Happy Birthday to All of our favorite mischief makers.

Happy Birthday Fred and George.

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Story 4

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Never Gone

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Song: Never Gone

By: Backstreet Boys

Couple: Fred and George Weasley (Not slash)

I guess it follows ATSR, I never really mentioned George much from this time frame,

It fits in, really it's just George from shortly after the battle onwards.

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A light knock had sounded on the door of the room that he and Fred had shared for nearly their entire lives. George didn't look up before answering. "It's open." He called, was that ragged sounding voice really his own?

"Hey George." Came, to his surprise, Harry's voice.

George looked up curiously. "Hiya Harry." He said slowly.

He watched as Harry walked all the way into the room and sidestep Fred's bed, he didn't sit on it as George expected him to, afterall looking across at someone on that bed was second nature for him. In that moment a great relief spread through him that Harry sat next to him instead.

"Hey." Harry replied simply as he sat down.

George looked at him for a moment before asking the obvious question. "Something I can do for you?" he asked.

Harry looked at him and nodded. "I think you should reopen the shop." He said easily.

George's face went nearly white. "You…excuse me?" he said, his voice choked.

Harry's gaze didn't waiver. "I think you should reopen the shop." He reiterated.

"Why? Because it will help me over my grief? Because I need to get out of the house? Because you think I'm going mad? Because it should open for Fred's memory? Because my brother would expect me to do it? Because I owe it to him? Because he died for everyone to be happy? What trite and socially acceptable reason do you have for me, oh chosen one?" he asked, his voice cold and hard, completely unlike himself. Infact, he barely recognized who he was anymore.

Harry, to his credit, didn't even blink. He just looked at him. "No. Because Ron and I are bored during Hermione and Ginny's studying to move up to 7th year and we want to come work there some with you." He shrugged, "Until we figure out what we're doing."

George just looked at him like he had lost his mind. "You…you're asking me…you want me to go back there…to keep you and my little brother from being bored?" he stammered.

Harry nodded once. "Yep. That's about right." He said evenly.

George didn't have a reply to that. It was so blunt, and NOT socially acceptable, and completely not what he had expected that he didn't know how to reply.

"Pssssssst." Came a hiss from the door.

Harry looked at the door and smirked. "He hasn't answered yet." He called. "But you gave away your hiding place."

George stared at the door as Ron opened it all the way and walked in, he gripped the back of his neck with his hand nervously. "Hey there George." Ron said a bit nervously.

George looked at him and shook his head. "I…I don't think the store is ready to reopen." He said.

"Sure it is. Harry and I went over the other day, we did a few cleaning spells…we straightened up…it's all set, whenever you are." Ron said quickly.

O0o0o0o0o

That blowup after that comment had been what sent him out of the burrow. His anger at the shop having been touched. How dare they enter the sanctity that was his and Fred's life ambition? Fred had been the one to lock up last, he had been the last one in the store. No one else should have taken that place. How dare they? George's anger had brought him here to the very shop he had been avoiding. Though, admittedly, it didn't matter now if he entered, after all, Ron and Harry had ruined the fact that Fred had been the last to close it up.

That was a week ago and now here he sat. He sat on the bed in the flat above the shop. It had been seven weeks since the battle and this was the first he was able to return to his own house, he'd been staying at the burrow. Finally after letting himself try and hide for weeks Harry and Ron had been the ones to convince him to go to his shop and the flat. Not because he wanted to, not because he was ready, but because they had made him angry. Angry that he was expected to do this alone. That people still wanted the shop open and expected him to do it. He couldn't lie, he did appreciate that they hadn't given him a stupid reason to do it, something about grief and healing as other's spouted. But he knew what their intentions were now. If they could just shock him into going….To everyone's surprise, including his own, it had almost worked.

It halfly had. George was actually in the flat now, and he had gone into the shop. It was an improvement. But, the shop was still not open. And he was left feeling deeply, desperately alone. His mind raced with thoughts of his brother. People would often call them halves of the same whole but that wasn't exactly the case with them. It was more like they were the same whole…just the other side of the coin. A half could be split, it could be broken. It could be separated. But it just didn't feel that way with him and Fred, they couldn't be torn apart. They were the whole of the same whole, you can't take away they backside of a coin, even if you cut it in two, to split it, half the front goes, half the back goes…It felt like someone had tried to rip away everything that he was by taking his twin away. They took his other side.

He knew that he should be getting past this. He knew that this was unhealthy. He knew that his life would have to move on, regardless of his brother's presence or not. It didn't mean he had to willingly let go. Because he didn't know how to let go. How do you let go of something that you've known since before you were even born? A presence that at one time was LITERALLY a part of you. At some point an egg split and produced another baby identical to the one already forming. They had once been one being. They were wholes of the whole, then, and now. George felt the now familiar lump in his throat and hastily stood to distract himself.

He walked to the fireplace and pulled a picture off of his mantle. It was of him and Fred a few months back, Fred was pulling him by the tie and was laughing as George pretended to choke. George ran his finger over the dust covered silver frame.

"You can't…you can't be gone. You can't go away because I don't know how to be George without Fred. That's who we are…We're Fred and George…You're the first part of me. You can't go. I can't…I can't let you go!" he found himself yelling at the photograph before throwing the frame across the room angrily.

"Everything, all the good things…they're you! I can't do this without you. You can't go! I won't let you! I won't. Come back. Please! I'm begging you. I can't do this without you. I don't know how! Do you hear me? I can't walk alone. I was never made to be alone. You're always first. I need you. I need you to be here. I can't…I can't do this alone." He cried, his tears splashing down his front.

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE STANDING HERE TELLING ME I'M BEING STUPID, THAT I'M A GIT. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO GO! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BESIDE ME WHEN I GET MARRIED, WHEN I HAVE CHILDREN. WHEN WE GROW OLD. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WALK BESIDE ME EVERYDAY, EVERY STEP ALONG THE WAY. TOGETHER." He screamed desperately at the now broken photo frame.

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George stood behind the counter of the shop three weeks later, it had opened flawlessly and was packed. He leaned back against the edge of the counter and examined the new neon green robes that were standard employee apparel now. It had been his first change. He had needed it, things had to change some to stay the same in others. He watched as Harry played around with some tricks with Ginny, both of them laughing and wearing the horrendous green color, and yet, somehow it made Harry's eyes look eerily cool. Leave it to the bloody chosen one to figure out how to look cool in such a color. He rolled his eyes.

He glanced to the side room where Percy was shooting a sparkling sparkler at Hermione and Ron who were both laughing as he had it backwards and it exploded on himself instead. All three of them wore the same green robes, having nearly fell over themselves to help him open everything up. As he turned to look back at the door his eyes met with the huge painting of himself and Fred in the magenta robes, it hung in the center place above the shelves along the far wall. His eyes were held immobile by his brother's identical orbs and for a moment, just a moment. He didn't feel alone. He felt like Fred was right there, every moment, every memory, every detail of their lives seemed to wrap around him and hold him close. George breathed in deeply, and looked to the young girl that stood at the counter.

"Right…you're next. What can I help you with?"

0o0o0o0o0o

Life had somehow picked up and moved on, without George's approval, but it had. He found himself working and enjoying it. He smiled more every day, and often times it was at old memories. He was even laughing again, though that was very recent, within the last few months.

"Georgie…are you coming or not? We're going to miss the shooting stars." Angelina said, walking back into his flat from her previous place on the rooftop.

His eyes roamed over her, the girl that had been one of his friends since they were 11, and had dated Fred in school. "I'll be there in just a minute. Go on up." He told her.

"Hurry up! It's getting late, and I'm up there with Bill and Fleur, Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, and Charlie and that girl…I need someone to help me make fun of them for being all touchy in public." She said, grinning, before running out of the room and back up the steps.

He heard the door slam to the roof and smiled slightly.

Somehow, in late August last year, the two had found themselves together, and they realized that they were the only two that understood the other fully in the moment. Now 11 months had passed and he was with her more than without her. She was so much more than a friend, she was his stability. She was the reason he was smiling, he knew that. She had even helped him cope with everything after the one year anniversary. She had been the reason he survived that night. She had been the reason he wasn't alone.

Angelina reminded him of who he used to be. And that was saying something, because there was a point in time that he didn't think Fred would have even recognized him. He had become a closed off, shell of a person, terrified to open up at all for fear of losing an ounce of the small pieces of himself that he was protecting. But since she entered his life again, after all these months he was reminded of laughter and jokes. He remembered how to smile. He smiled into the mirror and his heart jolted a bit.

When he smiled, he could see Fred. He knew it was stupid, they were identical, he should always see him…But it wasn't like that. He looked in the mirror and normally he would see himself. Fred was supposed to be next to him, but he was always missing now. But when he smiled. He could have sworn that he saw Fred standing there by his side. He could see them both. Like Fred had never gone. Like he was right there, right beside him. He looked into the mirror and breathed deeply. He looked in the reflection and to his right, where he knew Fred was. He just knew it, it's where he belonged.

"I know she was yours first. And I know that if you were here you'd turn me into an exploding cracker and let two kids pull it just for even thinking this. But…" George pulled the velvety ring box from the dresser.

"With you not here, it's different. And I need her. And I think, I think she needs me too. You're so much a part of us that it's like you're here sometimes. It's like there's no distance between us at all. Like you're right here. Ange, she says it's because our hearts were once one…and that every time my heart beats yours does too. I don't know if that's true…But I know that when I am happy, I feel like you're right beside me. Like I'm who I am supposed to be, who I've always been. And she makes me happy Freddie. She taught me how to smile again." George said before squeezing the box and smiling as he grabbed the specialty fireworks he had created and headed up the stairs after his girlfriend, hopefully his soon to be fiancée.

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Years would pass and life would march on. Sometimes George would find himself marching with it, other times life seemed to drag him with it. Moving forward even when he wasn't ready to move. His life had changed, it had not gone back to normal as many people had told him it would. Instead it had changed and morphed. It had become a new normal. The feelings of loss and grief, the desperate loneliness that sometimes still engulfed him never went away, they just became part of who he was. They were an inseparable piece of him now, just as Fred was. He wasn't gone, just as the grief wasn't gone, it was never far, the two were just out of sight, always there every step of the way.

George grew as his love for his wife and family flourished. He learned to cope as he was encompassed with love from his wife, and fell completely wholly in love with her. He would become a man as he learnt to shuffle the darkness of pain to the back so he could be the man his young daughter needed him to be. Today would mark a different day that would move him along this path. Today had been the birth of his second born daughter. For months they prepared and made way for this new little girl, Grayson Julian Weasley.

Now, hours after this moment, George would say proudly that this had been a first prank. Angelina would say that the baby was a trouble maker like his daddy and uncle and that she was scared for what the future she had in store. The rest of the family would agree with them both and were sure that they were all doomed.

But in this moment when the healer handed George his wiggling squirming daughter and said. "Congratulations Mr. Weasley, it's a boy." He very nearly dropped the baby.

"It's a…I'm sorry, I think you've given us the wrong sort." George said, looking at the nurse, completely confused.

The nurse shook her head and smiled as Angelina looked astounded. "Is…Did you say it's a boy?" she asked, dumbfounded.

The healer chuckled. "Yes, it looks like someone fooled the scans. You have a son. And he is beautiful." She said.

George looked down into the face of his son for the first time. His lightly pink mocha colored skin was mottled and sticky from just being born. He didn't know what to do or say, he had been left completely speechless.

"H-Hey little guy." He managed to say, through his shock a few minutes later.

And to his surprise the baby would stop squirming and open his eyes. At the end of his life George would still swear that the baby had the bluest eyes of any child he had ever seen. And many would agree, they stayed the bright blue of his father and uncle. George stared, mesmerized by his son. As if pulled into his very soul. The baby smiled a brief, small smile. Angelina would laugh it off, as the healer would tell him that it was just muscle reflexes or a bit of gas. But George could hear Fred as clearly as he could hear that healer. As if he was right beside him, right then.

"This one is going to give you more than you can handle. Consider it payback for stealing my girlfriend."

George would never doubt that this baby had been a gift and miracle put here by his brother.

After staring transfixed, George placed the bundle in Angelina's arms. "What…what do we call him?" he asked.
Angelina gave a teary laugh and reached one hand up, touching his cheek. "Well we call him by his name, Fredrick Gideon Weasley, of course."

George smiled down at the baby. "Welcome to the family Freddie." He told his son.

0o0o0o

"Freddie! What happened?!" George could hear Angelina yelling from the flat above the shop.

Knowing that this couldn't be good, George ran up the steps, he found his wife, his 8 year old son and his 8 year old nephew James. The two boys were only weeks apart in age and were both covered in.

"Is that stinksap?" George asked, recognizing the distinctive substance.

Angelina scowled. "It certainly appears to be doesn't it?" she said, unamused.

"We were playing..." James said innocently.

"And we didn't mean to do it." Freddie added, easily finishing his cousin's sentence.

"We only poked it." James continued as if he hadn't been interrupted as he pointed at the pulsing plant that sat on the table.

"With mum's wand. How were we supposed to know…" Freddie said shrugging.

"That the book was right." James finished, both boys grinning mischievously.

It was then that George noticed the book on the floor and Angelina's wand in Freddie's little hand "Did…where did they get that plant?" he asked his wife, knowing it wasn't normally up here, they kept this area as child friendly as possible for when the kids were there while he worked.

"Owl Order." Both boys said in unison as suddenly the small plant seemed to belch and inky black goo shot over all four of them.

"WICKED! CAN YOU MAKE IT DO IT AGAIN UNCLE GEORGE!"

"AWESOME! CAN YOU MAKE IT DO IT AGAIN DAD!"

George closed his eyes and fought back a laugh at the mess the two boys had created and he could swear that he heard Fred's laughter over the laughter and delight of the 8 year olds and the disgusted squealing of his wife.

0o0o0o0o

It was in these moments of his life, in the laughter of his children, in the pranks and mischief of his son, in the smile and love of his wife that George began to live his life, and truly allow himself to let go. But it wasn't because he was ready, it wasn't because it was time or he had moved on. It was because in the eyes of his son, in the laughter of his daughter, in the mirror when he smiled, he would always find Fred.

George realized that while there was more distance between himself and his twin than existed on earth, that no distance was far enough to separate them. Every smile, every laugh, every moment that was amazing a brilliant that he would remember until the day he died, they were all because of Fred. And they were all a part of him. Because they were wholes of the same whole. A piece that couldn't ever be truly split apart.

Fred's love, life and death had forever changed George. But it had only made him into more than he knew he could be as he carried on, carrying his brother with him wherever he went. He always carried him close. After all, his brother was never gone from him, their hearts had once been one, and every time George's heartbeat, so did Fred's. He would never truly be gone, not really. And George would always find him when he needed him most, within himself.