I'll be including the sixth-and-seventh-part scenarios of HP. The Slytherin boy is the device I will use to explain the twins', ah, one tiny carelessness. Hope I did not give much away.
But when it's just the two of them, when there is nothing but the soft waves of each other's thoughts ebbing and surging through their intimately connected minds, that is when the realness of the danger that they try and ignore in the light of the day, the unsettling chaos that they try and drown in the sounds of familiar, rambunctious company, sometimes, grows tangible in the disquieting silence and the unsettling darkness of the night.
And they could feel it; Fred could feel the deep insecurities and fears in George's thoughts, George could feel the clash of helplessness and the urge to protect him in Fred's thoughts.
The threat.
The threat is only like a wart for now, George. There's no imminent harm. It's just a constant bugbear.
George won't laugh at that stupid analogy anymore.
Fred isn't kidding himself, George realizes with dull resignation. It's the urge to protect George.
Playing the older brother.
Only by five minutes, you git.
It's a stupid analogy, because it's been three years since you-know-who returned, two years since their dad was attacked, a year since they opened their shop...
Because death is hanging like a knife above our heads, Fred. For fuck's sake, I nearly-
Blood flowing down George's severed ear, down his pale neck, soaking the cushions on which he was laid...
It wasn't like the time when a bludger was sent hurtling to him by Fred, with frightening speed and accuracy, or like the time when his nose had bled non-stop when they tested their nosebleed nougat for the first time.
On the first incident, stupid George took the bludger straight to his skull, was knocked right off his broom, and Fred saw, with a thrill of fear, that George's eyes had rolled back and his face was slack and peaceful as he went free falling straight to the ground...
He'd shouted the incantation before George hit the ground, tilted his broom and dived down, gathered George in his arms and shook him frantically, started weeping, and that was when the twat decided to take pity on him and reach out a hand and tweak his nose.
On the second, Fred had seen his twin bleed and bleed through his nose, laughing, Fred joining him in the laughter, teasing him, watching him eat the orange end of the nougat that was supposed to stop the bleeding, asking him if he needed a handkerchief to blow his nose, if he wanted to try the yoga thing that they'd found in one of dad's muggle magazines. Nose leaking, George had asked thickly why would he want to do yoga, and Fred had said it might help with his sinus problem, then George said never mind the yoga thing, he'd just go with a handkerchief, because that yoga thing looked scarily difficult.
He had kept bleeding, one joke after another.
And Fred had said, oh but he should try yoga, at least he'd learn to blow himself if not blow his nose.
George laughed.
And bled.
And with each passing minute, it had started seeming less and less funnier to Fred.
Until George's face turned pale as snow and he slumped onto Fred's chest, soaking his shirt in red. That was when it wasn't one bit funny.
He took him to the hospital wing, watched Madam Pomfrey force potions down his blue lips, willingly endured her severe scolding, because he could have died, for Merlin's sake.
Sat beside his bed, counting the freckles, stroking gentle fingers over the skin that slowly regained some flush back.
And pressed a kiss to his forehead when he decided to open his eyes.
But at the sight of him lying fragile as a wilted flower, eyes half-mast, weak as they gazed at him, blood running down his neck, soaking his shirt and the cushions, Fred had knelt beside him, seized with a sort of terror that dulled his responses, paralyzed his heart, and made him not accept the sight as real.
"How do you feel, Georgie?"
"Saint like..."
"Come again?"
"Saint-like. I'm holy.. Holey, Fred, geddit?"
It took a few hours before he allowed the reality to sink in. It was only an ear.
He just scraped through.
It could've been more. He could've-
"George.." Fred whispers into the dark. He is standing at the doorway to his twin's bedroom. He can make out George's silhouette, outlined in a faint orange glow of the street light. The blankets rustle as George stirs underneath them.
"Fred?" he croaks.
"I.." he trails off. He is feeling clammy and sick in the stomach. His heart is beating as though it is forced to, trepidation coiling it tightly, making it difficult to function.
"Can't sleep?" George guesses correctly. He says it as though it wasn't a tough guess at all. As though this happens often.
"Yeah." Fred wipes the sweat around his mouth with a hand.
George groans, but Fred knows that he really doesn't mind it.
Doesn't mind that if Fred and he share the bed, they won't sleep for the rest of the night. They would natter on and on in sleepy, murmured voices until two or three in the morning.
"C'mere." he invites, voice thick with sleep. He knows Fred would come to him anyway, with or without invitation.
Fred pads in, lifts a corner of the blanket, and crawls in beside George, who shifts and lays flat on his back. His eyes are closed, but Fred knows he is awake, waiting for him to speak...
"George.." is what he says softly.
"Yeah, that's me. Came here to remind me that?" he says in a slurred murmur.
Fred ignores the half-hearted teasing. He is watching him closely, instead. He wonders how long he would wish to see this face, this face that's like his own, but knows belongs to someone else, someone who's a little milder, someone who's like him in most respects, yet fundamentally different, holey ear included.
Forever, he decides.
"Bad dream." he says, finally.
"Mhm," George responds. "Want to talk about it?"
"No." Fred whispers. He can't hold it back anymore. He shifts closer and pulls George to him, who makes a small sound at the back of his throat but allows him to be pulled in nevertheless.
Fred knows that George knows. He knows what the bad dream was.
"If it offers you any comfort," George says, trying to rest his arm somewhere other than around Fred's night-shirt clad body, waving his arm up and down, before muttering 'bugger it' and draping it around Fred's waist. "I was dreaming about how the sales of our wonder witch stuff were soaring so high that we were..we were actually awarded for it, and offered prize money, and the trophy said 'Amortentia kings.'"
"How stupid." Fred pulls a face.
"Yeah, well, kind of stupid, but dreams are just that, stupid.." George trails off in a loud yawn. Fred smacks him on his back for doing that right on his face. George chuckles and wriggles, and Fred allows him to shift away from his arms and flop onto his back to rest comfortably.
"You know what," Fred suddenly says, turning his head to look at him. At that face that he has come to grow so familiar and fond of. "We'll get through. We'll get through everything, and I'll be seeing your stupid face until it grows wrinkly, until all your teeth fall off, and your holey ear grows white hair-"
"Oh don't get so creative," George says with a smile. "You'll look the same too, so shut your trap."
Fred smiles back at him, even though George can't see it with his closed eyes. He reaches a hand and smoothes a red fringe off his forehead.
"We'll get through." he repeats, quietly this time.
"You sound cock sure," George's voice is growing too throaty. Fred traces the tips of his fingers across his hair for a last time, deciding to not keep him up any longer. He is falling asleep.
"Yeah. You'll scare off all the evil with your holeyness."