"I thought it was gonna be you, you know," George said, glazed eyes fixed straight ahead.
Ron glanced at him, a quick flick to the right, but didn't respond.
"Who died," George elaborated. "If it was going to be any one of us, I thought it would be you. I think we all did. It's just probability, you know. When you disappeared it was like we started counting down the days." Ron stiffened but still said nothing, eyes determinedly trained on the clouds over the low trees in the Burrow garden. For a moment, the clink of the empty beer bottles colliding lazily at their feet was the only sound.
"Talk about unexpected, the way it turned out," George finished off bluntly.
"Me too."
George let out a questioning grunt.
"I thought it'd be me too." Ron clarified.
"Did you."
"Yeah. Like you said, probability." Ron took a deep breath and pushed it out slowly through his nose. "Sometimes I think it should've been me. Like there was... some shoddy paperwork and they took the wrong one."
George tore his gaze away from the horizon and, for the first time in a long time, looked at his little brother.
"That's fucked up," he said, through a short, huffed laugh. It was a hideously rare, genuine thing.
"Yeah," Ron murmured.
George turned back to the clouds, but as the sun rose slowly into the day, he reached out and clapped a hand against Ron's shoulder, squeezing it once, tightly. Ron scraped his shoes upon the grass, a slow smile spreading across his face.