Chapter 2

The Bare Bones Of It

-oOo-

"This should hold." Hermione added the final touches to her wards with a flourish of her wand. "Harry, how are you getting on over there?"

George was reluctantly impressed – they must teach Aurors some truly nasty forms of magic, if the oily, dark smoke from Harry's wand was anything to go by. The birthday banner still hung slightly askew on the wall, but the rest of the decorations had been banished along with the children.

Left were a battle-hardened lot with grim expressions. Harry, Ron and Hermione had sprung into action, warding the place like the war ended yesterday. Ginny, Bill and Fleur had taken control of the crowd, quickly and slickly dispatching most of the guests home, including Mum and Dad. Charlie and Percy were cleaning up to give them more space to work, tactfully leaving George alone with Morag and Fred following his revelations. Angelina hovered on the outside, listening in but leaving well alone for now.

It wasn't exactly what you would call an easy conversation.

"How could you not have told me?" Fred asked for the third time.

"As your wife, I'd have appreciated being told before. Is this real?" Morag's vowels were even more clipped than usual, and she was rolling her r's like she held a grudge against them.

"I - " George tried to explain, to himself as much as to the others. "I don't know. It's been years since I even thought about it, and then it just hit me when I was talking to Bill. It was such a long time ago... "

That was true in many ways. Despite that, George could still smell the stench of dead bodies and dark magic that lingered over Hogwarts after the battle. He remembered every line in the face of the Death Eater he had killed, and his startled expression when George had landed his final curse.

Death had been close back then.

"You're saying you made a deal with Death? How does that work, exactly?" Morag insisted.

"I think I made a deal," George corrected her while looking at Fred, who was turning paler by the second. He could have counted each one of Fred's freckles against the stark white skin. "It's hard to explain to someone who's not a twin. You're tuned into each other. I get this sense of... "

"A sense of uneasiness," Fred filled in. "When something is really wrong, you can tell."

"So when Fred was hit, I could tell even though I wasn't there." George had almost slipped and fallen down the stairs when the feeling hit the pit of his stomach. Dodging a curse, he jumped to the next staircase, desperately looking around for his twin. Somehow, George had known it would be too late in a few seconds, known that Fred's life was draining away quickly.

"So you made a deal with Death." Morag had a way of phrasing things that made it clear she didn't believe a word of it. The last time she had used it was when he had tried the latest version of the Self-Frizzing Shampoo when Morag's sister came to stay. She had not been amused.

"Yes." George remembered thinking he would do anything to save Fred and stop the darkness he felt coming, and then time had slowed down. The memory was a little fuzzy around the edges, but he remembered the main bits.

He had offered his own life against Fred's, only to be told it didn't work that way. "I'd do anything, give you anything as long as you spare him," he had pleaded, and then the black presence had relented.

"YOU SHARED ONE WOMB."

George hadn't heard anyone put it that way before, but he nodded.

"I WILL WAIT FOR HIM. ON YOUR SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY, BOTH OF YOU WILL COME WITH ME INSTEAD."

When you had just turned twenty in the middle of a war, sixty was a lifetime away. "All right, then," George said, and just like that he felt a huge weight recede. The sounds of battle came flooding back, swiftly followed by a curse only just missing him.

He had thrown himself back into the fighting, looking everywhere for his brothers. Much later, when it was all over, Percy and Ron told him all about Fred's near miss and how he had revived just as they thought he was gone.

And that had been it, until now.

"I never wanted you to sacrifice yourself for me. That was bloody stupid of you." Fred was angry, which was a bit ungrateful of him.

"I would have thought you'd be happy you didn't die before you even turned twenty-one," George said, only receive a furious look in return.

"Not if it meant you doing a deal with Death, you pillock. Did you not listen when Mum told us The Tale of the Three Brothers?" Fred asked, his lips white and thin with anger like George had hardly ever seen before.

"That's just a story," he retorted feebly.

"Like The Deathly Hallows? Surely you couldn't have been that thick?"

"In fairness to George, he wouldn't have known about The Hallows back then." Ron was just passing by on his way around the room, muttering incantations under his breath. As usual, he managed to make things worse.

"I was that thick," George admitted. "I – I didn't think it was real. Not for a long time. Even after Harry told us what happened to him."

Now he believed, and so did the rest of them. Maybe the way George had let the memory slip out of his consciousness for so long was due to some magic surrounding the contract. Maybe he had just been the stupidest wizard since Hector the Hapless decided he wanted to know what bubotuber pus tasted like.

As they were waiting, George remembered Mum's clock. He wondered what his hand was pointing at, and if she had noticed yet.

When a black-hooded shape appeared in the middle of the circle Hermione had drawn George stopped wondering, and tried to remember how to breathe instead.

"I HAVE COME TO COLLECT TWO LIVES," the figure said in syllables that seemed to absorb all the sound around them.

Glimpses of white bones beneath the hood confirmed that Death was indeed a skeleton, just like in old paintings. Not even the fact that he could come up with at least ten bone jokes without thinking could make George feel any better.

"You can't reach us here," Hermione declared, and only those who knew her very well could tell the bravado was an act.

George looked around him, at his family and friends pointing their wands at Death himself for his sake. Because he had made a stupid decision not to believe his own memories. "Listen, guys, I think I've made a mistake –"

"I think you have, too," Bill said, not unkindly. "Now let us help you sort it."

"If we can," Percy added, wand wobbling slightly but pointing firmly inside the circle.

"Of course we can," Harry said, making it sound as certain as Puddlemere United ending up last in the Quidditch league this year, too. The effect was ruined by his white knuckles, betraying how tightly he was clutching his wand. Must be a bit worrying, being the Boy-Who-Lived who had cheated Death twice already, just in case Death changed his mind.

It was probably worse to be George, though, seeing as it was for him Death was here in the first place.

"WE HAVE AN AGREEMENT," Death helpfully reminded him.

"I'm sure we can come to an understanding." George tried to remember how he'd persuaded McGonagall to lift the ban on their products at Hogwarts after the war. She'd hardly been less implacable than the sceptre in the circle.

"WE ALREADY HAVE. YOU AND YOUR BROTHER WILL COME WITH ME."

They would see about that. While George had accepted that the game probably was up for himself, he hadn't played his final trick yet.

"My brother isn't coming," George said, attempting a smile. It felt like it had got stuck on his face the wrong way, and in any case it didn't seem to be helping.

"THAT WAS OUR AGREEMENT. THE TWO OF YOU, AT THE SAME TIME. ONE SOUL DEPARTING."

Apparently, the old guff about twins having linked souls was true. When they had last spoken, Death had said something about it being untidy for the two of them to die at different times. George remembered it now.

"Well, as you can see Fred isn't here," George said, desperately trying not to look to his right side. "No great loss. I'm the clever, good-looking one, anyway."

No one smiled.

"VERY WELL," Death said. "I WILL TAKE HIS SON INSTEAD."

Fabian, who looked exactly like Fred and George had at his age, had been shooed away with the other youngsters. Everyone knew Death could find anyone, however – or almost anyone.

"No, you bloody well won't!" Fred tore off Harry's Invisibility Cloak that he had been hiding under, to George's and the others' dismay. It had taken them the better part of the day to persuade Fred to hide under the only item known to have confounded Death before. George argued that he had struck the deal, so he should be the one facing the consequences.

The others agreed with George, and eventually they wore Fred down. Hermione had a knack for repeating the obvious over and over again, no doubt well honed from working in the Ministry (although George suspected his little brother ultimately was responsible for the way she could sound calm and exasperated at the same time).

The plan had been for Fred to stay quietly beneath the cloak – not even Harry had been able to persuade him to wait somewhere else. Like Australia.

On the bright side, Death was still inside the circle, and they were on the outside.

"IT IS TIME."

The clock struck midnight. Funny, how you never noticed how late it got at parties, George thought, and realised he was starting to lose it. He didn't think he had it in him to become even more afraid, but the shape appearing right next to him did it alright.

"I CAN GO EVERYWHERE." George hadn't realised skeletons could look smug, but this one did. The bastard.

Normally, Hermione's affront at her wards not holding would have made him laugh, but not now. Not when he was eye to eye with a six-foot four skeleton clad in a black cloak, coming to collect his soul. And Fred's.

"Avada Kedavra!" A flash of green went past him so quickly that George didn't have time to dodge. It was swallowed by the deep folds of Death's robes, where it disappeared without a trace.

An ominous silence followed.

It wasn't that hard to figure out who had cast the curse. Percy was looking unusually sheepish. Combined with the look of unmistakeable dread on his face, he brought an irate goat to mind.

"Sorry about that," Bill offered when it was clear no one else knew what to say.

"WIZARDS SEEM TO PLACE EXAGERRATED FAITH IN THE POWER OF THEIR MAGIC. CURSES DO NOT AFFECT ME."

To George's relief, Percy seemed to have got away with it. Death seemed to be a decent sort of bloke. Except he still was looking expectantly in George's direction.

"All right, then, Fair's fair," he said warily. "Any way you would do a different deal and let Fred live?" Death couldn't blame a bloke for trying, could he? George didn't have a firstborn to offer in exchange, but other than that he would give pretty much anything for this not to be Fred's final moment as well.

"Hang on – if anyone's making deals, it's my turn!" Fred was still furious – he wouldn't even glance in George's direction. It cut to the bone, but it wasn't as bad as the prospect that Fred would sacrifice himself for George.

"No, you're bloody well not – " he started saying, but was drowned out by their uninvited guest.

It wasn't that Death was loud – his words just seemed to absorb all the available oxygen, leaving no room for anyone else to be heard at the same time.

"THE NEGOTIATIONS HAVE ENDED. PLEASE PREPARE TO COME WITH ME."

George looked around one last time at his family and friends. Bill looked stricken, clutching Fleur's hand like he was drowning. Hermione had a firm grip on Ron's wand arm and was muttering under her breath, heedless of Ron straining to get loose. What did he think he could do, anyway?

Harry was pale, but he didn't let his glare waver from Death. Ginny was looking between Harry, and George and Fred, like she wasn't sure who she would pick if it came to it. Percy nodded to George, like he was just going home after dinner instead of dying. Charlie was crying silently, small round tears falling down his freckled cheeks and landing on his collar like they didn't matter. And Angelina – Angelina was suddenly right next to him, hugging and hanging on to Fred like it would keep him with her forever.

It was only then that George looked at Morag, who promptly slapped him in the face.

"Go then, you bastard – go! I always knew you cared more about him than me!" Morag, who always met the unexpected with the same measured calm, was crying in wild hiccups, tears streaming down her face.

"Morag, don't." George tried to take her in his arms, only to be met by a sharp elbow.

"You'd give up anything for him, wouldn't you?" she asked between her sobs. "Anything at all."

"Yes," he admitted. It was a bit too late in the day to be lying.

There wasn't time for much more than one last look at Fred. They didn't need to say anything to each other. George knew by the tilt of his twin's crooked smile that he would have done the same thing in return, no matter how furious he was not to have been told.

He grabbed Fred's hand. Whatever was coming, they were going to face it together.