I hate myself.
I really, really hate myself.
Does that mean I hate him too, since he is part of me?
It was all my own fault. I got jalous. For some really crappy reason.
You'd think that we are so much one that we can never really be torn apart.
Wrong.
See, I was very tired. Very annoyed at the whole world. And then I got thinking.
People always address us as one. The Twins. They even say we do 'twinspeak'.
Why on earth did I get jalous? It started with our name order, actually.
Fred and George. Never George and Fred. Always Fred first.
Pathetic, right?
It was late one night when I returned with Dad from a very tiring mission. Clean up, mostly. Except we didn't clean up our room or anything. We cleaned up bodies. Lots of them.
I guess I didn't take it well. I have seen dead people before, but never on this scale. Dad didn't say anything, but he noticed. He just let me be, and took care of the worst.
When I came home, I felt sick, I felt horrified, and I was angry. And the person I saw first, was my brother. Fred. My twin. My other half.
And I just snapped. I yelled at him when he asked me how I was. I complained about how people always see either us or him, never me. I told him to get the hell away from me. I can still see the pain in his eyes as he left to sleep in Ron's room.
I lay on my bed for hours, unable to sleep, unable to get up and go to him. I knew he would leave early to go on a surveillance mission, but even when I heard him leave, I could do nothing.
Hours later, I heard the floo, followed by Mom's sobs.
When I came downstairs, professor Dumbledore was in the kitchen, looking solemn. Mom rushed over to me and hugged me fiercely.
"George…oh George…"
At that moment, I knew something was horribly wrong.
"George," Dumbledore said kindly, "George…something didn't go well on your brother's mission."
I could see him mustering up courage.
"He was captured, George. And we have little hope that he is still alive."
Now, he doesn't know anything about twins, that much is obvious. If Fred were dead, I'd know.
"He's not dead, headmaster. We must go rescue him!"
The old man looked at me sadly while my parents clung to each other, and reached out to me to join their hug. I shrugged them off.
"We must help him! We can't just do nothing!"
Dumbledore put his hands on my shoulders.
"My boy, there is nothing we can do. Your brother is lost. I know you can't believe that now…"
"HE IS NOT DEAD!" I screamed in his face, not caring for politeness or respect.
"George…"
"NO! HE'S NOT! YOU DON'T KNOW A THING ABOUT IT! You don't…know…"
I couldn't contain my tears any longer. Dumbledore sighed and pulled me against his shoulder.
I don't know how long I cried there, repeating "He's not dead. He's not dead," over and over again.
And I certainly don't remember being carried to bed and tucked in, but when I woke up, Percy was sitting next to me.
"What…?"
He looked at me solemnly.
"Dumbledore carried you up here," he said softly.
"They aren't going to look for Fred, they're just giving up," the pain in his eyes nearly matched mine. Nearly.
Percy and us have, to the outside world anyway, always been at odds. We pranksters, seemingly never serious, never putting in an effort.
He a prefect, fussy about rule-breaking, nervous about grades.
But on a deeper level, we have more in common with Percy then with any of our other siblings.
You see, it is a well-guarded secret that Percy is part of a set of twins as well. It runs in our family.
But his twin Lance died when they were four years old. Bill and Charlie never talk about it anymore. Ron and Ginny weren't born yet. And Fred and me only have the vaguest memories of 'two Percy's' as we used to call it until we were old enough to realize that there HAD, in fact, been another set of identical twins in the Weasley household.
It is a wound in Percy that has never healed, however young he was. We put up with his bad moods because we know what causes them; seeing us reminds him often of that other half of his, the half that is gone for good.
"I have to bring him back, Perce," I whisper desperately. I didn't know what I would say to him, if I ever could apologise enough for hurting him, but I wanted him back so desperately.
He bows his head. "I know, George. But it is the middle of the day now. We can't go out until everyone's asleep."
I gaped at him. "We?" I managed.
Percy shot me a glare. "Yes, WE. WE need to find our brother. I know what this feels like," he said softly, "and if you say he isn't dead, he isn't. Believe me, if he was, you'd know."
He turned away briefly, trying to contain the hurt that the empty hole inside him still caused from time to time.
"Gather whatever you think is useful," he said, "but do it quietly. I'll tell Mom we talked a bit, and you went back to sleep. I've overhead Dumbledore talk; they are sure Fred was taken to the dungeons beneath MacNair's house."
He didn't say, but I knew the rumors as well as he did, that no one has ever left those dungeons alive.
Percy snuck back into our room well after midnight. I had packed some of our favorite gags; a few devices inspired by Muggle gas bombs. They were designed to emit potion fumes that would knock anyone breathing them out for a day at least.
Fortunately, Fred and I had gotten round to inventing the antidote as well. I gave Percy a vial and he looked at me questioningly.
"Drink it," I said, "it will protect you from this particular gag." I downed my own potion.
He shrugged, and tipped his own potion in his mouth.
We Apparated as close to MacNair's house as we could get.
Percy motioned for me to sit back.
"Bill taught me a thing or two about wards," he whispered, "and I read some of the books he left at the Burrow."
Percy set to work, and after some extensive use of magic, he managed to open the wards partially, about as much as a decent door.
"Get in," he hissed.
We circled the house twice, before discovering the hatch that led to the dungeons.
The front part of the dungeons were just that; dungeons. Dirty. Uninhabited. Used for storage.
But behind a small, hidden door, we found something that threw us both off balance.
"This isn't a dungeon, it's a freakin' laboratory," Percy hissed.
"Let's split up," I replied, handing him a coin like the one we had used for DA, "this will heat up when I've found him. Tap it, and mine will heat up should you find him first."
We nodded, and quickly disappeared into separate corridors.
At the end of a long hall, I saw five guards in front of a large door. Death Eaters, all of them.
Carefully taking out a gas bomb, I slid it over the floor towards them. It hit the wall, and went off.
The guards frantically looked around, trying to locate me, but soon they had all breathed in the fumes and started to pass out.
I waited another minute to make absolutely sure, before I set on picking the locks.
But as soon as I touched the door, it opened.
Fred was there, bound to a pillar in the middle of the room. I quickly tapped my coin and rushed over to him.
When we looked at each other, the anticipation I had felt over our fight the previous day – had it really been only a day? – disappeared. We were whole again.
Quickly I drew my wand and undid his chains, but just as I was about to remove the gag, I heard a soft, hissing voice behind me.
"George Weasley," it said, "How nice of you to join us."
I saw the panic in Fred's eyes, and turned around slowly.
Before me, were half a dozen Death Eaters. And behind them, was Voldemort himself.
Surrounded by six trained wizards, we were powerless for the moment. Of course, Fred and I never accept any defeat as permanent. Just a temporary setback.
Voldemort smiled eerily as he approached us.
"I knew you would come for your brother," he said, sounding horribly smug.
"Do you know, Mr Weasley, that Grindelwald during his reign employed Healers to research the topic of identical twins? He believed, correctly, I have since discovered, that identical twins draw power from each other…perhaps that is not entirely correct. I believe that your magic has a deeper, powerful dimension. Am I right?"
I knew, from what Harry had told us, that this monster could do Legilimency, but I couldn't help the knowledge that flooded through my mind; my bond with Fred, how our magic nearly flowed seamlessly between us, how we could communicate almost telepathically.
"Yes," the creature hissed, "I thought so. And for that reason, I have devised a spell, one that will allow me to use your power, your bond, to duplicate its effects. I will have to…suck you dry, unfortunately, and both of you; that's why I captured your brother to lure you here. But after this, my most loyal followers will be bound to me like you are bound to your brother."
Somehow, I doubted that his followers would be on an equal level like Fred and I are. To me, it sounded like he had just found another way to dominate people. But, either way, it didn't matter to me, because I had no desire whatsoever to be 'sucked dry', and I was sure Fred shared my feelings towards this.
But before we could do anything, Voldemort aimed his wand at us and threw out a Latin phrase.
Ooooh, the pain. I never felt pain like that in my life, worse then anything. It felt like my insides were slowly being ripped out of me. Besides me, I could hear Fred screaming, and I desperately wanted to do something, to fight.
"No point, boy," Voldemort sneered at my efforts, "that is the beauty of this spell. It is adapted to Twin magic. Those without twins can't break it, and those who are…well, you feel the effects. Perfect, isn't it?"
"Not quite," another voice sounded.
Percy.
He threw his own gas bomb at the Death Eaters, who dropped like flies. Then he stood straight in front of the spell that held Fred and me captured. Fred had, mercifully, passed out from the gas. I strained to get to Percy, to protect him…
The spell did nothing to him.
Apparently Voldemort was as shocked as he was.
"There is one type of person who can break this spell," Percy said, a tear rolling down his face, "those that used to be twins."
He concentrated his magic, his half-twin magic, and the beam reversed, crashing into Voldemort. The Dark Wizard groaned, summoned his wand and Apparated.
The light of the spell faded away from Percy, but I could have sworn that in it I could hear the laughter of a small child.
He helped me up and smiled at me.
"I do hope you have some antidote on you, or we will have to drag this lazy body back to the Burrow," he said.
I snorted. Force-feeding Fred the antidote, we got him – albeit groggily - on his feet.
"Are you well enough to Apparate?" Percy asked as we reached the 'door' in the wards, "I'll take Fred."
"We'll go together," I said, putting my arms around both of them as we exited the wards.
I looked him in the eye. "All four of us," I said softly, and I saw he understood.
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Mom and Dad, of course, went totally berserk when they saw the three of us. They had just been about to call the Order to report that Percy and I had gone when we returned. After some very extensive hugging, we were thoroughly poked and checked by Madam Pomphrey, questioned by Dumbledore and Moody, before we were finally allowed to get some sleep.
Fred silenced me when I tried to apologise.
"I understand," he said, "Voldemort boasted about that clean up job you went to do…and what he had created that needed cleaning up. We're ok, brother mine," he smiled, "especially since you came for me."
Percy bid us goodnight, and was about to go to his own room when we called him back.
"You know, Percy," Fred began,
"we would really like to hear," I continued, newly appreciating the feel of my brother's mind buzzing in mine,
"a little more about Lance," Fred finished.
"Coming?" we asked in unison.
And with the happiest smile I've ever seen from him, Percy followed us up.