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Staring determinately at the ground, George uttered, "I'd never thought of it like that." Why had that never occurred to him? The idea that Fred was feeling the exact way that he was – trapped and hidden away from the person he missed most.

Of course, Fred wasn't missing just a brother and a best friend. He was missing his entire family. He was missing all of his friends. He was missing his home and the world in which he belonged. George's insides turned to lead as he thought of how he was surrounded by everything and everyone that Fred had been yearning for, for almost an entire year, and yet he was pushing everyone away as if contaminated with the plague. In fact, he'd been pushing everyone so far away that he no longer knew if they were plagued with misunderstanding at all. Time may have healed them, and he'd continued to force them away. Fred didn't have that choice. There were no people to force away, no home to lock himself away in, no room that he didn't have to share anymore.

Fred was alone, and George had been selfish in his grief.

"Fred, I.." George didn't know what to say. He wasn't the only victim. He had discredited the memory of his brother by wallowing in grief that he wouldn't allow to heal, like pouring stinksap on a wound and complaining of the pain to all that would listen, and by turning the attention onto him.

"It's OK, bro. It's been tough for us both. I-I've missed you so much as well, and, well, we're identical, so I know I would have probably acted in the exact same way. I know that if it was me that had needed the helping hand, you would have come to me and put me straight." Fred took a step towards his brother, put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and, seeing that this didn't console him fully, grabbed him in a hug.

George's leaden insides seemed to become lighter instantly.

"I'm so sorry Fred. You know that I'll always be here for you, right?" George mumbled through his brother's jumper.

"'Course I know that, Georgie," Fred muttered, pulling out of the hug, "Hey, cheer up, remember that time I fell out of the bedroom window and saved me?"

George laughed, "Yeah, you know, to get you back up, I briefly considered turning Percy into Rapunzel and growing his hair for you to climb up. The twit fell asleep by his window again - I could hear his snores coming from his bedroom window."

"Sounds like you found that Extendable Ear just in time mate. Still, I think Perce would look great with a twenty foot ponytail..." They both grinned feverishly. "That was the night Mum burst in as I was flying out on my broom wasn't it? Jumped so hard I fell straight out the window. And the shouting we got from Mum; I almost wished I'd fallen and hit the bottom..."

"I only found the Extendable Ear because mum shouted at me when I suggested turning Percy into a fairy princess. Come to think of it, she confiscated that after we'd saved you with it..."

This is what George missed. The flowing conversation, the laughs – making fun of Percy.

But however much the normality was flooding in, it could never, would never, drown out the doubt that was itching at the edges of his smile.

He still didn't know the answer to most of his questions. He still wasn't sure whether he wanted to know all of the answers. But if he did, would Fred ever tell him? Did he ever want to break this moment? Should he break it? Should he give in to the inevitable reality and accept that something was still not right? Could he settle for ninety-nine percent normality? He was sure that most of him could. In fact, all of him but that festering suspicion smudged into the back of his mind would accept what he was seeing and think nothing more.

"Hey, Fred, would you mind telling me how you got here and where you've been for the past year now?"

George found the confidence to look Fred in the eyes this time as he said it.

Leaning causally against the headstone with his own name etched across the front, Fred chimed, "Not yet, we're still not quite there yet."

George's brow furrowed.

"What do you mean? You're back and for the first time since... since it happened I'm genuinely happy! What more do we need to talk about? You're here for me bro, that's all I needed to hear."

"Of course I'll always be here for you, Georgie, you didn't need me to tell you that, we need to talk about the joke shop – what happened mate? What happened to our legacy?" Fred whispered, his piercing stare catching his twin by surprise.

"The joke shop's the same as it was the day we left it to fight. I haven't touched the place since. I think Mum and Dad might've gone there for the day to collect a few of your things from the flat – apart from that it's been pretty deserted..." George felt a stab of guilt.

He'd left the place to crumble to ruins. The blade digging into his gut twisted as he realised that he wouldn't have cared if his brother's life's work had crumbled to dust.

He could picture it now, the dilapidated exterior and dusty windows; the peeling paint and the broken roof tiles.

The memories floating around like ghosts.

What had he done? Why had this never occurred to him before? The answer was simple.

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes would have been a cure for his grief, something to look forward to and enjoy, and something that helped him hold onto Fred. Instead, George had chosen to inflict the pain of staying away upon himself. He used to think that the pain made him feel better because he deserved it. Why couldn't he have died instead of Fred? He didn't deserve the sympathy of his family, and the joys of the world outside his bedroom window.

So he'd left it to rot, and, again, in doing so, neglected his brother. Left the fabric of his brother that was sewn into his greatest achievement crumble as the shop crumbled. Let the part of their shared soul that had been pasted onto the walls peel and decompose as the building did.

He'd always thought the best place to see his brother again was inside his head, but clearly he'd been wrong.

"I left you," George groaned. "When I left the shop I left you too. I'm so sorry." The shaft of warmth in his heart was momentarily replaced with a shard of ice.

"I don't want you to be sorry, George. It's not me that I'm worried about. Half of that shop is yours. You didn't have me to support you, so you should have used our shop to support you instead. I don't care that didn't go there for me, I care that you stayed away for of yourself. It's been long enough, you've done your mourning at home, you have to go back."

"I will, I mean you're here now. We both will – we can make it great again, bro."

"Yeah..." Fred agreed half-heartedly.

Again, the doubt in the back of George's mind started to whir as if a rusted cog clicking to life. Why didn't his brother sound convinced? How could he so easily talk about George mourning when he was the very person that George was mourning over? Why did George have the feeling that, if Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was in fact resurrected, Fred would not be the person to help him do it?

Above all, where had Fred been for the past year, to know all this? It was true, they'd always known each other better than anyone else, but could he deduce all of this from a chance meeting in the middle of the night? Was this a chance meeting? Had he been living near? Was he in contact with the rest of the family – is that how he knew?

George gave in to the darkness and said, more determinately this time, "Fred, are you going to tell me where you've been and how you're here yet?"

"Patience, dear brother, all in good time! First, I think it's about time we had a chat about our chums."

"What about 'our chums'"?"

"You haven't talked to any of them since the funeral!"

How could he talk so casually about that?

"I, well, I, they could have talked to me!" George rebutted, though, truthfully he knew that even if they had he would have ignored them.

"They miss you, mate."

How would he know? Had he talked to them? Had he met with them? Is that where he's been, living with Lee, or Angelina or Wood?

"Yeah, well, if would have just been awkward, wouldn't it?"

"What makes you think that? We've all been friends since we started Hogwarts!"

"That's the point! We've been friends with them since we started Hogwarts! I've never hung out with them without you. All the memories I have with them I've shared with you. What would I talk about? How would I act?" George implored.

"Wow. I guess being the best looking twin does make me the most intelligent after all," Fred said casually inspecting his nails. He continued to inspect nonchalantly for a second and then looked up to meet George's quizzical gaze.

"Are you honestly trying to tell me," he continued satisfied, "that almost a decade's worth of fun and laughs and friendship would be made irrelevant just because I wouldn't be there?" He wouldn't be there? That was true then, but not now, right? Fred would be part of George's future, wouldn't he? If he would be, why did he make it seem that the circumstances of the past would be the same as the future – that he would not be there, and that George would have to learn to cope?

"Well, no, I guess not, but, you know, I figured that they'd find it hard to talk to me – it's not as if I'd be able to add anything interesting to the conversation; I've spent the last year in misery. 'Hey Angelina! Wanna hear about the photo that I fall asleep staring at every night?'" George looked at his brother scathingly. "You see? Not only do I have nothing interesting to say, but anything I did say would bring you straight into the topic..." George trailed off, and watched to see how his brother would react this time. He did nothing, just continued to watch George, as if waiting for him to speak, willing him to let everything out. Fred was letting him release all of the doubt and the worry and the sadness that had been welling up for the past many months.

"Georgie," Fred began, "our friends needed you and you needed them. With friends like them you don't need to worry about awkward conversations or trivial rubbish like that, they just care about you being you. Actually, more importantly, they care about you being OK."

He was right, George knew. He should have tried to be a better friend – meeting Angelina and Lee, especially, would have made losing Fred a lot easier to bear. Angelina had always been one of their closest friends, and got really close with Fred after the Yule Ball. The guilt George had been feeling increased twice-fold as he thought of how he'd left Angelina, the only girl that Fred had really cared about, to grieve on her own. And as for Lee, he had a nose for mischief second only to those of himself and Fred. George had everything he needed to remember Fred in these two friends and yet he'd left them stranded in islands of their own grief. They weren't going to get their friend back or have an experience ever like they'd had with both him and his brother over the last ten years, but getting George back would be a start. In fact, George reasoned, most of the massive things that his brother and he had done in the past were the sorts of things that you only did once in a lifetime. After all, there was no need for them ever to activate a 'Portable Swamp' in the corridors of Hogwarts, or for them to fly out of the doors of the Great Hall on confiscated broomsticks after instructing a poltergeist of wreak havoc in their place. Who else could say they'd done that?

George couldn't recreate the past, but more importantly, he didn't need to. He and his friends had enough memories for a lifetime – for Fred's lifetime. They could do it, they could get through the present to a less painful future without Fred.

But... what had made him just think that? Without Fred. Of course Fred would be there – that's right, Angelina, Lee, Fred and he would be together again. Wouldn't they?

No. He didn't know why or how, but that sickening niggling feeling was starting to convince him too. Fred had been talking like his was temporary – like he would wash away or get sucked back into the past – and now George was starting to believe that he was.

Why would he just show up, completely and utterly out of the blue to talk about things that he could never know - like how their friends were feeling and like how he'd not visited the shop. Who greets a person that they haven't seen in a year with a conversation about feelings and actions that they could have no hope of knowing about?

The conversation they were having was a necessary one, George could see that now. If it wasn't, why had he brought that up first? Why was there no asking after the family? Fred had gotten straight to the point. Straight to the point as if he wouldn't have enough time for anything else or straight to the point as if he already knew all of the answers. Maybe because of both.

"Freddie, again, you're right about our friends – I see now that I could have helped them and I didn't – but I can't keep ignoring the fact that you shouldn't be here and that maybe because of that, you won't be hanging around long. Tell me the truth." Fred met George's piercing gaze and stood up. He walked over to his brother and put his hands on George's fists to qualm the shaking.

"George," he whispered, "you already know all of the answers to all of these questions."

At that second, George's head started to ache as it had when he hit it on the grave stone.

"How can I know the answers? I'm asking you! I – argh!" The pounding was gettin worse.

"George, listen to me. You know the answers but you are choosing to ignore them because the truth will hurt."

"Really? Because my head is killing me, but I don't see any answers."

He was wrong. As he moved his hand from his brother's grip with the intention of clasping his head with it, he saw that Fred's hand had turned slightly transparent. George could feel his brother's grip as tight as ever, but his eyes were telling him that Fred was made of coloured smoke.

"I-I, wha-what?" he managed to stutter, before the idea that had been locked in the back of his mind burst free of its chains and leapt to the forefront of his brain.

"Oh God," he choked, "you're not back are you?"

Fred sombrely shook his head.

"You weren't living with a friend or a member of the family were you?"

His twin shook his head again.

"You died that day, didn't you?"

Nod.

"I'm..." Fred began.

"...all in my head." George finished.

"You knew it all along, George, you just chose to ignore that nothing added up. I look exactly the same as I did the day I died, the same hair, the same clothes, exactly the same way that you have remembered me since. All of the things I made you think about, all of the questions I asked, you already knew all of the answers, you just had to look inside of yourself to find them. I told you that you've been ignoring the family, but that's only because you knew, in your heart, that that was true. It's the same with everything else. All of the things I told you were things you already knew, but things that you'd buried in the back of your mind. You wouldn't listen to yourself, so you made yourself listen to me."

"But, you're so real - how did this happen? How did I invent you, and tonight? Why tonight?" But he already knew the answer, and it was falling into his thoughts. "I'm not awake, am I?" He groaned, still clutching his throbbing head, despairing at the idea that the shining hope he had felt earlier was being shredded by irrevocable truth and sense. He'd been knocked unconscious when he hit the gravestone– the pain on his forehead was clear evidence of that. Fred wasn't coming back. He was dead. Everything that Fred has said tonight was part of an elaborate dream.

A dream that was ending fast. "But hang on, how am I talking to you like this, now, after realising all of this, and how are you talking to me?"

"I may have died, brother, but there will always be a part of me that lives in you. You can't ever separate twins – not really. I look real because you wanted me to be so. Your most desperate wish was for me to be alive, so your brain used the connection that we will always have to convince you that I was, in fact that I still am, to help you sort yourself out. You noticed that you'd locked away all of the reason and understanding, so you let it all out in the form of me. The Fred you see talking to you now is just relaying the things you already know. I'm still talking to you because, for the moment, you need to know answers, and your brain is feeding you the truth that you are choosing not to listen to."

He'd fabricated his brother as a form of self-help and yet, the pain in his heart was the greatest he had ever felt. The brother he thought he'd gotten back was disappearing as truth set in and forced him back out. Being honest to himself had cost him his brother. To know that the brother he as seeing was just another part of his own consciousness made him feel lonelier than he ever had before.

Fat tears started to roll down George's cheeks, as he watched his brother fade before his eyes – he was beginning to wake up.

"Freddie, you can't go! Why aren't you staying?!" George panicked – surely if he just willed Fred to stay, he'd start to reappear?

"Calm down, mate, it's OK. You'll be fine. When you wake up, you'll have the world to look forward to again. You can be part of the family again, get Weasley's Wizard Wheezes up and running, and get your friends back."

"But I want you back as well!"

"You and I both know you can't have that. But you know that I'll always be with you in there," Fred murmured, tapping a fading finger on his brother's temple, "and in here," he tapped the left of his brother's chest, "don't you?"

"But how can I live, now, knowing that everything you told me tonight came from my own thoughts? Knowing that you might be trapped somewhere, suffering, and that in my head you're just a happy illusion?"

"You can live knowing that the part of me that lives in you is telling you that I am happy where I am, and that I want you to be happy."

That was true, George could feel it. Fred wasn't alone. This was nothing to do with his thoughts. He would know, in the bottom of his heart if his brother was sad; he'd always been able to before – why not now? After all, nothing had ever separated them in life, so why would death have succeeded? He could feel Fred, the little bit that was stitched onto his soul. George was the last part of the puzzle of places that Fred had latched himself to during his life.

"But..." But Fred already knew what George was going to say.

"Honestly George, I'll be fine."

The grip on George's hands vanished, and the world began to spin to the point that George thought he was going to be sick.

George was no longer in the company of another. Fred had gone, and for the second time, George didn't say goodbye. Sudden bone crushing despair added to the immense unease in his stomach.

Just as he thought he could bare this feeling no more, the sickness and the pain stopped as quickly as they had erupted.

In the moment before his eyes fluttered open to greet the world he had been neglecting, George heard a familiar voice in the back of his head saying, "Goodbye George. I'll be fine, just fine."

"Goodbye, Freddie," he thought, "I love you".

Sorry this chapter has taken so long to write; I hope you had fun having a read. If you did, please leave a review. Next chapter will be on its way soon. Until then: TTFN.