They weren’t supposed to go like this. They were supposed to go out together. With a bang. George remembered thinking that dying wouldn’t be so bad if they could go out like his Uncles Gideon and Fabian.
He looked around him and struggled to keep himself breathing. They were all grieving, of course, but eventually they would all go back to their own lives, lives that really didn’t include much of Fred. What would he do then. What would he do tomorrow and next week and next year without Fred. Fred who was always there and always knew what he was thinking.
He stood up and walked out the back door. He didn’t feel pain, so to speak, he was just there, hollow, alone. “George,” it was Charlie, but he didn’t turn around to look at him, “Fancy a walk, brother?”
George shook his head without turning. No, he didn’t fancy a walk where he would be forced to watch Charlie’s own version of grief and wonder, if his older brother who hadn’t even really known Fred was grieving, why he was still alive.
He didn’t really wish it was him, though, because he never wanted Fred to feel like this; like he had a gaping hole inside of him that would never be filled, like he couldn’t be whole again.
He turned on the spot and purposefully neglected to keep any destination in mind. A wild thought ran through him mind that maybe it would take him to oblivion; maybe he would even meet Fred. But of course he knew that he would only get splinched. Maybe the other ear would go and then he’d be at least physically balanced.
The pain ended too soon and he found himself coughing and spluttering in the shop. The colors made him want to flinch. He put his hand up to scratch the empty spot where his ear had been. It had become a habit, but of course now he couldn’t laugh about it with Fred.
George wondered, briefly, if he would ever laugh at all.
Something on the font desk caught his eye and he walked over to it and picked it up. “Patented Daydream Charm,” he read, remembering the times they had tested it, his dream would be very different this time, he knew, “Should be enough here for a couple of weeks at the least.”
After that… good spell-work meant you had to be in the right mood, they didn’t teach this at school of course, but then they didn’t teach much that was useful at the “establishment” as they’d liked to call it once upon a time. Once upon a time that was very near, but now unattainable even in memory.
He opened the box feverishly, like a five year old opening Christmas presents.
…
George stood up abruptly and pushed a whole row of the daydream charms onto the floor. It was all wrong. Horribly wrong. When they had used the charms to dream about imaginary people they’d never met and wouldn’t care about too much after the thirty minutes it had been alright, it had worked like a charm. But they weren’t meant to bring back dead twins.
Or maybe it’s just you, George thought, maybe you’re already forgetting what Fred was like so you can’t make him act or talk like the real Fred even in your mind.
He shook his head violently and held it between both hands as if to rid himself of the demon inside. The demon of thoughts. Thoughts of Fred that wouldn’t leave him alone.
He walked through the shop, trying to find something that wouldn’t remind him, painfully, of his lost brother, but it was futile. Everywhere he turned and everything his eyes landed upon had a part of Fred in it. The vanishing hats had been Fred’s idea. The canary creams wouldn’t have worked if it hadn’t been for Fred’s moment of genius.
Fred, Fred, Fred.
He was about to clean a whole shelf onto the floor when his eyes landed on the extendable ears. “’Ear, ‘ear!”
…
Diagon Alley was still in shambles. Although You Know Who had been defeated and the Death Eaters mostly killed or caught people were still a little uncertain. There had been no celebration to mark the end of the war, no flying colors and banners, because the happiness was marred with Grief.
Even those lucky enough to have escaped without a death in the family were currently working their arses off from dawn to dusk bringing their lives and homes back to normal. Everyone was slowly working their way back to stability and trying to forget because that’s what you were supposed to do when something bad happened.
George knew now that he did not want to forget. He never wanted to forget.
And what the Wizarding World needed right now was not what they thought they needed. They didn’t need their long routine working schedules that were so bloody boring they made you depressed even when you never had a reason to be.
What they needed was a Celebration and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes would provide one. He lazily cast a cleaning charm, and remembered that Fred had always been better at that, but it would have to do.
The small Howlers were buzzing impatiently around him, waiting for their release. It had taken him ages to perfect the shape, but it was no impossible task for a Wizard. Fred wondered if Muggles knew what Dragons actually looked like or if they even knew about Dragons at all. They must have something in their myths and bedtime stories about it at any rate.
He cast the final protective charm and opened the doors and windows wide with a swish of his wand, watching them fly away. They multiplied every ten meters and soon, he knew there would be a while army of flying paper dragons that blew very realistic looking fire if ignored and they would be zooming off around England to every Wizard they could find before them. And they didn’t take no for an answer.
He looked to the store around him and decided to try the enlargement charm after all. If it didn’t work then the laugh would be on him, but that had never bothered Fred. It was a complicated little swish followed by a sort of jab and then a much larger swish to magnify the spell.
The floor shook beneath him and he closed his eyes wondering if he’d have enough time to fix this before someone actually had his head for bringing them here for nothing.
When he finally opened his eyes the store was a mess of upturned cages and boxes and even spilt love potions, but it was definitely fifty times larger than it had been before. He grinned and his wand jumped to action. Finally when the place was clean again he went back into the store to get more boxes for the bigger display shelves.
Finally, with not a minute to lose, George was ready. He straightened his dress robes and put on his best evil grin to greet the guests.
The first arrival was actually one of his miniature paper dragons. It had somehow found its way back and now that it was in the vicinity of a human it headed straight towards his nose.
“Esteemed Sir or Madam,” his own voice yelled at him, “You have been invited to a party to celebrate the downfall of the most seriously evil wizard this century. The doors open at Seven pm sharp, attendance mandatory!”
After the speech the dragon reformed and, already being at the destination, it flew around in circles for a while and then blew a final puff of purple flames before dropping to the floor. Fred would have had a laugh.
The guests, urged by the little flame-blowing dragons, began to arrive just on time. Some of them looked extremely put out and others looked mildly curious. The children, he noticed, looked ecstatic. As soon as it was seven thirty and the food, cleverly camouflaged canary creams included, was beginning to go he slipped away to the front of the store and summoned the fireworks.
The fireworks had been Fred’s idea as well, and George had carried out his twin’s final dream, perfecting them into something truly magnificent.
He lighted the end of his wand and lit the first one, stepping away just far enough to see the show properly.
“Wow,” Ron said breathlessly after a few minutes, “That’s bloody brilliant George!”
“It was Fred’s idea,” George found himself insisting and he wondered that his voice was cracking almost imperceptibly, “The fireworks were Fred’s idea.”
“Right,” Ron said in a more sober tone, but his eyes suddenly lighted on George’s ear and his mouth dropped open, “I thought the Healer said getting another once was impossible, mate, Mum’s going to be thrilled.”
Ron began to push him towards their mother. “Haven’t I always said Healers are short-sighted?” George said, allowing himself to be dragged towards his mother.
His hand flew up to his new ear to scratch it, not because he actually felt anything in it in the first place let a lone an itch, but out of pure habit. But he restrained himself before he could finish acting on that impulse and tapped it instead. No one needed to know that three scratches would release the wiggly little threadlike length of flesh and cause his ear to sneak under doors and into cracks. Not just yet.
George looked up at the largest of the fireworks in the sky and saw the twin figures grinning down at him mischievously. “I won’t let you go that easily, brother.”
