Double or Nothing

Chapter One

Gone

Summary- The war is over. Voldemort is vanquished. But George has been left to face a greater, more terrifying enemy…life without his twin.

He could never again be the same after that night…never, he could barely look at anything that wasn't wooden or cloth for fear of seeing…him…George twitched silently on his bed. Half lidded eyes staring across the room at the dust gathering bed sheets. He ignored the rapid knocking and frantic whispers of "Georgie?" from his mother on the other side of the door. Occasionally his father or Ginny would join Molly Weasley in her efforts but that proved no more effective.
The room was quite small for two people but somehow George and his brother had made it just the right size for the both of them and their inventions. Now however it seemed far too large, far too empty.
Steadily George rolled onto his back and allowed a yawn to escape as he slipped into uneasy sleep.

A dull, throbbing pain struck him suddenly as he waited apprehensively at one of the secret entrances of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He whirled around thinking he had been hit but no one stood there, no Death Eater firing curses. George's heart beat painfully loud, one of his family was definitely in danger…well, more danger. He knew he couldn't stay, he was of no use there and so he slipped through the door, catapulting into Lee Jordan with a loud cry. Each recognizing the other they leapt back to their feet. "Need a hand?" His best friend after Fred grinned.

George smirked and nodded "Cheers, Lee."
Instinctively they grabbed at the walls as an explosion shook the castle. It was then the dull pain ebbed away and a fierce tug on his heart struck with force. He had never felt a pain so strong, including when he lost his ear to Snape, it was as though his being was being literally ripped in two. No. No, no, no…that couldn't….it couldn't happen…no….

"George? Are you ok?" Lee spun around as he, unaware he had doubled over, straightened.

The Weasley hesitated "Yeah….fine I think." He said after a moment.

The scene faded into inky blackness for a moment and then changed. He was bedraggled and bloody but in good enough shape as he and Lee Jordan entered the Great Hall that was now lined with bodies. The sight was horrible, enough to make anybody sick, Lee let out a cry and ran in one direction, leaving George to face the worst alone.
The entire Weasley clan plus Harry and Hermione, distinguishable from a distance due to their flaming red hair was gathered about. His mother was sobbing violently, spread out over a figure lying unmoving on the ground. His father knelt beside her with one arm around her and the other hand over his face as he shook silently, Ginny had buried her face into Ron's shoulder, and Ron looked paler than George had ever seen him, paler than when Fred had transfigured his teddy bear into a giant spider when the twins were just five and Ron three, paler than when he vomited slugs. Harry was holding Hermione, tears slipping down his face silently while she sobbed into his shoulder. Fleur and Bill were crying into each other's shoulders. Big, strong Bill Weasley was crying…Charlie stood back a little, silver tears running down his freckled face and Percy was rocking backwards and forwards on his feet, both hands over his face. And Fred….Fred…Fred? He wasn't there. He wasn't with his family…no…they couldn't be crying over him. Because Fred was only sleeping or playing a cruel joke, any minute now he would sit up and smirk triumphantly.

George found himself running, Percy, Ginny and Bill had lifted their heads, Percy's expression was one of total failure and devastation as he watched his brother sprinting madly toward them. No one said anything as the twin dropped to his knees, ignoring the sharp pain that went shooting up his thighs as he did so. His parents raised their faces and his mother erupted in a fresh ocean of tears. George knew now as he stared down as the body of his twin that he had literally been torn in two. A choking, strangled cry left his throat and tears filled his eyes, stinging as they refused to fall. As if in a trance, George reached out a finger and brushed it over his brother's cheek withdrawing it with a gasp. He was so cold. George's bright blue eyes stared into the identical ones of Fred, the light had left his twin but the shadow of a smirk remained frozen on his face as he gazed unseeing at his brother, silently George reached out and closed the sightless blue eyes. He doubled over the body, dry sobs hacking out like a sort of cough from his throat.
"No….no…please…Fred!" He lifted his brother's forehead to his own, begging Fred to wake up, to grin and say 'I'm only joking!' But it wouldn't happen and George couldn't understand why Fred was playing such games. It wasn't any fun.
But still, the tears wouldn't come, he wanted to cry, wanted to run and hide for the first time in his life, but he couldn't. Percy…Percy had been with Fred. Percy, who he had just forgiven and trusted,
had failed miserably.

George lifted his shaking face up and slowly lowered Fred back to the cold stone. He looked up at his elder brother.
"You were with him…" he muttered. "You could have stopped this…you didn't do anything!" He was standing now, trembling violently from head to toe and staring accusingly at Percy who looked back at him devastatingly, tear trails glistening on his face.
"George…"
"It's all YOUR FAULT!" George shouted, attracting the attention of his entire grief-stricken family.
"I couldn't do any-anything…it was too fast…" Percival defended half-heartedly, ripping off his horn rimmed glasses.
"But it was FRED who died, not you, Percy, not YOU!"
His family all wore equally horrified expressions as George, in a fit of grief, allowed those words to cross his lips. His mother shrieked and clapped her hands over her mouth, trembling all the more.
George felt himself losing control, he knew it was unfair…but his twin was dead, half of himself was dead and Percy had been there to stop it. Before he bothered to stop himself, before he was aware of what he was doing he had struck out at his brother sending Percy staggering back, nursing his jaw and doing nothing to retaliate. George wasn't stopping; he was too hyped up on grief to stop his vicious beating. Only when his father and Charlie had leapt forward and seized his arms did he allow himself to slacken.
"George! Percy couldn't help Fred! Stop this!" Charlie's voice had never sounded so watery, so distant, George vaguely registered as he went limp in their grip and was hesitantly released.
Percy was watching him with one blackening eye and an expression somewhere between pity, grief and apology but George paid no attention as he once again dropped shaking beside Fred.
He wasn't dead. Fred couldn't die…he wouldn't leave his family…it was Fred. Fred who ran an extremely successful shop with his twin, Fred who once transfigured Ron's teddy bear into a giant spider because he broke his toy broomstick, Fred who had tested out their Ton Tongue Toffee on Harry's cousin, Dudley. Fred who had been so panicked when George lost his ear and so angry that they were no longer identical that he seriously considered cursing his own ear off…he couldn't die…

George's eyes snapped open, for the few weeks that had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts and Fred's death he had not dreamt, only relived an experience he never imagined so painful. His family had given up trying to get him to leave his room and sent food up to his room at mealtimes. He only emerged to use the bathroom and even then he often apparated back and forth.
George's eyes came to rest once again on Fred's dust-covered old bed; still he had not shed a tear for his lost brother. George felt wrong, the bond between identical twins was stronger than any other, especially between him and his brother and yet he could not cry.

He flicked his wand idly at the curtains that had lain unopened for days and they obediently opened. George rolled off his bed and stared out through the glass, the sun had barely set over the fields and George could see the makeshift Quidditch field where he and Fred had often practised or played two-on-two against Harry and Ron. But that was not why he had let the sun into his room, no; he gazed into the glass at his reflection. Only it wasn't his reflection he saw, it was Fred he saw, smiling sadly through the glass at his twin. Sometimes George could swear he was going mad and the only thing that made him realise that it really was Fred looking back at him was the absence of the dark hole in the side of Fred's head. The reflection he saw gazing back had two ears.

There were days at a time George would not look at anything even the slightest bit reflective in fear of seeing Fred's sad expression as he watched his twin sink deeper and deeper. There were other days, such as this one that George could not stop, he was developing an addiction.
Fred even spoke to him sometimes, told him he was isolating himself too much and to let their family back into his life, while he still had one to let them into.
"Are you really there? Or am I really going mad?" George had asked his late twin one time.
Fred had grinned then, a true Fred-like grin, identical to George's and replied "We've always been mad, bro, the both of us." He wouldn't answer the question wholly.
More days passed in this manner, George's devastation never subsided only grew, the longer he was without his twin, the harder it became. Before Fred's death they had never been separate for more than a matter of hours. He couldn't see how much he was hurting his family, but he knew they felt like they had lost both twins.

One day came when George again sought Fred in the reflective surface of a mirror; he was there, where George's reflection should have been Fred was instead.
"I can't come anymore, George…you need our family, they need their son back, time to stop playing double or nothing." He smiled sadly out of the mirror at his other half who stared back at him, devastated.
"No…Fred…you can't leave again!"
"Let it go, mate." Fred spoke softly from the mirror.
George shook his head, the tears sprung to his eyes painfully. "Fred…"
"Let it go, you'll be ok." Never in his life had George heard his twin's voice sound so sad, so distant and knew his must sound the same.
"I can't. I don't-I can't!"
"I know, mate…but you have to. I'm gone. Six feet under…and I can't come back."
George hardly registered the tears as they began to slide down his cheeks for the first time since his twin's death, nor the shaking of his body as the full force of Fred's death hit him.
"Till we meet again, Georgie, until then….goodbye."
George held the mirror in his hands, wondering if Fred would actually leave…he sat there silently, staring at his twin for a good five minutes before he realised….

The face staring out of the mirror…only had one ear.

His identical twin, his best friend, his partner-in-crime, the other half of his being….was gone…finally, after a month, his body wracked with the force of the built up sobs and hiccups escaping his throat. The mirror slipped through his fingers as he brought them to his flaming hair and shattered on the wooden floor. But peering through his fingers George could have sworn he saw Fred's sad blue eyes watching him in a shard of glass, a lone tear sliding down his twin's identical face.