George bolted down the corridor, a grin planted firmly on his face, shooting hexes at the Death-Eaters around him.
He wasn't actually fighting anyone in particular (he'd finished a couple of Death-Eaters off before and had decided to give the other students a go), just having fun running around the castle making Death-Eaters collapse when their legs turned to jelly or fall to the floor screaming with laughter, trying to stop long enough to undo his tickling charm.
It didn't really hurt them, but more often than not it gave their opponent enough time to kill them, so he figured he was doing a good job.
However, his fun was cut short when he saw a Death-Eater use a curse to slit the throat of a Ravenclaw who had been in his year when he attended Hogwarts and stepped out to challenge him.
He walked backwards, shooting charms as the Death-Eater advanced.
He thought he was done for when he had been backed against a wall, but a rebounding Stupify charm hit the Death-Eater square between the eyes and knocked him out cold.
Grinning, George leant backwards and nearly fell through the wall.
He looked and saw it was a secret passage he and Fred had found on their first day at Hogwarts.
He felt his elbow nudge something and it crashed out of the passage.
He leaned down to examine what it was - then turned his head and threw up.
He could barely bring himself to look, but he had to be sure.
Through the tears, he recognised the face of his twin brother, lieing cold and dead on the floor.
That was it.
He felt his legs collapse and he dropped like a stone, sobbing beside his twin.
His hand hovered over his brothers body, somehow scared to do more damage to a life that was already destroyed beyond repair.
This couldn't be happening.
The other half of him was lieing dead.
It was impossible.
He had always pictured Fred dying at the exact same time as him.
He knew it was stupid but hey, they'd come into the world together, why couldn't they go out of it the same way?
He didn't know how long he lay there, unable to do anything but weep for his loss, but he became slowly aware that the corridors were silent, that he was alone with the dead.
He heard voices in the distance, familiar but muffled.
It was as though he was behind thick glass, with Fred, and the rest of the world were stuck on the other side.
He recognised the voices as his fathers and someone else who he didn't know - perhaps someone from the Ministry.
"Oh thank God, there they are - Fred, George! Over here, quickly!" his father called, and the sound of his brothers name only made George sob harder.
George's back was to Mr Weasley, so he truly had no idea what had happened to his sons and why they weren't reacting to him.
His stomach dropping, Mr Weasley strolled forward.
He almost knew before he reached them.
He saw Fred, eyes staring, half a smile on his face, and he saw George, shaking, retching, crying beside his brother.
He felt tears of his own start to fall, but he focused on his sons. He had to help them now.
He hooked an arm around George and summoned the strength to pull him to his feet.
He beckoned the Ministry worker, who hurried over and took over keeping George upright whilst Arthur, trying not to lose control of his emotions, conjured up a stretcher and laid his dead son on it.
He tried to make the stretcher float but his hands were shaking so much he couldn't hold his wand still.
The other wizard muttered a spell and the stretcher rose and followed them down the steps and into the Main Hall.
Mrs Weasley was waiting anxiously along with Bill, Charlie, Percy and Ginny.
She began to sob when she saw George being half-dragged in by the ministry worker, her relief evident as she rushed forward to embrace him.
However, she could tell by her sons face that something was wrong.
"What is it? What's happened?" she asked, looking worriedly into her sons eyes.
He stared back, in utter despair.
"He's dead!" he whispered, almost silently.
Mr Weasley entered, looking defeated, the stretcher drifting behind him.
It was though a bomb had gone off.
Mrs Weasley collapsed sobbing, Ginny began to scream uncontrollably, Percy, the image of his brother dying replaying in his mind, fell to the ground, head in hands, Bill and Charlie looked shocked as tears filled their eyes.
People in the hall looked at them, horrified by the sight.
Ginny's screams were becoming hysterical, yet none of her family even seemed to notice.
Eventually, Nevile limped forward, pulled Ginny into a hug as her screams turned to tears.
The stretcher was laid on the ground and Mrs Weasley crawled forward, her eyes set on her son.
She held his face in her hands, crying and shaking her head.
She looked up and saw George's pained gaze, set on his brother.
It killed her even more to see him like this as well - even when her boggart had appeared at Grimmauld Place all those years ago, and she saw each of her family dead, Fred and George always appeared dead together - because even in her worst nighmare, Molly Weasley never imagined them being apart.
George
The sky is blue and cloudless.
The sun beats down and it's the sort of weather that soaks into your clothes, warming you right to the bone.
The ground is green and the grass is lazy; it droops forward, too tired to reach for the sun.
A great day to be out and about.
A terrible day to be lowered into the ground.
I'm thinking all this to remember.
To remember you, Fred.
And I know if I told you this you'd call me soft and think I was stupid, but I'm past caring.
I have to remember you because memories are all I have left.
I'm stood surrounded by my family and friends.
I know I am crying, and that someone is hugging me, but I don't know who or why.
I see your coffin floating down and I can't help but wish I could go with it.
It feels wrong that I should live and you should die.
I feel as though we were playing a game of Russian Roullette and I cheated.
Except I didn't cheat.
You just got unlucky.
And while we're using the game metaphor, then I guess I won.
I survived the Battle of Hogwarts, when thousands died.
But it doesn't feel like winning.
It feels like the game is rigged and in the end, everyone's a loser.
You feel like you're winning because you're still in the game and then you realise, when your back was turned, they stole everything that was important to you.
Maybe I'm being overdramatic.
After all, it's only you I lost.
I could have lost everyone.
But the thing is, me and you, we weren't just two sides of the same coin.
We were the same side of the same coin.
Without you, it feels like I left home today with half of me missing.
Nothing works properly - especially not my brain.
It's weird, it's like one minute, I'm sat at the kitchen table while everyone eats breakfast, the next I'm alone and the sun is sinking through the window.
Huge chunks of time are missing and I worked out why.
It's the times where you would have, should have been there.
My life is skipping over the parts where you should be because they don't make sense without you.
Nothing does.
Right now, I'm stood by your grave.
Again, a huge chunk of my life is missing because a second ago the sky was bright blue and I was surrounded by people but now the sky is a pinky-purple and I am alone.
I stare at your headstone and think these thoughts, but it's no longer enough to think them, I have to tell you, like I always did when you were alive.
It always felt like my brain was too full, like if I didn't share my thoughts with someone my head would explode.
I think maybe it's because we were so alike that both our thoughts were muddled up in there.
"It's weird without you. At home, I mean. Mum keeps trying to force feed me. She seems to think that if I'm eating, I'll get better. But I don't feel hungry anymore. I don't really feel anything anymore."
I'm quiet a minute, and then continue.
"You're an uncle, y'know. No one knew, but Fleur was pregnant! Gave mum a shock when she turned up after the Battle holding a newborn baby! Turns out she and Bill had hid her being pregnant, because they were worried something would happen to them and everyone'd be traumatised! Mum's pleased though, really. I s'pose it's a good distraction for her. From thinking about you. If she thinks about you too long, she goes into hysterics. Takes Dad twenty minutes to calm her down! Scares the hell out of me. And Perce- no, you know what? Forget it. Why am I telling you this? Why am I telling you about Mum trying to make me eat and us having a nephew as though this is some sort of family newsletter? It's not like you've moved away! You died
What I really should be telling you is that without you, nothing seems to have a point and everything I do doesn't seem fitted for one person. I moved back in with Mum and Dad and you know what? I moved both our beds and both our stuff in, because I couldn't bear to be in that room on my own! Pathetic, eh? And since you died, I haven't thought of a single new thing for the jokeshop, because with you gone, life just doesn't seem funny anymore! I should be saying how guilty I feel, going out with Angelina when you were the one who took her to the Yule Ball! And how everyone says I'll soon be myself again but I can't, because I was never myself, we were always ourselves! How I haven't been able to look in a mirror since you died, because I don't see myself, I see you!" I am crying freely now, anmd I scream my last sentence to the empty graveyard as I kick the headstone and then sink down in despair.
My eyes are bleary with tears as I rock, knees clutched to my chest, trying to hold onto the other half of my heart that is buried beneath my feet.
In front of me, I see a pair of black shoes, with slight heels.
I look up into the face of my sister; her eyes are red from crying.
She smiles at me faintly.
"Don't try and tell me you know what I'm going through, because you don't!" I sob, barely able to speak through my tears.
She nods. "OK."
We are quiet a while, and then she speaks again, hesitant but sure:
"I get it. Mum and everyone else think you're shutting us out. They wonder how you can possibly think you're going through worse than them because they've lost a brother too. They certainly don't understand how you think you're going through more than Mum and Dad, because they lost a son. But I get it." her voice breaks and tears form in her eyes. "Because he wasn't just your brother was he? He was the other half of you!"
I hold out my arms and she sinks down beside me, both of us crying and rocking together.
As we sit, not caring if people see us or not, it begins to rain.
The tree that branches over the grave covers us; a safe haven at the Eye of the Storm.
It seems as though the world is mourning the loss of one of its greatest people, just like us.
My sister has grown, I think. She's no longer a little girl, blushing whenever Harry speaks to her and eyes brightening at the word 'Hogwarts'.
I smile through my tears.
"We never did send you that toilet seat did we?" I ask, and we laugh as she shakes her head.
"It'll get better you know. It'll still hurt just as much, but you'll learn to handle it." Ginny sniffs.
I kiss the top of her head lightly.
"When did you get so clever?" I smile.
"I learned from the best. My big brothers." she replies, and I know it'll be ok now that someone understands me.
I haven't felt that since George died.
"How will I do it Gin? How am I going to live without him?" the defeat in my voice is clear as I stare at the freshly-dug earth that seperates me from my brother.
"I don't know. I really don't. No one will ever understand you like he did. You'll see him again though. After. There must be somewhere we go when we're dead, something we get as a prize for putting up with all the crap life throws at us, because if there isn't, then what's the point? Remember, death isn't the end. It's just the beginning."
This just makes me cry harder, because it's exactly the kind of thing George would have said.
I guess my sister isn't that different from me and George, really.
In fact, for a girl, I guess she isn't too bad.
But one things for sure - she'll never replace George.
A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
And his brother?
He'll clutch at his memories.