Bezel.
It’s on a clear and sunny afternoon, after the battle of Hogwarts and during the clean up, that George stumbles across the stone. It stood out in stark contrast, even here under the shade of the trees and when he bent to pick it up, its collision with his fingers sent a jolt through his arm.
But rarely anything startled him anymore, not now, not after… And he blinked, slowly, lifting it in his hand and turning it over once, staring at it. It was cracked down the middle, with some sort of carving etched into it’s face, and turning it over again, saw those were the only distinguishing marks on the otherwise smooth and shiny surface.
He looked up at the sky, his eyes dark and blank, before turning his gaze back down to the stone. He took it in his hand and turned it into his pocket, moving to step from the shady alcove, taking a breath---
“I’d hang onto that if I were you, George.”
---and holding it, terrified of letting it go, terrified that if he moved, blinked, breathed that voice would leave him and disappear and---
“Don’t be daft; I never left you, git.”
And slowly, slowly, he turned, facing that voice, visage trembling, drawn tight and white as a sheet, his lips, pale and pink pulling back in a grimace and.. a cry, that shot from his throat, tongue and teeth like china shattering, that sent the birds in the trees shooting out from under the branches as his tears fell, hot and sticky down his cheeks.
“…Fred.”
No one asks when George has a stone he found in the rubble at school set into a platinum bezel and slung around his neck; and in fact, they don’t even notice that for the rest of the days it would never leave his body, never part from his being. Years and years down the road, when they lay him down to rest in smooth and cold alabaster, next to his brother, he is smiling.