Prologue
The sunlight beamed through the towering arched windows, illuminating the dancing clouds of dust that had been accumulating over the ancient tomes for centuries. The massive bookshelves stretched out in expansive waves, an endless ocean of history and knowledge, winding and bending upon themselves until the sunlight was unable to reach its deepest depths. Every turn bore more enlightenment, more secrets whispered into countless heads, and all one had to do was reach out and take it.
Harry Potter had never had an appreciation for books.
In fact, with a history such as his, he harbored a great distrust of a good many of them. Dangerous things lay in the tomes he walked among. Thankfully, he wasn't here looking for books.
A sigh of relief escaped his lips as he sat across from his bushy-haired friend. The sight of her barely visible form behind texts of all shapes and sizes was a sight so familiar he hadn't realized how much of a comfort it brought him until the tight knot in his chest ever so slightly relaxed. "Hermione," he spoke gently- she hadn't noticed his presence yet.
Despite the soft tone he used, Hermione still jumped. When she saw him, a smile beamed across her face and she picked up the book she was reading to show him.
"He's not gone!" she hissed excitedly, brandishing the book. "Harry, I remembered- I had looked into it before, years ago, I was thinking about how magic accumulates naturally, in families, especially in unusual circumstances- but that doesn't matter." She set the book down, flipped through it, slammed it shut and brandished it again. "The point is I knew I read it somewhere, I found it, and here it is!" She handed it to him, grinning ear to ear.
Harry was still trying to make sense of what she was saying as he took the book and looked at the title. THE MAGIC OF TWINS: What Your Children Will Experience Before, During, and After Life.
"What are you… hang on- twins?" He looked up at her quickly, heart racing. "Do you mean… is Fred-?"
She shook her head, her smile fading slightly. "Harry, no, he's still… I mean, well look at yourself for example- if all twins could avoid death your own survival wouldn't be so impossible, everyone would just assume you had a twin somewhere." Taking the book back, she opened up to a chapter at the end of the book and showed it to him again. Ignoring his momentary disappointment, he glanced down at the crisp pages, the uniformed text spilling out before him. "In the beginning of the book," Hermione continued, "it explains that a twin's soul is actually two halves of a whole. In this chapter, The End is Just the Beginning, it tells us that a twin who passes before the other cannot move on- not truly- until the other half is reunited to make a whole." She looked into his face, excited, and exclaimed, "Don't you see?"
He looked up, thinking. "Voldemort could not die until all his soul fragments were destroyed. So it would make sense that Fred could not move on until the second half- George!" He looked over at Hermione, equally excited. "George is his tether! Fred can't go anywhere without George!"
"Exactly!" Hermione stuck the book in her bag, and grabbed another. "We just have to find him," she announced, flipping through The Supernatural End: Ghosts, Glimmers, and Everything In Between. "I haven't found how. There's ways to find ghosts, but that's not exactly what he is. You see," she looked up at him. "Fred would be tied to George and should have appeared to him by now. I'm not sure why he isn't…"
Harry noticed the early signs of his friend fading away from him and quickly pulled her back. "Hermione, they need you in the infirmary tent. Things are a bit hectic."
Starting, Hermione looked at her watch. "Oh no!" she squeaked, throwing book after book into her backpack and leaping up from the table. "Thank you, Harry, I've got to run!"
"The wards are down, you can apparate there if you need to!" he shouted after, but she was already gone.
Watching her retreating form, he felt a faint glimmer of hope somewhere deep inside his chest. Fred… If just one person… just one person that sacrificed their lives for him could once again be reunited with their family…
He would do anything to make that happen.