Everyone knows about soulmates: souls that can coexist in perfect harmony. Some people yearn and search for them, others live resigned to never finding their match, and still others simply don’t believe in them. But everyone has heard of soulmates. A lesser known phenomenon is when a single soul splits to create twins. Soulmates’ souls fit together like puzzle pieces, but twins’ simply share extensions of the same soul. As a result, twins know each other as well as they know themselves. When one twin takes a step, the other knows where they’re going, even from miles away. This mental synchronization allows twins to work together seamlessly, as they are able to anticipate the other’s actions and lend strength when the other falls short. Throughout time, this great power has been manipulated to create great wonders and horrific tragedies.
Unfortunately, this knowledge has been lost over time in the British wizarding world, so when Fred and George Weasley were born, they knew nothing about this. They thought they were able to finish each other’s sentences because they had grown up beside each other, not because they shared the same soul. When they were five and Fred broke his arm, George assumed that the pain he felt in his arm was simply due to empathy and worry for his brother. When they eagerly met up in their dorm, simultaneously babbling about the same prank that they had each just thought of, they attributed it to “great minds thinking alike.” And when George lost his ear, Fred was too distracted by the war to notice that his world had also become quieter.
So during the Battle of Hogwarts, when George was suddenly overwhelmed with agonizing pain, he thought he had been cursed. It seemed like the obvious assumption. As George stumbled into Hogwarts and the pain continued to slice through his body, causing his vision to blur and his hand to clench tightly around his wand, he didn’t realize anything was wrong. Until he heard Ginny’s sob. (Later he’ll scold himself for not connecting the dots, and not being at his twin’s side earlier.) Blinking until his eyesight cleared, George saw Fred’s lifeless body lying on the ground and his life ended. Or it felt like it did.
The pain never went away, not completely. No matter how many healers he went to, none of them could find anything wrong with him, no remnants of any curse, jinx, or hex. George didn’t know that the pain was caused by his soul being ripped in half, leaving empty space where Fred should have been.
Half a soul means only half a heart, and half a heart can only bring so much joy. Where George had once seen brilliant pink and orange flames roll across the sky when the sun set, he now saw dulled hues huddled around a dimmed sun. Hiding out in his family’s orchards, the birds now sounded harsh and grating— shrieks and caws, instead of the beautiful melodies he remembered hearing when he and Fred used to hide out here, avoiding chores and planning pranks. When their his birthday finally rolled around again, nearly a year after George’s whole became a half, his mom’s birthday cake—the same chocolate cake that he and Fred had insisted she bake every year for their birthday—now tasted like sand. The bedroom that he’d shared with his twin for nearly their entire life now felt like a prison, not home.
Pranks felt cumbersome and pointless. George had to swallow down a wave of guilt every time he pushed Ron, with his hopeful smiles and enthusiastic suggestions for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, away. His heart no longer had the strength to dream up new tricks and hijinxs, as it yearned desperately for its lost half. He couldn’t bring himself to visit their his flat above their shop—he knew the unfinished pranks and long forgotten dreams would look bleak in comparison to his bright memories.
Despite all these signs, despite his rapidly wilting life, despite his heart’s desperate cries, George never truly understood why Fred’s loss impacted him so greatly. After all, it seemed safe to assume that the death of a sibling and friend would be devastating for anyone. It was only after their shared soul was finally mended that George understood. After several decades of pain and emptiness, George went to sleep one last time and woke to find the pain gone and a familiar, young redhead smiling down at him.