Okay, beware. MASSIVE SPOILERS
This takes places a few months after the end of the 7th book. Mrs. Weasley is reflecting on her son's life that was cut short.
Can You Forgive My Betrayal
How can I live now, knowing what I have done?
Now that I've lost one part of my soul…
My family has always been my life. What kind of mother was I to let them risk theirs? Hadn't we given enough to the cause? Of course not. But if I knew it was going to happen, if I had been there for him--it could have been me. It wouldn't be my Fred lying there.
How must they all feel? What must they think of me? When I so blatantly chose Percy… Fred was the first to accept him…we were all going into battle, we knew we might not survive, yet I pushed Fred aside as if he didn't matter to greet Percy instead.
Fred must hate me.
Every time I look at George, I feel my pulse beat, as if it's Fred here. And it's not fair to George. I always confused them, something a mother never should do--never not know which son is which. I know. It's that fatal hope that it is Fred standing there, cracking jokes and trying to lighten the mood.
But if it was Fred standing there, there would be no George. And it's so hard to see him so hollow now, just a shell. He makes the same jokes, just as he and Fred had done when he lost his ear. This time, however, it was out of obligation, as if he felt he was required to make us smile when he was the one hurting the most. Never had the two been apart. Even when they were younger everything they did was together. I have always heard stories about how twins did whatever they could to make themselves different.
They did whatever they could to be alike. To be one.
And every time I made that mistake--saw them as one and called George Fred, I wondered what went through his mind. Was he upset that I would confuse such a thing, or was there pride that I saw Fred inside of him? I never asked…
Yet now I must know. Does he hate me for it…for not being there when he needed his mother most? Someone to hold him when he left this world?
I feel the tears slipping down my cheek, and I quickly try to bury myself behind my knitting--it's almost Christmas again, and I am behind on presents. I still have to finish all of their sweaters. I can hear Arthur out back with Harry, no doubt trying to fix something like a dishswisher-thingy.
Ron is in the kitchen with Hermione, her going through standard ways to teach him how to ski. Her parents have decided to take the two with them on a vacation in the mountains after Christmas day. She figured they should go, considering she had sent them off to Australia and changed their memory.
Ginny is no doubt waiting for an owl to arrive with her Christmas present to Harry, something she had been asking opinions on for weeks.
And then there was George's room. I can hear him up there, the same loud noises that were always present when the two had been working on their pranks. Instead, however, between each one I can hear him curse loudly, as if without Fred, nothing was going right. And at night, I know that he cries--George never used to cry, not even when he lost his own ear. But now…now that he lost part of himself…
Wiping a tear from my eye, I lift my wand up, the knitting now completed. Getting a look at it, wondering myself how it looks, I find myself losing concentration and the jumper fell to the floor in a heap.
On it in gold was the letter 'F'.
There it is. I'm working on a George version of this...hope you enjoy it. I'm still so upset over the whole Fred being gone thing, and remembering where Molly pushed Fred aside to get to Percy made me think how much she must regret that, a chance to say goodbye to him.