This took me waaaaaay longer to write than I thought it would. Anyway, it's not great, but I've got lots of plans for this, so please stick with it! I will try to get the next chapter done pretty soon. The action is gonna actually start real soon. Anyway, leave a review, and I don't own Harry Potter!

Fred answered the door, smiling. "Oh! You literally all arrived at the same time." He laughed. "Come in."

Remus entered first, followed by Alicia, Angelina, Lee, and Oliver. "How have you been?" Remus asked.

"Pretty good, though we've been talking about temporarily closing the shop. Would you like any—George, sweet boy, are you asleep?"

George was laying on the sofa with a pillow over his head. "Yeah."

Fred laughed. "Come on, get up. Everybody's here." He grabbed George's foot and shook it a little bit.

George kicked Fred's hand away. "No."

Fred tried to grab the pillow off of George's head, but he held onto it tighter. "George, sweet boy, let's get up." When George didn't respond, Fred sighed. He reached around the pillow and ran a hand through George's hair. "What's wrong?"

George, in what seemed to be a fit of anger, stood up and threw the pillow at Fred. He stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door. The shower turned on.

Fred sighed, sitting on the sofa and closing his eyes. "Sorry about that. He's been like that all day."

"Give him his time, we have all day," Remus said. He sat down next to Fred. "In the meantime, I ought to start explaining to you things that George already knows. We're forming a team, rather like a spy team from a Muggle film, the members of which will act as the sole information gatherers for the Order. We have a flat in the Muggle part of town that we would like the six of you to stay in, and you will be going in rotating groups of three. Any questions?"

"Uh, yeah, I…" Oliver stuttered. "I don't think—I don't think I can do this."

Angelina shot a sympathetic glance in Oliver's direction.

"Oliver, I assure you that every precaution will be taken so that you are properly trained and protected as much as we can manage. At least get through the training, and then you can make your decision."

Oliver nodded.

George came back into the room, his eyes red and swollen. "Okay, I'm ready."

Remus nodded. "The biggest thing about this team is George. As I'm sure some of you know, George is a very skilled Legilimens. So, through many conversations, extensive research, and physical examinations, we've decided to go forth with an Anima Separata."

"A what?" Fred blurted out, instantly understanding that whatever an Anima Separata was, it couldn't be good.

George took a deep breath. "Anima Separata literally translates to 'separated mind' in Latin. Basically, a person goes into your mind and splits it into two parts, one of which is totally concealed from everybody, unless explicit consent to access it is given. It's a gruelling twenty-four hour process, and it's highly deadly. Records from the two survivors suggest that I possess a couple qualities that could make it easier for me to...well, not die."

Fred had a thousand things on the forefront of his mind, but he didn't say any of it.

"Wait. Two survivors?" Angelina said, her voice cracking.

George nodded. "There are some things we haven't ironed out yet. For example, the most recent survivor, and the one with more than three vague pages of records, was a woman, and a lot of the symptoms she recorded won't affect me. I actually am going to meet with her this weekend in hopes that she will be able to give us more information. Needless to say, we have no idea what the fuck we're doing."

"So...you're okay with this?" Fred cursed himself for how stupid it sounded.

"We do what we have to, you know?"

Fred was haunted by how cold and empty George's voice was.

"Alright, so, we're going to do the Anima Separata Monday of next week, which gives us a little bit of time to plan out what we're going to do. Mad Eye is going to be running the training to ensure that you're adequately prepared. I think that's about it until we perform the Anima Separata. Any questions?"

Everybody shook their heads.

"Alright, well, I think we should stop intruding on the twins, they probably have quite a bit to talk over. Thank you two for having us, and I will be in touch about a second meeting after Monday. Thank you all for coming. Have a good afternoon."

"Wait, before you go, George bakes when he's stressed, and I beg you to take at least a loaf of bread each," Fred said. "I promise we didn't fuck them up."

Angelina shrugged. "If I wake up with pink hair, you are going to die."

George smiled. "You could pull it off."

Angelina raised her eyebrows. "Damn right I could."

There was a quick second of awkward silence, during which Angelina and George looked everywhere but at each other. Finally, Fred cleared his throat. "Please, for the love of God, take some food."

Each person left with plenty of baked goods. When the door closed behind the group, Fred turned to George.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't—"

"Why the fuck couldn't you have just come up to me and gone 'hey, Fred, I decided that I'm gonna do something that's gonna get me killed, you cool?'" Fred shouted at the top of his lungs.

George stormed over to the door and slammed it behind him. Fred sank to the sofa and buried his face in his hands. He could hear the rain pounding on the roof, which made him want to chase after George with a coat. He craned his neck to see if George was anywhere near their flat, but he couldn't spot him through the rain, even though the normally bustling Diagon Alley was all but empty.

Deciding to actually be productive while George was gone, Fred pulled out the sofa into the small bed that the two of them shared. He made it up, which usually consisted of one of them chucking a quilt onto the mattress, but today he made sure that it would be comfortable. If George was going to die, Fred would make sure that the last six days of his life were decent at worst.

Feeling a bit nauseous, Fred made himself a cup of ginger tea. He drank it while it was scalding, which would have earned him a scolding had George been there ("You are going to burn your mouth off!"). When it was gone, he washed the mug and the rest of the dishes in the sink. Usually, George was the one who did things like this, complaining that something broke whenever Fred came within twenty feet of the kitchen. When he managed to get through the dishes without any disasters, he knew that he couldn't put off the inevitable any longer: he had to make supper.

George was an amazing cook, and because of this, Fred hardly ever cooked. He pulled down the box of recipe cards from the cupboard, flipping through all of the recipes that George had written down from their mother. It was bad enough that Fred was a total fuck-up in the kitchen, but it was worse that he only had recipes in George's writing to go by. George had been notorious in their year at Hogwarts for failing Potions essays simply because Snape thought his handwriting was too messy. Umbridge wouldn't even take his work, and Fred ended up having to write for him constantly.

Finally finding one of their favourite recipes, lasagna soup, Fred set to work. Even Charlie had successfully managed to make it once while their parents were on a date or something. Fred opened the refrigerator and took out some carrots to chop. If there was one thing Fred could do, it was chop vegetables.

When he opened the freezer and saw that the bag of vegetable scraps was almost full, he panicked for a moment that there wouldn't be any vegetable stock. Squinting at the recipe and seeing that he could use water, Fred took a deep breath. He knew he shouldn't have gotten so worked up about that, but he couldn't help it. He went back to chopping vegetables.

When he moved on to the onion, his eyes started to water. In his hypersensitive state and with his vision somewhat restricted, he sliced right over his fingernail.

Fred didn't even feel it at first, and he kept chopping until the onion began to turn red. He began to hyperventilate as the pain hit him before bursting into tears. He sat down hard on the floor and cried like a baby. It wasn't from the pain necessarily, and Fred knew it. He was about to lose his best friend, and the detached feeling he had possessed since he had heard the news had been lifted. He knew that he needed to do something about the cut on his finger, but he didn't care.

This was the state that George found him in when he came in, soaked to the bone and wanting a long, hot shower. "Oh, hey, Freddie, are you alright? What happened?"

Fred could barely choke out a question to ensure that George was, indeed, his twin. Once he did, he clung to George and babbled nonsense into his shoulder.

"Shh, shh, it's alright. Let's get you cleaned up. Can you stand?"

Fred stood up with George's help, not letting George escape from his embrace. George ran Fred's finger under water for a moment before applying pressure. Fred winced.

"What happened?"

"Onion," Fred said, nodding towards the bloodied onion.

"Ah."

Fred calmed down after George stopped the bleeding, cut off the torn part of the nail, and bandaged the tip of Fred's finger.. "I'm supposed to be taking care of you, not other way 'round."

"Who said you had to take care of me?"

"You might die soon."

"Okay. I'll finish up supper, and then we can talk about this. How does that sound?"

"I'll finish it."

"Fred, you can't boil water."

Fred opened his mouth to protest, but he decided that this was one argument he couldn't win. He sighed. "Get into dry clothes first."

George did so, deciding that it was late enough that pyjamas were appropriate. He managed to wash the blood off of the onion, and the soup was ready within the hour. The twins sat cross-legged on the floor in silence, occasionally glancing up at each other and forcing a smile.

"What made you decide to do it?" Fred asked finally.

"I guess I just want to get this over with. The war, I mean. And, you know, this wasn't spontaneous. It was Dumbledore's idea in the first place, and it wasn't my decision at all, really. I guess I could've backed out now that he's gone, but I don't think that Remus would allow it, honestly."

"Are you scared?"

George nodded slowly. "I'm fucking terrified," he whispered.

"Do you reckon you'll survive?"

George ignored the question. "I think I'm going to take a shower. I'm freezing."

"George. Answer me. Do you think you are going to die?"

George looked everywhere but at his twin.

"You do, don't you?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

Fred looked down. "Will it hurt?"

George bit his lip, debating what to say. As he opened his mouth his left hand twitched, that little tell that only Fred knew about. "Not very much."

"Don't lie to me."

George's hand twitched again. "It'll hurt quite a bit, but no more than breaking a bone or something."

"You're fucking lying again. Tell me the goddamn truth. How much is it going to hurt you?"

"Fred, it doesn't matter. I can handle—"

"I don't want you in pain!"

"I am not your fucking slave! You don't control me! I can do whatever the shit I want and you can't fucking stop me! Please, just leave me alone!" George shouted.

Fred raised his hand in a moment of anger, inches away from George's face and ready to strike.

George's eyes widened before he took a small step back. Fred had never done anything like that before. He braced himself for a hit.

Fred seemed to realize what he was doing and put his hand down. "I'm sorry. Oh, Merlin, George, I…"

The twins looked at each other for a moment. "It's fine," George said, but almost no sound came out. "I get it. I wouldn't...if I was in your place. That's the worst thing. It's the worst thing I can imagine."

"Hey. I'm still here. I'll always be here." Fred pulled George close to him. "I'm here."