A/N: I really don't know why I decided to upload this. I mean, it doesn't have too much relevance. Basically, it's four very short one-shots, all from George's POV, from the stretch of time before Spirantexcitarent was cast and Fred was revived.

The second and third are dreams, the fourth is right before the mirror smashing incident. Heads up, the last one is very frantic-sounding. That was intentional. Let me know what you think of this.

"Uh…George?" a nervous, shaky voice calls from the other side of my bedroom door.

"Hermione, you share the room with me. You don't need permission to come in," I remind her flatly.

"Er, right. Sorry." She pushes the unlocked door open, pursing her lips, crossing her arms, and positively radiating anxiety.

I pat the space next to me on the floor by Fred's bed and she crosses the room to sit down. "I have some bad news."

Fear creeps its way up my throat and I glance to my motionless twin. "What is it?"

She averts her gaze and it occurs to me that she's probably afraid I'll lash out at her and take my anguish out on her somehow, like screaming at her or hurling her out a window or something. The fear is quickly replaced with shame. "I promise I won't hurt you if it upsets me."

She laughs slightly, still looking down, apparently fascinated by the floor. "Um…well…we're out of Dreamless Sleep Potion."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, George, but we just don't have anymore. You'll just have to try to sleep without it until we can get some more."

Numbly, I nod, immediately entertaining the option of never sleeping again. Like a mind reader, she dispels that thought. "Do your best, alright? I'm not going to let you keep yourself awake until we get more. It wouldn't be healthy at all."

"I-I guess I can try."

"You know, George, I was thinking about this coma business."

"Yeah?"

"And I thought, 'what if I had died?'"

"Fred-"

"And I realised it would've been okay. You know why?"

"Fred, I don't think I want to-"

"When we're both dead, if there's a Heaven, we'll go there."

"Fred, please."

"We're the Holy Spirit, don't you see?" he proclaims excitedly.

"What are you talking about?"

"Because you're holey, and I'm dead." After a long moment, he speaks again, his voice several octaves lower. "Please don't cry."

"George! George!" a shrill voice shouts. "George!"

I throw open the door to my bathroom, searching for the source of the noise.

"Here, George!"

"Fred?"

"Here!" he repeats.

I turn and see my reflection in the mirror. "George."

I reach a hand out to the cool glass, touching the tips of my fingers to it. The mirror ripples like the surface of a lake. The ripples spread across the reflection of my face, distorting it. Something unusual catches my eye- my reflection has a left ear. I reach up to the left side of my head and am met with the gap where my ear used to be.

"Get me out of here," my reflection chokes, still twisted by the ripples from my fingers.

"Fred?" I whisper, gaping at the mirror.

"Help me, George," he pleads.

I reach into the mirror, finding that I'm able to step through the thing. I find myself in an unfamiliar place, filled with cold, swirling fog.

"Fred?" I call. "Fred, where are you?!"

I thought I heard a response when I was jolted awake.

"It's called the Mirror of Erised," Harry had told me. He was young; maybe fourteen or so, when we talked about this.

"What's it do?" Fred had asked curiously, cocking his head to the side.

"It shows you your heart's desire."

I'm trembling now, shaking like I'm having a seizure, a light sheen of sweat dripping over my face. There's nothing, nothing at all I can do about this. There's nothing. Helpless.

I turn away from the bathroom door, peeling off my jumper to reveal…damn it! The shirt belonged to him originally…no…it was OURS, because we shared everything, even the jumpers Mum made with our individual first initials…ours, ours, ours. We were not the same person—are not the same person, yet we were still somehow interchangeable…twins, twins, twins. One soul dwelt in a single body…dwells! No, no, he's not gone, not yet, not ever, no.

So far away from me, and then—yes!—he's there again. A cruel trick of the light, a hallucination…a mirror, a mirror, always a mirror. I don't need a magic one to show me my heart's desire. Every mirror is the Mirror of Erised now.

I want him back, now; a reflection won't suffice. I see him every time I see myself, I am him, or is he me? We were so similar, how am I to know who I am? There can be no dark without light just as there can be no Fred without George…George without Fred…did we ever decide which ones we each were—are! Did we ever trade back from our switches as children? I have been Fred and George so many times, how am I to know which one I am?

"George…George…George…" I say out loud. The name is awful and foreign and oddly, horribly undeserved. What gives me the right to be conscious? To be safe? To be…no, I am not whole…I will never be, not until he wakes up…

"George? George? Fred?" I ask myself. Neither sounds correct. The man in the mirror repeats me, wondering himself which one he is; he doesn't know. Of course he doesn't know. He's not my other half, he's just me.

"George?" a voice calls from outside. My breath catches in my throat, tears sting my eyes…I feel like I'm hyperventilating…Hermione. Hermione. George. I am George, or at least everyone else believes me to be. I will take that name.

It wouldn't matter which name I took; I still don't have the other half.