A/N: I worked on this ending for AGES andI am still not satisfied. If anyone can come up with a better suggestion, please giev it to me and I'll write it. I don;t know what is up with me and endings tonight, so I'm holding off on finishing up my Outsiders fics.Those will be posted tomorrow. Er...later today, that is. Hell. I really don't like this ending but I couldn't write one that worked. George is definitely alive and well once he gets back with Fred, just so you know. I love this pair...
Whew! Done with Month O' Oneshots! Wow. Hmm. Shiny.
Pairing: Fred/George
MOO: #31
Dedication: To me, for finishing all of these things mostly within the deadline. So I was two hours and change late with this one. Eh. Who cares?
Disclaimer: I own nooooothing! Nothing at all to do with this story except the computer I worte it on, and I sure as sugar am not making any money whatsoever off this.
Warning: Mild language, TWINCEST, slash. Mentioned it is more what I did. But twincest is definitely a theme here, so shoo or deal with it.
How can I explain? It's hard, trying to get the point across to someone who hasn't experienced it before. How else can you know the perfection of symmetry, the beauty of a living mirror?
Well, if you want me to try anyway, then I suppose--
Very well, then. If you insist. I'll try to tell the story. By the way, is he here? Can I see him? He's very faint. I can't hear him.
Not until I tell you my story…? If I must. We'll play your way to start.
I am a twin. You already knew that, I suppose. Anyway, we were the fourth and fifth of seven children. Fourth and fifth of six boys. Yes, I know. I sometimes wonder how our mother managed to keep her sanity too, with so many boys running around the house.
But can you imagine what it was like in such a family? Constantly surrounded, constantly isolated. Feuds and alliances shifting like sand in the wind. That's just in the immediate family, not even mentioning the massive amount of cousins. Really. Large families were truly meant for times with high child mortality rates. But I can't complain, really.
George and I never fought. Well, of course we fought, but never with each other. It would be like arguing with yourself.
Because George and I really are very like each other.
I'm not entirely sure when we first realised that we were different than the rest of our brothers. Oh, obviously we were different in some ways. We were separate people and we were twins. I am referring to the bond between us. We felt quite different about each other than we did about the rest of our siblings.
George is perfect for me and I for him because we know exactly what the other wants, because we would want it too, if that makes sense. It's not that we are predictable; we just know exactly what we want and when we want it.
Come now. I'm sure that in some buried corner of your mind you have wished, at some time or another, for your significant other to be so perceptive of your moods and feelings that they comply without you having to tell them. They'd know when you were in the mood for talking or sleeping or going outside. They would not be reading your mind, your relationship would not be predictable, but your fantasy love would mesh so perfectly with you that it couldn't ever be anything but a fantasy.
It has been said that magic makes dreams come true. One is cautioned that not all dreams are good. One is prompted to remember the terrible sanity that one can feel in dreams, where everything makes such perfect sense it scares you. One is delicately reminded of the dreams too dark to remember, the ones that stay in the subconscious because one wouldn't be able to function properly if such unspeakable fear washed over one in the waking world.
In short, one forgets the dream where everything works out perfectly and stays that way.
This? Yes, I concede that this, here, spilling my story to you is not perfect. Perhaps this is when I wake up to go to class. Perhaps I have just woken up to go get a glass of water. Perhaps I've woken up to slip into George's bed, and perhaps when I fall asleep again the dream will be all the sweeter for it.
I'll stop with the dream metaphor before I wear it out too much.
My point, don't you see, is that George and I truly were and are perfect for each other.
So, Hogwarts. For the first time, we had to share our room with people who weren't family. People who weren't us. It wasn't that bad. We adjusted.
School was full of hurdles. We managed. One of the other pairs of twins, the Patil twins, had the same thing George and I had. Slightly different, of course. They're both female.
But no, school didn't really have much to do with this.
Well, perhaps.
Girls were absolutely mad over us. A fair few boys as well. Trouble occasionally flared in the form of our friend Lee and some of the girls. Angelina, Katie, Alicia…you know. Merely screens to slip behind when people got too close. I think that the girls used us for the same purpose. Those three were always rather close.
But Lee, I think, knew on some level that we were just using him. I mean, he was a great friend and a wonderful boyfriend. But when he was with me, everything about our relationship screamed that I was with someone other than George, and it was the same when Lee was with George. Lee was a quick fix when people got too close.
George and I may have appeared to fight, may have even acted like we were, but I can assure you that our intentions, thoughts, emotions, purposes were never anything but congruent and complementary in our entire lives. Arguing is when the above mentioned are in conflict.
At the end, I think Lee knew he would always be a third wheel, always would be the odd one out. That's why he didn't come with us when we left Hogwarts.
We didn't offer, he didn't ask. We grew apart naturally after that.
After that, nothing much happened until Voldemort came.
Why are you looking at me like that? I'm not afraid to say his name. I wasn't then, I'm not now. I never was. In any case, he's dead now. That's why I'm here, talking to you, aren't I?
He was one of the few people who instantly saw us for who we were: a matched pair. It sounds a bit materialistic and objectifying when I put it like that. AH well. That's probably how he saw us.
I think he spotted us as a matched pair because he was so split, if that makes sense. It might not to you, but I don't know how else to explain it.
He really did have the best interests of the wizards at heart. He just wanted to consolidate the wizards. Make some sort of system in which those families with dormant magic blood were assimilated so that the dichotomy between Muggles and wizards was complete. He was going to try to find some way to activate dormant magic genes. That's where Muggleborns come from, you understand. Dormant blood. There's so much of it about.
I realise I sound like a bit of a snob, but really. You people are just as bad. Treating factions of wizards as if they aren't human, not to mention treating Muggles as inferior specimens.
Voldemort didn't think Muggles were worse. He wanted people to know that they were different. Like Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, the wizards being the latter. The two species were close enough to interbreed, but heaven forbid that Homo sapiens children be reared as Neanderthals!
You people claim to want to cooperate with Muggles, yet you treat them as stupid, simple creatures like you treat the others. Giants. Centaurs. Merpeople.
You place such a high value on unicorns. Stupid creatures if there ever were any. Useless things. You care more about them than of sentient beings who take it upon themselves to request aid.
Fine. I'll go back to the story. I was merely clarifying.
It offended you? You asked me at the beginning to say whatever I wished in order to help you understand, did you not?
If you insist, I shall cull such tangents in the future.
Where is George? He's sounding even fainter than before. You haven't done anything to him yet, I can tell that much. You won't, will you?
Anyway, Voldemort came up to us and made us an offer. Yes, personally. HE knew we wouldn't try anything.
Why wouldn't we have tried anything? Do you even need to ask?
Well, I'm not entirely sure, to tell you the truth. I can tell you that I don't kill on sight. Neither does Georgie.
No, that wasn't intended as a joke.
Ah, I see. Yes, he did ask us to be assassins. I see how that could be taken as a joke. It is kinda funny.
But yeah. We got our job description. We kept odd hours anyway, and no one suspected the Weasley twins, sons of Arthur Weasley the war hero, brothers of Ron Weasley, Harry the Hero-Boy's best friend.
Ah. Harry. That's what we're here for, isn't it?
No, we never received a contract on him, funnily enough. The Dark Lord wanted to do him in himself. That was his problem, really. If he'd just let us take care of Harry then you'd be dead right now and we'd be living somewhere in a lovely little part of a city somewhere.
No, that wasn't the start of a tangent.
Did I ever feel regret, remorse about killing anyone…? What a question. No, of course I didn't! They were all threats.
No, we never took the Mark. He stopped requiring agents to get those. One of the smarter things he did. Of course, it might have been because the tattooist got killed before we joined up, but still.
If we'd had to take the Mark, things may or may not have turned out differently. But what happened happened. And you were the one lecturing me about going off on tangents. Heh.
No, I'm not worried, except for George. I want to see George.
You haven't done anything, have you? Because he sounds fuzzy and a little scared.
You won't hurt him, right? Right?
Well, we killed a couple of people from the Order, but you already know that. The spying, the quiet killings, so on. I can see the file over there on the desk.
That's basically the story. Can I see George now? Please?
What kind of question is that? "Why did you do it?" That's so detective novel. I can't believe you're being so cliché. Honestly. You people won the war, don't torture us poor souls with that bull.
That's harsh. That's definitely uncalled for. I do too have a soul, thank you very much.
Well, if I had to answer, I would say that we did it because…because there was no alternative, really. I mean, yes there was the whole he'd-kill-us-if-we-refused thing, but it just clicked. Why shouldn't we be assassins?
No, it's not a glorified name for a killer anymore than "soldier" is.
You've never thought about it that way? Well, soldiers and assassins are both trained, both get paid to kill, although soldiers don't get paid on commission. Soldiers are more obvious, but assassins have more fun. I think that's the main difference. They get to be loud and we get to be…well, it's like the wild partier and the one who throws the parties. We're the designated drivers, if you will.
I'm sorry, I just think metaphors are so useful.
No, I didn't really care when I killed Hermione.
No, it was a fairly quick kill.
Yes, we did interrogate her first. But we used truth serum, not medieval torture. How barbaric and twisted do you think we are?
There's no call for that. It was a rhetorical question.
We were just doing our job.
Why…? Didn't we already cover this? We chose this job because it fit. We did our job for the same reason you think you're doing yours. Making the world a better place, one idiot at a time. The only difference is the definitions involved.
But you'll let Georgie be okay, right? When we're done telling you what you want to know, you'll let us back together, right?
What a question. If we thought it was sick, wrong, immoral, or anything like that, would we have been together for so long? Would we still be together, would I be asking for him? Actually, probably yes. We never have cared much for rules, nature's or otherwise.
Well, yes we killed him. We had a contract.
Him too. And him. Yes, all the people on that list we killed.
No, there really was no Imperius curse involved. I told you that before we started. I fail to see how you can delude yourself into thinking that we agree with your code of morals when it so blatantly grates against our own.
I'm sorry if you felt insulted by that statement. I call 'em as I see 'em.
Well, you're not going to hurt George if I insult you a few times because you call yourselves the good guys.
George isn't bad.
He's not.
Well, objectively, you're as much at fault for this as I am. Really, you were in the war. You killed people. Hell, you lot are still killing people. The only difference is that you ended up on the winning side.
George sounds really scared now. You're going to let us be together, right? Aren't you?
No, I don't have anything else I wish to say except when is George coming back?
He is coming back, isn't he?
You aren't going to separate us, are you?
We can't…we've never been separated for this long before. You're going to let us be back with each other soon, right?
George is screaming. He can't think in words. He sounds hazy and his voice is all wrong.
What are you doing to him?
Why, thank you. I'm honoured that you consider me sane enough to stand trial for manslaughter, but please stop changing the subject.
Luna will be there too? I'm delighted. She always was good with a wand. I worked with her on a commission once. Wonderful girl.
George will be there too, right?
Not just Luna?
Because George…George isn't dying, I can still feel him. He's just…silent.
Where did you put him?
You couldn't have put him somewhere safe, because somewhere safe is with me.
Well, how we end this conversation's rather up to you, now isn't it?
You promise you'll give me my poor drugged innocent Georgie if I answer one last question?
Well, yes, but to me Georgie will always be innocent. Screw the law.
Anyway, your question?
Well, actually, yes. I can arrange for you to get some Skiving Snackboxes. Yeah, Draco can be a bitch. I don't blame you for wanting to get out of interrogating that little snot.