Disclaimer: It's not mine, it all belongs to JK.

Author's Note: Denying Fred's death is fun. :) This is just a short prologue, by the way – normally my chapters will be around 3000 words. Please review whenever you can! They make my day, and I always appreciate tips and constructive criticism. I really like to know what you're thinking… For now, do you think it's worth carrying on?

It had been one week.

One painful week of tears mopped up with sodden handkerchiefs, funerals for the brave and fallen, endless cups of tea that warmed his stomach but left his heart cold, and hollow celebrations missing the only face that he wanted to see.

One Fredless week.

One week since George's foundation had disappeared and his whole world had collapsed around his shoulders.

And he had had enough. He was sick of waiting for the rubble to clear around him, sick of the burning sensation in his throat, the ache in his head and the gaping hole in his heart. He wanted Fred back, that was all.

Is it really too much to ask? he thought, as he sobbed into his pillow at night, every night.

Yes, answered the snide little voice in the corner of his brain. You can't have that. That's gone. Gone, gone, gone forever, never coming back.

Then Fred's laughter would sound in his mind, growing louder and louder, taunting him. And George would clamp his hands over his ears as if he could block out his own thoughts, roll over, trembling and white-faced, and wait to drift into the uneasy, feverish sleep that haunted him each night until he could wake with a faint cry in the grey light of dawn, clutching at a memory of a grinning face that was fading away from him, and feeling the tear tracks dry on his cheeks.

And so would begin another morning, another daytime nightmare with a distinct Lack-of-Fred.

But not any more. Oh no.

George's quill shook in his hand as he wrote the list, but he forced the words onto the parchment with a grim determination he hadn't realised that he possessed.

Time Turners
The Resurrection Stone
Ghosts
The Boy Who Lived
The Veil

There it was. Every link to the turning back of time or the world of the dead that he knew of, save death itself. Well, and history books. That list was what gave him the strength to keep going. It forced him to grit his teeth, keep on living and hope, because all was not yet lost.

George Weasley was going to get back his twin if it was the last bloody thing he did. He was sure of it.