almost

George Weasley was sleeping soundly in his bed when it happened. Well, sort of his bed. Not his I’m an adult with his own flat and his own goddamn bedroom, thank you very much bed. Rather, the twin-sized bed of his childhood; the one that was not actually twin-sized at all, seeing as how his feet stuck over the edge and his arm draped over the side as he snored and drooled into his pillow. Even so, it beat the sofa downstairs in the sitting room that he had occupied the last several days and nights, coming to terms with the fact he would not be magically regrowing his lost ear after all. Bloody Snape.

When he had gone to sleep, exhausted, it was with Freddie humming quietly in the dark to himself in the next bed over. It was this sound that had lulled George to sleep in the first place; and it was the comfort, the safety, of returning to this familiar haunt with his twin that had allowed him to sleep in more than fits and starts. 

Fittingly, then, it was Freddie himself who disrupted the restful slumber he had found some tentative grasp on. Freddie, who jolted him awake at nearly three in the morning. The bastard had never learned the meaning of the word quiet; he had always been loud, sometimes violently, explosively so. 

Like now, when the door banged open, slamming hard against the wall and setting George bolt upright in his bed, grasping frantically for his wand as he blinked blearily toward the door, heart pounding in his chest and singular ear ringing as he tried to orient himself to the noise. 

“What’s happening?” he asked, as he pointed his wand at the intruder. Though it came out as more of a slurred “Wha’shapp’nin’?”

The lights burst on, nearly blinding George as he blinked against the harsh brightness. As his vision cleared he realised that the intruder wasn’t an intruder at all, but rather his inconsiderate other half. This did not make the image any more comprehensible, however. Fred was grinning like an idiot, looking wide awake and positively giddy. 

He was humming again, arms laden with what looked the entirety of their father’s record collection. 

“You arsehole,” muttered George, chucking a pillow at Fred’s head with incredible accuracy. Fred paid him no mind, allowing it to bounce off his thick skull without so much as a rude gesture, unceremoniously dumping the contents of his arms onto the rumpled sheets of his vacant bed. 

He was still humming, as if it were Christmas morning and not — he glanced at the clock — 2:47 in the bloody morning. It was a tune George did not recognise, and certainly not the same one Fred had lulled him to sleep to.

George’s initial panic was now fully replaced with annoyance, and it crept into his voice, all hard consonants and sharp vowels on his acerbic tongue as he asked, “What’s going on, mate?” 

“Oh, Georgie,” sighed Fred, as he began to waltz around the room to a song only he could hear. “I told her!” he nearly shouted, grinning like an absolute maniac. 

“Shhhhh!” hissed George, flicking his wand to close the door and silence the room. “Merlin, Fred. You already woke me, no need to wake the rest of the house.” He couldn’t suppress the smirk when he added, “Bill needs the beauty sleep.”

Fred continued on, unperturbed as he twirled. He gave a wandless flick of his wrist and one of the records spun in the air, placing itself on the turntable. There was a scratch as the needle found the grooves of the record, and the crinkle of the ancient gramophone sparking to life before the soft notes of a love song began to float around the room. It felt almost as if the notes were trailing behind Fred, following his lead as he hummed and whistled and sang. 

George clambered out of bed, now fully awake and increasingly confused. “Told her?” he asked, reclaiming the line of conversation. 

Noticing that he was now vertical, Fred wasted no time in sweeping George into his arms for a spirited dance, twirling him out and back into his side, nearly dragging him around the room as George stumbled after his exuberant twin. 

“I told her!” he exclaimed again, lifting George clean off his feet. “I told her!” 

George batted him away, forcing himself onto his feet as he grumbled in exasperation. “What do you mean you told her? Told who what?!”

“I told Hermione,” he said, no longer dancing, but swaying unsteadily on the spot all the same. The expression on his face was positively sickening. 

“You told Hermione that you’re in love with her,” George said, disbelief coating every flat syllable. 

“Oh,” said Fred, suddenly looking uncomfortable, unsure, rubbing the back of his neck as he only did when he was nervous. “Well, er, not exactly.” His face brightened, “But close enough.”

“Close enough?” he asked. “Freddie, mate, what in Merlin’s name did you say to her?”

“That I thought I could love her, if given the chance,” he explained. The giddy energy slipped off of him like a mask, replaced by some solemn phantom. Fred sounded like he’d just uttered an oath, and it set George off slightly off-kilter, if only for its novelty.

“And she didn’t run screaming?” he joked, trying to dispel some of the seriousness of Fred’s tone. Merlin, how many times had Fred talked himself up, how many times had he said the words, “This is it, Gred. Today’s the day I tell Granger how I feel.” Only to come back to George with his tail between his legs, excuses falling from his lips because Now’s not the right time and I can’t do that to Ron and Mate, I don’t think I could take it if she thinks I’m joking.

“Nope!” he said, face brightening in a way that nearly made George squint. “In fact…”

His grin was infectious, and George had to tamp his own down. “Fred,” he said warningly, trying not to get carried away in Fred’s current. “What happened to our plan? We already gave Ron that book, so at least if she’s going to be with the inferior Weasley brother he might treat her halfway decent.” He scrubbed his hands down his face, tugging his mouth firmly down in the process. “I thought you’d decided not to tell her.”

Fred’s smile drooped, a wilting flower. “Well, Ron’s a tosser, and I changed my mind,” he said, nearly pouting. “Besides, seems silly not to, now.”

“Is that… wise?” he asked. “Forge, I just don’t want you to get hurt. She’s… they’re leaving. You know it, I know it, even Mum knows it! And what if… while she’s gone…” he trailed off, letting the rest go unspoken, not even really sure what his point was, exactly.

All George knew was that Fred had been in love with Hermione Granger for ages, and he didn’t want to see his twin heartbroken. 

“Well, there are things I’m more afraid of than rejection these days, brother o’ mine,” said Fred. The tense line of his mouth matched the firm measure of his voice; his happiness seemed to have evaporated off of him; his fear and anger hardening in his gaze as his eyes drifted to George’s missing ear and lingered there, and George felt a burning shame roil in his stomach. “Even if it’s all I ever get with her, it was worth it.”

“I — Wait!” he said, realising that he’d missed something. “What did you get with her? What happened?” 

The lovesick expression reappeared on Fred’s face in a flash, so sweet it was almost nauseating, though tinged now with bittersweetness. “I caught her outside, packing, and I told her how I feel. She was shocked, you should have seen the look on her face. Needn’t have worried about how I couldn’t be any more bleeding obvious, after all, Georgie.”

George recognised the words. He had been the one to say them to Fred in the first place, all of the times Fred had been mooning rather publicly over their favourite prefect.

 Honestly, Fred, jam tarts? he remembered teasing once. What? Fred had said, defensive. They’re her favourite.  

“Anyway,” said Fred, cutting into his thoughts. “We danced, and she cried and… George, I think I should have told her sooner. I think… I think I’ve wasted a lot of time.”

George didn’t really have anything to say to that. Fred wasn’t often the kind to endorse regret, nor was he the sort of bloke to get choked up like he was now. Fred loudly cleared his throat, but he couldn’t hide the way his eyes were glistening. Not from George. Not from his twin, who knew Fred’s face better than he knew his own.

 “Now what song says, I’m in love with you and I hope we can be together someday, without putting too much pressure on Hermione? She has enough on her plate,” Fred said, apropos of nothing, gesturing to the records splayed out on his bed when George remained silent. “I don’t want to put too much pressure on a positive outcome. Don’t want the memory to be accidentally devastating later if we happen to kick the bucket,” he said, not even trying to pretend he was joking.

“Mate, what are you on about now?” said George, choosing to ignore the more morbid sentiments in his brother’s rambling, though an eyebrow climbed into his fringe in alarm before he could fully school his features. He doubled down on exasperation, in the hopes Fred wouldn’t properly notice.

That’s when Fred finally explained his scheme. The daydream charm to tuck away for a rainy day, with all the defensive products they had been squirreling aside for their brother and his friends and their mysterious quest to save the world. “She’s going to be galavanting off with Harry, all dark and broody and intense, and Ron, with his short fuse. In close quarters. For months. Fighting against one of the darkest wizards in history. She’s going to be in need of some cheering.”

George quirked a disbelieving eyebrow, a silent challenge. 

“And I want to make sure she doesn’t forget me,” Fred admitted quietly. “Oh, shove off,” he added, checking George in the shoulder before he could even begin to tease him properly. “Like you’ve never gone soft for a bird before.”

“Low blow,” he said, thinking of the letters he had tucked away in the flat from Angelina, under jinx and hex in addition to lock and key, to prevent Fred from ever seeing them. He knew he would never hear the end of it if he did. 

“Do you think we can sort out the lucid daydream charm before sunrise?” Fred asked at the end of his explanation, already rolling up his sleeves as he contemplated and then discarded one of Dad’s records. He had his inventing face on. The one George wasn’t sure Mum would believe he had unless she saw it for herself, because as proud as she now was it seemed like she would always sort of believe that everything was a joke to them. 

In the end, not only had they sorted out the lucid daydream, they’d also finally gotten the smell and touch just right on the rest of the spellwork. It had always been sort of wonky, before; it was always easy to remember you were daydreaming. Now it was rather hard to discern the daydream from reality. They’d also sorted out a sort of “choose your own adventure,” setup, that gave the daydreamer more control over what occurred. 

Fred had made sure to include several prompts that would trigger a kiss. And unbeknownst to Fred, George had made sure that no matter what Hermione chose, he would make a guest appearance. 

It was some of their best work, truth be told. 

When they were done, Fred sat down at the desk to pen a letter. Not scribble, like he usually did. Instead, he wrote with slow and careful strokes, tongue tucked between his teeth and poking out between his lips as he thought. 

“Freddie?” he asked suddenly. 

“Yeah?” Fred answered distractedly, not looking up from his love letter to Hermione Granger. The poor, hapless sod. 

“Did she… Did Hermione say she loves you back?”

Fred carefully set the quill down and looked to George, lips twisting to the side. “Not... erm… not quite. But it’s not nearly as hopeless as I thought.” He smiled like he was carrying a secret in the curve of his lips, and George realised with sudden, startlingly clarity that Fred hadn’t told him everything about his encounter with Hermione. “And now that I have a shot, I’m not wasting it.”

“What are you leaving out?” he accused. “I’m your twin.”

Instead of the wicked gleam George was expecting, the same sappy look of a lovestruck fool stole across Fred’s face as he said, “Let’s just say I have a new Patronus memory and leave it at that.”

“You kissed her,” he declared. 

“Alright, twist my arm, why don’t you?” Fred said. He sounded like his normal mischievous self, but every feature on his face had softened. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

“Bit strange to start now, don’t you reckon?” George quipped. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he hedged. “I can think of a reason or two it might make sense to try.” Some wistful expression breezed over Fred, gone just as quickly as it had appeared, but it told George everything he needed to know.

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. “You kissed Hermione Granger,” he grinned.

“I kissed Hermione Granger,” Fred said, sounding not a little awestruck. “And I think she just might let me do it again, if I’m lucky.”

That was the memory that intruded on George, so vivid he might have used his own daydream charm, as he slipped his way into his old bedroom the night before Fred’s funeral.

Fred’s funeral.

Since that night, Fred had seen Hermione again. Had had to leave her again. Had kissed her again, unable to keep it to himself for even a few hours the second time around. More than halfway in love with me, he had said in a daze for several days after. George was grateful because he knew that without that revelation to cling to, Fred would have been despondent instead of insufferable.

Tortured. Merlin.

Since then, Fred had penned another letter, in a rush to say any last words or forever hold his peace, no longer with any concern for his legibility. 

George never thought he’d have to deliver it. 

None of it made any sense. It wasn’t fair. 

And now, this. 

George sat at the same desk that Fred had, one of the last times he had ever been in this room —  their room — and did something he never thought he’d have to do.

He wrote his brother’s eulogy. 

He might as well have been writing his own.