goodbye to the sun (Harry Potter)
George kills himself.
It doesn’t quite take.
***
He wakes up at Hogwarts. He does not remember having gone there. Even stranger, this looks like the school of his childhood, not the abomination stained with his brother’s blood. As he walks around, he is convinced he is in a dream.
There is no memorial. No newer stones, spelled to look the same as the rest of the ancient castle but not quite managing to mimic the blemish time leaves on things.
George remembers Harry’s tales about King’s Cross. Harry said many things while they were drunk and mourning. Things about soul shards and sacrifices, martyrs and puppet masters and the redemption of old men. George had wanted to know if his black-haired brother had died too, that night.
George remembers and he weeps, because there is no white Great Hall, no great adventure, no guide to the afterlife. Just the cold, hard stone and the distant cackles of Peeves the poltergeist.
It’s the middle of the night, which explains the absence of students ambling about. It doesn’t explain the apparent time travel, but George will take it. Either he’s in a dream – which he doubts, he drank enough Dreamless Sleep to stop his heart and blew up his own joke shop, intent on going out with a bang. It is doubtful he’d move an inch, never mind have sweet dreams about his golden youth – or he’s in the past.
The succession of a Perk Up charm and a Tempus confirm what he already suspected. He’s in 1991. Harry just entered Hogwarts.
George wonders idly if the Time Munchers did this. They’re a prototype he and Fred were working on... before. They’d stop time for half a minute, just long enough to set up a prank or attempt a quick escape. They’d stopped tinkering with it when they realised it stopped a nearby rat’s heart. George and Fred would get a Poor in empathy if such things were graded during OWLs, but they had limits. Murder was one of those. Probably. Fred’s death had changed George’s perspective on the subject.
With this thought comes the realisation that George can prevent Fred’s death. For a good few minutes, he cares about nothing else, thoughtlessly lamenting that he’d been brought back so far in the past when George only needed a few minutes to make sure he pushed his brother out of the way.
Then he remembers Harry, Ginny, Sirius, and everyone else. He fingers his wand absently.
Could he kill a Dark Lord?
Only one way to find out. But first...
A long-term prank needs a good disguise.