The Funeral of Fred Weasley

George Weasley never really liked funerals. But, he figured, that wasn’t anything special because he couldn’t think of a single person who did. He frowned in concentration, remembering the last one he’d been to. He’d been wearing a dragon hide jacket and he’d regretted it immensely because Albus Dumbledore had died in late spring and there wasn’t any sort of shade on the Hogwarts grounds unless you stood just beside the castle walls or right at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Unfortunately for him, he’d done neither that day. Before that, it had been Uncle Bilius. Before that… He couldn’t remember. He was mentally rambling. He told himself to stop.

He wasn’t wearing a dragon hide jacket, now. He was wearing a black shirt and black pants with a black belt and black shoes. He would’ve worn a black tie, but he figured that might’ve been overkill. He’d gone with something a little more jolly - gold and magenta striped - and his mother hadn’t been pleased. He glanced over at her, sitting there in her black dress with a pillbox hat set atop her mane of ginger hair. She was blotchy, eyes streaming, but silent. It was a change. She’d been especially vocal for days, now. Sometimes, George could hear her in the middle of the night, yelling nonsense and pacing the kitchen floor. Sometimes, he’d hear his father down there, too, mumbling something and sounding exhausted. George wasn’t exhausted. He hadn’t slept in days, but he wasn’t exhausted.

He wasn’t hungry, either. To his credit, he did try to eat. He asked for breakfast every morning and sat at the kitchen table for dinner every night. The second he put something in his mouth, he felt like his throat closed up. So, instead of choking to death, he pushed his mashed potatoes and baked chicken or whatever around and around on his plate and occasionally pretended to chew so that no one would make a fuss over him. He’d gotten quite sick of all the fussing and “are you alright, George”s and all the stupid sympathy owls that had somehow managed to find him at the Burrow. He was bloody sick of it all, truth be told. He just wanted it over.

George’s chair creaked a little when he shifted his weight. The tiny wizard who had presided over Bill and Fleur’s wedding and Dumbledore’s funeral was here, today, droning on and on and probably wishing he was somewhere else. George understood. He, himself, kind of wanted to be somewhere far, far away from hugging aunties and owls and people who liked to pretend they knew him but really didn’t. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d had “If you ever need someone to talk to” thrown at him in the past two weeks, most of the time from people he hadn’t seen in years. He thought that if he heard it even once more, he might projectile vomit, or something equally terrible. He imagined the scenario and felt a smile coming on, but looked into his lap and thought of rain and what it would feel like to be “and George” for the rest of his life to stop it. It wouldn’t do to laugh at a funeral. Especially not this one.

George had seen Fred just that morning, stuffed into a box with his hands folded neatly over his stomach, and almost didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, though. Maybe a vulgar hand-gesture or a smirk or something? No, no, that wouldn’t’ve been allowed. At least they hadn’t combed his hair, George thought, at least he was still a mess in that sense.

Maybe they just hadn’t known Fred well enough to realize that, had they really wanted Fred to look like Fred, they would’ve left his shirt untucked and maybe loosened his tie a little. Or, even better, they wouldn’t have dressed him in a suit at all. For all Fred cared, George was sure, they could’ve sent him to the grave in his birthday suit with a sack full of Galleons and a Puking Pastille, or two. George almost grinned again, but his mother was staring at him so he tried to look appropriately somber and stared into space as if reflecting on what a terrible loss he’d just suffered, when, really, he was still thinking of Fred-in-the-box.

They hadn’t known Fred well enough to know that he could never finish something once he’d started it, that he preferred wearing his socks inside-out, that he was much better with girls than George was, and that he almost always had a scrap of parchment in his pocket for stray thoughts or ideas that might come to him through the day. It was for this reason that George had slipped a folded square of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes stationary underneath Fred’s folded hands when their mother hadn’t been looking, just in case.

Fred had been laughing and joking with Percy when he died, according to Harry Potter (who was, for the record, sitting next to Ron three seats to George’s right). He’d been fighting a few Death Eaters and saving the world and what have you. George couldn’t really think of any better way to die. He himself would probably die in his sleep, or in some manner equally as boring. George had always been the more boring twin, and he figured that death wouldn’t change the fact. Fred was a hero, George was just George.

It had never bothered him, though. He glanced up at the sky as he thought this, feeling not even slightly guilty for not listening to the tufty-haired wizard and his ramblings about a dead man he hadn’t even known. He didn’t think Fred would mind his lack of attention, anyway. George had always been perfectly fine taking a step back and letting Fred start conversations or ask out the pretty girls or come up with some new prank to pull or a new product to sell. George was the concluder; he finished sentences and dated the pretty girl’s friend and followed Fred, always half a step behind on everything. Because he was younger? He didn’t know. But ‘George and Fred’ didn’t sound quite right, so he guessed coming second in name and in manner was just fine.

But, for the past two weeks, he hadn’t come second. He hadn’t come first, either, because Fred would always come first, dead or no, but he hadn’t had anything to follow. He’d had to start and complete his own sentences. There hadn’t been any pranks to assist. There hadn’t been anything but a huge, gaping space where his reflection should’ve been standing. George felt like he’d lost an arm.

George recalled the last conversation he’d had with Fred, back when they’d returned to Hogwarts, not to cause trouble, strangely enough, but to help remedy it. They’d been collapsing tunnels because everyone had known he and Fred had them memorized.

“Well, mate,” Fred had sighed, dragging the back of his hand over his forehead and leaving a smudge of dust there because of it, “When they said we’d be fighting Voldemort, this wasn’t what I was picturing.”

George had chuckled and stepped away from the shattered statue of the One-Eyed-Witch, which had formerly guarded the tunnel leading to the Honeydukes cellar. “Right, but who better to do this tunnel bit than us?”

“Dunno,” Said Fred, “But I’ve had my fill, I think. Let’s go give a few Death Eaters what-for.”

George shook his head there in the cemetery, much like the way he had at Hogwarts. To anyone watching, it might’ve looked like he was upset, or something, and, in a manner of speaking, he was. He was thinking about how he should’ve just gone with Fred to give the Death Eaters what-for. Instead, they’d separated. For the first time in their lives, Fred had gone and George had stayed and look where it had gotten them.

The last thing Fred ever said to him was, “I’ll let you finish up here, then”, and then he’d hurried off in the direction of the Great Hall, which was, incidentally, where George saw him, dead and still, not an hour later.

Sometimes, when George was sitting alone and didn’t mind feeling simultaneously like his insides were drying up and like the world couldn’t possibly exist with only “and George” to live in it, he thought about what might’ve happened if he’d just followed, instead of staying in that damned corridor collapsing tunnels and hearing the sounds of screams from the grounds below. Maybe he could’ve dragged Fred to safety, or maybe it would’ve been him instead. Something would’ve been different about the outcome of that night. George didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it would’ve been a little better than this. He knew it was a little selfish for George to wish it had been him in the box instead of Fred, but the list of benefits seemed endless. Fred wouldn’t be “and Fred” because, like George had already decided, “George and Fred” had never been because it just didn’t sound right. He’d be just “Fred”, and that would probably work out alright for him. If it had been George, Fred would’ve made sure he wasn’t buried in a suit and tie because he wasn’t afraid of telling people off when they were bent out of order. Finally, probably both the most important to George (not to mention the most selfish): he wouldn’t have to be the one dealing with the loss of half of him, sitting there in the cemetery thinking about Fred under a mound of dirt.

It was with this thought that George returned his attention to the funeral, a new tightness in his chest. He tilted his head so that his remaining ear was trained in the direction of the little wizard, who seemed far from concluding the service.

“…For from dust we come and to dust we shall return.” He was saying, and George tilted his head away, again.

The strangest thing had happened that morning. It had been raining, and hordes and hordes of people had arrived at the Burrow, some stumbling out of the kitchen fire, others arriving at the door with tin can port keys in hand, and still others popping into existence on the back lawn before running through the downpour to the kitchen half door. Many of them had been Hogwarts classmates, George knew. But, try as he might, he couldn’t remember half of them. He knew he should have, and he knew that, under different circumstances, he probably would have. He’d adopted a set jaw and glassy eyed stare that he figured would be appropriate for a person dealing with the loss of a brother, and shook hands with everyone without a word. In fact, George didn’t mind smiling and talking. He just didn’t know what to say when he didn’t know who he was talking to.

George glanced around. It had stopped raining, and they were all arranged at the edges of this hole in the ground, staring at mounds of flowers and dirt and the box their parents had picked to put his dead twin in. Ron and Ginny were crying. Bill and Charlie were fighting it, George could tell. Their mouths twitched at the corners. Percy had his head in his hands, and he was probably thinking about how guilty he felt. He had told George that he thought maybe it was his fault for telling a joke at just the wrong moment. George had told him it wasn’t because it hadn’t been. He would’ve told a joke, too, had he been there.

But he was too late. The thought came crashing down on his shoulders like a thousand tons worth of un-invented joke products and laughs he could’ve had. George would never again laugh with his brother. He would never again pull a prank that required two minds to accomplish, because, loath as he was to admit it, he was only one mind, now. Fred was dead - cold and stiff and stuck in a box with a few letters and a scrap of parchment because it had been the best George could do. He wanted more than anything to leap out of his chair and tear off the lid of the coffin and shake Fred until his heart started beating again, but he knew he wouldn’t. If there had been the slightest chance of Fred sitting up and telling everyone to bugger off because he was completely fine, George wouldn’t’ve hesitated. But there wasn’t.

George’s jaw tensed and, for the first time since their arrival there in the graveyard, his vision blurred and sparkled. He could no longer see the Fred-in-the-box, or the bloody wizard droning on beside a pile of flowers that Fred would’ve hated. His brother Charlie reached over and gripped his right shoulder, but George shrank away, and instead reached into his pocket to withdraw something no one could see because of the way he clutched it in his fist.

His movement had drawn attention. His mother was staring at him, again. His father and older brothers were leaning forward in their chairs to look at him. Ron, Ginny, and Harry Potter were glancing down the row at him from the corners of their eyes. George ignored them, ignored the murmurings of the black-clad mourners standing behind them, ignored the still-droning little wizard, and smiled. It was a tight-lipped, tight-jawed thing that, coupled with the two shining tears that glittered their individual ways down his cheeks, was rather disconcerting to those who saw it.

Charlie Weasley thought something was wrong and let out a startled “George…?” while turning in his chair to look his brother full in the face. George didn’t look at him. Charlie reached out to put an arm around his shoulders.

All at once, George shoved him off and stood, flinging his hand - the one that clutched whatever he’d taken from his pocket - into the air. From it flew a cluster of the most violently pink sparks, which hovered for a moment, then darted around the gravesite in an extraordinary show of color and light.

Those who weren’t so appalled by the firework that they remained fixated on it, looked up to see George striding around the gravesite, emptying his pockets of all manner of things. Great, exotic birds soared about and burst into flames. Fireworks of every color shrieked and exploded, throwing George’s face into sharp relief. He wore a determined expression that was borderline manic. No one stood to stop him. They were all too shocked, or maybe too afraid of being set a-fire by the display. Their faces ranged from horrified to tear-soaked to completely devoid of anything.

George knew they all thought he was mad. Perhaps he was. But, as he’d decided that morning in a thunderclap of realization, sitting around listening to a stranger talk about his brother without having really known him was no way to say goodbye to Fred. That’s why, in a moment where he’d finally found some peace in his and Fred’s old bedroom, George had dispparated to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley, directly into the storeroom of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, where, with more than a little help from an undetectable extension charm, he’d filled his pockets with everything he could think of.

Exploding Snap cards shuffled themselves in mid-air, arranged into intricate castles, then blew up in great clouds of smoke. Bells sounded and whistles screeched. George shook a few canaries from his sleeves and whirled around to watch them flutter high above his head and explode into a shower of blue, gold, and red stars. Before they had faded, George reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a large stick of dynamite. With his teeth gritted, he used his wand to light the fuse, then hurled it into the air as hard as he could with an audible noise somewhere between a grunt and a sob, though there were no tears on his face anymore.

With a deafening crack, the stick exploded. Thousands upon thousands of shining gold sparks soared in disarray fifty feet above the ground, and then, without prompt or warning, arranged themselves into an enormous, gleaming ‘W’.

The last screams of the fireworks echoed about the cemetery. The few remaining exotic birds burst into flames and burnt out with a crackling hiss. George Weasley stared up at his work, still burning in midair, his fists clenched beside him. Silence fell over the gravesite, though George could hear Fred’s laughing so loud in his head, he was sure everyone else could hear it, too. He spun around and stared at them all, seemed to look into every face with an expression of utmost defiance. Without saying anything, he dared them to object to what he’d done. He dared them to cry and scream and yell and tell them how disrespectful he’d been. He dared them to ignore him, too.

“Gits,” He spat. His voice was hoarse. His jaw and fists were clenched so hard, he shook. “All of you. Gits.”

The acrid smell of sulfur and gunpowder hung around his head. He blinked a few times and inhaled deeply, remembering Hogwarts and magic experiments and giving that old toad Umbridge what-for with Fred. It all seemed so long ago, but he could still feel it. It was the first time in days he felt like he was almost fully alive. Fred was still laughing uproariously in his head. There were a lot of wide eyes on him, but George didn’t flinch.

“Bloody sickening,” He said, louder now. “Carrying on like Fred had never bloody been here, like you can’t remember who he bloody was.”

He turned on his heel and, in two strides, was right on the edge of the hole in the ground, standing next to the coffin and its blanket of flowers. He took some in his fist and whirled around again.

“Flowers? Speeches? Toasts and plaques and moments of silence? What in the hell has gotten into you lot?” He hurled the broken stems and wilted petals into the grave and stood there furiously, the absolute picture of defiance.

“Merlin's Pants,” he said, and his voice cracked. Fred’s laughter had faded. He put his hand on Fred’s coffin and hung his head. “At least bloody blow something up.”