There was so much to do at the shop, and there were days when George didn't get out of bed. Ron was handling it. He moved into the apartment with his brother and Lee, who was only there occasionally, busy with opening the branch in Hogsmeade. He learned how to cook. He found he was a dab hand at breeding the Pygmy Puffs.

It was all going okay, until April Fool's Day.

They'd planned it all out, the Weasleys and Lee Jordan and Harry and Hermione. April Fool's Day was the twins' favorite. Their birthdays, of course, but also an open invitation from a world that seemed to want to be tricked, a world that invited wool-over-the-eyes mischief.

But George didn't break down on time. No, George knew that the first rule of pranksters was "keep them on their toes."

So on the evening of March 31st, Ron closed up shop, double-checking the accounting spells with old-school addition. And then he stood stock-still. What was that? and there again. Broken glass?

He knew that just because Voldemort was gone, it didn't mean all the Death Eaters had vanished. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had been attacked before, when it was the headquarters of Potterwatch. That attack had sent the twins and Lee Jordan on the road, broadcasting from anywhere they apparated to, never staying in one place for long. He'd heard that story from Lee Jordan, who was spending the night commentating for Puddlemere United, juggling Quidditch and a continuation of PotterWatch that was focused on the rebuilding efforts of the Ministry as well as working in the joke shop and trying, nearly single-handedly, to open another.

(sometime in the winter, Ron had thanked Lee for all his help, for putting everything in order, for keeping a calm and loving eye on George. And Lee had given him a strange look. Lee had said that the twins were his best friends, that he owed them everything, that they'd saved his mud-blood life while he did PotterWatch. Lee said that Ron's brothers were exceptionally brave. And that Ron was good for staying in Diagon Alley. "They need you."

"He needs me," Ron corrected, gently.

Lee had looked so stricken at his use of the plural, the "they's" and "we's" that everyone was still getting used to omitting, and Ron wished that he'd never said anything at all.)

When Ron got upstairs, wand out, he discovered only George in their small, shared apartment, surrounded by the glass from a picture frame.

George seemed rooted to the spot, so it was Ron who said, "reparo," watching the glass fly together. Ron bent down to pick up the picture that had fallen out of it, of Fred and George in front of the store on opening day, arms around each other's shoulders.

"I'm sorry," George said.

"Don't. It's fine."

"I thought it moved," George scrubbed his hands over his face. "I thought I saw Fred say -" he shook his head.

Ron looked back at the picture. It was just a muggle photo, unmoving. "It's okay," Ron said, sliding it back into the frame, magicking the frame back on the wall. "It happens."

George collapsed in a chair at the small table. It took Ron several seconds to realize that his brother's shoulders were shaking from silent sobs. "Oh, Georgie."

"Don't," George said, his voice thick and hoarse. "Please, don't."

"It's okay to miss -"

"He wasn't even twenty," George spat out, slamming his hand on the table. "Fighting in a bloody war -"

"I know."

"-and dying alone."

Ron blinked. His eyelashes were sticky. "He wasn't alone," he said, tentatively, taking a seat across from his big brother. "He wasn't alone. He was with me and Perce and Hermione and Harry. He was laughing. He - it wasn't scary. I don't think it was scary."

George made a sound like a moan. "I should have been there. Dunno why we split up - his bloody idea, 'cover more ground,'" he shook his head, and said, quieter, "I thought I'd know if he died. And then I walk into the Great Hall and I saw Bill and he was crying and I thought, oh, god, Charlie's dead. Because you know Bill and Charlie."

"I know."

"And then I saw Charlie, bringing in Lupin and Tonks, and I thought, oh god, Lupin and Tonks, you know, they just had a baby. And I thought that's why Bill was crying, because he and Lupin were close, I think. In the Order, they got to know each other. And then Bill just looked at me and he said, 'Fred.'" George shook his head. "I still don't know if he said it because he thought I was Fred or because he wanted to say that Fred was - I've never asked him."

"Georgie..."

George blinked at Ron as if seeing him for the first time. "Only you and Fred ever called me that." He said. "But you stopped when you were little."

"I'm sorry -"

"No, it's fine." George smiled, and it was a show smile but it was such a good facsimile that Ron wanted to believe it. "I'm sorry. This hasn't been a fun year, has it?"

"That doesn't matter," Ron sighed.

"It does," George crossed his arms, looking at the opening-day picture. "Fun's the only thing that matters, Ronnikins. Haven't we taught you that yet?" George furrowed his brow. "You should've been in school."

"I learn loads more here," Ron said, sincerely. "Really. What you and Lee do - it's amazing."

"Still. There's always Quidditch. And I thought you wanted to be an auror?"

"I think Harry wanted to be an auror," Ron said, "and I wanted to be like him." He could say that now that he was away from his best friend. And he missed Harry, and their adventures, and he was always happy when Harry got Special Permission For Being the Boy Who Lived Twice and came on weekends to the shop (Hermione never did, too busy studying) and they'd be young together and see Teddy and buy butterbeer. But it was also nice being his own grown-up. "Anyway, fighting's always scared me."

"You did enough of it to know," George said. "Made me and Fred's life a nightmare, you did. Mum told us to keep an eye on you and you're off with Devil's Snares and basilisks and werewolves."

"Someone had to give you grey hairs. And looking out for Ginny wasn't much better."

George barked out a genuine laugh, and looked so stricken that it made Ron's heart hurt. "You know," George said. "One time when we were at Hogwarts, I woke up and Fred's right there - you know how it was. He was always right there. And I told him that I thought he was a bad dream. That I'd dreamt about not having a twin, and I was just George, and I was happier." His voice cracked. "And he looked so hurt. And we were sixteen, maybe, and we never talked about it again, but I keep thinking about that, now. That maybe this is just a bad dream, being just George, and I'll wake up and Fred will be there and say everything's all right."

He was crying in earnest now. The clock on the wall chimed a doleful midnight tune.

"I just can't believe," George choked out.

"I can't believe it either," Ron said, and he wanted to cry, because no one should ever see their grown brother cry, because it was such a calamitous sight, because George had cried to much in those first days that Ron thought he would slip away. But instead he just sat George down on his bed and held his hand until the tears dried up. "When Fred died," Ron said to George, leaning his forehead against his brother's. "I thought the world had ended."

But George didn't say anything, because in the early hours of George's twentieth birthday, of his first birthday without a twin, George had fallen into a fitful sleep.

He woke up only once, to Ron, still troubled and awake, on the edge of the bed. And perhaps in the dim morning light he saw only red hair and a long nose, because George said, "Fred?" in a sleepy, hopeful voice.

The red-head took George's hand and squeezed without turning around. "It's all right, Georgie. Go back to sleep. I'm here."

.

.

before ron was loyal to harry, he was loyal to his family. and the poor, poor twins. in our other stories, fred comes back through his portrait. instead of just being a moving, talking picture he's the actual fred, who managed to trick death. that's what we like to think happened in the morning.