Chapter 5

Fred still didn't want to move. He sat in the nothingness, far away from the comforting warmth of the door and waited. He didn't know how long he had been waiting, maybe it were just hours or weeks already, maybe even years. He couldn't tell. Nothing changed in this nothingness, he couldn't even tell if his surroundings were black or white, he just knew that the door was made of light. And it seemed to get weeker and weeker with every moment. But he didn't care. He would wait for George, no matter what that door did.

George woke up slowly. He felt as if he had been sleeping for years, he felt light and comfortable. He couldn't open his eyes, but that was alright. He knew that Fred wasn't there, so why should he try to see? What would he see? The world maybe? Well, he wanted to die, so the world didn't matter to him. Had he failed at killing himself? That would have been pretty pathetic.

He stayed still for what felt like an eternity. He didn't hear, see or feel anything, so there was no reason to get up, but after this eternity he suddenly saw light. In this creepy place around him there was a light coming nearer and nearer until it was right in front of him, almost touching his nose. George got up on his feet as fast as he could and backed away. What the hell was that thing? A door?

Well, George didn't really feel like going through a door. Maybe heaven was behind it, but Fred and him had always wanted to go to hell and rule over all the evil creatures there. Why would a door to heaven open up in front of him? Had Fred entered? After a long time in this creepy place he was in, would he enter the door into an unknown but obviously warm and nice room?

For all he knew, Fred wouldn't enter and George knew Fred very, very well.

Fred watched the door closer. Now it didn't seem like it disappeared, it just backed away from him. What the hell?

Fred got up and followed the door slowly. Maybe it wanted to show him something, or maybe another person died and the door had to show up for them. Then Fred wouldn't be alone anymore, which sounded pretty good. He was sure that the nothingness would make him go mad if he was alone for too long.

He noticed that the door moved faster and he had to run to keep in pace with it. He didn't want to lose sight of it now. He would never find his way back alone, so he had to hope that there was another person waiting for the door. Maybe that person would help him to find his brother once he got there.

The door got even faster and although Fred ran and ran and didn't stop once, he wasn't out of breath or hurting or the littlest bit exhaused. He felt like he didn't breathe at all, and his heartbeat stayed the same - Did he even have one?

But now was not the time to check his heartbeat, since the door moved fast enough to make Fred lose sight of it slowly. He had to reach it before it disappeared completely!

After an eternity of running it seemed as if the light got bigger again, so maybe the door had stopped. Now Fred could only hope that the person in front of it didn't enter right away, he wanted to have a talk first!

George sat down and kept his eyes on the door. He stayed near it because it made him comfortable, it seemed so peaceful - He actually felt as if he had had too much firewhiskey, but that was alright. He just needed to stay near that door and everything was alright.

Then there was another movement behind the door. He was a little too dizzy to notice what it was, but he didn't mind either. He just stayed near that door and everything was alright. Nice, nice and warm and wonderful..

Fred was there. The door was as big as it had been when it appeared in front of him and now he only needed to look who was behind it. If there was someone. With a big sigh, he surrounded the door and suddenly stood still. He stood still and stared and than - with a loud cry - fell onto his brother and hugged him as strong as he could. George seemed to fall out of a trance or something like that because when he touched him, he jumped a little and stared at him until his expression lighted up and he threw his arms around Fred.

"This isn't possible! How can it be? How can you? I thought I was dead, man!", Fred shouted, still lying on top of his twin.

"Well, you are dead, mate. But we had a deal, so I left you alone for a month and now here I am!", George said happily. Fred looked puzzled for a moment and then his eyes widened, "You killed yourself? No way! No way in hell, not because of me.. George, tell me you didn't kill yourself because of me!"

"Well, that was the deal. You knew it was likely."

Fred just nodded and stayed still for a moment, then he smiled again. He got up on his feet and pulled George with him, "Okay. I'm kind of relieved because there's nothing here, absolutely nothing. I'm sure, if you'd have waited for some years, I would've gone mad. Although it didn't feel like a month, maybe some days. But not more."

George only laughed and couldn't keep his eyes from his twin. He didn't really believe that this was death, that he was able to spend eternity together with Fred.

"Hm, I kind of wish we were at Hogwarts now. I mean, I'm not hungry. It seems like you can't get hungry in here, but I would love to taste some nice food now. Hmmm, that would be great", Fred sighed.

"Yeah, Hogwarts would be great. I want to go there again anyway, do you think we will ever be able? .. Oh well, that's a dumb question, right?"

"No George, no, I think it's not really dumb. Just look! Look at this!", Fred pointed around them.

The nothingness slowly changed into something that looked like the Great Hall! They were really in Hogwarts, under them were all the students and the teachers.. It looked so real.

"Look, there's Ginny! It's really her!", Fred shouted and stared at the Gryffindor-table. George turned his head and searched for his little sister. There she sat, looking really sad and nobody talked to her.

"She looks down", Fred said, "Is it because we're both gone now?"

"Couldn't think of another reason. Must be hard to lose two brothers. Do you think we can talk to her? Let's just try, right?"

Fred nodded and they tried to get down, to their sister and the other students. To their surprise, it seemed to work. They were able to sink until they kind of stood on top of the table in the middle of the Gryffindor-student's food. What surprised them even more was that nobody seemed to mind. They just went on with their eating.

"Yo Ginny! How're you?", Fred greeted the girl, "Don't look so down, it's alright now, isn't it?"

Nothing happened.

"Ginny Weasley, will you stop ignoring your big brother? Although he left you? Man, I didn't plan that, right?", Fred tried to shake her shoulders but his hands went right through them and he pulled them back horrified.

"What the hell? What does this mean? Are we, like, ghosts or something? But why can't she see us? What the hell? What the damn, damn, damn hell does that mean?", Fred turned around to face his twin who had the same expression and looked around the mass of students. Nobody seemed to notice them.

"If we're ghosts, then the ghosts must see us. There's just no way that ghosts can overlook other ghosts", George said and went straight to the Nearly Headless Nick, who sat between some second years and joked with them.

"Nick!", George shouted, "Nick! Can you hear me? See me? Sense me? Whatever, do you know that I am here?"

Nick looked in his direction for a moment, surprised and confused, but it seemed like he couldn't see him. He turned back to the student beside him.

"Damn, seems like he knows we're there, but can't really see or hear us. Anyway, better than nothing. Maybe this will get better after some time", Fred shrugged.

The nothingness around them was completely gone now and they didn't really know what to do, so they went to the teacher's desk to listen to their conversations. Well, 'going' was not exactly right, they were more 'floating' which was pretty hard.

"I guess we'll need some practise until we can move as fast as Peeves, right?", Fred commented this. It annoyed him that he was so slow.

"Hey, we fit in here pretty well, don't we?"

"Why?", Fred asked confused, "I thought they were all alive and able to see each other?"

"No, I don't mean that," George said, "I mean the clothes. We're wearing our school robes. Why do we do that? I thought I died in my pyjamas and you were wearing the shop robes, right?"

Fred looked at his outfit for a moment and then at his twins' identical one. He nodded confused, "I didn't wear this back in the nothingness. I'm pretty sure I wore the stuff I died in."

George tried to remember what he wore in that creepy place, but he guessed it didn't matter much.

"Seems like our outfits changed to match with the surroundings."

"Maybe it was because we wanted to come here to eat. Only students or teachers can eat in here and since we weren't teachers in Hogwarts, we were dressed up as students again. Clever, right?", Fred considered.

"Sounds possible, but then the death must be really clever to do this with everyone who dies. Maybe those clothes are just our imagination", George doubted that there really was someone who dressed the dead people up so they matched the placed they wanted to visit although nobody could see them.

"Wait a moment.. What's with your ear?", Fred called and pointed at George's head.

"Well, that's nothing new. It's been gone for some time now, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, that's it - It's not gone anymore! I mean, it's there. It looks as good as new", Fred exclaimed, "That's rather awesome."

"It's there? Wicked!", George touched the side of his head and his grin widened as he noticed that the ear was really back where it belonged, "So maybe that's really our imagination. Or how we wanted to look when we came here.. Although I didn't really think about it. Did you?"

"Nope, but I guess that's what we feel most comfortable in. School robes, being identical..", Fred grinned.