Sometimes, when he looked into a mirror, he thought he could see his brother.
But the picture looked crooked, wrong because Fred had had both his ears. Fred had never been twenty two and never would be. He was twenty, laughing and dead. Fred was lying on the cold floor of the school he had died to protect, the home of so many memories, a smile still playing on his lips
He wouldn't have looked sideways and seen empty space. He wouldn't have started a joke and then remembered there was no one to complete it. Fred had never had to feel guilty when he looked into the mirror. He had never had to live in a house that was lonely despite being full.
Fred had never been unsmiling, unlike what the mirror showed him nowadays.
His mum still knitted a G on his jumpers. George didn't have the heart to tell her there was no one he could possibly confuse his jumpers with.
Ron once told him about the mirror of Erised. Now, George laughed about it. If he had both his ears, every mirror was the Mirror of Erised.
Fred Weasley
1 April, 1978 - 2 May, 1988
Snow topped the grave, and George could see his breath fogging in front of him. This was his first visit since the funeral.
He pulled his cloak tighter. He tried to smile, tried to remember some fond memory or recite a lame joke. All he could think was that Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was incorrect now. Last words? He felt something hot trickle down his cheeks. Maybe in the cold, they would freeze on his skin and so would he... He shook his head.
("You actually are joking, Perce — I don't think I've heard you joke since you were —")
Why did he want to laugh? No, he didn't want to laugh. He wanted to hear Fred laugh.
He wanted someone standing next to him, maybe someone with familiar red hair and freckles and an incessant smile, a joke ready on his lips, a sideways glance and he would know what he was thinking. Maybe he should have worn Fred's jumper. It still fit him.
But it felt like cheating.
He looked into the mirror and smiled. In those moments, with the smile, he sometimes did see his brother.
