Fred lay very still on the cold, hard ground. What had just happened – he'd been talking to Percy... they'd been an explosion...

"Fred."

Remus. Fred opened his eyes... this wasn't Hogwarts. There was no noise, no noise of the battle... he was in a place he didn't recognise, a white, clean place, far removed from the dirt and the noise of the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Remus... where are we?" Fred asked, sitting up looking around him. At first he had thought that he and Remus were alone, but now he saw two more figures walking towards them. As they got closer, he realised with a jolt that one of them was... "Sirius... but you're..."

"Yes, Fred," Sirius nodded.

The second man had a familiar air about him... his dark hair looked like it refused to lay flat, just like Harry's did. "You're James Potter..." Fred said slowly, realisation dawning.

"Yes," the man, James, nodded.

"But... you're... dead... and Sirius, you're both dead... but then... I'm dead...?"

"Yes, Fred," Remus nodded. "You're dead. So am I."

"What... when...?"

"Dolohov," Remus said. "Not long ago. I turned to tell Tonks to watch out – Bellatrix hit her with the killing curse just before Dolohov got me."

"But your son..." Fred said.

"There are others... who will care for him..." Remus sighed. "And he will grow up knowing his parents loved him enough to die for him, and that we are waiting for him."

Fred looked around him again. Finally, he asked, "Where's George?" None of them answered him for a minute, so he asked again, "Guys, where's George?"

This time it was Sirius who responded. "He's not, Fred."

"Not what?" Fred demanded, getting agitated now. He had never been apart from his twin for even one day in his life – they couldn't be apart now.

"Not here. Not dead."

Fred couldn't take it in. George wasn't here. He, Fred, was dead, and George wasn't. It wasn't that he wanted George to be dead – he wouldn't wish that on his twin – but he and George had always been two halves of one whole, and the thought of being dead when George wasn't, of George having to live without him...

"The separation won't be forever, Fred," James said gently, laying his hand on Fred's shoulder. "For those of us who go on ahead, death becomes a waiting game, waiting for those we love to catch us up."

"And there are plenty of people who'd like to meet you, whilst you wait," Sirius said. "Your uncles Fabian and Gideon, for whom you and George were named, for starters."

Fred slowly got to his feet. "Well, I guess we better get going," he sighed. "There's nothing I can do about it, is there?"

"You could always go back," Remus told him.

Fred's heart leapt. Go back?! Why had they wasted all this time with the touchy feely stuff if he could just go back?

"Not like that," Remus said gently, obviously noticing Fred's change in mood. "You could go back as a ghost. But it wouldn't be the same. You'd be frozen in time, watching George grow up and lead a life you could never have."

"And... and when he dies..." Fred said slowly. "When he dies, he'd have to go on without me, or be condemned to the same half-life... no, I have to go on."

Fred had always been the first out of him and George to do anthing. Born first, if only by minutes; first to cut teeth; first to say his first word, 'mine'; first to walk; first to do accidental magic, turning Ron's teddy bear into a spider; first to be sorted because he came before George alphabetically; first to ask a girl out even though he knew George liked Angelina more than he ever would, because if Fred didn't lead the way then he knew his twin would never have the guts to; first to open his OWL results; first to enter the battle; and now he was the first to die. He guessed he'd always known that it would end like this – that he would proceed his brother to the grave – he'd just never expected it would be this soon.

"Why did you three come to meet me?" Fred asked, as he began to walk, falling in step with James, Sirius and Remus.

"We volunteered," James said. "Moony thought it might help you to have a familiar face."

"Wait, Moony..." Fred said.

"Yeah, I heard you had some fun with our map," James grinned.

"Your map?!" Fred asked incredulously. "You're Moony, Remus... but then..."

"I'm Prongs," James said.

"And I'm Padfoot," Sirius grinned.

"And Wormtail... was Peter Pettigrew... who betrayed James and Lily to Voldermort," Remus told him.

"And, in case you hadn't noticed, Wormtail's betrayal left a hole," Sirius said.

"We're in need of a fourth man, Fred," James explained.

Remus smiled. "And you're just in time."

Just a little something that came to me last night, after reading something about how when Molly was dealing with a boggart in OoTP and it became "dead twins", because, even in death, it was inconceivable that Fred and George would be separate; and then reading something else about how the Marauders were missing a man... Mia's second year at Hogwarts coming at some point, but in the meantime you might be seeing more of these, as things come into my head...