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;

[feorge]

Good to know you haven't forgotten our names, Harry. I might've worried.

[Y E P. That's all you get from him right now. He's not having any of this.]

voice;

[outlive]

[Okay, you know what 8|]

Taking it out on everyone else isn't going to change anything.

voice;

[feorge]

[What, Harry? 8||]

'course it isn't. Nothing is going to change anything, so what's the point in dwelling? Or shall I gather everyone so we can have group hugs and a crying session? Don't expect me to wipe your bogeys.

voice;

[outlive]

[That's enough to goad him into a snap.]

Right, because you're the only one who's lost someone today - stupid of me to forget!

voice;

[feorge]

[Snap all you want, Harry. Ron's lost to everyone and Fred knows that, but he's far from rational when he's upset and at the moment, upset is an understatement.]

S'all right, mate. Everyone's got their moments of being daft.

[He hasn't lost anything. What'll it take to get you twats to realise this?]

voice;

[outlive]

[Open invitation for snapping is a good thing! He'll take it maybe a little too gladly, something to focus on instead of the emptiness of Ron's absence.]

Including you, I see.

[Pity the living.]

voice;

[feorge]

You've no idea.

[There's an edge of challenge in his tone, a sort of 'try me,' but there's also a hint of defeat. He's been so stupid, letting himself get caught up this inexplicable second chance, thinking that maybe he can just keep on living here like everything is right as rain. Like this is normal and good when it's really anything but - it's more like a dream, and once we all wake up, there'll be nothing left but a picture in a hallway and no one to look at it. He'd been afraid of this since day one, but he refused to acknowledge it and once again, the last thing he's said to Ron was a teasing remark and a half-hearted retort.

Again. The last thing Ron'll remember of him is him tearing the mickey - again.]

voice;

[outlive]

I dunno, I think you're doing a good job of showing it.

[And maybe it's harder because this is Fred, because talking to him and joking with him every day while knowing - an explosion, blood and pain and darkness and above all the sound of Percy's scream, and it was all, all over - is hard enough, rips in a little deeper every time. Here it is, the reminder that even this won't last forever, that the scales balancing living and dead can only last so long like this before starting to correct itself. Not everyone gets a miracle of magic to bring them back (not everyone gets an hour or months to resign to the end)]

voice;

[feorge]

Can think of a fair few others ways to show it, if you'd like. We can get creative.

[Read as: he'll hex you into next Thursday if you really want to have a go. Because clearly lashing out at his only remaining younger brother makes perfect sense. It feels like it's all he's good at these days, because everything else has become so bloody difficult. He's never been good with emotions, with dealing and coping or any of that rubbish, but here, it's so much harder. He doesn't know how to tell them all that he's downright miserable, or that he misses Ron, that he fears they'll all leave him, that this time with him will be forgotten. That he'll be forgotten.

It's so much easier to ask for row. To punch walls and throw things and spit half-hearted threats at the man that least deserves them. Fred doesn't know how to do much else.]

voice;

[outlive]

[It's not that it isn't tempting to rise to the bait, because it is, and Harry reads the subtext as plainly as if Fred had outright said it. It'd be satisfying, wouldn't it, to at least talk of having a go at each other like that, work off anger and sadness in that way without ever having to lift a wand. But this is Fred, this is Fred, and Ron is his brother, and - Harry reins in his temper and levels his voice this time, speaks quietly, remembers that Fred is in a building for remembrance in front of a picture of his youngest brother.

(When he tries to think of what to say, he thinks of Luna in the minutes after, coaxing patronuses out of them and reminding them to keep fighting.)]

We're still here, you know - the rest of us.

[And you, he doesn't say, you are too.]

voice;

[feorge]

Yeah, well.

['Won't catch me thanking anyone for your horrid mugs,' but that's not true at all, is it? Teasing is one thing, but he doesn't have the heart for it right now. Doesn't even really have a heart at all, just a useless, beatless pound of flesh sitting in his chest, and that's the problem, right there. Not moving but it still hurts, and how could he ever dare to betray it?

A rare moment of honesty, and Fred quiets a beat.]

You can't promise you'll be here tomorrow. Or even by the time we get back.

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;

[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.

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.]

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.

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.