I DID IT! This is the third attempt at a Father/Son fic over 2k, and I finally did it. Okay, it was only by 52 words, but it's still a win in my book. I really hope you enjoy this, since it's taken so long to write it.

Word Count Without A/N - 2052

Written for Camp Potter - Archery week 1.

Written for the Animal Comp - Moose

Written for Disney Character Comp - Eeyore

Written for the Spell/Curse/Charm Comp - Expecto Patronum

He Remembers

Arthur tried to stay strong for his children, but it was hard. How could he carry on, how could any of them carry on when Fred was no longer with them. They knew he struggled, but they said nothing. They tried to stay strong for him as he did for them, and in a strange way, it worked. He was breaking apart inside, but he could put a brave face on, and he could keep himself together on the outside, to make them feel better.

The guilt he feels is overwhelming. Fred is, was, his son, he should have been able to protect him, should have been able to save him, but he couldn't. The pain he carries with him is unrelenting, unforgiving. He failed his family. He failed his son. He failed them all, and there is no way for him to make things better, no way to make up for such a wicked thing.

He watches his children as they move around the Burrow, none of them knowing what to do with themselves, not knowing what to do with Fred and George to liven things up, something they were so good at. George... George is lost. He has lost part of himself, and he doesn't know what to do without it. He is half of a whole, a whole that will never be complete.

Arthur watches, and he gives comfort where he can, but he feels none himself. His children hug him, and he feels guilt, his wife kisses his cheek and he feels pain. Sharp shocks of pain, and a blanket of guilt hand over him, and he needs them. He needs them to prove that he is still alive, needs them to keep feeling, because if they leave, he will feel nothing.

He helps Molly plan the funeral as best he can, but he knows he's little help. She's using it to keep focused, to keep from giving up, but to Arthur, it makes the pain and guilt intensify to the point of being unbearable.

He tries to comfort George, but the poor boy is like a ghost himself, not speaking, barely eating. Arthur doesn't know how to help his family, and that is something that hurts more than he thought possible. He is supposed to be able to help them through everything, but he doesn't know how to help them with this. He doesn't know how to get through it himself, so how can he help them?

He sits in his shed late at night, with tears pouring uncontrollably from his eyes, remembering his children when they were whole and happy, when the weight of the war wasn't upon them, when they were seven instead of six.

He remembers Fred turning Ron's teddy into a spider. He remembers Molly screaming at the twins to behave. He remembers struggling to keep himself from laughing as they taunt Percy in the Leaky Cauldron.

He remembers how tender the boys were with Ginny. She was their little sister. They would protect her through everything.

He remembers how hard it was to give the twins the talk, much harder than it was with the older boys. They asked the worst questions, and wanted in depth answers that had him blushing as he tried to explain things.

He remembers the unnatural quietness that surrounded the Burrow in the weeks of September after the kids went to school. He feels it constantly now, but then, it felt different. It still felt warm. Now, all that's left is cold.

He remembers Bill chasing the twins for playing with his broom, and he remembers them trying to hide behind him.

He remembers constant arguments with Percy.

He remembers the Quidditch World cup, the last time his family was whole and together.

He remembers so many things that seemed inconsequential at the time, but now, they mean the world to him because they are of happy times when his family was still whole and untouched by evil.

The funeral slams into him like a sledgehammer. He knew it was coming, but it still shocks him when it arrives. It makes it real, and he doesn't want it to be real. He wants it to be a bad dream, a nightmare that he will soon wake up from to find Fred sat at the kitchen table, laughing and joking with George. That is his place, it's where he should be.

He shouldn't be laying in a box, unseeing, unknowing, uncaring that his family is falling to pieces without him.

More guilt adds to the already overwhelming amount Arthur is feeling when he realises he is angry with Fred. Angry at him for leaving them. Angry at him for dying. Angry at him for breaking his Father's heart into a thousand tiny pieces that will never be put back together.

He struggles to listen as the Ministry official talks about Fred. He didn't know Fred. Arthur is angry as he hears words like life and soul, and laughter coming out of the mans mouth, because no one is laughing and Fred isn't the life and soul anymore. He isn't alive. He isn't there.

He feels Molly shaking beside him, and he wraps an arm around her. He see's tears falling from Bill's eyes and Charlie's shoulders are shaking as he puts his head in his hands. Ginny is crying in Harry's arms, Ron is paler than Arthur has ever seen him, and Percy is sobbing unrelentingly. George is...

George is staring straight ahead, as unseeing as his twin. He doesn't cry. He doesn't do anything. Arthur is more worried about George than the rest. They all have someone, but George? George is alone. George has never been alone before. He has spent every day of his life with Fred, and Arthur can't even begin to imagine how he is feeling. He can't begin to imagine what anyone can do to help him.

xxxx

The house is too quiet. It is full of people, but it is silent to Arthur in a way it never has been before. They are missing an element that will never come back, no matter how they try and fill it. It has been a year since Fred died and as the family gather at the Burrow, it still feels wrong. It still feels empty. The house, no matter how many people are in it, will never be full again.

Arthur greets his children with a warm smile and a hug, and he watches them as they talk and laugh amongst themselves. There is still sadness in their eyes, but the healing has begun, and he is glad. Bill and Fleur announce they are to have a baby, and excited cheers and laughter can be heard. Harry and Ginny announce their engagement, and congratulations come all around.

Arthur looks for George, but he isn't there. He looks outside, looks at Fred's grave, where George can often be found, to find nothing. He searches, but he cannot find his son.

Arthur hears sobbing.

He opens the door to Fr- to George's room, to find his son lay on what was Fred's bed. He watches as his son sobs into Fred's old pillow, an old jumper clutched in his hands. His heart breaks again, the pieces already beyond repair, as he watches his son lose himself over and over.

He sits on the bed beside George, a hand placed on his back. George meets his eyes, and Arthur is scared by the pain he see's there.

"What am I going to - How do I - Dad? Without, without him, I'm nothing."

Arthur pulls his son into his arms, and he rocks him back and forth. This is what he was worried about. He knew the others would adjust to the pain, knew they would be able to live, and enjoy life, even with a piece missing, but he worried about George.

"I don't know who I am. I can't be anyone, not without F - not without him."

George can't even say his twins name.

Arthur sits by his son's gravestone. He tells Fred about baby Victoire, about Ginny and Harry's engagement party, about the argument Molly is having with Ron and Hermione about them living together before marriage. He talks and talks, but he doesn't mention George. He doesn't want Fred to know how badly broken George is, doesn't want to tell Fred that he is worried he is about to lose another son.

Arthur spends a lot of time in his shed alone. He goes there to cry, to think, to remember. He goes there to forget. To dream that it had all been a mistake, a terrible mistake that had somehow been fixed. He goes in there when everything gets too much, too escape from the ever present pain, but it never works. There is no escaping the pain of loosing a child. No parent should ever have to bury a child. It goes against nature. It goes against everything.

xxxx

Its three years after Fred dies when George starts to live again. He reopens the shop, for Fred he says. He is finally able to use his twins name. He has decided to live, for Fred. Arthur is happy to see a smile on his son's face again, but it is painful. The smile reminds Arthur even more of Fred. George is a constant reminder of Fred, a blessing and a curse in equal measure.

Arthur see's George sitting at the table in the kitchen, laughing and joking and it tears at his heart. He feels like he has fallen into one of his dreams, and it is Fred sitting there. Arthur see's Fred in everything George does, and it is obvious to him that George is trying to emulate some of the small things his twin did, in a way to feel closer to him.

Everyone is healing, and Arthur knows they always will be. There will always be a part of them, left unfixed, where Fred once was. He knows, and he accepts it, and it makes him happy to see his family growing as grand kids are added seemingly all the time. Arthur's own heart has been glued, not quite the same, never completely whole, but useable once more.

He can smile, and laugh, and remember without tears. He can talk about his son. He can remember happy times spent with his son. He will never heal completely, and he will always carry some guilt with him. He accepts it, and he's okay with it. It reminds his he is alive. It reminds him Fred is not. It reminds him that life is short, and can be wiped out in seconds, and it reminds him to live everyday like it's his last. It reminds him of his son.

George marries Angelina, and he doesn't have a best man. Everyone know's why, and it isn't mentioned. No one could ever take the place, knowing it is meant for Fred. When George announces Angelina is pregnant, that she is to have a little boy, that there will be another Fred Weasley, Arthur see's real happiness shining in George's eyes.

Fred will live on, through George, through baby Fred.

Arthur sits at Fred's grave, with baby Fred in his arms, and he introduces the baby to his uncle, to his namesake.

Arthur, while never being whole, is glad he is around for this. He is glad he is a Father, he is glad he is a grandfather. He is glad of the years he had with Fred, and while he will always miss his son, and while he will always wish things could have been different, he will always cherish the years he had with his son, short as they may have been and he will remember them with a smile on his face and laughter in his heart.

To do any different would be an insult to the memory of his son, who was always smiling, even as he died.