AN: Another look at George post-DH, continuing my series of oneshots. This one is loosely based off of Mando Diao's song "Wintertime". Much thanks to my beta Zolo.

You live in southern Spain now. And Greece. Oh, and Venezuela, and sometimes Mexico. It doesn't matter, really, so long as it's warm all year round. Because loneliness kills you in the wintertime. If there's no snow, you can almost forget that the sun warms no deeper than your skin. When it's cold outside it's so much harder to pretend.

Your mother sends you letters on a regular basis – letters about happy, ordinary things, like Charlie getting married or Dad getting a promotion. She doesn't ever mention the ugly things, like how Harry and Ginny are getting a divorce or the fact that you haven't talked to her face-to-face since the first winter after Fred died – as if ignoring it will make it go away. You don't judge her too harshly, though, as you haven't done anything but pretend the real world doesn't exist since around the time you last talked to her.

You haven't visited his grave since that first anniversary. You don't see much of a point when you can feel him in the center of your chest every minute of every day, like it or not.

You tell yourself that it's better this way. Better to be totally alone than to be around other people who, merely by existing, do nothing but remind you of what you've lost. You've gotten good at lying to yourself over the years. What is it they say? Practice makes perfect.

You're supposed to have gotten over it by now, moved on with your life. After all, it's been nearly seven years. Seven years of being alone. Of crowded beaches and drunken tourists and wanting to die. Seven years of summer.

But the chill is creeping in now; you can feel it in your soul like a coming frost. The tropics are no longer hot enough to drive away the crippling cold of facing life alone. You consider moving to the Sahara to try to put off the inevitable just that much longer.

It's very cold, in that place where your mind lives, but at least it's not just you in there. Secretly, you're afraid that if you tried to move on and heal like everyone says you should, then one day you'd find it's just you in your head; that he'll have left. And that would be even lonelier than what you have now.

Sure your friends and family – everyone but your mum, really – have stopped trying to get in touch all together, but considering you've never returned so much as a postcard, you can't bring yourself to be surprised. It's also true that you've lost contact with any friends you and Fred once had and don't bother to make new ones. But, hey, that's how you want it. No point in getting attached to anyone. We all know how that worked out the last time.

You tend to get up early in the mornings so you can go lie on a chair outside, protected by a strong sun blocking charm, and doze in the burning heat until it turns dark. You rarely sleep at night, but instead watch bad muggle TV and try not to think about anything. Some days you're more successful at it than others.

Then there are the days when the pain is too crippling to even make it outside to the sun. You can't decide whether that or the numbness is worse. After long deliberation, and believe me, you have lots of time on your hands to ponder such things, you decide than the pain is worse, but only by a hair. Sure it feels as if no time has passed since that day as you watch endless reruns of a green light and a laughing boy falling slowly backwards, but still, at least it mixes thing up a bit.

What used to seem unbearably hot is now merely warm. You wonder what will happen when you finally have to face the cold. Until then, you run as fast as you can in the other direction, knowing it's only a matter of time. You know it's cowardly, but you can't bring yourself to care. Gryffindor House and all of its' perfect ideals seem so far away.

You worry, sometimes, that you are going insane. You wonder vaguely what you should do about this. See a muggle therapist? Get a puppy? Sign yourself into the mental ward at St. Mungo's? In the end, you decide simply to move somewhere warmer. After all, winter's coming.

You briefly toy with the idea of suicide. The thought of going down in flames has a certain irony in it that almost appeals to you. Or even freezing to death. But that, you figure, is simply too much like what you live through every day. Hasn't killed you yet, has it? Besides, seven years has been more than enough time to put you off the idea of death by ice. It hits to close to home.

You keep going, living a life on pause, summer to summer to summer. Giving up seems almost like cheating. This is your punishment, you tell yourself. Your crime? Failing at the only thing that ever really mattered – saving Fred. It depresses you to think that you've only served seven years of a life term.

You sometimes wonder if maybe, somewhere, there's something different out there. Something better. Another option, if you will. You quickly shoot the idea down. This is it, you tell yourself. There are no other options.

You screwed up too big to ever be forgiven. But forgiven by who, you ask yourself.

By Fred, you tell yourself firmly. It's your fault he's dead and you can never ever forgive yourself, not even for a moment.

Fred would have forgiven me, a stubborn part of you insists on saying. Fred always forgave me.

Not this time, the more brutal part of you says. This is something too big to be forgiven, even by Fred.

Fred loved me, you tell yourself desperately. He wanted me to be happy.

Yes, but you made it so Fred could never be happy again. Because Fred is dead. And it's all your fault.

Sometimes you hate that part of you. The part that reminds you that you used to be someone forgivable. Even more, you hate the part of you that insists that now you're not.

Loneliness kills you in the wintertime. In the summer it merely maims. Perhaps it's your all-too-human fear of death that keeps you in the tropics. You hate what death took from you, and yet it practically has a plate and fork at your metaphorical dinner table. Right next to Fred's.

fin.