You Found Me

In the late afternoon, I was sitting in the living room with a plate of cake and a glass of pumpkin juice, quite enjoying myself as per usual at the Burrow. Everyone else sat around drinking Firewhiskey (even my parents, go figure) and chatting. Shortly after we’d come in the morning, Bill and Fleur had arrived, Fleur waddling about with a girth almost twice the size of mine. She and I had never really been friends, but we’d bonded over things like baby names and nursery color schemes.

“Bill and I adore zee name Victoire for a leetle girl,” She said throatily, a dreamy, motherly look on her face. “And for a leetle boy, I like zee name Francois, but Bill eez not convinced.” She shook her beautiful head sadly, but I really couldn’t blame Bill that much. Francois was a dreadful name for anyone under fifty.

Bill had obviously overheard our conversation and shot me an eye roll and a grin. I liked Bill. He was quite nice.

After Bill and Fleur, Percy had arrived in the kitchen, covered in soot having traveled by Floo Powder. He’d made his rounds of hellos and then sat quietly. He obviously hadn’t forgotten how much of a prick he’d been for those two years or so. I was indifferent about Percy. Out of all the Weasleys, I knew him least and that was fine.

Charlie came next with his pretty Romanian girlfriend whose name I didn’t quite catch (chances are, I wouldn’t have been able to pronounce it if I had, so it didn’t matter). Hermione came with Kingsley, having both been at the ministry before hand. Kingsley’d been recently appointed Minister for Magic. Usually, the Minister coming for tea or something was cause for great hoopla and planning and everything, but we all knew Kingsley already. I did give him a congratulatory hug, though, because I felt at least that much was necessary. And that was everyone. The Burrow felt gaping and empty.

Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Mad-Eye… Fred, Fred, Fred. I mentally rattled off the names of those we were missing. Conversation narrowly danced around mention of any of them. It was like they had never existed. It made me want to puke. I looked up and noticed that someone had finally done a number on the face of Mrs. Weasley’s clock. All the hands were missing, the face was smashed in. While it was a vast improvement over Fred’s hand stuck in ‘Mortal Peril’, it was still as if every remainder of one of the best people any of us had ever known had been completely wiped away.

A few months after the Battle of Hogwarts, George had moved every single one of Fred’s possessions into a narrow crawlspace above the living room and locked the door. It had felt like locking Fred himself up somewhere: no matter what, he’d always find some way out again.

At the thought, all the contentment drained from me, leaving some emptiness that I couldn’t explain. A glance across the room told me that George was feeling the same thing tenfold. He had followed my gaze and was staring up at the clock, a new tautness to his mouth and eyes. After a minute or two, he stood and left the room without saying anything. Everyone noticed, but no one made a move to follow. I figured maybe one of his parents would try to catch up with him somewhere and tell him that they understood how he was feeling. Neither of them did. They were too busy maintaining the façade that everything was fine, that there had never been a twin that made everyone laugh and who would’ve been the first to make sure George was okay.

Instead, George was stuck with me. I heaved myself off the couch and left the room, ignoring the silence and the eyes that followed me. As soon as I was gone, someone would make a joke or offer another round of Firewhiskey and everything would be back to normal. They’d all go back to ignoring Fred and pretending that George was just fine.

I caught up with George out in the orchard, me being so much slower and more cumbersome; he’d already been there for a moment or two. I could see his shoulders shaking as I approached. He was leaning against one of the gnarled old apple trees, his back to me and his hands in his pockets. I kept my distance for a minute, then decided that no one ever really made anyone feel better by staying away, and took a few steps closer so that I could rest my forehead against the back of his shoulder.

There had been only two times when I’d seen George cry so hard he couldn’t breathe. The first had been in the Great Hall at Hogwarts the night Fred had died. He’d come running at the news, disbelief etched across his face. He’d crumpled to the floor, his forehead collapsing down onto Fred’s with a mangled shout. In all the noise and chaos of that night, the one thing I remembered most was the sound of George crying and beating his fists on the floor.

The second time George had cried so hard was the day he locked everything up in the crawlspace, and I’d never told him I’d heard. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.

Standing there in the orchard, I added one more time to my list. I listened to him struggling to draw breath and placed my hands flat on the backs of his shoulders, smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt and drawing my hands down the backs of his arms. I did this over and over again, and still George couldn’t breathe. He kept his head bent forward and I’d never seen a body shake so much. I couldn’t say anything.

After a little while, he calmed somewhat and grabbed my right hand in its circuit down his arm. He drew me closer to him, pulling me under his arm so that I was tucked between his chest and the apple tree trunk. He dropped his forehead into my hair, still shaking though not as badly.

“You’d think he’d never bloody existed.” He said thickly. “It’s like it was only ever me.”

“George.” I said quietly, putting a hand on the side of his neck. He ignored me.

“It’s like the day we buried him, everyone forgot. Don’t you think I know what Mum’s thinking when she looks at me?” He pulled away from me with an expression very closely resembling hatred. “I see her face get a little brighter because she’s hoping I’m Fred, and then she remembers that I’m just George and she’s all forced smiles and ‘Oh, Georgie, let me get you a cup of tea’. I know she goes up to her room and cries every day. I’m not bloody daft.” His voice was strangled.

“George.” I said again, a little more alarmed. I stood with my arms crossed, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, not sure whether or not I should go close to him again. I wasn’t sure that’s what he needed. He might’ve just needed to yell a bit and break some things.

Instead of yelling, he fell against the tree and covered his face with one of his hands. I still didn’t go to him; I couldn’t make my legs move. The wind blew, making the hem of my dress flutter. I shivered a little. George dropped his hand.

“You can go inside.” He said.

“No I can’t.” I said with a sigh, taking a step closer. I stood squarely in front of him but didn’t reach for him. He didn’t reach for me, either, just stood staring without really seeing anything.

“Sometimes,” He said, “I wonder what things would’ve been like if I hadn’t gone out to fight on the grounds. Maybe I would’ve been in that corridor with Fred. Maybe I would’ve seen Rookwood coming. Maybe Fred would still be here. Or, I don’t know, maybe I could’ve been the one standing where Fred was standing. Maybe he could’ve been the one outside, and I…”

This wouldn’t do.

“Right. Now you’re being selfish.” I said. It was harsh and I knew it, but that was fine. George needed someone to proverbially slap him around a bit.

“Hardly.” He said miserably. “Fred would still be here. Mum wouldn’t cry as much, Dad wouldn’t look right bloody through me. You’d probably be married to…”

“Stop it! Stop it right there, George Weasley.” I said, insulted and unable to control myself anymore. My eyes started to burn. “Where do you think I’d be if it had been you?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at me with his red rimmed eyes. I felt the knot rising like vomit in my throat. I tried to swallow it, but the choked sound in my voice wouldn’t go away.

“Do you honestly think I would’ve been fine without you? D’you think I would’ve just gotten over it? D’you think I would’ve gone off and married Fred just because he was bloody alive and you bloody weren’t?” I punched him weakly in the chest and gripped the front of his shirt in my fists. “Because I wouldn’t have! I would’ve died if it had been you, George Weasley.”

“I didn’t mean…” he said weakly, covering my hands with his. I punched him again.

“Yes you did! Don’t lie to me!” I was crying harder. “I guess I’m going to have to be the one to tell you this because no one else has the bloody guts to do it themselves: Fred’s gone. It’s fucking unfair, George, I know it is. I miss Fred like a part of myself, but I can’t get him back. Not for myself, and not for you, either. He’s dead. He’s been dead for months, no matter how hard you wish it had been you instead of him.”

With that, George’s head dropped forward, his lips inches from my hands that were still gripping his shirt. I could feel his breath fanning over my skin. I was crying so hard, I could hardly breathe, but I was more angry than sad.

I had made amends with the fact that Fred wasn’t ever coming back several months before. It wasn’t that I didn’t miss him – I actually missed him quite a lot. He’d been my best friend for most of my life. Before the Battle of Hogwarts, I hadn’t even bothered to imagine my life without him. I always figured George and Fred would always be around, making me laugh with their antics. Now that Fred was gone, it was like a gaping hole had opened up and I had no idea how to fill it. So, even though it hurt and I bloody hated every second of it sometimes, I continued my life with no Fred. It was better than sitting and waiting forever for him to stroll through the front door of the joke shop and say “Bloody hell, Lace, quit your damn moping”.

“I never loved Fred, George.” I said, taking one hand from his chest to swipe it across my eyes and cheeks. “He was my best friend, but I never loved him like I love you.”

He didn’t say anything, just kept his head down. The wind blew again, colder this time. The skirt of my dress whipped forward and wrapped itself around his legs. I reached out and cupped my hand around his neck.

“If it had been you,” I said quietly, releasing his shirt from my other fist and bringing that hand up to lay it against his cheek. I put my forehead against his with a sigh. “If it had been you, I would have died because it would’ve been then that I realized I needed to be with you, not three days later on the floor of your bedroom.”

It was like wax melting. He raised his arms to wrap them around me and pulled me so close, my back bowed. His shoulders heaved a couple of times, but he didn’t make any sound. I kissed him just in front of the dark hole where his right ear used to be and he pressed his face into my neck.

“I miss him.” He said simply. “I miss him, Lacey.”

“I know.”

“I feel like I lost my reflection.”

He didn’t explain himself, and he didn’t really need to. You can’t really find words to explain how you feel when someone close to you dies, but I figured what he said was pretty close to the truth, not to mention it was pretty much literal. We stood there for a long time, until neither of us could stand the wind.



We left that evening with a bit of forced bravado. My parents were reluctant to leave, but Mr. Weasley pressed a bottle of Firewhiskey into my father’s arms and told both he and my mother that they’d keep in touch, naming my ever-swelling stomach as incentive. we left the house and walked in a silent group back down to the town square. It was quiet, more so than when we’d arrived that morning. The moon shone blue over all the empty space.

My parents were spending their last night with us, but I could tell George wasn’t in a socializing mood and told them that I wasn’t feeling well so that we could all go to bed without questions. Mum and Dad didn’t seem too disappointed. For all their idiocy sometimes, they certainly hadn't been blind to the evening's awkwardness. My mother kissed me on the forehead and stared at me with knowing eyes, and she and Dad retreated into Fred’s room. George and I followed suit.

I waved my wand to light a fire on the hearth. George lay back on our bed with his hands folded over his stomach. Without changing out of my dress, I lay down beside him as comfortably as I could with my head on his chest and my belly between us.

“I’m sorry.” I mumbled, covering my face with a hand.

“Don’t cover your face.” George said, pulling my hand away. He kept it in his own. “What’re you sorry for?”

“The orchard.” I sighed. “I made a bloody disaster of your birthday.”

“You didn’t.”

“Are you joking?” I said, propping myself up on my arms so that I could raise my eyebrows at him.

“No.” He said, and I waited for him to elaborate. He sighed and smoothed my hair with one of his hands. “You were the only one to remember that it wasn’t only my birthday. Not to mention,” He added thoughtfully, “You told me you loved me more than Fred. That was something he and I used to fight about at Hogwarts.” He seemed to think hard for a minute, then he laughed.

“Remember, I didn’t love either of you when we were at Hogwarts.” I corrected.

“Shut up, Lacey, yes you did.”

“Did not.” I said, indignant.

“Yes you did. You were just too naïve to realize it. You always loved me. Now go to sleep.” He closed his eyes as a means of ending the conversation.

“Fuck you, George Weasley.” I said, flopping over onto my other side to face the bedroom door instead of him. We were still for a little while, then he chuckled again. The bed jostled and he lifted himself up to kiss the back of my right shoulder and run a hand over my stomach.

“I love you.” He said and lay back down. “Thank you for coming to the orchard.”

“Anytime.” I said because I didn’t know what else would fit. We both fell asleep after that.