The silence grated. Roxanne finally said, "Well, let's turn on the radio."

"We've got a single on the way from a grooving expat in France," heralds the announcer, then it was

Here on my own
In the City of Lights
Whispering anthems
Into Christmas night

The Weasleys glanced at each other, George slow to speak. "He...needed to leave, didn't he? To be himself, for once."

To their east, Fred Weasley downed a toast to families strange and miraculous. Some year he'd come back, be Fred II, but that day he was Fred and that was a gift.