A/N: I wrote this in like fifteen minutes so it probably sucks. Review anyway.

Chapter 36

I'm Stunned as soon as Aries Shacklebolt falls to the floor, dead. The room is in chaos. Someone is handcuffing me, and I hear Harry's voice near my ear, distraught. "You can't just kill people, George," he whispers, sounding anguished.

"Wood's dead," I whisper back. "Angelina's with him."

"We know," he whispers back. He stands. "I think we should take this to Kingsley. He'll know whether to pardon him or send him to the Wizengamot."

"Pardon him?" came an incredulous voice. "Here we are with four dead bodies and no way to explain them but with this guy, and we're talking about pardoning him?!"

There were murmurs of agreement.

"Look," came a dry voice, one George recognized as belonging to Seamus Finnigan. "I highly doubt that between George Weasley and two Death Eaters, George killed his best man and wife."

"We can't just let him go!"

"We can't just send him to Azkaban, for God's sake," Harry snaps, exasperated. "I know George really well, he'd never murder anyone in cold blood."

Oh, I don't know, I might. "I didn't kill Oliver," I say, my voice shaky. "And I didn't kill January."

"We know," Harry says softly. He looks at each of the Aurors, and they nod in return. Reluctantly someone takes the cuffs off my wrists.

The funerals are sheer hell.

January's brother, Bruce, sobs and sobs. The Muggles are told that she was killed in a motor accident. The wizards and witches know what happened. I hide out in the back. I don't come out any. I am no stranger to grief.

Then is Oliver's. His is even worse.

His living siblings are there. All are a wreck. None talk. Verity cries and cries as she holds Eros. I stare at the casket, the white roses on top. He is buried with an Order of Merlin, First Class, an Order of the Phoenix, First Class, and a DA, First Class. Katie weeps openly. She stays after everyone else has already left, been his siblings. She stays by his side and sobs.

It is Fred's fault this happened. All his fault.

I don't go back to the Burrow, even when Percy is home and asks me to come. I don't go back at all. I am heartbroken, I am dead, I am not.

I stay at my flat in Diagon Alley, because it is easiest. I don't leave any in a week, but Io and Verity occasionally knock on the door and ask if I am okay. They don't come in. I fall back into drink.

One night I am clutching a firewhiskey and drunkenly stagger to bed. I cannot do this anymore. I find my wand in my trunk and raise it, ready to perform the Killing Curse on myself. I am a coward. I am a coward just like Draco Malfoy and just like Fred.

My hand brushes paper as I pull my wand out, and I pull it out, firewhiskey sloshing down onto the floor. I stare at the paper. In untidy cursive, it read:

To George
Love, Fred

I stare at it, a red haze swamping my already bleary vision. I should rip it up, yes, rip it up, rip it in half, tear it to shreds.

Instead, somewhere in my slurred mind, something says, Open it.

So I do.

Dear George,
I don't know when you're going to read this. Hell, I don't know if you'll ever read this.

If you do, read hard and pay attention.

The war is getting tough. Lots of people have died, and privately I fear we're on the losing side. I have no clue where Harry, Hermione, or Ron are. We might die any day now.

You already know that, though.

I'm writing to you because I've been individually singled out and threatened by the Death Eater community. You see, I killed someone really high in their ranks.

This is so hard to write.

They told me next time they see me I'll be dead. I won't go down without a fight, but it'll be a fight in which I'll be hopelessly outnumbered and won't be able to win.

You're going to hear things about me, George, that you're going to wish you hadn't. It's best you hear them from me.

I'm going to be a father. Yeah, I know. No, it's not Angelina. I know, it's scandalous. You'd think it would belong to the woman I was engaged to.

The baby belongs to Verity. We were both drunk, George. It was a one-night stand. Neither of us were in love with the other. Neither of us could remember what happened when we woke up. It was a mistake.

I might not love Verity, but I love the baby. And I love you. So this is the most important part:

I know you're angry. You have a right to be. I had to protect you, and the baby, and Verity. After they kill me (which they most certainly will, unless a miracle works in our favor), they will come for you. I know, because that's the way these people work. They will kill you. And they will kill the baby. So I didn't tell you. I didn't tell you and all this time I wanted to. I didn't tell you so the baby might not be associated with either of us, and I didn't tell you so they wouldn't hurt you.

It probably doesn't make any sense.

It does, though. I don't want you to hate me. You mean more to me than anything.

I'll see you some day. I don't know when, but some day.

Love,
Fred

My tears soak through the paper, the smell of alcohol making my stomach heave. I collapse on my bed and dream that night about fire and Fred, all the times Fred had been writing and tearing out paper and wadding it up and throwing it away and I had never even asked him what he had been writing. And how Oliver Wood had been right the entire time.