A/N: Thanks as always for the positive feedback. Summer is ending and I head back to college in a week. I want to start getting back into the swing of things with my updates, finishing up some stories and work on others that I haven't published yet. Hopefully.
But for now, please continue to read and review! This story is almost over, with about 10-12 chapters to go! Can you believe it? Thanks to everyone who has supported this fanfiction, whether you've been following since the beginning or whether you joined last week. It all means the world to me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the books and movies.
Thanks, and review!
"Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two…" George counted, sighing. "And this would make fifty three. Merlin, Fred, how do we even know fifty three people?"
Personally? We don't. Twenty, maybe. But overall…I'd say we could call out a near hundred just by name. And as heroes of war and well-established genius businessmen, our name has certainly gotten around, eh?
"I guess you're right." George mused.
Aren't I always?
"We've had this argument before, Fred. No, you are not always right. Remember your idea for garroting wire that could double as dental floss? Not your finest hour."
Okay, so I had one little misadventure with that particular product.
"Fred, you remember how pissed Mum was when she had to take you to St. Mungo's because your mouth was a bloody mess? Sawed right through the gum and hit bone! Even the Healers were scared because you had gone and done something so stupid like using Muggle products like garroting wire in your mouth!"
Okay, okay, I see your point. So I was wrong that one time.
"One time? Fred, you are my twin brother. Up until your death, we had never spent one minute away from each other, so I can honestly tell you that you, dear brother, have been wrong well more than one time."
Such as?
"Uh, let's see, there was your pitch to make Fanged Frisbees venomous with a paralytic. Oh, and then there was your brilliant idea to try an Ever Change Color Spell on the cat - which was stuck on green for months - and then when you wanted to teach yourself how to Apparate, and then there was the first go at Extendable Ears, except they weren't ears at first, if you recall, they were -"
Hey that wasn't my idea, it was yours. And I don't remember you exactly being the voice of reason and logic in all these scenarios, Saint George. Yeah, more like a devil on my shoulder, hm?
"Well," George shrugged, "call me what you will, but I never accidentally lodged my wand up my-"
I THOUGHT WE AGREED TO NEVER MENTION THAT INCIDENT EVER AGAIN - I SWEAR GEORGE - I WAS JUST -
George couldn't help the ripple of laughter that erupted from his chest. He was caught by surprise, but made no effort to quell the shaking of his shoulder, or the thunderous belt of his full laugh. Long and hard, he fell back on the bed, tears streaming down his face, but he wasn't sad for the first time in what felt like forever. He was letting everything out in big guffaws and chuckles and bubbly giggles and snorts. George found himself reveling in it. He hadn't laughed like this since Fred died, since before that even, since the War started coming down on them all. And now it was all coming back to him in one big wave -
And then it was over. Just like that, it all tapered off and he was left heaving on his back, staring up at the ceiling, having hardly moved but completely winded nonetheless.
"Whoa." He said softly. "That felt good."
Fred was quiet in his mind, but George perceived this silence as a kind of agreement. The emotion Fred's apparition was emitting to him was almost…happy, but it was a sad kind of happy, and there was a hint of…was that pride? It was so hard to tell, especially since he couldn't see his brother's face. He had always been able to read his twin's mind with just one look into his eyes, or catching a facial expression, or a flick of a wrist, the crack of his knuckles or neck or jaw or literally with anything Fred did, George knew what was behind it. And now…now he had lost all of that. Lost it to the veil.
You haven't lost anything, brother. It's all right there, waiting for you.
George sighed again, but it didn't carry any of the weight it usually did. George frowned at that. He was changing. Whether it was Fred or these letters or both..he was changing because of them. And while it didn't feel particularly bad…it didn't feel exactly great, either. Just different.
"Yeah. Well." George cleared his throat. "What's waiting for me is this damned box of letters that I can finally see the end of. Got like, another ten of these? Maybe? Thank Merlin. I swear this could have been one of our products - a box that never ends. Just keeps spewing out whatever you put inside it."
Like a Duplicating Charm? Could be interesting…
"Yeah, or a lawsuit waiting to happen. If Hagrid got one and then put in a dragon's egg or a Fire-Crab or something, all hell would break loose."
Ooh, right. Selective clientele then.
"Right, cause that would go over smoothly."
Pick another bloody letter.
George closed his eyes and dropped his hand into the box, shuffling the remaining dozen letters around. Finally, he let his fingers catch under the seal of one and held it up like a prize catch, even though, on the outside, it was no different than the fifty-two others before it.
"Oh goodie." He flicked the seal free of the envelope with one practiced swipe of his finger and tugged out the - well, it wasn't a letter. "Did someone…write this on trash?"
It was a torn and cleanly old piece of parchment. Splotches dotted the paper (either water damage or maybe ink, though it was darker than either of those) and the writing was cramped and scraggly and written in a slanting diagonal that changed whenever the sender came to a torn ragged edge or one of the holes that looked like something had burned through it.
"What in the world?" George gaped at the poor excuse for a letter. Could it even be called that? It looked more like a page out of someone's long forgotten diary or journal entry that was somehow survived a fire only to be caught in the rain before someone had crumpled it up and thrown it away…where rats ate away at it…for a hundred years.
Fred Weasley.
I won't write "Dear" because you weren't. Not to me. No, you and your brother of yours were nothing but terrors to me during the like of your stay at Hogwarts. Worst in my experience, with the possible exception of James Potter and Sirius Black, back when they were students. In my opinion, none of you ever got the proper discipline what was coming to you. Belts, chains, hanging by your thumbs till they snapped or hanging by your ankles till the blood rushed some common sense into those empty skulls of yours. But of course, punishments like that ended well before my time at Hogwarts, sadly. I've petitioned Headmistress McGonagall a thousand times but she shows me about as much respect as Dumbledore did.
Which is not to say he never respected me. He did, that man. But he never took my suggestions. Never carried through with threats against children. Not like Dolores did, or Professor -er, former Headmaster Snape. Now, they knew how to run a school. How to command respect that you despicable vermin still refuse to give to me, though I've been here longer than any of you. Fear is not respect. No, fear only fuels your need to disobey and ridicule and make messes of catastrophic proportions that I always have to clean with a pitiful amount of help.
Look, I ain't doin this for you or for me. Up to me, you wouldn't get a letter. Maybe some payback for all the hell you raised, drove me up the bloody walls. And then you had to near blow up the Great Hall and send Peeves on a godforsaken rampage for the rest of the year. Only reason I'm writing this piece of trash is because Headmistress ordered me to. Thought it might do me some good and make me less ornery. Hm. Show her what's what. I always been this way, and nothing, not even a stupid letter, is gonna change what I've always been.
So what? What do you want me to say? I miss ya? Well I don't. Not you or your brother or Mr. Potter or any of the Weasley-Potter-Granger hybrids now running rampant through the school. Should exterminate all of ya. Actually, why not all children. Waste. Pathetic, ignorant, horrible -
Forget it. I'm no good at this sappy crap. Never have been, never will be.
Look, here's the deal. I didn't have it good as a kid. Being a Squib in a magical-based family does that to ya. And then going to Hogwarts only to find out you never should have been there in the first place? Not pleasant. Kids are mean and cruel and downright demons, especially to anyone they deem different or weird. And I was that. So Dumbledore took me under his wing, helped me not feel so useless. Then, when I was older, gave me a job where I would have just a little but of power, gain some respect and some fear. It worked for a long time, then you two idiots come barging through, aiming my life more miserable than it usually is.
So don't expect me to say I miss you at all. Cause I don't. I don't miss the Dungbombs or the charmed hallways or the tag-team between you and Peeves, or the enchanted snowballs in the corridors or the constant sneaking around the castle past curfew or sneaking into the Forest. I don't miss it at all. I relish the constant silence and monotony of my days here at Hogwarts. I love never being surprised anymore. I love not being tormented by the only people who ever seemed to give a crap about me, even if it was to drive me and Mrs. Norris absolutely batty. Nope. I don't care to remember the only kids who tried to remember me. Makes me sick to my stomach and my eyes all red and my chest gets tight and I can't breathe. Disgusting. Rather not do it at all.
The end. I'm done.
A. Filch
George stared in shock at the piss-poor letter from Argus Filch, the caretaker at Hogwarts.
"That miserable bastard actually tried writing a letter to you, and the majority of it is insults."
Aw, he really does care.
"Ha." George huffed, but he scanned the last paragraph again, taking in every false bitter word the older man had written. "Maybe he does. In his own way."
People will surprise you, George, if you let them.
