Leave Out All The Rest, Ch. 9 (Severance)
Pairing(s): George/Luna, hints of George/Angelina and George/Hermione, but mostly Gen.
Word Count: 80,000 words ::gulp::
Rating: R
Summary: Nobody expected the year after Fred's death would be easy. But nobody expected George would have to lose so much, just to live through it. Or: George is doing his best to make his way after the war and Fred's death. Everyone is trying to help, and he wishes they would just stop. Especially Fred.
Warnings: Angst, suicide issues, and occasional inappropriate humour.
Author Note: Thanks to twistedm, tree00faery, and vanseedee for beta above and beyond the call of friendship.
OK, sorry to take so long with this one. The next (and last) chapter should be out much, much faster. I hope. ::crossing fingers and hoping the Editing Fairy doesn't go AWOL on me::
Part 1, Hogwarts
Part 2, The Burrow
Part 3, Wheezes
Part 4, St. Mungo's
Part 5, You Can't Go Home Again
Part 6, Christmas Cheer
Part 7a, Rock Bottom
Part 7b, Rock Bottom
Part 8, Lethe
February
"What d'you think we should..." Ron held up one of Fred's trainers. He looked around the room. God, it was like Fred had never left. Apparently George had just left the door closed, and the place smelled musty but also somehow still like Fred.
"We were going to go through this room eventually," said Lee, looking around. "We tidied a bit when he first came back, picking things up that the Death Eaters went through."
"Was there a lot of damage?"
Lee shook his head. "I think they were too traumatized from the jinxes in the living room and kitchen. By the time they hit the bedrooms, they don't seem to have had the heart to really do a thorough job of looting. Probably had something to do with the DinkShrink hexes. I don't even know what's important here and what isn't. Only George would know."
Ron ran his finger along the books on Fred's shelf. Ethelbercht's Sensuals. Positively Impossible Potions. And a book of love poems... was that something Fred actually bought and read? Or a memento from some girl he'd dated? Or a place to find some of their ideas for WonderWitch? Only George would've known.
Fred, you enormous git, I LOVE you! said the tag on a stuffed Puffskein that was wedged between Fred's desk and the wall. From whom?
A ticket stub for a Weird Sisters concert from two years ago on the floor near his bed. Was it something that held deep significance? Or just something Fred had forgotten to take out of his trouser pockets, and had ended up on the floor before the Death Eaters gave up ransacking and returned home with their tails between their legs, literally?
"None of it will mean anything to him when he comes out," said Ginny bitterly. "Why don't we just dump it all?"
"No, we can't," said Mum. She looked around, distressed. "We can't go through this. We'll... we'll hide it away. For when we can decide what to do with it." She ushered them out of the room, spoke a few words, and Fred's door disappeared.
They still had to go through the rest of the flat, though.
"What do we do with these, Mum?" Ginny asked, sorting through the books and magazines in the living room. No idea which were Fred's and which were George's. Advanced Potion-making, highly technical Charms books, Transfigurations Today, some Runes books with questionable drawings, marketing, research, advertising, accounting, and various magazines that the siblings hid from Mum.
Mum exchanged a helpless look with Dad.
"I mean, assuming we can figure out whose is what, we put them in these boxes, and then... what?" asked Ginny. "And how long do we keep Fred's room a secret? I mean, George will come out eventually, he's going to ask - people are going to ask him--"
"We just won't let him be around anybody who knows. Not for a while."
"Mum, I really don't think that's going to work," said Bill. "Not for long, anyway."
Mum bristled. "It will if we make it work."
"He's barely awake yet and already getting restless. He knows there's something going on. 'You had an accident in the lab' won't do it for much longer."
"He needs more time," said Mum. "He's still confused. He won't be coming home for another few weeks at least."
"And what then?" asked Bill. "You can't protect him forever."
"You saw him," said Mum. "He's doing well. He's recovering."
"Yeah, he's recovering. But he's still George, Mum. He's not going to just accept being told that there's blank spots in his memory and he shouldn't ask too many questions. He's going to want to come home - to the home he knows - and he's going to want to figure things out."
"The Healer said that other families have been able to--"
"Maybe the Healers in Nigeria dealt with people who weren't as naturally curious as Fred and George," said Bill. "Or less suspicious."
"We don't know George will be all that curious any more," said Ginny. "We don't know anything about what he's going to be like."
Ron swallowed hard at the tone to her voice. "Ginny."
Ginny abruptly turned on her heel and left, her footsteps speeding up as she went down the stairs. Ron started after her, but Lee shook his head and went after her himself.
"You know, I really think he should go travelling," said Mum. "Perhaps go with Charlie to Romania."
"Mum, I'd love to take him, you know I would," said Charlie, "but the Healers want him here for the six-week mark, when they do their final examination of him."
Mum pressed her lips together.
Ron's eye fell on a photograph, tacked onto the wall, of Fred and Lee laughing and throwing snowballs at whoever was taking the picture - probably George.
What would Fred have thought of this? Ron wondered. What would he have thought of all of them going through the detritus of his life, wiping him clean off the face of the earth?
It didn't matter. Fred was gone. He deliberately pushed his mind away from all memory of Fred, and tossed the picture into the nearest box.
ooo000ooo
Good old Janus Thickey Ward for Mental Maladies. Ron sighed as he and Percy entered the ward. Merlin, but he hated this place.
"Hi, Luna," he said, and Luna gave him a scornful sneer and turned away. He and Percy looked at each other, puzzled. "What the..."
It was still so weird, coming here. George hadn't wanted visitors the first time he'd been in, back in September. He'd been unwontedly quiet and almost shy - frequently done in by the potions he was on, embarrassed to be there, and almost invariably eager to see his visitors leave. And he hadn't cared about visitors after his suicide attempt; just been sullen and angry and depressed.
Now, he was happy to get guests. As he recovered and woke up a bit more, it was both easier and harder to visit him. He was so open, cheerful, and untroubled - except by restlessness, as his body healed and his spirit longed to leave St. Mungo's. Percy knocked on George's door and went in, and Ron paused in the doorway, glancing over the ward with its shuffling, subdued, bathrobe-clad patients. George looked completely out of place.
"Oi, Earth to Ron," called George from the room. "Come in."
"Sorry," said Ron, and came in. "How are you?"
"Bored!" said George, rolling his eyes. "Bloody hell this place is killing me. Did you bring any books?"
"Books?" said Percy.
"Damn, Hermione didn't tell you? It's the only thing keeping me halfway sane in here, mate. I'm halfway through bloody volume seven of the Goblin Manifestoes. Can't keep going though. Don't tell Hermione, she highly recommended them."
"Oh. I can certainly get you some books," said Percy. "Just let me know what kind."
"Erm, you had said you wanted to know what's going on in the shop," said Ron, and brought out a catalogue scroll. George's eyes lit up, and he reached for it. "Are you... d'you think you're all right to do this now?" Ron asked, and chuckled when George grabbed the catalogue and smacked him across the head with it.
"Am I all right to do this now?" George repeated. "I've only been asking you to bring it in for three days. Git." He unrolled the parchment, scanning down the list of products and prices. He frowned.
"How much d'you, erm, remember?" Ron asked. George had been told that there were blank spots in his memory due to 'the accident', but they never knew when they were likely to come up.
"Bollocks, this is messed up," muttered George. "I feel like I remember everything, but then you show me this and half the things in it I can't recall for the life of me. And the rest feel like I just saw them yesterday." He pressed his lips together. "Merlin, whatever the fuck I was doing in that lab, I will never ever do again. This is too messed up for words."
Ron swallowed and tried to keep his face impassive, but George wasn't looking at him; he was frowning at the name emblazoned across the top of the catalogue. "Hang on. That's bad grammar."
"What?"
"Bad grammar. The apostrophe's in the wrong place."
Ron looked at him, baffled.
"In Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes? That's Ron and me," said Percy smoothly. "We're the other Weasleys. You're the founder, but we helped. And Harry gave you the money to start it. You insisted on it being a family operation."
George grimaced. "Fuck me, sorry, yeah, I do know that. I'm sorry. I remember Harry giving me the money, but not you two being so much a part of it that you were in the name." He threw the scroll down on the bed. "Bugger all this for a lark!!" He got up. "This is fucking infuriating, is what it is!"
"It's only been a few days," Percy pointed out. "You know it'll get better."
"But what the hell happened?" George asked.
"Listen, just trust us, all right? Remember the Healer said we weren't supposed to give you too much too soon." George nodded reluctantly. "So trust us. Please. And..." Percy picked up the catalogue, "come back to this, because I'm not doing your inventory after you come back if you use, 'Oh I don't remember what's in my own catalogue' as an excuse." George chuckled, temporarily mollified, and went back to work.
So, obviously George still remembered building and running Wheezes, thought Ron. But without Fred. And since when had George cared about grammar?
Once more Ron wondered what had happened during the Reawakening sessions with George and the Healers, but knew he really didn't want to know. And Mum and Dad certainly didn't want to talk about it. They'd been there through all the sessions, and always come out looking pale and on the edge of collapse. Mum even had to be tranquilized one day. Ron hadn't wanted to know why.
And yet George himself seemed unscarred. He was so much the way he used to be, and it was unbelievably disconcerting to see him that way. To see that he honestly didn't realize there was anything wrong, and was only puzzled as to why he was in the hospital and couldn't go home.
Ron observed George as Percy explained one of the apparently Fred-created products in the catalogue. George, but not George. His appearance was changed; his hair was lighter now, and his eyes somehow looked lighter as well, which made no sense. His voice was a bit rougher; apparently he'd screamed his throat raw during the ritual. The blue shirt and dark grey trousers were new; the first day he'd been awake, George had looked askance at the electric-green shirt and orangey-brown trousers he'd found in his hospital closet, and asked for something that didn't clash so badly.
And he wasn't George. Or rather, he was, but... it was disconcerting how little he joked around, and how his jokes were usually gentle humour, with little of the biting wit that had always characterized both twins. And he read. A lot.
He was still George, though. Mostly. George from before the war. No brooding, no angry silences, no dark cloud over him. Just George.
"He's doing well, isn't he?" said Mum in a low voice, coming into the room, her eyes troubled as always.
"Yeah," said Ron, pushing down his misgivings. George was doing well, but he wasn't the same George, and Ron had no idea how he would fit into his old life.
March
"Wow, the whole family's here," said George, entering Healer Lethe's magically enlarged office. "What's this about?"
Lethe cleared her throat. "Mr. Weasley, we need to clear up a few things before we send you home. I've asked your family to be here, because this concerns them as much as you."
George took the chair offered him, at once suspicious and relieved. He took a deep breath. "All right. Is this where you finally let me know what the hell is it that I don't know, that everybody else does?"
"What do you mean?" said Dad.
"Dad, 'you blew up a potion' got old about three weeks ago," he said tensely. "I've been going mental here, trying to figure out what the hell it is all of you aren't saying. And what the bloody hell happened in my lab."
"This doesn't just have to do with what happened there," said Dad.
"So there is something you've all been hiding," George said flatly. "Something bad." Damn it, he'd suspected, the entire time he'd been in the hospital. Everyone so gentle, so hesitant, so relentlessly cheerful and so completely nonplussed over the weirdest things. Added to his own complete inability to remember what the hell had landed him on the Crazy Ward, the bizarre gaping abysses in his memory, and Luna Lovegood's determined avoidance of him, he had started to suspect that if the other patients on the ward didn't drive him 'round the twist, his own family would.
"George," said Charlie. "Remember, we asked you to trust us."
"Yeah, I know!" said George, frustrated. "And I have. But I've bloody well had enough of this! What is so damned important that the world was going to end if you told me? Was I doing something illegal in my lab? Did somebody try to kill me? What the hell happened?"
"We weren't keeping anything from you about your lab," said Mum.
Ron gaped at Mum. "Mum?!"
"Well... not really," she said. "That wasn't the main thing."
George's eyes narrowed.
"We had another brother," blurted Ginny, and George could feel the tension in the family suddenly fall, as a sigh ran around the room.
"Erm... what?"
"Fred. We had another brother, named Fred."
George stared at her. "That's... it?"
Ginny blew out her breath. "Yeah, that's it," she said bitterly, looking away from him.
George tried to process this. "Did I know him?"
"Yeah."
"That's what you were all hiding?" He looked around the room. "A brother?"
"Yes," said Mum.
George shook his head, completely off-balance. "Well... for God's sake, come on, tell me about him. And why don't I remember him? Was he older or younger than me?"
"Technically he was older, by a few minutes," said Dad, and swallowed hard. "You were twins. Identical twins."
George's eyes widened. "Twins?"
"Yes."
"Bloody hell, that's a hell of a thing to not be able to remember. Why would I..." He frowned. "Was it... was it his fault that I'm here?"
Healer Lethe broke the resounding silence. "Mr. Weasley, I think maybe I should take over," she said. "I'll give you a summary of what's happened, and you can ask me any questions after I'm done. As I explained to your family, sometimes it is very difficult for relatives to give this information while dealing with their own emotional reaction to all that has happened."
And in as few words as possible, Lethe told George. About his brother Fred, and Fred's death, and the piece of his magic, or soul, left in George. About that piece of Fred's soul dragging him down. About his own suicide attempt, and his decision to undergo a painful procedure that would erase all memory or influence of his twin from his life.
"Is there anything else you need to know?" she asked after she had finished.
George swallowed hard and shook his head. "N-no." He shivered, clasping his arms around himself.
"Georgie?" said Mum after a while. "Can... is there anything we can do?"
George shook his head. He closed his eyes for a moment. "Actually, yeah," he said, his mind still reeling. "Erm, any chance you can Obliviate this conversation from my head too?"
ooo000ooo
"You're ready to go, Mr. Weasley," said Lethe, and handed George back his wand.
George grinned at it. "Merlin, I'm glad to have you back," he said, laughing. He waved it experimentally, producing a trail of sparkles that floated in the air for a moment and then blew up.
Lee smiled. George's wand sparks always blew up. They had done so in an eye-watering, loud way when Fred had been alive, and in a sporadic, fitful way after Fred had died - not that George was in the habit of making random sparks so much after Fred died anyway. This time they just sparkled prettily, and disappeared with a small pop.
"How does the wand feel?" asked Lethe.
George blinked. "Erm, all right."
"Do you notice anything different about it?"
George shook his head. "Should I?"
"There have been a few times when wizards who underwent your procedure found their old wand did not suit them any more."
George shrugged, his grin fading. "Feels fine to me." He put it away, and Lee was hard pressed not to scowl at the bloody Healer. It had only been a few days since he'd been told, but Lee could tell George was already developing a distinct dislike for any unexpected reminders of what had happened.
George signed out, shouldered his pack with his personals in it - most of it clothing he hadn't worn since he'd woken up, and which Lee suspected would go into a bin when he got home - and nodded to Lee.
"Ready?" asked Lee.
"Ugh, Merlin, more than ready," said George, and left without a backward glance. They took the lift down.
"Your family's not narked about you telling them not to come with you today?" asked Lee.
George huffed a laugh. "Are you mental? Mum nearly had fits. I had to promise her I'd be at The Burrow for dinner tonight, no matter what." They walked out of the hospital, and George stopped and closed his eyes, turning his face up to the sunlight and breathing in deeply. "Ah, fresh air." He opened his eyes. "I just couldn't take the entire clan and their brave little smiles right now. Enough is enough."
Lee nodded, and they headed for the Leaky, then Apparated straight to the flat, George having decided beforehand to skip going into the shop until after closing time.
They stepped into the flat, and Lee blinked. Weird as hell to see no sign of Fred. The wall where Fred's door was, was empty, and didn't seem large enough to hold an entire room behind it.
"Hm. I tidied up, did I?" said George, glancing around. "Before trying to do myself in? How considerate of me."
Lee shuddered.
"Sorry," said George with a grimace. "Not a good topic of conversation, I know." He put down his pack.
Lee took a deep breath. "It's all right. You don't have to watch your mouth around me."
George met his eyes, and Lee was surprised at how bitter he looked. He'd become used to the cheerful face George wore before the rest of the world; this looked more like post-war George, and was more than a little unnerving. "Thanks."
Lee hesitated. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About what your family doesn't want to hear."
"About me offing myself? About Fred?" George shrugged, going to his closet and looking at the things hanging there with a bit of a frown. "Doesn't matter."
"Matters to me."
"I'm going to get some new clothes," said George abruptly. "You coming?"
Lee blinked. "Erm. All right, let's go."
Hours later, now attired more suitably in jeans and simple wizarding robes, George was back at The Burrow, and it all felt distressingly normal. He seemed quieter than before, but it was hard to be sure. George-post-Fred had also been quiet. George-without-Fred seemed to be less so. Somewhere in between of George-post-Fred and George-with-Fred. Which made Lee's head ache, but which he supposed made as much sense as anything could, in this uniquely fucked-up situation.
It would just take some getting used to, Lee told himself during dinner. And after dinner. And after Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went out for a walk, leaving the rest of them to clear the table and then gather in the living room.
"You've talked to the Aurors, then?" Charlie was asking Ron as Lee came back from the kitchen with Butterbeers for all. He smiled in thanks as Lee passed him a bottle.
"Yeah, they're willing to take me back," said Ron. "I can even stay in the same year. Only I'll have to put in extra work over the summer break." He took two bottles from Lee and passed one to Hermione. "It's still not official, though," he added, uncorking his bottle. "Not until George gives me the go-ahead."
"I've told you, I'm sure Verity and Naomi are doing just fine," protested George. "Over-protective git." He turned to take his own bottle from Lee, and his eyes narrowed at something over Lee's shoulder.
"He's probably right, though," said Charlie. "You shouldn't make any decisions until you've seen what the place looks like." There was a short silence. "George?"
George blinked and brought his attention back to Charlie. "Right, sorry," said George. "Yeah, you're right, Ron's probably got a point." He glanced back over Lee's shoulder, and Lee turned around.
The Weasley family clock. Bugger.
"George?" asked Charlie. "You all right?"
"What? Yeah." George gave himself a small shake. "In my memory, there were only eight hands on this clock." He paused. "And I've never seen mine pointing at Lost."
Lee swallowed hard. There was a tense silence.
"What were you all going to do if you decided not to ever tell me about Fred?" George asked, looking down at his bottle. "How were you going to explain the extra hand?"
Bill glanced around the room. "George, I don't think anybody but Mum seriously considered the idea of never telling you."
George nodded, and idly started to take the label off his bottle. "Why can't I remember him?" he said softly.
"We told you," said Percy. "It was traumatic, and--"
"But it doesn't make any bloody sense, you know? I can't imagine agreeing to something like that. Agreeing to have someone erased from my life."
"Frankly, neither could I," said Lee reluctantly. "But you were in a bad state, George. You didn't have much of an alternative. I think Fred would've agreed with you."
"Well you can say that; I can't. I've no idea. Everyone keeps saying he was a lot like me and if I can't believe I'd do it, how could he?"
Lee sighed.
"What was he like? For real, I mean. Without Mum and Dad here likely to overhear things they probably shouldn't."
Hermione smiled. "Loud. Creative. Inventive. Bit of a prat."
George nodded. "Did we really get along as well as Lethe said?"
"Yes, you were really very similar," Hermione said. "People couldn't tell you apart. Even your mum mixed you up."
"Wasn't that annoying?"
"Yeah, sometimes," said Ron. "Especially when we'd think we'd said something to one of you and the other one had no clue what we were on about. Mum used to--"
George shook his head. "No, I meant wasn't it annoying for me. Us."
Ron was startled. "Erm. No, you liked it. You kept mixing us up."
"What, on purpose?"
"Yeah."
George's skeptical expression was deeply disturbing.
"I think Fred would've agreed with what you did," said Lee. "And I... I think he would've been proud of you for coming through it."
George shrugged and took a swig of his Butterbeer. "Have to take your word for it, won't I?"
ooo000ooo
"Ron, mate, please go home before your nose explodes. Again."
"I can deal with it--"
"No, you can't," George said firmly. "We don't know when the next eruption's going to happen, the antidote isn't fully tested yet, you're scaring - and disgusting - the customers, and that last flow of lava almost burnt your robes. Just go home and take a bath. That always sorts it."
Ron bit his lip. "I - I'm supposed to be on shift till closing--"
"This place is deader than St. Mungo's on a Saturday night," said George, and from the wince on Ron's face he wished he'd chosen another simile. "Besides which you've still got that Surveillance exam to study for. Geffen wants to take you back. Don't mess that up."
"But--"
"Merlin, Ron, what d'you think is going to happen if you're not watching my every move for a couple of hours?"
Ron flushed and looked away, and George suppressed his impatience with great effort. Yes, all right, he'd apparently tried to do himself in not so very long ago, but was he honestly the only person who realized he was nowhere near any kind of state to do that again?
"Mum, please,” said George. Ron scowled at him. “Go home and take that bath. Look, you don't even have to worry that I'll be alone here; Angelina's dropping by later. We're going out to dinner."
"Oh yeah? Where?"
"Think I'll take her to that new restaurant, Pandoora's. Bloody brilliant rogan josh there."
All right, this was ridiculous, there was no fucking reason for that to make Ron's face morph into Awkwardly Worried again. "You've... you've eaten there?" Ron asked, his voice strangely tight. “At Pandoora’s?”
George nodded. "A few times. The aloo gobi's a bit bland, but everything else is fine."
Ron blew out his breath. "All right, fine," he muttered, taking off his WWW robes and hanging them up. For about the millionth time, George wondered what the hell was up with the robes, too. His own were decent rich Gryffindor red and gold, and yet Ron still wore the hideous pink ones that had been all George could find when he’d come back to the shop. No accounting for taste.
At least he was leaving. Finally, for Merlin's sake.
George finished counting the till, dealt with the last few customers, and tidied a bit, realizing with relief that he probably wouldn't have to stay too long after closing tonight - and for the second time this week, too. He was finally getting back into the swing of things.
It had been a bit overwhelming dealing with the shop once he’d been released. Not only were there dozens of products he'd never seen; there was just a lot more stuff in general. Apparently it had made a big difference, having two shop owners, one of them evidently much better at business than George. Coming back to find nobody formally assigned to do inventory and advertising had made things decidedly tight at first too. He would have to figure out some way of telling his brother - in a non-embarrassing way - that he was eternally grateful Ron had insisted on not just buggering off back to the Aurors right away; George had needed a lot more time than he'd expected, to figure out how to run the whole enterprise himself.
He'd done it, though. He'd hired an accountant and another shop assistant, and got out of advertising altogether by contracting the work to Lee. The place was doing very well - not nearly as well as it had before the war, if the account books could be believed - but very respectable.
He finished sweeping and headed up the stairs, musing over the LavaNose issue. It was coming along well, mostly. It would probably be a big success once it was working properly, particular with pre-Hogwarts-age boys. Now, if he could only get the antidote working properly, and make both the lava and the mucus work consistently...
He went up to the flat and checked the time; half an hour to Angelina. He glanced around and started to tidy, gathering up dirty laundry, still thinking.
The problem was, the answer was almost definitely in the Million Uses For Mucus special edition of Potions Today, which he hadn't been able to find, despite having rifled through the entire flat and lab. He picked up a laundry basket and started to fill it. He was sure he'd last seen that edition on the kitchen table around Christmas time, but that was before he'd ended up in St. Mungo's, and who knew what had happened to it since then...
He suddenly frowned, the basket still in his hands, and turned to the blank wall next to his bedroom.
Fred's room. It was still hidden, but Mum had told him the spells to make it appear and said, "It's yours to open, dear. When you're ready." He'd looked away rather than see her expression, which he could draw from memory anyway: eyes filling with tears, mouth trembling. The way she looked every single time Fred was mentioned.
He put down the laundry and touched the wall lightly, chewing on his lip. He wasn't ready. He wasn't anywhere near ready. If it was completely up to him, he'd just hang posters on the wall and ignore the room behind it. Or, even better, unseal the room, clear it and turn it into a studio or something useful. Because it was bloody creepy sometimes, knowing that there was this unused shrine to a forgotten man, right next to his bedroom.
But what with all that was behind the door meaning so much to the rest of the family...
They all still looked at it, surreptitiously, then glanced at him. They didn't know whether he'd been in there, though. None of them asked.
He took a deep breath and took out his wand.
"Revelus."
The wall seemed to expand a bit, and a door appeared. Just like the door that hid Grimmauld Place, which he'd gone through dozens of times the summer his family had lived there, when he'd pushed so hard to join the Order.
When they had pushed so hard. Fred had been in the Order too.
He opened the door.
It was just an ordinary room. A bit messier than his own, but not by much. A Puddlemere United poster on the wall, the magic animating the players long gone and the players all in place on the poster instead of whooshing around the room. A pair of shoes half-tucked under the desk. Clothing piled on the unmade bed, books on the floor, clear signs everywhere of post-Fred tampering, though it was hard to tell how much of the mess was from Fred himself, how much was the Death Eaters who'd supposedly ransacked the place after they'd gone into hiding, and how much was the family trying to decide what to do with everything Fred-related after George had undergone the Reawakening.
And there it was, the Mucus edition, only partially hidden under a spare piece of parchment with a doodle on it. George picked it up and turned to leave, relief flooding through him.
He stopped at the door. Took a deep breath, turned around, and slowly came back into the room.
He glanced around. Bed still unmade, probably since Fred had woken up on the last morning they were in the shop. The green trainers under the desk were pretty decent ones. Looked about George's size - though of course they would, wouldn't they? He ran a hand through his hair, inexplicably slightly embarrassed.
He opened the closet. Ah. Well, this was where he could store all the ghastly things in his own wardrobe. God, being ginger was bad enough as far as wardrobe colour coordinating went; why add to the visual misery?
He closed the closet door and turned to the bookshelf filled with knickknacks, magazines, and books. Ethelbrecht's Sensuals, in the original Norse; did that mean Fred had taken Ancient Runes, and read the filthy poetry? Or had he just bought it for the naughty Viking pictures? From what George had been told about Fred, he suspected the latter.
A copy of Positively Impossible Potions and Cleopatra's Charms. And Loving Love Poetry For Loving Lovers, which George had used extensively when he was developing the Wonder Witch line. He smiled and ran a finger over the spine, and decided to re-read later.
A copy of Wicked Witch magazine, tucked behind the books. Not a particularly interesting edition, if he recalled correctly, though the Snatch Snitch spread had been somewhat clever.
He stepped closer to the shelf, putting the magazine back where he'd found it, and looked down as his foot encountered something half-tucked under the bed.
A box, its lid still open. He picked it up and sat down on the bed to go through it.
Photographs and newspaper articles. Dozens of photographs of George - and Fred in every single one of them. God, they really had been identical; he had no idea who was who. There they were, age fourteen or so, training the chickens to march in formation. And again, age three and a half, one of them holding a newborn Ginny. Eight years old or so, a cast on George's arm - or was it Fred's? George closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He remembered breaking his arm, but was that one of those false memories the Reawakening had given him?
And another one, of George and Lee laughing and throwing snowballs towards the camera. He remembered this one. It had been taken right after Umbridge's Decree banning all projectiles from Hogwarts. He and Lee and Angelina had gone outside, and documented themselves breaking the Decree, after curfew, just to spite her.
He looked closer. That wasn't him in the picture. It looked like him, all right, but wasn't, and he wasn't sure how he could tell.
He put the photographs on the bed and continued looking through the box, through dozens of newspaper clippings. Some had to do with the war, but others seemed completely random, and often had circles around pictures or scribbled sentences that made no sense, in unfamiliar writing - although, wait, one had his own handwriting, interspersed with somebody else's.
Speakwell?
No, pergamon.
Wanker.
Surrey if it does, mate. That last one nearly did me in.
He blinked, completely baffled. Looked through more of the notes, doodles, and ideas for new products, a frown growing on his face. It was one thing to help other kids skive off school, especially when you were a kid yourself. But the bulk of these were just irresponsible, no matter what your age. And some were just plain nasty; turning your friend into a canary was hilarious, but making them constipated? Ugh.
Why the hell hadn't Fred been Sorted into Slytherin?
He'd almost asked that once, after Ron had told him about Fred almost killing him with an Unbreakable Vow. Very nice; at seven years old, Fred had almost murdered his younger brother as a prank.
They had almost murdered their younger brother. George had been part of that particular exploit, apparently. Charming.
He shoved the pictures and clippings back into the box and set the box down on the floor, noting a stuffed Puffskein next to the desk. Fred, you enormous git, I LOVE you! said the tag.
He blinked. That was Katie's untidy scrawl. His Katie. What the hell had Katie been doing, writing that to Fred?
All right, not his Katie, strictly speaking - they'd only dated a few times before deciding it probably wouldn't work - but still... had it actually been Fred who'd dated her?
Damn. He hoped not. Short as it had been, that little while with Katie had been fun. He wanted that memory to be real. To be his.
He set the Puffskein down, and glanced at Fred's desk. A scrap of paper with a Floo address on it, and three ink pots, one partially opened and no doubt fully evaporated. A small radio. A teacup with something growing in it. A doodle of McGonagall. A candlestick in the shape of a chair. Lube. A purple quill.
He glanced at the calendar on the wall above the desk, open to March of last year and full of scribbled appointments and names of people and products. Mango Tango was underlined under March 1, and he remembered the day he'd finally got it to work - weeks he'd spent trying to perfect that blasted charm, having it turn his tongue into a mango, which was tasty, but devilishly difficult to re-transform if you couldn’t say the counter-spell.
So he'd worked on that one with Fred, then? Had it been any easier, having Fred there to cast the counter-spell? Had it not been his tongue at all that swelled up, but Fred's?
He could quickly go mad in here, trying to figure out who was who in his memories. It would probably be safer to use this room only to get to know his brother, not himself.
Only it seemed they'd been one and the same.
He flipped over to April, noting the large circle around his birthday and dozens of appointments he'd had to miss because he'd gone into hiding. He remembered his rather subdued birthday party at Auntie Muriel's, and the irritation of having to miss out on April Fool's Day sales at Wheezes. He wondered if Fred had been upset about that too.
He opened the top drawer of Fred's desk. Quills, inks, and a box of Droobles, neatly arranged. Middle drawer: spare parchment, stacked according to quality. Looked more like it should belong to Percy than to somebody George had been told was a lot like himself. He opened the bottom drawer, finding it full of pieces of parchment of various sizes, all written upon, and stuffed in every which way. He smiled slightly, and picked one out of the drawer.
Of course I'm hurt. And I'm fucking furious, if you care at all was all that the first letter said. Unsigned - he peered more closely and his eyebrows shot up. That was Angelina's handwriting. The letter ended there. What had she been furious about? He took out more parchments, rifling through them for her handwriting.
No, you selfish prick. I love you, but this isn't something you can just charm your way out of. You were a bloody arse and I don't want to forgive you. Can you possibly understand that?
That was all that one said. George kept flipping through the pile. Why had Fred kept these?
Fred, leave me alone. I'm not interested. If you want to apologize, do it in person. At Hogsmeade, or at the end of the school year. In the meantime, no we're bloody well not together any more!
George's mouth fell open. Together? As in...
Look, I'm sorry, began another letter, not in Angelina's writing - and with a slight shock he recognized the same writing from the back-and-forth between himself and Fred. He swallowed. I didn't think you'd get your knickers in such a twist over it. If we'd told you, you would've tried to stop us and you probably would've got into trouble over it. It wasn't supposed to (scratched out) intended to (scratched out) meant to hurt you. Besides, I didn't think we were all that serious anyway. And look, I wouldn't mind seeing you on a Hogsmeade weekend but we're dead busy right now and there's Oliver's pick-up Quidditch game on the next three Saturdays
George groaned. That had to be one of the worst apologies he'd ever read. Hopefully Fred had recognized that, as he obviously hadn't sent it. There was Angelina, telling him very clearly how hurt she was, and what Fred needed to do to redeem himself - namely, grovel - and he'd just completely missed it.
What an arse. With that kind of romantic sensitivity, he'd probably died a virgin.
George paused, frowning. Wait. Was he a virgin himself? He was fairly sure not, but if he wasn't, then... who had he slept with?
Argh. Blank. Nothing but certainty that he had slept with somebody, at some point in his life.
He skimmed over the letters again, shaking his head. Fred, and Angelina. He couldn't picture that at all. It would have made far more sense for Angelina to date George - though he would've been more likely to date Lee than Angelina. Great girl, good friend, certainly attractive, but far too driven and humourless for him. He wondered just how serious Fred and Angelina had been, and how on earth they had ever managed to not piss each other off on a daily basis.
They probably hadn't managed well at all, judging from the tone of the letters.
He gathered them together and dropped them back into the drawer. Shoved the drawer shut, and looked over the room. There was almost nothing here that he could understand. Nothing he could fit into his life. Maybe he should bring Lee in here, or maybe Ron or Percy.
Or maybe he'd just leave the room sealed forever.
"George?" a voice from the Floo startled him.
He scrambled up and left the room hastily, murmuring the hiding spell. He hurried to the Floo, unable to stomach talking about this with anybody right now. Maybe later.
Maybe a lot later. Maybe never.
"Angelina," he said, mustering a smile for her. "Right, I almost forgot our dinner date."
Angelina stepped through the Floo, shaking her head in amusement. "My God, some things really never do change. You've still got an abysmal memory for social appointments."
George ducked his head and grinned at her. "Forgive me?"
Angelina rolled her eyes and they quickly made their way over to Pandoora's, got a table, and ordered. As they sipped their Butterbeers and waited for their food to arrive, George found himself completely unable to concentrate fully on whatever the hell Angelina was talking about, but made himself automatically answer and prompt her for more as his mind wandered.
"And then the silly bint turns to me and says George, what on Earth is the matter with you?" Angelina said.
There was a brief silence before George blinked and suddenly realized that Angelina's last sentence had ended on an up note, and she was looking at him expectantly.
"Sorry, what?"
"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" said Angelina. "What is it?"
"You went out with him," he blurted.
She blinked. "What? Who?"
"Fred."
Her eyes widened. They stared at each other.
"Never mind, forget I said anything," he said, and took a pull of his Butterbeer.
Angelina shook her head quickly. "No, I'm... I suppose I thought you knew. Did nobody tell you?"
George snorted. "When? During our lengthy discussions of the big dead ginger elephant in the room? Nobody wants to talk about him. Not to me, anyway."
Angelina chewed on her lip, apparently utterly unable to figure out what to say to him. The silence became uncomfortable.
"Oh fuck this," said George, scraping his chair back. He stood up and headed for the door.
"George, wait!"
"No. Fuck off." He walked out, took a few deep breaths, then walked back in. Angelina was still frozen in place.
"Bloody hell, I'm sorry," he said roughly. "God, that was - I'm sorry. I'm being an arse. It's not you I'm angry with." He took another calming breath. "It's Fred. And me. And this whole... buggered-up situation."
Angelina bit her lip. "I'm sorry, George." She hesitated. "Does it mater that much?" she asked cautiously.
He shrugged. "I found your letters," he said, and looked away. "Sorry, shouldn't've read them, I know, but--"
Angelina shook her head. "They were yours to read, if you wanted to. Everything of Fred's was yours."
No, it bloody well wasn't. He couldn't imagine ever wanting some utter stranger to read through his letters after his own death; he couldn't imagine Fred would've wanted that for himself.
"How long were you two together?" he asked.
She smiled sadly. "Isn't that the hundred-Galleon question," she said. "We were sort of on-again, off-again, from sixth year till you two left Hogwarts." She paused. "Does any of this seem familiar?" she asked.
George closed his eyes and thought for a moment. It was true that sometimes, when people reminded him of something, a memory would come back at least partially - the non-Fred related part of it, anyway, but...
He shook his head, opening his eyes. This seemed to be one of those things that made the bloody Reawakening spell throw up its hands in dismay and give up without a fight. "No. Just have a blank. Happens sometimes."
Angelina's eyes were troubled. "God, George. Don't you... Merlin, you handle this so much better than I would."
"What do you mean?"
"This... this not knowing for sure what happened. Other people knowing things you know nothing about." She tilted her head to the side. "Isn't it frustrating?"
George took a sip of his Butterbeer, then shrugged. "What did you have for dinner last night?"
Angelina's eyebrows went up. "Erm... spaghetti, I think."
"What about Wednesday last week?"
She blinked. "I haven't a clue."
"Isn't that frustrating?"
"But that was just one minor event. And it doesn't mean anything, to anybody. Why would I remember it?"
"D'you remember what grade you got on your Divination Owl?"
Angelina blinked. "No."
"That wasn't one minor event. You studied for it for months." Angelina opened her mouth to answer, but he pressed on. "You had this orange jumper in second year. It was a good colour on you, bizarrely enough, but it was too small."
"What?"
"D'you remember it?"
"No… not really."
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"Why would it?"
"It was a major thing. It made all the Gryffindor boys in our year notice you as a girl. Even Henry Booth did, and he was gayer than a lavender centaur. You thought Lee flirted with you because of your Quidditch prowess; it was the jumper. You don't remember a thing about it, though, do you?"
Angelina looked down at the table. "And that's how you feel? Fred's your orange jumper?"
George heard the tears in her voice. He took her hand. "Yes," he said quietly. "I know he was important to everyone, but I don't remember him any more than you remember your jumper." He paused. "I know I have memory gaps, and some of my memories are inaccurate because they're about events that originally included Fred. But everybody has gaps in their memories, and everybody remembers some things wrong." He gave her a small smile as she looked up. "I can't live in the past, Angie. I have four brothers and a sister, I own a shop and I make brilliant products, I've got a lot of good friends, and none that has anything to do with Fred. I'm curious about him, but it seems to hurt everyone to talk about him. Probably the healthiest thing for me to do is to simply forget about him."
"How would you feel, if you were forgotten?"
He shrugged. "Everyone's forgotten eventually. And once you're dead, you're dead, whether you're remembered or not. Besides, Fred left behind a legacy, at Wheezes. It's just as much of a legacy whether I remember him or not."
Angelina nodded, but looked like she was about to cry. Lethe had told him this was much harder on the family and friends than on the person who actually underwent it, and it looked like she was brutally right. Not for the first time, he wondered how on Earth he could have been so selfish as to have made a decision that seemed to cause so much pain to everyone around him.
George squeezed Angelina's hand gently, then cleared his throat. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to what you were saying, before. What happened with your... colleague with the dragonpox remedy?"
And of course this was frustrating for him as well, he thought as Angelina resumed her story. But according to the rest of the family, he had been actively suicidal before the Reawakening. Desperately wanting to end everything and embrace nothingness, rejecting life and love and family and friends and the shop...
He couldn't even fathom what that had been like. Running into occasional blank spots in his memory seemed a fairly small price to pay for getting away from that. For him, anyway.
He pushed his morbid thoughts aside and concentrated on Angelina.
ooo000ooo
Part 1, Hogwarts
Part 2, The Burrow
Part 3, Wheezes
Part 4, St. Mungo's
Part 5, You Can't Go Home Again
Part 6, Christmas Cheer
Part 7a, Rock Bottom
Part 7b, Rock Bottom
Part 8, Lethe
Part 10, Wizengamot
Part 11, May 1
Word Count: 80,000 words ::gulp::
Rating: R
Summary: Nobody expected the year after Fred's death would be easy. But nobody expected George would have to lose so much, just to live through it. Or: George is doing his best to make his way after the war and Fred's death. Everyone is trying to help, and he wishes they would just stop. Especially Fred.
Warnings: Angst, suicide issues, and occasional inappropriate humour.
Author Note: Thanks to twistedm, tree00faery, and vanseedee for beta above and beyond the call of friendship.
OK, sorry to take so long with this one. The next (and last) chapter should be out much, much faster. I hope. ::crossing fingers and hoping the Editing Fairy doesn't go AWOL on me::
Part 1, Hogwarts
Part 2, The Burrow
Part 3, Wheezes
Part 4, St. Mungo's
Part 5, You Can't Go Home Again
Part 6, Christmas Cheer
Part 7a, Rock Bottom
Part 7b, Rock Bottom
Part 8, Lethe
February
"What d'you think we should..." Ron held up one of Fred's trainers. He looked around the room. God, it was like Fred had never left. Apparently George had just left the door closed, and the place smelled musty but also somehow still like Fred.
"We were going to go through this room eventually," said Lee, looking around. "We tidied a bit when he first came back, picking things up that the Death Eaters went through."
"Was there a lot of damage?"
Lee shook his head. "I think they were too traumatized from the jinxes in the living room and kitchen. By the time they hit the bedrooms, they don't seem to have had the heart to really do a thorough job of looting. Probably had something to do with the DinkShrink hexes. I don't even know what's important here and what isn't. Only George would know."
Ron ran his finger along the books on Fred's shelf. Ethelbercht's Sensuals. Positively Impossible Potions. And a book of love poems... was that something Fred actually bought and read? Or a memento from some girl he'd dated? Or a place to find some of their ideas for WonderWitch? Only George would've known.
Fred, you enormous git, I LOVE you! said the tag on a stuffed Puffskein that was wedged between Fred's desk and the wall. From whom?
A ticket stub for a Weird Sisters concert from two years ago on the floor near his bed. Was it something that held deep significance? Or just something Fred had forgotten to take out of his trouser pockets, and had ended up on the floor before the Death Eaters gave up ransacking and returned home with their tails between their legs, literally?
"None of it will mean anything to him when he comes out," said Ginny bitterly. "Why don't we just dump it all?"
"No, we can't," said Mum. She looked around, distressed. "We can't go through this. We'll... we'll hide it away. For when we can decide what to do with it." She ushered them out of the room, spoke a few words, and Fred's door disappeared.
They still had to go through the rest of the flat, though.
"What do we do with these, Mum?" Ginny asked, sorting through the books and magazines in the living room. No idea which were Fred's and which were George's. Advanced Potion-making, highly technical Charms books, Transfigurations Today, some Runes books with questionable drawings, marketing, research, advertising, accounting, and various magazines that the siblings hid from Mum.
Mum exchanged a helpless look with Dad.
"I mean, assuming we can figure out whose is what, we put them in these boxes, and then... what?" asked Ginny. "And how long do we keep Fred's room a secret? I mean, George will come out eventually, he's going to ask - people are going to ask him--"
"We just won't let him be around anybody who knows. Not for a while."
"Mum, I really don't think that's going to work," said Bill. "Not for long, anyway."
Mum bristled. "It will if we make it work."
"He's barely awake yet and already getting restless. He knows there's something going on. 'You had an accident in the lab' won't do it for much longer."
"He needs more time," said Mum. "He's still confused. He won't be coming home for another few weeks at least."
"And what then?" asked Bill. "You can't protect him forever."
"You saw him," said Mum. "He's doing well. He's recovering."
"Yeah, he's recovering. But he's still George, Mum. He's not going to just accept being told that there's blank spots in his memory and he shouldn't ask too many questions. He's going to want to come home - to the home he knows - and he's going to want to figure things out."
"The Healer said that other families have been able to--"
"Maybe the Healers in Nigeria dealt with people who weren't as naturally curious as Fred and George," said Bill. "Or less suspicious."
"We don't know George will be all that curious any more," said Ginny. "We don't know anything about what he's going to be like."
Ron swallowed hard at the tone to her voice. "Ginny."
Ginny abruptly turned on her heel and left, her footsteps speeding up as she went down the stairs. Ron started after her, but Lee shook his head and went after her himself.
"You know, I really think he should go travelling," said Mum. "Perhaps go with Charlie to Romania."
"Mum, I'd love to take him, you know I would," said Charlie, "but the Healers want him here for the six-week mark, when they do their final examination of him."
Mum pressed her lips together.
Ron's eye fell on a photograph, tacked onto the wall, of Fred and Lee laughing and throwing snowballs at whoever was taking the picture - probably George.
What would Fred have thought of this? Ron wondered. What would he have thought of all of them going through the detritus of his life, wiping him clean off the face of the earth?
It didn't matter. Fred was gone. He deliberately pushed his mind away from all memory of Fred, and tossed the picture into the nearest box.
ooo000ooo
Good old Janus Thickey Ward for Mental Maladies. Ron sighed as he and Percy entered the ward. Merlin, but he hated this place.
"Hi, Luna," he said, and Luna gave him a scornful sneer and turned away. He and Percy looked at each other, puzzled. "What the..."
It was still so weird, coming here. George hadn't wanted visitors the first time he'd been in, back in September. He'd been unwontedly quiet and almost shy - frequently done in by the potions he was on, embarrassed to be there, and almost invariably eager to see his visitors leave. And he hadn't cared about visitors after his suicide attempt; just been sullen and angry and depressed.
Now, he was happy to get guests. As he recovered and woke up a bit more, it was both easier and harder to visit him. He was so open, cheerful, and untroubled - except by restlessness, as his body healed and his spirit longed to leave St. Mungo's. Percy knocked on George's door and went in, and Ron paused in the doorway, glancing over the ward with its shuffling, subdued, bathrobe-clad patients. George looked completely out of place.
"Oi, Earth to Ron," called George from the room. "Come in."
"Sorry," said Ron, and came in. "How are you?"
"Bored!" said George, rolling his eyes. "Bloody hell this place is killing me. Did you bring any books?"
"Books?" said Percy.
"Damn, Hermione didn't tell you? It's the only thing keeping me halfway sane in here, mate. I'm halfway through bloody volume seven of the Goblin Manifestoes. Can't keep going though. Don't tell Hermione, she highly recommended them."
"Oh. I can certainly get you some books," said Percy. "Just let me know what kind."
"Erm, you had said you wanted to know what's going on in the shop," said Ron, and brought out a catalogue scroll. George's eyes lit up, and he reached for it. "Are you... d'you think you're all right to do this now?" Ron asked, and chuckled when George grabbed the catalogue and smacked him across the head with it.
"Am I all right to do this now?" George repeated. "I've only been asking you to bring it in for three days. Git." He unrolled the parchment, scanning down the list of products and prices. He frowned.
"How much d'you, erm, remember?" Ron asked. George had been told that there were blank spots in his memory due to 'the accident', but they never knew when they were likely to come up.
"Bollocks, this is messed up," muttered George. "I feel like I remember everything, but then you show me this and half the things in it I can't recall for the life of me. And the rest feel like I just saw them yesterday." He pressed his lips together. "Merlin, whatever the fuck I was doing in that lab, I will never ever do again. This is too messed up for words."
Ron swallowed and tried to keep his face impassive, but George wasn't looking at him; he was frowning at the name emblazoned across the top of the catalogue. "Hang on. That's bad grammar."
"What?"
"Bad grammar. The apostrophe's in the wrong place."
Ron looked at him, baffled.
"In Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes? That's Ron and me," said Percy smoothly. "We're the other Weasleys. You're the founder, but we helped. And Harry gave you the money to start it. You insisted on it being a family operation."
George grimaced. "Fuck me, sorry, yeah, I do know that. I'm sorry. I remember Harry giving me the money, but not you two being so much a part of it that you were in the name." He threw the scroll down on the bed. "Bugger all this for a lark!!" He got up. "This is fucking infuriating, is what it is!"
"It's only been a few days," Percy pointed out. "You know it'll get better."
"But what the hell happened?" George asked.
"Listen, just trust us, all right? Remember the Healer said we weren't supposed to give you too much too soon." George nodded reluctantly. "So trust us. Please. And..." Percy picked up the catalogue, "come back to this, because I'm not doing your inventory after you come back if you use, 'Oh I don't remember what's in my own catalogue' as an excuse." George chuckled, temporarily mollified, and went back to work.
So, obviously George still remembered building and running Wheezes, thought Ron. But without Fred. And since when had George cared about grammar?
Once more Ron wondered what had happened during the Reawakening sessions with George and the Healers, but knew he really didn't want to know. And Mum and Dad certainly didn't want to talk about it. They'd been there through all the sessions, and always come out looking pale and on the edge of collapse. Mum even had to be tranquilized one day. Ron hadn't wanted to know why.
And yet George himself seemed unscarred. He was so much the way he used to be, and it was unbelievably disconcerting to see him that way. To see that he honestly didn't realize there was anything wrong, and was only puzzled as to why he was in the hospital and couldn't go home.
Ron observed George as Percy explained one of the apparently Fred-created products in the catalogue. George, but not George. His appearance was changed; his hair was lighter now, and his eyes somehow looked lighter as well, which made no sense. His voice was a bit rougher; apparently he'd screamed his throat raw during the ritual. The blue shirt and dark grey trousers were new; the first day he'd been awake, George had looked askance at the electric-green shirt and orangey-brown trousers he'd found in his hospital closet, and asked for something that didn't clash so badly.
And he wasn't George. Or rather, he was, but... it was disconcerting how little he joked around, and how his jokes were usually gentle humour, with little of the biting wit that had always characterized both twins. And he read. A lot.
He was still George, though. Mostly. George from before the war. No brooding, no angry silences, no dark cloud over him. Just George.
"He's doing well, isn't he?" said Mum in a low voice, coming into the room, her eyes troubled as always.
"Yeah," said Ron, pushing down his misgivings. George was doing well, but he wasn't the same George, and Ron had no idea how he would fit into his old life.
March
"Wow, the whole family's here," said George, entering Healer Lethe's magically enlarged office. "What's this about?"
Lethe cleared her throat. "Mr. Weasley, we need to clear up a few things before we send you home. I've asked your family to be here, because this concerns them as much as you."
George took the chair offered him, at once suspicious and relieved. He took a deep breath. "All right. Is this where you finally let me know what the hell is it that I don't know, that everybody else does?"
"What do you mean?" said Dad.
"Dad, 'you blew up a potion' got old about three weeks ago," he said tensely. "I've been going mental here, trying to figure out what the hell it is all of you aren't saying. And what the bloody hell happened in my lab."
"This doesn't just have to do with what happened there," said Dad.
"So there is something you've all been hiding," George said flatly. "Something bad." Damn it, he'd suspected, the entire time he'd been in the hospital. Everyone so gentle, so hesitant, so relentlessly cheerful and so completely nonplussed over the weirdest things. Added to his own complete inability to remember what the hell had landed him on the Crazy Ward, the bizarre gaping abysses in his memory, and Luna Lovegood's determined avoidance of him, he had started to suspect that if the other patients on the ward didn't drive him 'round the twist, his own family would.
"George," said Charlie. "Remember, we asked you to trust us."
"Yeah, I know!" said George, frustrated. "And I have. But I've bloody well had enough of this! What is so damned important that the world was going to end if you told me? Was I doing something illegal in my lab? Did somebody try to kill me? What the hell happened?"
"We weren't keeping anything from you about your lab," said Mum.
Ron gaped at Mum. "Mum?!"
"Well... not really," she said. "That wasn't the main thing."
George's eyes narrowed.
"We had another brother," blurted Ginny, and George could feel the tension in the family suddenly fall, as a sigh ran around the room.
"Erm... what?"
"Fred. We had another brother, named Fred."
George stared at her. "That's... it?"
Ginny blew out her breath. "Yeah, that's it," she said bitterly, looking away from him.
George tried to process this. "Did I know him?"
"Yeah."
"That's what you were all hiding?" He looked around the room. "A brother?"
"Yes," said Mum.
George shook his head, completely off-balance. "Well... for God's sake, come on, tell me about him. And why don't I remember him? Was he older or younger than me?"
"Technically he was older, by a few minutes," said Dad, and swallowed hard. "You were twins. Identical twins."
George's eyes widened. "Twins?"
"Yes."
"Bloody hell, that's a hell of a thing to not be able to remember. Why would I..." He frowned. "Was it... was it his fault that I'm here?"
Healer Lethe broke the resounding silence. "Mr. Weasley, I think maybe I should take over," she said. "I'll give you a summary of what's happened, and you can ask me any questions after I'm done. As I explained to your family, sometimes it is very difficult for relatives to give this information while dealing with their own emotional reaction to all that has happened."
And in as few words as possible, Lethe told George. About his brother Fred, and Fred's death, and the piece of his magic, or soul, left in George. About that piece of Fred's soul dragging him down. About his own suicide attempt, and his decision to undergo a painful procedure that would erase all memory or influence of his twin from his life.
"Is there anything else you need to know?" she asked after she had finished.
George swallowed hard and shook his head. "N-no." He shivered, clasping his arms around himself.
"Georgie?" said Mum after a while. "Can... is there anything we can do?"
George shook his head. He closed his eyes for a moment. "Actually, yeah," he said, his mind still reeling. "Erm, any chance you can Obliviate this conversation from my head too?"
ooo000ooo
"You're ready to go, Mr. Weasley," said Lethe, and handed George back his wand.
George grinned at it. "Merlin, I'm glad to have you back," he said, laughing. He waved it experimentally, producing a trail of sparkles that floated in the air for a moment and then blew up.
Lee smiled. George's wand sparks always blew up. They had done so in an eye-watering, loud way when Fred had been alive, and in a sporadic, fitful way after Fred had died - not that George was in the habit of making random sparks so much after Fred died anyway. This time they just sparkled prettily, and disappeared with a small pop.
"How does the wand feel?" asked Lethe.
George blinked. "Erm, all right."
"Do you notice anything different about it?"
George shook his head. "Should I?"
"There have been a few times when wizards who underwent your procedure found their old wand did not suit them any more."
George shrugged, his grin fading. "Feels fine to me." He put it away, and Lee was hard pressed not to scowl at the bloody Healer. It had only been a few days since he'd been told, but Lee could tell George was already developing a distinct dislike for any unexpected reminders of what had happened.
George signed out, shouldered his pack with his personals in it - most of it clothing he hadn't worn since he'd woken up, and which Lee suspected would go into a bin when he got home - and nodded to Lee.
"Ready?" asked Lee.
"Ugh, Merlin, more than ready," said George, and left without a backward glance. They took the lift down.
"Your family's not narked about you telling them not to come with you today?" asked Lee.
George huffed a laugh. "Are you mental? Mum nearly had fits. I had to promise her I'd be at The Burrow for dinner tonight, no matter what." They walked out of the hospital, and George stopped and closed his eyes, turning his face up to the sunlight and breathing in deeply. "Ah, fresh air." He opened his eyes. "I just couldn't take the entire clan and their brave little smiles right now. Enough is enough."
Lee nodded, and they headed for the Leaky, then Apparated straight to the flat, George having decided beforehand to skip going into the shop until after closing time.
They stepped into the flat, and Lee blinked. Weird as hell to see no sign of Fred. The wall where Fred's door was, was empty, and didn't seem large enough to hold an entire room behind it.
"Hm. I tidied up, did I?" said George, glancing around. "Before trying to do myself in? How considerate of me."
Lee shuddered.
"Sorry," said George with a grimace. "Not a good topic of conversation, I know." He put down his pack.
Lee took a deep breath. "It's all right. You don't have to watch your mouth around me."
George met his eyes, and Lee was surprised at how bitter he looked. He'd become used to the cheerful face George wore before the rest of the world; this looked more like post-war George, and was more than a little unnerving. "Thanks."
Lee hesitated. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About what your family doesn't want to hear."
"About me offing myself? About Fred?" George shrugged, going to his closet and looking at the things hanging there with a bit of a frown. "Doesn't matter."
"Matters to me."
"I'm going to get some new clothes," said George abruptly. "You coming?"
Lee blinked. "Erm. All right, let's go."
Hours later, now attired more suitably in jeans and simple wizarding robes, George was back at The Burrow, and it all felt distressingly normal. He seemed quieter than before, but it was hard to be sure. George-post-Fred had also been quiet. George-without-Fred seemed to be less so. Somewhere in between of George-post-Fred and George-with-Fred. Which made Lee's head ache, but which he supposed made as much sense as anything could, in this uniquely fucked-up situation.
It would just take some getting used to, Lee told himself during dinner. And after dinner. And after Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went out for a walk, leaving the rest of them to clear the table and then gather in the living room.
"You've talked to the Aurors, then?" Charlie was asking Ron as Lee came back from the kitchen with Butterbeers for all. He smiled in thanks as Lee passed him a bottle.
"Yeah, they're willing to take me back," said Ron. "I can even stay in the same year. Only I'll have to put in extra work over the summer break." He took two bottles from Lee and passed one to Hermione. "It's still not official, though," he added, uncorking his bottle. "Not until George gives me the go-ahead."
"I've told you, I'm sure Verity and Naomi are doing just fine," protested George. "Over-protective git." He turned to take his own bottle from Lee, and his eyes narrowed at something over Lee's shoulder.
"He's probably right, though," said Charlie. "You shouldn't make any decisions until you've seen what the place looks like." There was a short silence. "George?"
George blinked and brought his attention back to Charlie. "Right, sorry," said George. "Yeah, you're right, Ron's probably got a point." He glanced back over Lee's shoulder, and Lee turned around.
The Weasley family clock. Bugger.
"George?" asked Charlie. "You all right?"
"What? Yeah." George gave himself a small shake. "In my memory, there were only eight hands on this clock." He paused. "And I've never seen mine pointing at Lost."
Lee swallowed hard. There was a tense silence.
"What were you all going to do if you decided not to ever tell me about Fred?" George asked, looking down at his bottle. "How were you going to explain the extra hand?"
Bill glanced around the room. "George, I don't think anybody but Mum seriously considered the idea of never telling you."
George nodded, and idly started to take the label off his bottle. "Why can't I remember him?" he said softly.
"We told you," said Percy. "It was traumatic, and--"
"But it doesn't make any bloody sense, you know? I can't imagine agreeing to something like that. Agreeing to have someone erased from my life."
"Frankly, neither could I," said Lee reluctantly. "But you were in a bad state, George. You didn't have much of an alternative. I think Fred would've agreed with you."
"Well you can say that; I can't. I've no idea. Everyone keeps saying he was a lot like me and if I can't believe I'd do it, how could he?"
Lee sighed.
"What was he like? For real, I mean. Without Mum and Dad here likely to overhear things they probably shouldn't."
Hermione smiled. "Loud. Creative. Inventive. Bit of a prat."
George nodded. "Did we really get along as well as Lethe said?"
"Yes, you were really very similar," Hermione said. "People couldn't tell you apart. Even your mum mixed you up."
"Wasn't that annoying?"
"Yeah, sometimes," said Ron. "Especially when we'd think we'd said something to one of you and the other one had no clue what we were on about. Mum used to--"
George shook his head. "No, I meant wasn't it annoying for me. Us."
Ron was startled. "Erm. No, you liked it. You kept mixing us up."
"What, on purpose?"
"Yeah."
George's skeptical expression was deeply disturbing.
"I think Fred would've agreed with what you did," said Lee. "And I... I think he would've been proud of you for coming through it."
George shrugged and took a swig of his Butterbeer. "Have to take your word for it, won't I?"
ooo000ooo
"Ron, mate, please go home before your nose explodes. Again."
"I can deal with it--"
"No, you can't," George said firmly. "We don't know when the next eruption's going to happen, the antidote isn't fully tested yet, you're scaring - and disgusting - the customers, and that last flow of lava almost burnt your robes. Just go home and take a bath. That always sorts it."
Ron bit his lip. "I - I'm supposed to be on shift till closing--"
"This place is deader than St. Mungo's on a Saturday night," said George, and from the wince on Ron's face he wished he'd chosen another simile. "Besides which you've still got that Surveillance exam to study for. Geffen wants to take you back. Don't mess that up."
"But--"
"Merlin, Ron, what d'you think is going to happen if you're not watching my every move for a couple of hours?"
Ron flushed and looked away, and George suppressed his impatience with great effort. Yes, all right, he'd apparently tried to do himself in not so very long ago, but was he honestly the only person who realized he was nowhere near any kind of state to do that again?
"Mum, please,” said George. Ron scowled at him. “Go home and take that bath. Look, you don't even have to worry that I'll be alone here; Angelina's dropping by later. We're going out to dinner."
"Oh yeah? Where?"
"Think I'll take her to that new restaurant, Pandoora's. Bloody brilliant rogan josh there."
All right, this was ridiculous, there was no fucking reason for that to make Ron's face morph into Awkwardly Worried again. "You've... you've eaten there?" Ron asked, his voice strangely tight. “At Pandoora’s?”
George nodded. "A few times. The aloo gobi's a bit bland, but everything else is fine."
Ron blew out his breath. "All right, fine," he muttered, taking off his WWW robes and hanging them up. For about the millionth time, George wondered what the hell was up with the robes, too. His own were decent rich Gryffindor red and gold, and yet Ron still wore the hideous pink ones that had been all George could find when he’d come back to the shop. No accounting for taste.
At least he was leaving. Finally, for Merlin's sake.
George finished counting the till, dealt with the last few customers, and tidied a bit, realizing with relief that he probably wouldn't have to stay too long after closing tonight - and for the second time this week, too. He was finally getting back into the swing of things.
It had been a bit overwhelming dealing with the shop once he’d been released. Not only were there dozens of products he'd never seen; there was just a lot more stuff in general. Apparently it had made a big difference, having two shop owners, one of them evidently much better at business than George. Coming back to find nobody formally assigned to do inventory and advertising had made things decidedly tight at first too. He would have to figure out some way of telling his brother - in a non-embarrassing way - that he was eternally grateful Ron had insisted on not just buggering off back to the Aurors right away; George had needed a lot more time than he'd expected, to figure out how to run the whole enterprise himself.
He'd done it, though. He'd hired an accountant and another shop assistant, and got out of advertising altogether by contracting the work to Lee. The place was doing very well - not nearly as well as it had before the war, if the account books could be believed - but very respectable.
He finished sweeping and headed up the stairs, musing over the LavaNose issue. It was coming along well, mostly. It would probably be a big success once it was working properly, particular with pre-Hogwarts-age boys. Now, if he could only get the antidote working properly, and make both the lava and the mucus work consistently...
He went up to the flat and checked the time; half an hour to Angelina. He glanced around and started to tidy, gathering up dirty laundry, still thinking.
The problem was, the answer was almost definitely in the Million Uses For Mucus special edition of Potions Today, which he hadn't been able to find, despite having rifled through the entire flat and lab. He picked up a laundry basket and started to fill it. He was sure he'd last seen that edition on the kitchen table around Christmas time, but that was before he'd ended up in St. Mungo's, and who knew what had happened to it since then...
He suddenly frowned, the basket still in his hands, and turned to the blank wall next to his bedroom.
Fred's room. It was still hidden, but Mum had told him the spells to make it appear and said, "It's yours to open, dear. When you're ready." He'd looked away rather than see her expression, which he could draw from memory anyway: eyes filling with tears, mouth trembling. The way she looked every single time Fred was mentioned.
He put down the laundry and touched the wall lightly, chewing on his lip. He wasn't ready. He wasn't anywhere near ready. If it was completely up to him, he'd just hang posters on the wall and ignore the room behind it. Or, even better, unseal the room, clear it and turn it into a studio or something useful. Because it was bloody creepy sometimes, knowing that there was this unused shrine to a forgotten man, right next to his bedroom.
But what with all that was behind the door meaning so much to the rest of the family...
They all still looked at it, surreptitiously, then glanced at him. They didn't know whether he'd been in there, though. None of them asked.
He took a deep breath and took out his wand.
"Revelus."
The wall seemed to expand a bit, and a door appeared. Just like the door that hid Grimmauld Place, which he'd gone through dozens of times the summer his family had lived there, when he'd pushed so hard to join the Order.
When they had pushed so hard. Fred had been in the Order too.
He opened the door.
It was just an ordinary room. A bit messier than his own, but not by much. A Puddlemere United poster on the wall, the magic animating the players long gone and the players all in place on the poster instead of whooshing around the room. A pair of shoes half-tucked under the desk. Clothing piled on the unmade bed, books on the floor, clear signs everywhere of post-Fred tampering, though it was hard to tell how much of the mess was from Fred himself, how much was the Death Eaters who'd supposedly ransacked the place after they'd gone into hiding, and how much was the family trying to decide what to do with everything Fred-related after George had undergone the Reawakening.
And there it was, the Mucus edition, only partially hidden under a spare piece of parchment with a doodle on it. George picked it up and turned to leave, relief flooding through him.
He stopped at the door. Took a deep breath, turned around, and slowly came back into the room.
He glanced around. Bed still unmade, probably since Fred had woken up on the last morning they were in the shop. The green trainers under the desk were pretty decent ones. Looked about George's size - though of course they would, wouldn't they? He ran a hand through his hair, inexplicably slightly embarrassed.
He opened the closet. Ah. Well, this was where he could store all the ghastly things in his own wardrobe. God, being ginger was bad enough as far as wardrobe colour coordinating went; why add to the visual misery?
He closed the closet door and turned to the bookshelf filled with knickknacks, magazines, and books. Ethelbrecht's Sensuals, in the original Norse; did that mean Fred had taken Ancient Runes, and read the filthy poetry? Or had he just bought it for the naughty Viking pictures? From what George had been told about Fred, he suspected the latter.
A copy of Positively Impossible Potions and Cleopatra's Charms. And Loving Love Poetry For Loving Lovers, which George had used extensively when he was developing the Wonder Witch line. He smiled and ran a finger over the spine, and decided to re-read later.
A copy of Wicked Witch magazine, tucked behind the books. Not a particularly interesting edition, if he recalled correctly, though the Snatch Snitch spread had been somewhat clever.
He stepped closer to the shelf, putting the magazine back where he'd found it, and looked down as his foot encountered something half-tucked under the bed.
A box, its lid still open. He picked it up and sat down on the bed to go through it.
Photographs and newspaper articles. Dozens of photographs of George - and Fred in every single one of them. God, they really had been identical; he had no idea who was who. There they were, age fourteen or so, training the chickens to march in formation. And again, age three and a half, one of them holding a newborn Ginny. Eight years old or so, a cast on George's arm - or was it Fred's? George closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He remembered breaking his arm, but was that one of those false memories the Reawakening had given him?
And another one, of George and Lee laughing and throwing snowballs towards the camera. He remembered this one. It had been taken right after Umbridge's Decree banning all projectiles from Hogwarts. He and Lee and Angelina had gone outside, and documented themselves breaking the Decree, after curfew, just to spite her.
He looked closer. That wasn't him in the picture. It looked like him, all right, but wasn't, and he wasn't sure how he could tell.
He put the photographs on the bed and continued looking through the box, through dozens of newspaper clippings. Some had to do with the war, but others seemed completely random, and often had circles around pictures or scribbled sentences that made no sense, in unfamiliar writing - although, wait, one had his own handwriting, interspersed with somebody else's.
Speakwell?
No, pergamon.
Wanker.
Surrey if it does, mate. That last one nearly did me in.
He blinked, completely baffled. Looked through more of the notes, doodles, and ideas for new products, a frown growing on his face. It was one thing to help other kids skive off school, especially when you were a kid yourself. But the bulk of these were just irresponsible, no matter what your age. And some were just plain nasty; turning your friend into a canary was hilarious, but making them constipated? Ugh.
Why the hell hadn't Fred been Sorted into Slytherin?
He'd almost asked that once, after Ron had told him about Fred almost killing him with an Unbreakable Vow. Very nice; at seven years old, Fred had almost murdered his younger brother as a prank.
They had almost murdered their younger brother. George had been part of that particular exploit, apparently. Charming.
He shoved the pictures and clippings back into the box and set the box down on the floor, noting a stuffed Puffskein next to the desk. Fred, you enormous git, I LOVE you! said the tag.
He blinked. That was Katie's untidy scrawl. His Katie. What the hell had Katie been doing, writing that to Fred?
All right, not his Katie, strictly speaking - they'd only dated a few times before deciding it probably wouldn't work - but still... had it actually been Fred who'd dated her?
Damn. He hoped not. Short as it had been, that little while with Katie had been fun. He wanted that memory to be real. To be his.
He set the Puffskein down, and glanced at Fred's desk. A scrap of paper with a Floo address on it, and three ink pots, one partially opened and no doubt fully evaporated. A small radio. A teacup with something growing in it. A doodle of McGonagall. A candlestick in the shape of a chair. Lube. A purple quill.
He glanced at the calendar on the wall above the desk, open to March of last year and full of scribbled appointments and names of people and products. Mango Tango was underlined under March 1, and he remembered the day he'd finally got it to work - weeks he'd spent trying to perfect that blasted charm, having it turn his tongue into a mango, which was tasty, but devilishly difficult to re-transform if you couldn’t say the counter-spell.
So he'd worked on that one with Fred, then? Had it been any easier, having Fred there to cast the counter-spell? Had it not been his tongue at all that swelled up, but Fred's?
He could quickly go mad in here, trying to figure out who was who in his memories. It would probably be safer to use this room only to get to know his brother, not himself.
Only it seemed they'd been one and the same.
He flipped over to April, noting the large circle around his birthday and dozens of appointments he'd had to miss because he'd gone into hiding. He remembered his rather subdued birthday party at Auntie Muriel's, and the irritation of having to miss out on April Fool's Day sales at Wheezes. He wondered if Fred had been upset about that too.
He opened the top drawer of Fred's desk. Quills, inks, and a box of Droobles, neatly arranged. Middle drawer: spare parchment, stacked according to quality. Looked more like it should belong to Percy than to somebody George had been told was a lot like himself. He opened the bottom drawer, finding it full of pieces of parchment of various sizes, all written upon, and stuffed in every which way. He smiled slightly, and picked one out of the drawer.
Of course I'm hurt. And I'm fucking furious, if you care at all was all that the first letter said. Unsigned - he peered more closely and his eyebrows shot up. That was Angelina's handwriting. The letter ended there. What had she been furious about? He took out more parchments, rifling through them for her handwriting.
No, you selfish prick. I love you, but this isn't something you can just charm your way out of. You were a bloody arse and I don't want to forgive you. Can you possibly understand that?
That was all that one said. George kept flipping through the pile. Why had Fred kept these?
Fred, leave me alone. I'm not interested. If you want to apologize, do it in person. At Hogsmeade, or at the end of the school year. In the meantime, no we're bloody well not together any more!
George's mouth fell open. Together? As in...
Look, I'm sorry, began another letter, not in Angelina's writing - and with a slight shock he recognized the same writing from the back-and-forth between himself and Fred. He swallowed. I didn't think you'd get your knickers in such a twist over it. If we'd told you, you would've tried to stop us and you probably would've got into trouble over it. It wasn't supposed to (scratched out) intended to (scratched out) meant to hurt you. Besides, I didn't think we were all that serious anyway. And look, I wouldn't mind seeing you on a Hogsmeade weekend but we're dead busy right now and there's Oliver's pick-up Quidditch game on the next three Saturdays
George groaned. That had to be one of the worst apologies he'd ever read. Hopefully Fred had recognized that, as he obviously hadn't sent it. There was Angelina, telling him very clearly how hurt she was, and what Fred needed to do to redeem himself - namely, grovel - and he'd just completely missed it.
What an arse. With that kind of romantic sensitivity, he'd probably died a virgin.
George paused, frowning. Wait. Was he a virgin himself? He was fairly sure not, but if he wasn't, then... who had he slept with?
Argh. Blank. Nothing but certainty that he had slept with somebody, at some point in his life.
He skimmed over the letters again, shaking his head. Fred, and Angelina. He couldn't picture that at all. It would have made far more sense for Angelina to date George - though he would've been more likely to date Lee than Angelina. Great girl, good friend, certainly attractive, but far too driven and humourless for him. He wondered just how serious Fred and Angelina had been, and how on earth they had ever managed to not piss each other off on a daily basis.
They probably hadn't managed well at all, judging from the tone of the letters.
He gathered them together and dropped them back into the drawer. Shoved the drawer shut, and looked over the room. There was almost nothing here that he could understand. Nothing he could fit into his life. Maybe he should bring Lee in here, or maybe Ron or Percy.
Or maybe he'd just leave the room sealed forever.
"George?" a voice from the Floo startled him.
He scrambled up and left the room hastily, murmuring the hiding spell. He hurried to the Floo, unable to stomach talking about this with anybody right now. Maybe later.
Maybe a lot later. Maybe never.
"Angelina," he said, mustering a smile for her. "Right, I almost forgot our dinner date."
Angelina stepped through the Floo, shaking her head in amusement. "My God, some things really never do change. You've still got an abysmal memory for social appointments."
George ducked his head and grinned at her. "Forgive me?"
Angelina rolled her eyes and they quickly made their way over to Pandoora's, got a table, and ordered. As they sipped their Butterbeers and waited for their food to arrive, George found himself completely unable to concentrate fully on whatever the hell Angelina was talking about, but made himself automatically answer and prompt her for more as his mind wandered.
"And then the silly bint turns to me and says George, what on Earth is the matter with you?" Angelina said.
There was a brief silence before George blinked and suddenly realized that Angelina's last sentence had ended on an up note, and she was looking at him expectantly.
"Sorry, what?"
"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" said Angelina. "What is it?"
"You went out with him," he blurted.
She blinked. "What? Who?"
"Fred."
Her eyes widened. They stared at each other.
"Never mind, forget I said anything," he said, and took a pull of his Butterbeer.
Angelina shook her head quickly. "No, I'm... I suppose I thought you knew. Did nobody tell you?"
George snorted. "When? During our lengthy discussions of the big dead ginger elephant in the room? Nobody wants to talk about him. Not to me, anyway."
Angelina chewed on her lip, apparently utterly unable to figure out what to say to him. The silence became uncomfortable.
"Oh fuck this," said George, scraping his chair back. He stood up and headed for the door.
"George, wait!"
"No. Fuck off." He walked out, took a few deep breaths, then walked back in. Angelina was still frozen in place.
"Bloody hell, I'm sorry," he said roughly. "God, that was - I'm sorry. I'm being an arse. It's not you I'm angry with." He took another calming breath. "It's Fred. And me. And this whole... buggered-up situation."
Angelina bit her lip. "I'm sorry, George." She hesitated. "Does it mater that much?" she asked cautiously.
He shrugged. "I found your letters," he said, and looked away. "Sorry, shouldn't've read them, I know, but--"
Angelina shook her head. "They were yours to read, if you wanted to. Everything of Fred's was yours."
No, it bloody well wasn't. He couldn't imagine ever wanting some utter stranger to read through his letters after his own death; he couldn't imagine Fred would've wanted that for himself.
"How long were you two together?" he asked.
She smiled sadly. "Isn't that the hundred-Galleon question," she said. "We were sort of on-again, off-again, from sixth year till you two left Hogwarts." She paused. "Does any of this seem familiar?" she asked.
George closed his eyes and thought for a moment. It was true that sometimes, when people reminded him of something, a memory would come back at least partially - the non-Fred related part of it, anyway, but...
He shook his head, opening his eyes. This seemed to be one of those things that made the bloody Reawakening spell throw up its hands in dismay and give up without a fight. "No. Just have a blank. Happens sometimes."
Angelina's eyes were troubled. "God, George. Don't you... Merlin, you handle this so much better than I would."
"What do you mean?"
"This... this not knowing for sure what happened. Other people knowing things you know nothing about." She tilted her head to the side. "Isn't it frustrating?"
George took a sip of his Butterbeer, then shrugged. "What did you have for dinner last night?"
Angelina's eyebrows went up. "Erm... spaghetti, I think."
"What about Wednesday last week?"
She blinked. "I haven't a clue."
"Isn't that frustrating?"
"But that was just one minor event. And it doesn't mean anything, to anybody. Why would I remember it?"
"D'you remember what grade you got on your Divination Owl?"
Angelina blinked. "No."
"That wasn't one minor event. You studied for it for months." Angelina opened her mouth to answer, but he pressed on. "You had this orange jumper in second year. It was a good colour on you, bizarrely enough, but it was too small."
"What?"
"D'you remember it?"
"No… not really."
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"Why would it?"
"It was a major thing. It made all the Gryffindor boys in our year notice you as a girl. Even Henry Booth did, and he was gayer than a lavender centaur. You thought Lee flirted with you because of your Quidditch prowess; it was the jumper. You don't remember a thing about it, though, do you?"
Angelina looked down at the table. "And that's how you feel? Fred's your orange jumper?"
George heard the tears in her voice. He took her hand. "Yes," he said quietly. "I know he was important to everyone, but I don't remember him any more than you remember your jumper." He paused. "I know I have memory gaps, and some of my memories are inaccurate because they're about events that originally included Fred. But everybody has gaps in their memories, and everybody remembers some things wrong." He gave her a small smile as she looked up. "I can't live in the past, Angie. I have four brothers and a sister, I own a shop and I make brilliant products, I've got a lot of good friends, and none that has anything to do with Fred. I'm curious about him, but it seems to hurt everyone to talk about him. Probably the healthiest thing for me to do is to simply forget about him."
"How would you feel, if you were forgotten?"
He shrugged. "Everyone's forgotten eventually. And once you're dead, you're dead, whether you're remembered or not. Besides, Fred left behind a legacy, at Wheezes. It's just as much of a legacy whether I remember him or not."
Angelina nodded, but looked like she was about to cry. Lethe had told him this was much harder on the family and friends than on the person who actually underwent it, and it looked like she was brutally right. Not for the first time, he wondered how on Earth he could have been so selfish as to have made a decision that seemed to cause so much pain to everyone around him.
George squeezed Angelina's hand gently, then cleared his throat. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to what you were saying, before. What happened with your... colleague with the dragonpox remedy?"
And of course this was frustrating for him as well, he thought as Angelina resumed her story. But according to the rest of the family, he had been actively suicidal before the Reawakening. Desperately wanting to end everything and embrace nothingness, rejecting life and love and family and friends and the shop...
He couldn't even fathom what that had been like. Running into occasional blank spots in his memory seemed a fairly small price to pay for getting away from that. For him, anyway.
He pushed his morbid thoughts aside and concentrated on Angelina.
ooo000ooo
Part 1, Hogwarts
Part 2, The Burrow
Part 3, Wheezes
Part 4, St. Mungo's
Part 5, You Can't Go Home Again
Part 6, Christmas Cheer
Part 7a, Rock Bottom
Part 7b, Rock Bottom
Part 8, Lethe
Part 10, Wizengamot
Part 11, May 1