oo6.

[feorge]

[ accidental video ]

[An absolute silence hangs between the twins as they stare at a picture frame hanging on the wall. Some might recognize the photo within it, others still might recognize the Hall it's posted in. And even if they don't, Fred and George can hardly spare a moment to care, because that silence has a rather tight grasp on them, forcing them to recognize them both for what it is.

Ronald Weasley has left the City.

Fred looks over to George, a look of discontent (and perhaps even anger) clear on his face, before looking back over to the frame.]

So that's it, then? Gone without so much as a sound, just a photograph in some dreadful hallway?

You tell me. You've the one who's been here longer.

[George runs a hand over his face. Without even thinking about it, his hand reaches out and grips firmly onto Fred's shoulder.]

He'd barely even got here.

[Fred visibly tenses at the hand on his shoulder, much as it should be a comfort, and he looks up to the ceiling for a moment before shaking his head.]

Unbelievable tosspot.

[His voice does not sound strained there, thank you very much, and there is nothing even close to a deep, shaky exhale to follow before he shrugs George's hand from his shoulder and turns to leave.]

We ought to go muck up his room. Test out those new fireworks.

[George crosses his arms and fixes Fred with a hard stare.]

Don't be a prat, Fred. That's the last thing everyone needs right now.

The last thing everyone needs right now--!

[In the process of shouting, and Fred only stops to notice the device is recording them. A low string of swear words can be heard as he walks up to it and his hand covers the feed for the briefest of moments before everything starts spinning and the feed ends with a crash!]

Comments

voice;

[outlive]

[He makes a soft sound at that, accepting it, but there's a note of firmness in his answer.]

I said to Ginny that we'd be here for her anniversary in December. [And that's what matters, in a way. Then, fiercely:] I can't promise I'll be here tomorrow, but if the deities think I'll go quietly, they've got another thing coming.

voice;

[onlyholey]

I'll keep it in mind, Gin.

Action

[onlyholey]

Alright. Try not to punch any more holes in the plaster, would you?

[knowledgeably.livejournal.com]

I do mean it, George. Anything you need, I'll -- do what I can.

[ LIKE ... she doesn't even know, but she'll help. 8( ]

video; -> action; (that's fine and there are no mistakes! :D)

[knowledgeably.livejournal.com]

I'll be there shortly.

[ She can tell he isn't all for this idea. She knows him well enough, can read him well enough, to know that. But it's not going to stop her, because she knows that what he wants and what he needs are probably very different. He may not be Ron, but she's met enough Weasley men in her life to catch the patterns of pride and stubbornness that come with each and every one of them.

There's the usual crack of someone apparating, but she makes no further moves toward him. She just stands there, barely inside the door, looking at him with her own emotions written all over her face, trying to get a read on his. That lasts a few minutes, her studying him, before she makes a motion.

She steps forward, then finding a place where she'll be able to sit facing him, relatively close. Hermione reaches over, placing her hand atop one of his, and gently rubs her thumb over his knuckles. ]

Fred... [ She trails off, eyes locked on his face, hand unmoving. He knows what she wants and is trying to say. ]

(unsure)

[wishgrant]

Can't make it go away if I dunno what it is.

voice;

[feorge]

[He snorts, the most attractive of sounds but it's not entirely derisive. There's a sort of amusement in it, and a hidden hint of agreement.]

S'pose if anyone's to have a go at the deities, it'd be the Boy Who Lived.

Action

[feorge]

I shall try my hardest.

[Which means not that hard. He pauses a beat, tightening his grip around where his wand's hidden in his pocket.]

...You'll be there to fix them if I should, right?

[Fred's way of asking 'You'll be coming back, right? You won't leave too?']

voice;

[outlive]

[He grins, and it's audible in his voice - along with a rare note of pride, genuine and fully earned and maybe he's starting to accept that.]

You've got that right. Wouldn't be the first 'impossible' thing we've managed, would it?

[Yes, Fred, we.]

Action

[onlyholey]

'course I will, Freddie. Someone has to be around to clean up your messes.

[Believe him, brother. He is clinging onto this place and holding tight.]

(cozy)

[feorge]

[So cute, Luca...]

You'd really like to help me?

voice;

[feorge]

[Now there's a concept he hadn't previously considered. The 'we.' He always knew it was their fight, their war and their accomplishments. Their victory and triumph shared across the whole of Europe. But what he hadn't thought of was that somewhere along the line, it stopped being the fate of the 'Chosen One' and became the path the 'Chosen Many.' Their generation and everyone swept up in it - from first years to professors to that old bag that lived down Harry's road. The 'we' that accomplished a great many things, and a good half of them that were considered 'impossible.'

Fred laughs. It's an airy, breathless sort of thing (which is odd, since he really has no need to breath) but it carries a sense of relief with it. Relief, like something about that statement has pulled his head from a pool of water. Odd again, to feel like you're dying when you're already dead.

The only way to make it through this is together, right?]

Absolutely, you sodding prat.

Action

[feorge]

[He laughs just a little.]

Some day, you shall make a fine wife, Georgie.

voice;

[outlive]

[It's always been we for Harry, from day one in a funny sort of way, because much as he tends to - has to - take responsibility on his shoulders, tries to bear as much as possible so that no one else has to, the accomplishments he's been credited with would've all been impossible without help. Without Ron, Hermione, Fawkes, the twins - and later, funnily, when he'd felt more isolated than he ever had in his life, his world expanded to include Luna and Neville and Ginny, the DA, everyone around their age willing to believe in what was right and fight for it, be it against sadistic professors or Death Eaters, be willing to follow him into the Ministry or his instructions to protect the castle, keep alive an underground movement to not only oppose Voldemort and the Death Eaters but to keep the faith in him - in him, little more than a teenager with a strange scar and a prophesied destiny, whose only extraordinary power was a love so deep as to transcend death.

But what good would that have been without people to love, without friends who've given unwavering support, kindness, fierceness? What Harry did - and what he did alone, the parts he'll admit were up to him and no one else, going into the forest and then returning to the castle, finishing the last of the most evil wizard of their age - was the last step, fate clicking into place, and would have meant little without the Order and the DA fighting off the Death Eaters and taking them down, without the sparks of hope kept fanned over the course of the darkest year of any of their lives, without them reminding everyone that discrimination is easy and insidious and harmless from the start, but that it needs to be pulled up from the roots for real change to happen. There are worse things than death, because there is loss and change and living, but they're wonderful and painful both and not a single one of them needs to be done alone.

Together, as it always has been and always will be, because we are part of you, and we'll keep fighting, you know that?]

And I'm the prat.

Action

[onlyholey]

Cheers, Fred. 's appreciated.

action; (SCORE! :D)

[feorge]

[Just as she appears in his room, Fred tosses his device carelessly to the working bench across the room then looks up to meet her eyes. Where emotion can be found written across Hermione's face, on his, there can be found none. Or many there is simply too much to read. His eyes are darkened and tired - they'd gone to the Hall early in the morning when Fred noticed Ron's absence during a half-sleeping bathroom run. At first, he thought he was imagining things, or was certain he was downstairs stealing snacks from the cupboard as per usual, something, anything but gone, and there wasn't a moment to spare when he realised he was.

From there, his emotions went from fearful to angry to guilty to distraught to everything in between and far beyond, but the moment he lays eyes on Hermione, he just feels tired. Tired from waking up early and running about, tired from shouting and throwing things and hitting other things. But mostly tired because he has no need to be tired at all.

The soft brush of her touch, the warmth in contrast with his literal deathly cold, sends chills down his spine and he closes his eyes. Focuses on the heat in her palm, the lingering pain beneath it from punching the solid wall of the Hall earlier, and maybe just a little bit of pain from the gesture at all. His name on her lips sounding both a blessing and a curse, soft and sweet and lulling him to the sleep he so desperately wants but jolting him awake to the awareness he so desperately needs.

Ron's gone, he isn't the one that's left them. Fred left, died and went someplace far away where no one can reach him again, but then there's Hermione. Her warm hand on top of his cold one, her voice offering him the comfort that his lost early in the morning, and there's something terribly wonderful in that. When he finally opens his eyes to look at her, they're red from the loss of sleep, the loss of his brother, the loss of that comfortable bubble he'd built around himself - and a loss of resolve. He doesn't want to face all the things he's been denying, but he hasn't the heart to pretend they aren't there anymore.

Fred's dead. They're not. And whether it's in the middle of the night, tomorrow, or three years from now, they will leave this place and none of this will have happened. He can't fight it anymore. He hasn't the strength.

He sighs a humourless laugh and pulls his hand out from beneath hers to place it on top, returning the brush idly.]

I'm tired, Hermione.

<3

[wishgrant]

Yeah!

Action

[feorge]

My pleasure.

[He winks, takes one last lingering look (what if it's his last?), then Apparates back home with a crack!]

[feorge]

Give us a smile, hm?

[wishgrant]

[ after a moment, luca gives the biggest smile he can manage. ]

[feorge]

[Fred manages a very light laugh, still nowhere close to his usual howling but sincere, for the first time all day. He shakes his head, places a hand lightly over his mouth. You are too much, Luca.]

Brilliant. Thank you.

[wishgrant]

...I don't want you t' be sad, Fred.

[feorge]

...'s a work in process, but I'll do my best. Just for you.

action; thank you for bearing with me ._. i feel horrible lmao

[knowledgeably.livejournal.com]

[ Hermione recognizes that instead of a clear presentation of emotions, there is a distinct lack... Which is just as alarming, in her opinion. She understand his loss much deeper than she thinks he realizes, simply because she understood Ron's loss of him from a different perspective, as well as her own loss of him. He was more than simply Ron's brother to her. He was also a friend.

She'd also tried to deny it. To herself, to anyone else... She doesn't want to think Ron's really gone. But in her gut, in her heart, she feels the absence profoundly. More importantly, she feels the effect of his very real absence on the people around her, for whom she cares deeply.

It's the tenderness and swelling in his knuckles that she can feel first, and she is immediately worried. It gives her a moment's pause, but she'll make with healing it as soon as they've talked. The emotional aspect, at least in her opinion, is far more important at the present time. Despite his reciprocation of comfort, she transfers her ministrations, lifting her hand from his and placing her arm loosely around him, her palm tenderly making small circles at the center of his back.

She makes a physically insistent motion for him to rest on her, speaking softly and gently as she's able. ]

Come here... [ She really is barely murmuring, but her hand moves again, to his hair, brushing it back and smoothing over it in a motion she can only assume is comforting for him. ] Rest. I won't leave.

action; lmao it's okay, baby. <3

[feorge]

[On any other day, this would've been where Fred shuts down. Where he simply turns off any sort of emotion and relies on that ever familiar humour defense mechanism that has seldom failed him thus far. He's never been one for physical contact, but he so rarely gets even this close to anyone these days, even George. It's odd, how being dead makes him overly self conscious of the fact that he's colder than he should be, that he breathes only out of habit than necessity, but above all else, that pesky little fact that his heart is no longer beating.

Strange, how the thing feels heavier when he no longer needs it.

But that's the problem in the first place, isn't it? His death and the distance created because of it. That impossibly large chasm between him and everything he's known all his life - his friends, his family, his home. And they do so much to try and hide from it, to cover it up with playful banter and blatant denial, but it's always there all the same. At the end of the day, they still have to face that space in their lives where Fred Weasley used to be - but isn't.

He's just so bloody tired.

Though he's never really been comforted by anyone while upset like this besides his Mum (before he decided touching him when he's upset is signing a death wish), the light, comforting brushes and circles feel nice, if he'll admit it. Which he probably won't, in the way he laughs something dry again and shakes his head.]

Rather think I've outgrown being coddled, love.

[Which may seem as though he's outright saying no, but the way Fred is, it would've been a lot more sardonic and almost vicious. No, this is rather a declaration, possibly even a warning, before he pulls away from her and shifts along the bed. He doesn't bother with taking off his shoes or pulling out the bed sheets, simply sprawls out along it on his side and beckons her over with a tug. It's petulant, almost childlike, the way he won't voice it beyond what he's already said and the weakened look in his eyes, but it's very much a day when words have consistently failed him in light of losing something he wanted so dearly - and now that he wants this, he hasn't a clue what to say. Perhaps it simply doesn't need saying.

'Help.']