almost

The next time Hermione Granger saw Fred Weasley in the flesh was across the crowded Room of Requirement when he emerged through a portrait hole. And the first thing he did was tell a joke.

“Aberforth’s getting a bit annoyed,” said Fred, raising his hand in answer to several cries of greeting. “He wants a kip, and his bar’s turned into a railway station.” 

Hermione did not have time for the emotion that welled up in her when she saw him, the relief that sagged her. His eyes scanned the room and brightened when they caught on her, an unrestrained grin on his face. The last time she had seen him she had worried that she had dreamed him up; but this time she was sure.

Fred was here. He was alive and acting like it. He was looking at her in a way that made her feel like everything would be okay now that they were in the same room again. 

This was Fred Weasley in wartime, and he was not quite what Hermione expected. 

This wasn’t the Fred Weasley who was ready to storm Malfoy Manor to murder Bellatrix Lestrange himself. This wasn’t the Fred who needed to be forcibly restrained by three people to stop him from attacking Draco Malfoy when he made one too many jabs at his family. This wasn’t even the Fred Weasley who swung a beater’s bat with deadly precision on the Quidditch Pitch. 

But while he was not angry, hard lines of determination neither was he completely at ease. This was not Prankster Fred or Goofball Fred or Inventor Fred or Older Brother Fred or Hopeless Romantic Fred.

This was Radio News Reader Fred, the one who made Hermione laugh in the darkness of a tent when she felt there might never be occasion to laugh again. The one the resistance turned to for comedic relief at the height of a war, in the bottom of a pit. 

Battle Ready Fred was a beacon, and Hermione was drawn to him.

But now was not the time for a reunion. Hermione thought of the last two times she’d let him go, and she wasn’t sure she could do it a third time. There was still too much to be done. Now was not the time to get carried away. 

She allowed herself only to smile, to mouth that she had missed him across the space that separated them, when all she wanted to do was eliminate the distance. 

Fred nodded back, mouthed soon , and grinned. He looked exhilarated, resolved, the adrenaline of impending battle seeming to crackle in the air around him. He looked like a firework about to go off. An explosion waiting to happen. 

She felt that same adrenaline pulse in her veins looking at him, and something like hope unfurled in her chest. Soon soon soon played a refrain in time with her heartbeat under her ribs. She was buzzing from her fingers to her toes, and her impatient heart wondered if this would be what it felt like to kiss Fred Weasley again. Now. 

“So what’s the plan, Harry?” said George, cutting into her thoughts. 

“There isn’t one,” replied Harry in a daze, head swivelling back and forth as he took in the suddenly full room.

This did not deter the twins.

“Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favourite kind,” said Fred. 

This was not Hermione’s favourite kind. It was, in fact, her least favourite. Maybe Fred could sense this because he caught her eye and smiled again, as if to say, What could go wrong?

Meanwhile, Harry’s Saviour Complex was on full display as he berated Neville, pulling her attention away.

“You’ve got to stop this!” he said. “What did you call them all back for? This is insane–”

Dean Thomas was roaring to fight, and was interrogating Neville as he pulled a fake Galleon out of his pocket. "The message said Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I'll have to get a wand, though--"

“What do you mean you haven’t got a wand?!” she heard Seamus cry before Dean’s response was swallowed by the crowd as it rallied for battle, the room abuzz with energy.

Harry was having none of it, and it took both her and Ron to convince him that he didn’t have to do this alone. That the others could help, and really, they needed them to. 

“All right,” he relented quietly to the two of them. “Okay,” he called to the room at large. 

Fred and George, who had been cracking jokes for the benefit of those nearest to them, were the last to fall silent. All of them looked alert, excited, as they waited for Harry to lead them.

Hermione thought it might be generous to call it a plan – it was more of a Hail Mary than anything – but it was more than they had to go off of before. Harry and Luna departed one tower for another and she and Ron left not long after to descend into a forgotten chamber. 

She allowed herself only one glance back as she exited into the corridor. Already looking back at her was Fred, eyes ablaze. Soon , he mouthed again, a mischievous twist to his lips as he saluted her. 

Soon, she mouthed back.

Soon soon soon her heart hammered in her chest.

The last time Hermione Granger saw Fred Weasley she had just emerged from the Room of Requirement. They had spilled out into the Seventh Floor corridor, hair singed, faces blackened, Horcrux destroyed. 

“But don’t you realise?” she whispered to Harry and Ron. Soon soon soon, her heart whispered to her urgently. “This means, if we can just get the snake –”

Her thoughts broke off, unfinished, heart stuttering as yells and shouts of spells filled the corridor, and Fred and Percy backed into view, both duelling what could only be Death Eaters. 

Death Eaters who had penetrated Hogwarts. Masked and hooded men who were firing jets of bright light in every direction. At Percy. At Fred. 

Fred . 

The electric, acrid smell of spellfire burned the air and Hermione’s heart sped up again. Soon soon soon soon soon soon.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione lurched forward to help, and then the five of them grouped together as they duelled, and Hermione and Fred were side by side. The closest they had been in months, but still worlds apart. 

Soon soon soon soon soon soon soon soonsoonsoonsoonsoon

The hood slipped off the man duelling Percy, revealing a high forehead and streaked hair. 

"Hello, Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"

"You're joking, Perce!" shouted Fred. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.

"You actually are joking, Perce.... I don't think I've heard you joke since you were – "

The air exploded. The world was rent apart. Hermione felt herself flying through the air, holding tightly to her wand, a scream escaping her and jumbling with the shouts and yells of the others around her. 

A cold draft blew into the corridor and it became apparent as she struggled to her feet in the wreckage that the side of the castle had been blown away. A ringing filled her ears and a hot stickiness trailed down her face. She pressed her fingertips to her temple and they came away a deep red. You’re bleeding , Hermione thought distantly as she struggled for balance, swaying on her feet, trying to orient herself. To take stock of the damage. To do a roll call of her friends.

An agonised cry cut through the buzzing in her ears, tearing through the air and twisting her insides. A cold dread filled her chest and squeezed her heart. She forgot how to breathe. It was a harrowing noise; it spoke of an intolerable, inexpressible grief. 

soonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoon

Harry grabbed her hand as they staggered and stumbled over the rubble toward where three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. 

“No - no - no!” someone was shouting. “No! Fred! No!”

Her heart leapt into her throat as she reached them, her whole body trembling with adrenaline and shock as she took in the incomprehensible scene before her, more unreal than any daydream.

Because on the ground looking up at her with unseeing eyes was Fred Weasley, the last ghost of a laugh still on his lips. 

Too soon. It was too soon. 

too soon too soon too soon

toosoontoosoontoosoontoosoontoosoontoosoontoosoon

In the wake of the Battle of Hogwarts, in the accounting taking place in the first nascent days after the war, George roams around the Burrow as though he were Peter Pan in search of his own wandering shadow. 

He searches like he expects it to be hiding around the next corner, waiting to have a laugh at George’s expense over what a poor seeker he is because, honestly , what took you so long to find me, mate?

But as the search proves fruitless George grows more desperate – as though his shadow has been captured by Captain Hook, has floated off to Neverland without him while he’s left behind on Earth to grow old. Alone. 

George seems incomplete without his shadow, like he is missing a vital part of himself – something much more significant than an ear. 

Or perhaps George Weasley is now his own lost boy; instead of George he could easily be one of the unnamed twins in the old fairytale, the ones differentiated only as the First and the Second. It is like he is no longer allowed to know anything about himself that Peter doesn’t, and Peter isn’t around to learn. 

His family tries to fill the role of his shadow, or perhaps of the captain to lead him. 

Mrs. Weasley piles food on his plate that he does not eat while Mr. Weasley places a cuppa in front of him that he doesn’t drink. Percy sleeps in the twin’s room at night so George is not alone. Ginny attempts a truly dark joke at the expense of a lowlife wizard highlighted in The Prophet to break the oppressive tension. It doesn’t make George laugh, or even curl his lips upward in mild acknowledgment. Bill and Charlie try to get him to go for a broom ride in the orchard, and he does nothing more than drift along lethargically, feet skimming the grass as he stares blankly ahead. Ron and Harry sit with him in the living room; they attempt to engage him in a game of wizard’s chess, and George only shakes his head and makes his excuses to return to his room.

The only person he seems to tolerate, to her utter bewilderment, is Hermione. George seems to have decided that if he can’t have his own shadow, being someone else’s – being hers – is the next best thing. 

Two days after the battle it seems like George Weasley, or the ghost of him, really, is at her elbow whenever she turns, never more than steps away. He hovers behind her, insubstantial, a cold echo in an empty room that used to be full of life. 

It feels not unlike a haunting. 

She doesn’t understand why, exactly, but she thinks she feels less alone to have him near, even if it does not make the deep, keening sorrow she feels tolerable.

Because it’s not. Fred’s death is intolerable . Nothing can soften the blow of it. 

In the first days after the Battle, when others are celebrating the end of a reign of terror, the beginning of possibility in a life unmarked by fear, an oppressive blanket of grief descends on the Weasleys. It smothers the warm fire that usually burns in the hearth of the Burrow, leaving them all cold. 

It feels like they will never be warm again. 

The night before the funeral he finds her in the garden sitting obscured behind the low garden wall. When he finds her, she is staring at an unopened bottle of Firewhisky and fiddling with a charm at her wrist. In another life he would have cracked a joke. Surely there was something rather funny about swotty Hermione Granger sneaking off with a bottle of Ogden’s finest. 

In this life, he says nothing as he settles heavily against the wall and grabs the bottle. With his teeth, he pulls out the cork and spits it off to the side before taking several large gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing. He wipes the corner of his mouth and wordlessly passes her the bottle. 

She stares at the offering until he nudges it impatiently into her palm. 

“If I get drunk out here by myself it’s just sad, Granger,” he says. 

“Right,” she says, “And if you get drunk with me then it’s…”

“A rite of passage.”

Her heart clenches painfully. She’s already had this rite of passage. A version of it. One that doesn’t count. 

She tilts the bottle to her lips and chugs the same way she saw George do, until he pulls the bottle out of her hands and she’s left coughing and sputtering, throat burning. Turns out Fred had made it taste better. 

The liquid in her belly makes her feel warm, but it’s not the kind of warmth she wants. Even so, she reaches for the firewhisky again. 

“Easy, Granger,” he says uneasily, holding the bottle away from her.

“You started it, George,” she says, leaning her head back against the wall and crossing her arms against her chest. 

“‘Spose that’s true,” he says, “Didn’t think you’d try to drown yourself in the bottle, though.”

There’s a long pause as George takes another drink that has her raising her brow at him incredulously.

“Shut it,” he says. Not teasing. Not angry. His voice is devoid of any colour. 

She feels the liquid churning in her stomach, already lightheaded, the world beginning to spin around her. It’s a distinctly unpleasant sensation, and she quickly decides drinking is overrated. 

But it’s preferable to the crushing weight she’s been carrying around, so she takes the bottle back from George when he offers it, and they pass it back and forth in silence. 

“You know,” she says, once she’s drunk enough not to hold her tongue. “This was part of it.”

“Hmm?” George hums tunelessly. “Part of what?”

Her throat clogs with tears and she swallows them down with another swig of the near empty bottle. “The daydream,” she says quietly. “Fred’s daydream.”

It’s the first she’s said his name aloud since he died. 

“I know,” says George. His jaw clenches and he looks at her contemplatively, like he’s literally chewing something over. 

“What is it?” she asks, alarm bells ringing. She narrows her eyes at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

It was a pitying look, which was incredible, given the circumstances. 

George swallows and looks away from her. “He left you something,” he mumbles to the dirt.

Something in her stutters; the world spins faster around her. “If you mean his jersey, I found that in –”

“Not the jersey,” George cuts her off. He leans his shoulders back into the wall and lifts his hips as he clumsily retrieves something from his back pocket. He holds out a thick envelope to her. 

She glances back and forth between his face and the parchment held aloft in front of her, momentarily stunned into silence. 

“What is that?” she asks, voice pitching into something hysterical, jumping back like it might scald her to touch it when George flaps it impatiently toward her.

“What does it look like?” he scoffs. 

She tries very hard to swallow down her sob, her throat convulsing painfully around her cry, but is spectacularly unsuccessful. 

George’s face stills and falls. He looks stricken, any impatience vanishing, as she begins to hyperventilate in short hitching gasps. She can’t catch her breath and a hot flush spreads up her back, into her neck and her cheeks, sweat beading against her clammy skin. 

“Merlin, Hermione,” says George as he holds out both hands, like he’s not sure if he should reach out to comfort her or ward her off. “ Breathe.”  

“I-I-I c-c-c-c-an’t!” she stutters in a panic, wrapping her arms around her legs and burying her face between her knees as her body heaves and trembles. 

A tentative hand brushes her hair off her back to hang over her shoulder before it comes to rest between her shoulder blades. His thumb moves back and forth just as hesitantly. 

She knows he means to be kind, but all it does is remind her of who's not there to hold her. All it does is fill her with a burning shame because George isn’t the one who should be doing the comforting. She sobs harder into her legs and doesn’t take a full breath for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffles eventually, raising her head and wiping tears away with the heels of her palms before pressing them against her eyes. “I’m sorry, George.” 

She takes in a sharp, deep breath through her nose. “God, I’m so sorry,” she says, even as her lips begin to tremble again. 

George shakes his head, brows knitted together. “S’okay,” his voice cracks before he clears his throat in a way that demonstrates just how much it’s not.

“He gave it to me before we left for Hogwarts,” he says, clearing his throat again. “Said it was just… just a precaution. To give it to you if… if…” 

She reaches out to grip his hand tightly. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly, looking down at the letter with apprehension. 

“Do you want… Do you want me to stay? While you read it?” George offers.

Hermione hesitates, then looks up to fix her gaze on him. “What did… Erm… What did yours say?”

“I didn’t get one,” he whispers, and they both wince. “I think…” he swallows hard, tears welling in his already red-rimmed eyes. “I think we both thought…” 

The rest of his sentence hangs unspoken in the air. 

We both thought one wouldn’t go without the other.

“You should stay,” she decides. “I don’t think I could read this alone, anyway,” she says, a tremulous bravado.

He nods, his lips a thin line, brows knitted together to appear almost as one, and they press closer together against the rock wall. George wordlessly conjures a floating orb of light as Hermione breaks the seal on the parchment with shaky fingers. Then, together, they begin to read. 

My Dearest Hermione,

I’m writing this letter in the hopes you never read it. Because if you’re reading this it means the biggest “if” of all has come to pass… and that I’m a reason you’re hurting. 

I can’t promise that I won’t die just like you can’t promise you won’t either. You’ve already done a million things that have made me absolutely furious with you – you’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed with some of the stunts you’ve pulled.

At the same time… I can’t help but to be insanely proud of you. When did you, Hermione Granger, Resident Prefect and Goody Two Shoes, get to be so much cooler than me? 

You broke into the Ministry of bloody Magic for Godric’s sake! Not just the Ministry, either. You broke into Gringotts, Hermione! Do you know how impossible that is? And then, to ride off on a bloody dragon?! Hermione Granger – pulling off two heists at the height of a corrupt government regime. I never thought I’d live to see the day. The absolute nerve of you. Doing something that cool without me.

That was so stupid and reckless and I cannot believe Georgie and I didn’t think of it first. We must be rubbing off on you. Or maybe it’s because you’ve spent the last seven years gallivanting with Harry Potter. Jury’s still out. 

As much as I’d love to take credit… I want to blame Harry. I would hate to be the reason you think it’s okay to put yourself in that kind of danger, when all I want to do is hide you away until I can promise you’ll be safe. (I hope you’re safe now. Please be safe. Please tell me this war is over and you get to just… be safe. It’s been exhausting, worrying about you.)

I was especially cross with you when I learned you lot got yourself caught by Snatchers. Infiltrate the Ministry? Walk in the park. Try to go five bloody seconds without saying U-Know-Poo’s name? You’re all too brave for your own damn good. Who said it? Was it Harry? Did you try to stop him? 

Who am I kidding? Of course you did. That one, always getting you into trouble. I know he’s the Chosen One – Saviour of the Wizarding World and all that bullocks. If you can keep a secret, he’s also the shop’s main benefactor, so I have quite the soft spot for the bloke. But when he showed up in a panic saying you’d lost your charm bracelet at Malfoy Manor (Malfoy Manor!?) and Fred, mate, can you please make a new one? She’s been asking for it? It’s my fault she doesn’t have it?

I was quite ready to cost us the whole bleeding war. About two seconds away from cursing his bits off. I was going to kill Harry Potter. 

He neglected to mention the part where you’d been BLOODY TORTURED, by the way. If he had… 

All I’m saying is that scrawny, specky git better save the world and vanquish some Dark Lords soon, Hermione. Because if I kick the bucket in this battle or sometime down the line and you’re still out there fighting without me… I will haunt him from the afterlife if anything else happens to you. 

(Except maybe don’t tell him that. Noble prat will feel guilty and as angry as I am… he did bring me to you.)

(Okay, fine, and it’s also not his fault he’s the Chosen One or whatever.) 

The only thing that stopped me from strangling him was you. (I want to strangle Ron, too, for the record. Bleeding idiot. Bill let that slip over the hols. But maybe keep that to yourself, too. If Ron asks, just tell him I love him. Actually, tell everyone that. Even Percy, though he’s been a Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron. ) 

I’m getting a little ramble-y, aren’t I? 

I made you a new charm bracelet – even redid the lucid daydream charm on the rubber ducky. I don’t know if you noticed. You were… out of it… when I stopped in. Wasn’t sure what you would want to daydream about. Me? Would you think I was the daydream? Or was that wishful thinking on my part?

It didn’t seem like much of a stretch after you kissed me, though. I’m so sorry you woke up alone. I’m so sorry that if you’re reading this, it means we’ll never get to wake up next to each other. 

Hermione, I know this is a sad letter – an angry one.  I don’t want to tell you all the plans I had for the two of us; you glimpsed enough in the daydream to get the gist. I can see how that might feel like salt in the wound now. I know it would be selfish of me to tell you more when you have to live knowing we’ll never never get to do any of it, and I get to be at peace. I hope, anyway. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me. 

I just… I’m more than halfway in love with you. And if I die… if I died… 

Hermione, I want you to know you were the greatest love of my short life. 

But if you’re reading this, if I’m not around anymore… it’s okay for someone else to be the greatest love of yours. Your hopefully incredibly long, happy life. Even if it’s with a complete dunderhead, like one of my brothers. 

Hermione Granger, you are so much more than the brightest witch of your age. You are more than your brave lion heart. You are clever and fiery and kind and beautiful. You are the strongest witch I’ve ever met. It’s thoughts of you that’ve gotten me this far – that I’d get to see you again. I want to be able to see you again. 

 I don’t know how to end this letter. I don’t want to say goodbye to you. 

I’m not ready to say goodbye to you. To anyone. I’m… if you want to know a secret… and if you tell anyone I will deny it, but… Hermione, I’m scared. I have a feeling tonight's going to be the end, one way or another, and I’m running out of time.

At least it's a nice night for it. 

I didn’t write a letter for George. I tried, but I couldn’t. I will never be ready to say goodbye to him. I can’t imagine a world where we have to, even in this hellscape we’re living in.

But if the unimaginable happened… If he and I… I can’t even write it. 

Tell Georgie this from me – 

Mischief.

He’ll have to manage the rest. Poor bastard. Take care of each other for me. 

See you in the next life, love. 

Unreservedly yours, now and forever,

Fred 

"Oh Freddie," says George after a time, still staring at the parchment, tears rolling down his cheeks and splashing onto her shoulder. "You poor bastard." 

His voice hitches and Hermione thinks he is trying to speak again. But then he lets out a gasping sob as he folds in on himself against the rock wall, taking Hermione and the letter with him. 

Hermione tries to hold in her tears. She has already burdened George enough with them tonight, but she can’t. Her anguish is a well that is overflowing and there’s nowhere else for them to go. Instead they cling to each other, an artist’s rendering of a lamentation in the moonlight. There is no one but them and the endless, starry sky as witness to their unfathomable grief. 

Except maybe Fred. Though she sincerely hopes not. 

They stay like that for an interminably long time. When words are finally uttered between them, the cold dewy ground has already soaked thoroughly into her clothes without her notice. 

"I don't want to go," George whispers brokenly into her hair. He chokes back a sob -  a strangled, awful noise she feels in her own chest. 

She shakes her head, nose bumping against his cheek. "Me neither," she says as she grips the shirt at his back even tighter. "At least, not without another bottle of Firewhisky."

"Each," George adds, pulling away finally, hands holding her shoulders still. He stares at her in wait for her confirmation.

"Each," Hermione nods in solemn agreement.

"We'll do it together." George says, with the air of a man sentenced to the gallows. He pulls away entirely to lean back against the rock wall before slinging an arm around her shoulder and towing her into his side. 

"Together," she promises. "We'll do it for Fred." 

"For Fred." 

They stay out by the rock wall until the sun comes up.

Hermione wonders if they both hoped that if they didn't sleep the new day – the day where they would have to bury Fred – would never come. 

Time proves indifferent, though, and marches on heedless of their suffering. The sun rises and the new day dawns with a sense of unreality that makes Hermione feel like the world is spinning again. 

"Part of me keeps thinking he's just going to appear behind me with a tap on my shoulder, ready for a dance, like this was all some elaborate joke,” she whispers into the early morning air. Her confession hangs there for a moment before it’s carried off on a gentle breeze. 

George nods beside her. "His hand on the clock is still pointing to mortal peril – did you notice? I keep thinking that maybe… but there's not exactly an option for “dearly departed” on there, is there?" 

She shakes her head, tears brimming again. “Oh, Fred,” she sighs. 

“I…” George hesitates. “It doesn’t feel like he’s gone.”

 “I know –” she begins, but is quickly cut off.

“No, Hermione, you don’t know. I’m his twin, for fuck’s sake!” His voice takes on a flint-like quality, hard and brittle. It startles her away from his grasp only because it’s the first George has sounded anything but completely broken in days. His anger is almost welcome, though that doesn’t stop her from flinching when she hears it. “Shouldn’t I be able to tell that he’s dead? What kind of bloody twin am I if I…I…” 

“George –”

“I should know it, and instead…” 

“George -” she tries again. 

“I wasn’t even there to try… to see…” George seeths, voice growing louder. “I was across the castle, I was in the same bleeding castle and I didn’t do anything , I didn’t feel the entire world end. Didn’t even - ” 

“ GEORGE,” she yells.

He falls silent, staring at her as the anger slips off him, bewilderment raising every feature on his face upward instead. 

“George,” she says again, quiet but stern. “It was not your fault.” 

“I –” he starts again.

“We all want more time with him. We all wish we had spent more time with him. I was there and it still – Fred is still dead.”

Saying the words aloud feels like nailing her own coffin shut. She swallows hard.

“Would you say his death is my fault?” she asks in a whisper.

“No,” says George without hesitation, the fight summarily knocked out of him. “‘Course not.” 

Still he frowns. 

“You’re not an exception, George,” she says. “We all feel guilty that we’re here and he isn’t. Don’t take on his death like you killed him, too.” 

His frown deepens. “Am I supposed to believe that you haven’t taken that on yourself?” he asks, voice laced with doubt and cracked with sorrow.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, George,” she says, the words heavy in her mouth.

“Fine then,” he answers dully. “Keep your secrets.” 

After that they sit there in silence punctuated only by sniffles, hiccoughs, and the occasional strangled throat clearing, until Ron comes to retrieve them. 

“I’ve never wanted to not do something more in my life than this,” George says quietly, blinking rapidly as she and Ron haul him to his feet. They make their slow march back to the Burrow, George’s grip on her hand tight, like he might float away if he let go.

When they enter the dining room there is a collection of jumpers in various sizes and colours piled high on the table, all embroidered with a large “F,” and the family comes to nervous attention when George catches sight of them. 

“What’s all this, then?” he asks quietly. 

Percy jumps in immediately, talking fast and stumbling over his words. “I thought it could be… Maybe it would be a nice gesture? To wear today? As, erm… you know, in tribute. They’re Fred’s,” he adds unnecessarily. “From throughout the years. But if you don’t… If you think –” 

He’s not able to finish the thought before George is tackling him in a crushing embrace and whispering something that no one but Percy can hear as Mrs. Weasley bursts into tears behind them. The rest of the family joins in, blinking rapidly and in various states of teariness, wrapping around George and Percy in an enveloping group hug. Eventually George pulls away and wordlessly pulls a jumper over his black robes before the rest of the family follows suit. 

Once their dress reflects their mourning and the family is nearly about to depart, George takes another bottle of Firewhisky out of the cupboard in broad daylight. Then he silently does a shot with Hermione for all the family to see, one that several of his brothers wordlessly join in on, before he can work himself out the door. 

Mrs. Weasley doesn’t say a damn word, not even when George takes the bottle with him. 

It was an unreasonably nice day for a funeral, and Hermione found herself thinking it was rather inconsiderate of the weather for two glaring reasons.

The first being that it was so inaccurate a reflection of her internal raging tempest as to feel like cruel, intentional irony.

And the second being, well…

Simply that Fred Weasley would never get the opportunity to enjoy such a fine summer day ever again. 

In what universe was that fair? Whose idea of a joke was this?

It was thoroughly unfunny. 

Hermione did not know what her face was doing throughout the well-attended ceremony, and she was intoxicated enough to find that she did not care in the least. She thought distantly that whatever expression she had, it must be unflattering, the ugliness of her heart on full display. 

It hurt to hear everyone speak of how wonderful and full of life Fred had been when he was now dead. She found herself tuning them out, her and George flagrantly drinking from the bottle in full view. The entire Weasley brood was sneaking worried glances, or else sips of their own, but no one seemed willing to say anything about this concerning development. 

Just for a day , she thought to herself. Just to get through this waking nightmare. 

Tomorrow she would be thankful that the Weasleys’ had expressly forbidden the presence of any news source at the ceremony save The Quibbler . Today she quite literally could not find it in herself to give a rat’s furry arse about social decorum.

Let them see. What did it bloody matter? 

When it was George’s turn to speak, Hermione tugged him up by the hand and led him toward the podium on the raised dais. As they passed by Bill he pressed a small vial into George’s hands, and he downed the Calming Draught in one swallow. Once in the middle of the raised platform, George leaned heavily against the podium for support, not in any state to stand upright on his own, while Hermione silently returned to her seat to lean against Harry and Ron.

George began his eulogy in halting, choked syllables, reading from the crumpled parchment in his fist without any of his usual aplomb. 

“Fred was – well, Fred was , wasn’t he? He was everything he shouldn’t have been, right from the beginning. Y’see, for starters, he was supposed to be just one baby – boy did he muck that one up,” George says, gesturing at himself in explanation. 

There were a few titters in the crowd, but otherwise they all sat in rapt attention as George began to find his bearings. Talking about Fred now was the least and most sad he had looked since the Great Hall, and it twisted his features into something impossible to look at directly.

“Can you imagine being that ambitious? Right out the gate, deciding being one person just wasn’t enough down the road, might as well be two? Believe me, he dragged me right into the world, he did. Took me right with him and never let me get a moment’s rest. Or Mum and Dad.

“They could never tell the difference, but I know in my heart of hearts that Fred was the crier. I’m not prone to colic, thank you. But you see, that’s just what I mean. No one wants a loud baby or a loud toddler or a loud life, but he made everything just a little too loud for comfort. Conversations, colour selections, opinions… flavours. The worst thing about taste testing products with him was his heavy hand with the flavour extracts. Burned my tongue more than once. And you know exactly how loud our fireworks are from a distance. Imagine what they sound like going off prematurely right by your ear? Believe me,” George says, hand ghosting over the place where his ear should be, “this lovely gentleman’s days were numbered from the beginning.”

George’s words fell from his tongue more confidently now, and he was no longer reading from the parchment. Instead he looked to the closed casket across the way, like he was not speaking to the crowd gathered in mourning, but directly to Fred.

“You know what else he wasn’t supposed to be? Mischievous, too clever to contain, devastatingly handsome – that was supposed to be all me – and two fractions of a centimetre shorter than me – you know he hated being the short one – and too charming for his own good. 

“And quite frankly, he wasn’t – isn’t supposed to be dead. He missed the memo about not being recklessly heroic, and altogether too good and brave a person to not die young doing the right thing. 

George took a great shuddering inhale and breathed out, a loud whistle through his teeth, composure coming loose like a pulled thread that had Mr. Weasley coming to stand at his side while he cried. After a minute he continued, sniffling, voice trembling but strong with his dad’s hand firmly clasping his shoulder. 

“For all his faults, you see, he had a nasty habit of doing the right thing. The exact right thing at the exact right time. This isn’t one of those times, but if you were up pacing at 2:36 in the morning, no one was more apt to find you and send you to bed than Fred. No one was going to notice you frowning and cheer you up right before you’d had such a time you could declare the whole day shot – ‘cept of course, you ran into Fred. No one was going to save you from a nasty run in with Filch, unless Fred had it on good authority he was heading your way and that noble man set about distracting him until the corridor was clear. No one was going to come in with a refreshment the moment you were parched or whack a bludger halfway across the pitch when it was a second away from giving you a cracked rib but Fred.

“He was infamous for his comedic sense of timing. What no one seems to get is that he didn’t keep that particular gift strictly comedic. He was just such a finely tuned timepiece he couldn’t help himself but to –”

At first, Hermione thought the noise was a sign that she should stop drinking. She thought she was hearing her own heart beat outside of her chest. It was the same steady beat that propelled her through the battle three days ago. The one that said soon soon soon .

It wasn’t until George cut off abruptly mid sentence, staring in disbelief at the casket with his mouth agape, that she realised with guarded hope that the steady thud thud thud existed outside of herself. 

It was coming from where Fred was laid to rest, his beating heart ostensibly still. 

The thuds grew louder, and the casket rattled and shook as a hysterical cry tore through the air, followed by muffled, indecipherable yells. 

George was frozen for several seconds that felt like an eternity before he blurred into action. He crossed the dais in three long strides, the coffin flying open with a frantic wave of his hand. 

Fred sprang upright, gripping both sides of the coffin with his hands, heaving great breaths, face flushed bright red as sweat and tears commingled on his face and his lashes clumped together.  

Then George was already embracing him, having knocked him nearly flat with the force of it. For one insane, surreal moment it looked as though George was trying to be buried with Fred, toppled halfway into the coffin as he clung to him. 

By the time the rest of the Weasleys’ rushed onto the dais in a great, flurrying cacophony of pure chaos, Hermione had already arrived at the conclusion that she must be hallucinating. Or perhaps she had accidentally activated the lucid daydream charm and this was her inebriated brain's idea of coping.

Less than five minutes later Fred was apparated to St. Mungo’s, the rest of the family following with their own earth-shattering pops . Meanwhile, the guests who had congregated for a funeral remained frozen to their seats in various states of stupefaction. 

It wasn't until she had consumed a sober-up potion and had Harry confirm for her no less than a dozen times in the waiting room of St. Mungo's that yes, that really just happened, that she allowed herself to dare that it was true. Then Hermione’s heart came roaring to the forefront, beating once again that secret promise, her whole body thrumming with it.  

Soon. Soon. Soon. 

They had thought Fred Weasley had died in the Battle of Hogwarts, and for three unbearable days they lived with that irreconcilable knowledge. 

But then, on the day of his funeral, Fred Weasley made the fact of his not-deadness known the way he did almost everything in life.

Loudly.