Chapter 4: Love Eternal

He loved.

From the moment he was born George loved. He has always loved his brother, his twin. But both of those words are not enough Fred is his heart, his soul, there is no him without Fred, not truly (just a pale imitation of what used to be).

His family does not understand. They wish to comfort with words and pretenses and moving on. But moving on is just another way of forgetting. He tries to tell his family and Bill looks like he understands and his father is well meaning but bumbling but his mother – it has always been her way or no way. A love that stifles, that smothers.

For the sake of his family he tries to move on. Opens their – his – joke shop but the colors are gone and where there was once laughter there is only the aching sound of silence. But still he tries, he should have known it wouldn't be enough - not for his mother.

It comes to a head at a family dinner. Bill, Charlie, and Percy are gone so it is just his father, mother, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Harry. They gather around the table and as his father bombards Hermione with questions – which she looks grateful for because a question to answer has always been her best source of comfort. Ron watches her attentively with gentle eyes and strong hands. He has come close to losing her and so now he will guard her in every way he can.

George tries to crush the envy that burns in him that Ron still has the option.

George looks at Harry, Harry who still has not gotten back together with Ginny despite his mother's protests. George thinks it's ironic that Ginny seems to understand the break and bares it with quiet grace where his mother tries to bring it up in every conversation she has with Harry.

Harry looks small. Tired. The war has seeped into his bones and he is only eighteen, just a child. Like Fred. Another causality of war if only in a different way.

Harry moves as if he's haunted, as if ghosts follow him with every step. But he never looks at George as if he's only half of what he used to be. Harry has always been able to tell Fred and him apart when even their mother couldn't.

George will owe Harry for what he said to him after the battle had ended. Covered in ash, blood stained and war torn with eyes that had seen far too much he had pulled George to his chest so his mouth rested against George's ear and said, "It doesn't get easier. But we move on and live for them. And then you find someone else who you want to protect and you live for them. Then two days, or six months, or five years later you learn to live for yourself. And that is ok George, to want to live yourself. It is human and they would want us to be happy." Harry tightened his hug and then pulled back to meet George's eyes and said very seriously, "No one can tell you how long to grieve George, remember that." And then disappeared with Hermione and his little brother.

George wondered who had told Harry that, who had comforted him in his grief. And the tears that did not come with the shock of Fred's death come now. For he knows no one helped him through his grief, not really.

Ron and Hermione probably did the best they could but they hadn't experienced loss on the same scale as Harry had. Part of George wonders if anyone in this war had.

Harry would disagree and say grief can't be equated and that kind of knowledge – born from experience and trying to equate it would just prove George's point.

George takes a deep breath and gathers some of the courage Harry's presence and friendship gives him (he wonders briefly if this is what Ron felt at the beginning of his friendship with Harry) and asks his family if they would like to visit Fred's grave with him tomorrow. Because it was time to put some hurts to rest, as best he could, Angelina has become someone he wants to protect and he knows Fred would approve (because once, they were the closest to one person two people could be).

Ginny's eyes are knowing when she agrees quietly and his father is the same way, his father has learned to temper his exuberance in the recent years and it was as comforting as it was sad. Ron, Harry, and Hermione nod as steadfast as a trio as they ever have been. His mother though, she screams.

With her face, blotchy red with some emotion unknown to him she yells, "Why can't you move on George?! It's been a year!" and in the end of her outburst there is silence. A silence as sharp as any blade and just as deadly.

Before George can gather himself to give a retort Harry stands slowly. Small, polite harry who has always wanted to be loved. "Mrs. Weasley," Harry says quietly, dangerously. "You can't tell your son how to grieve. You lost a son and he lost a brother-" more than just a brother goes unsaid, but not unheard. "And you have your own grief but this isn't fair."

"He is my son!" She argues. This has always been her argument and it is tiring to hear it again today. Like George sharing the same blood as her gives her any right for her to decide what he can and can't do in his life.

Harry's eyes are sharp and so disappointed. "I thought you would-." He stops himself and runs a and through his hair. "I don't know what I thought you would do. Help maybe? But clearly you're not and I can't…I can't let you treat him like this. Like his grief doesn't matter anymore just because time has gone on. Grief doesn't work that way."

Harry looks so tall like this; bigger than the small, frail child he looks like when he thinks no one's looking at him. Looking at him now George sees the boy who took on the darkest wizard the world had ever known and defeated him with a disarming spell.

"George, come live with me. At least until you can find your own place."

And there Harry goes again, saving him when he didn't even know he had to be saved.

'Why was he still here?' George wonders to himself. Perhaps because there are echoes of Fred in this house – but Fred wouldn't want this. His brother miserable just to be in a house full of memories.

George thinks of brother and his bright laugh and knows – he will find a new place to live. Somewhere bright and cheery where he can be happy again. And he will bury this grief, he will move on and he will start with taking the help of the boy that had always believed in him – since Harry's initial investment in Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.

As George stands and moves towards Harry, ignoring his mother and the silence left in the wake of Harry's words, Ron and Hermione stand and shift to block him from his mother's sight as he passes them.

As Harry grabs onto him to apparate him out of there he feels something like Fred's approval and a new feeling in his chest.

As he looks up at Harry's face he knows he's going to be ok.

He loves again.