So my exceptional and lovely beta Maggie just had a birthday, and if you've been around for a while, you might know that her favorite characters of all time are the Weasley twins. She also loves angst and heartbreak, and she's been bugging me for just about forever to do a character study on Fred. I think, after reading this, she regrets that decision. Nevertheless, happy birthday, Maggie. You and the rest of the readers can gang up on me to kill me for this piece later.

DISCLAIMER: This may just be one of the saddest things I've ever written, but in my defense, I think it's one of the funniest, too.

The Exceptional Mr. Weasley and His Approximation of Obedience

He was asked once who his best friend was, and without missing a beat, he'd said, "Lee."

Alicia Spinnit, who'd been asking the question, had given him a very strange look. "Lee?" she'd repeated. "Not George?"

He supposed it was the obvious question, pretty understandable, too, all things considered. He'd opened his mouth to answer and confirm that, yes, not George, but Wood had interrupted, yelling at them for whispering at each other instead of paying attention to his newest incomprehensible diagram.

In a way, Fred had been glad for the interruption. It kept him from having to figure out how to explain that George was so much more than his best friend that using the term at all was kind of insulting. No matter how he said that, it sounded like he was dissing Lee (which he'd never want to do), and it managed, too, to miss what he wanted to say about George, so all in all, Fred couldn't really regret having to drop the question and place his focus back on Wood in an approximation of obedience.

Maybe Lee will write a eulogy for his funeral.

He knows for sure George won't. And he doesn't want George to. For one thing, George wouldn't be able to get through it. For another, even if he could, Fred wants people to laugh at his funeral, to admire and appreciate his undeniable brilliance, but also tell stories about what an annoying dick he'd been at times. He knows he can count on Lee to do that. George would just be maudlin.

Not that Fred can blame him. After all, if their positions were reversed — well, if their positions were reversed, Fred really has no idea what would be going on right about now, as that is something he is very consciously not thinking about.

And while he's actively not thinking about that, he finds himself thinking about other things, things like how disappointed he is with his death. When he (very infrequently, and never admittedly) considered the possibility that he might die in this war, he always imagined himself going out in a blaze of glory – fighting off five Death Eaters at once, sacrificing himself for an innocent and defenseless first year, that sort of thing. But the reality? He just – there's really no dignified way to say that he died because he couldn't manage to avoid a wall, you know?

He always hoped someone would write a song about his death one day. He no longer hopes that. Or, if someone should feel so inclined, his new hope is that Percy and Ron and Harry keep their damn mouths shut about what actually went down. If any of them love him at all, they will tell the world about how he gave up his life to ensure that the cart of toddlers and unicorn fawns and defenseless damsels that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the school hallway for a very good reason that they could come up with later was pushed out of harm's way.

Knowing those bastards, though, they'll probably tell the whole exact truth, damn them.

If he's being honest, he's also pretty disappointed with death itself. Not that he had much in the way of specific expectations, mind you, preferring to be the sort of young and reckless wizard who likes to imagine himself invincible (especially given that there'd been no evidence to the contrary up to the moment of his death), but he's pretty sure he expected death to be a bit more exciting than this.

As far as he can tell, he's still standing in Hogwarts. Some weird-arsed spectral version of Hogwarts, but still Hogwarts. His focus is pulled toward the far wall, which doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, but you can never really tell with Hogwarts. He should know. But this wall . . . instinctively, he knows there's a secret passage behind it, and he knows he's supposed to go through it.

But he's never been one for following the rules or doing what he's "supposed" to do (which is absolutely the reason why he turns and forces himself through the non-secret-passage-y wall; it has nothing to do with the fact that the thought of taking the strange secret passage is totally freaking him out).

When he emerges, he's in the Great Hall. He finds himself on some sort of spectral balcony over the teacher's table, and this whole experience is forcing him to wonder whether or not there's an entire other Hogwarts that exists only on this weird, spectral plane. He avoids the scene below for a while by thinking on that and all its implications, but eventually even he, master of avoidance that he is, has nothing to focus on but the unfolding battle in all its horror.

Although actually the battle isn't quite so horrifying here. The castle has been well defended, and the Great Hall more or less protected from Voldemort's forces, so there isn't too much to watch. He can hear, though, the sounds of spellwork, destruction, and death, and he watches a small group of students use the blown-out windows to their advantage as they fire curses out onto the grounds.

There's a detachment in this, he realizes, and he thinks it comes from being dead. He's not positive, though, because he is, after all, new to this whole no-longer-living thing. He's just wishing that he had a handrail to lean on broodingly when one appears, sitting at exactly the right height and proving that even spectral planes can be obliging. Fred would have tipped his metaphorical hat to it if he hadn't been busy brooding.

A spell comes shooting through the window, catching one of the students off guard. It hits her just as she pops up to fire her own, making the bastard Death Eater who cast it either very smart or very lucky. Fred isn't sure which idea sickens him more – a smart Death Eater goes against everything he knows to be true about them, while the very idea of luck being on their side . . .

When the girl goes down, a girl who cannot possibly be seventeen, it takes everything inside him not to leap off his balcony and rush down and try and do something to help her. He knows the impulse doesn't make any sense, that there's nothing he could do, but damn it, he's Fred Weasley; 'recklessly impulsive' is practically his middle name, and he's not used to just sitting around feeling helpless.

But he knows, somehow, some part of him knows, that if he leaps down off this balcony, he'll be making an irreparable, unchangeable decision. And while he also knows that said decision will be awesome in the short term, in the long term, it will bring every regret imaginable.

He doesn't go. Staying still, watching the horror unfolding below, is a Herculean effort, but he does it.

See, George? he thinks wryly, bitterly. I can so master the art of delayed gratification.

But thinking about George was a mistake. He's been so staunchly not thinking about George, and now he's dropped his guard for a moment, and gods, that makes his choice ten times harder. He wants his twin, he wants his better half, he wants that now—

"You shouldn't be here."

He will never admit that the voice spoke just in the nick of time (because doing so would have meant admitting that he was fighting a personal weakness, and please. He's Fred Weasley. He has no weaknesses), but the voice spoke just in the nick of time, and grounded him in a way only George had ever been able to.

But the voice wasn't George, and Fred knew it wasn't George, and so, since whirling around in the hope that it just might be would be foolish and childish and beneath him, Fred stays where he is, continuing to survey the Great Hall below him and says, through clenched teeth, "Yeah, well, I'm known for that."

Fred has a feeling the man isn't buying it (largely because the man isn't buying it), but he still refuses to turn around or drop his air of nonchalance. The man isn't ruffled by this and simply comes to join Fred at the balcony.

"I meant you shouldn't be able to be here," he says. Fred shrugs.

"Yeah, well, I'm known for that, too."

The man beside him just smiles and shakes his head, as if in exasperation but not really. Fred decides it's okay for him to look now.

Sirius Black is standing beside him, and Fred can't quite figure out why.

"If I shouldn't be able to be here, what's your excuse?" he asks, hoping that phrasing the question that way will cover up his actual confusion. He can't tell if it works or not. Sirius Black is surprisingly difficult to read.

"I'm your escort," Sirius says simply. "I'm supposed to go wherever you go until you make your choice. So if you break the rules, I break the rules."

"You're welcome," Fred tells his companion.

"Fred, this is serious."

"You don't have to introduce yourself to me, Sirius. I'm perfectly aware of who I'm talking to."

"Brilliant and original, I've never heard that joke before."

The comment unsettles Fred, not because it isn't what he expected – on the contrary, it's exactly what he expected – but because it isn't said the way he expected. He expected sarcasm, and yeah, the sarcasm is there, but it's hidden under a tone of voice that says 'bored' and 'indifferent,' like his original comment was so commonplace and unoriginal as to be insignificant. Detachedly, Fred wonders if he's losing his edge, if death is taking that from him along with everything else.

"So what do you mean, you're my escort?" Fred asks, to move the conversation forward.

"You've died."

"No, really?" Fred's sarcasm, unlike Sirius's of a moment ago, is biting. "Gosh, thanks, Sirius. I hadn't managed to work that out on my own yet! You're a godsend!"

Sirius looks almost bored with the outburst. "You want to make quips, or do you want to get some answers?" he asks.

"I want not to be here at all."

"Well, that's not an option for you, which you are more than smart enough to have figured out, so as soon as you're ready to stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen, I'll continue."

Fred says nothing, just clenches his jaw. He's not used to being spoken to with such calm indifference, and he doesn't like it. Nevertheless, he does want answers. Sirius takes his silence as acquiescence.

"You've died," he says again. "You don't have to like it and you don't have to be happy about it, but you do have to accept it and you do have to acknowledge it. You are dead. Which means you get an escort, someone to help you make the transition to whichever post-death existence you choose. Everyone gets one. In all but a few rare cases, it's someone you knew, and they do their best to make it someone who meant something to you, or who had an impact or influence on your life."

Death seems to bring out Fred's worst qualities because he just laughs harshly and says, "And I got you? Well, that just speaks volumes about my life, doesn't it?"

He's trying to be biting, flippant, all the things he and his quips and comebacks were known for in life, but it isn't working here. He just sounds bitter and lonely, and that scares him (except not really because he's Fred Weasley and he doesn't do scared).

"It says more about your death than your life, Fred," Sirius says, gently enough that Fred feels some of his anxiety ebb away, but with enough hardness that Fred doesn't feel he's being pitied. He knows from experience how difficult that is to master. "It says that you died young, before those who meant the most to you. And there is no way to soften that, and I'm not going to try. I'm not here to baby you; I'm here to escort you."

"Escort me where?" Fred snaps without patience.

"On," is Sirius's simple reply, and it shouldn't aggravate Fred, but it does.

"On," Fred repeats with no small amount of disdain. "Thank you, you've been amazingly helpful."

"You go on or you go back," Sirius says with that infinite patience that Fred is pretty sure he didn't possess in life. Either way, it is quickly becoming monstrously irritating. "Those are your choices, and you know that as well as I do."

"I've always been of the opinion that someone who can only come up with two choices isn't looking hard enough."

If he'd hoped to ruffle or startle Sirius (and yeah, he kinda had), he's disappointed because Sirius just sits casually on the bannister and crosses his arms. "What are you suggesting?" he asks, his face unreadable.

"I'm not suggesting anything," Fred said shortly, looking past Sirius to the Great Hall below. "I'm telling you that I'm staying right here."

"If you're choosing ghost-dom, there's your path," Sirius says, gesturing off the balcony, and for a moment Fred is almost overwhelmed with yearning — to just do it, to go back, to spend every day at his twin's side. He can see their faces now, grief turned to disbelief, disbelief turned to joy, George rushing forward to embrace him — but that's where it stops, because that can't happen. He gives up his brother's touch forever, if he becomes a ghost.

But wouldn't it be worth it? that tantalizing voice in his head whispers. "So you couldn't touch him, so what? You'd be together, isn't that what matters? It's what you want, it's what he wants, and it's in your power to give. Are you really going to deny your brother, your twin, his broken, grief-stricken heart its one desire?

God, he hates that voice. And he hates how badly he wants to listen to it.

But cutting through the blinding, almost overwhelming desire, is another voice, and Fred recognizes it as his own when it at his most reasonable, his most open-minded and thoughtful.

He recognizes it, in other words, as George's voice.

It's not his heart's one desire, the voice says, firm and assured and stronger than everything else. His heart's desire is for you to be alive. Coming back as a ghost isn't that, and George knows it. He wouldn't look at you like his every wish had come true; he'd look at you betrayed him. He'd look at you with pain. And you know what he'd say.

"Delayed gratification." He says it out loud, though gritted teeth. "He would never forgive me." To Sirius, he says, "I'm not choosing ghost-dom. It may be immediate, but it's also temporary, and in 80 years, then what?He dies, he moves on, and I'm stuck apart from him forever. No, much as I want to, I'm not doing that. But I'm not going with you, either. I'm staying right here. You can be here because you're staying with a soul you're supposed to escort, well, so am I. I'm staying her with George. Don't try to change my mind."

"Fred."

It's as soft as Sirius has ever spoken to him, and oh, it rankles, that sympathetic understanding, because it's not pity that he can get righteously indignant at. He's gonna be understood, and damn it, he doesn't want to be. Except no, Fred suddenly realizes, he's not speaking with sympathy, he's speaking with empathy. Whatever Sirius is about to say, it's gonna come from being right where Fred is now, and he's not going to be able to ignore it easily. He clenches his jaw and tightens his hands and looks away, prepared to try anyway.

"Fred, you can still watch over him from —"

Sirius cuts ff so abruptly that Fred looks up, frowning, wondering if something has happened to make Sirius disappear.

But no, Sirius is still there, but the amount of pain on the older man's face actually awakens some concern in Fred. "What?" he asks urgently. "What is—" Then the reality of all the pieces catches up with him, and he knows he isn't asking after a what. With a swallow, he amends his question. "Who is it?" he asks in a whisper.

Sirius opens his eyes, and the fire of fury burning there gives even Fred pause. "Those bastards got Remus," he says, pain and heartbreak and hatred defining his voice. "His son is five days old —" The raw anguish overwhelming Sirius is so tangible in the air of this place that even Fred is finding it hard to breathe.

Sirius regains control with startling efficiency. He focuses on Fred. "I have to go," he says, "but I'm gonna be back, and when I am, you need to be ready to come with me."

He gives Fred no time to agree or argue, he just disappears soundlessly, leaving Fred alone once more, nothing to do but watch the battle below.

But he seems almost detached now from what's happening in the Great Hall, like his choice to not go back has put him behind a glass wall. He can't hear anything; he can just observe, and he observes defined by numbness which is, in its own way, welcome. He's felt too much his whole life, he was never able to turn it off, that's part of what made him the way he was, he just felt so much all the time, acting out and manipulating the world around him and pretending he didn't care was the only way to cope.

Well. And George. George, who was everything Fred had ever wanted to be. George, who had been Fred's idol and hero and role model, not that Fred had ever told him so, or ever would have. It would have been too strange, too truthful, and besides, he's pretty sure George knew. He can't imagine George not knowing.

George always helped Fred make sense of the world. But George isn't here now, and Fred doesn't know how to do it on his own. So, it seems, he's decided not to try. He's decided to shut down and just exist here for now, an unobservant observer.

Something has happened below, he realizes vaguely, because more and more people are coming into the Great Hall. The fighting seems to have ended for some reason, and now the room is filling with their fighters and the wounded and — yes. The bodies of the fallen.

But it barely registers. They're his friends and colleagues and mentors and teachers, but he can't seem to care. He's a little more interested when they bring him in, but the thing is, it doesn't look like him. For a moment, he's confused, and he thinks there must be a mistake. That body looks nothing like him, and if it's not him, is he really dead?

And then – then the living start taking stock of the dead. And he's not as numb as he thought.

"Fred."

"I'm not going with you, Sirius, I thought I made that clear." His teeth are clenched, his arms are braced on the bannister, his head is pointed down at the floor, anything to erase the sight of parents and brothers and sisters and friends seeing bodies and learning the inescapable truth. Something is pounding inside his head, something hot and dark and overwhelming, and he knows this feeling; he's been plagued by it before.

"Tell me why."

"Because I'm not doing this without George!" he bellows, turning on the older man and shouting the words so loudly he's surprised those below don't hear. And he thinks this, surely this, will finally get some surprise to play across Sirius's face, but no. He just stands there, looking older than he did the last time they spoke, but still as calm, still as impassive in the face of Fred's anger as ever, and it just sets him off even more.

"Do you get that?" he shouts, actually advancing a step or two. "I have never done anything without George, and I'm not about to start, not when it's this, not now! I don't do it without George, I am nothing without George, I don't know how to be Fred without George, and I'm not interested in finding out!"

He's not sure when in all that he starts crying. Under normal circumstances, he would deny to the heavens that he even did – Fred Weasley doesn't do crying – but these are far from normal circumstances, so he'll allow the admittance.

But the tears and the fact that they came on at all are vastly unsettling to him, because Fred Weasley doesn't cry; it's not even a statement of denial, it's just truth. He doesn't. He doesn't let himself. Even on his darkest days, when Angelina broke it off with him once and for all, when Ginny was taken down into that chamber, when he had to stare down at his brother lying prone, covered in blood – Fred Weasley doesn't cry. He laughs and quips and stays above it all. Always.

And he tries to convince himself now that it's because this is different, worse than all those times put together, not because being in this place is changing him – it's not, it's not, it's not. He talks louder to shut up those voices in his head.

"Fred—"

"I'm not a good person, Sirius!"

And there, there, finally there it is. He's shocked him. Or surprised him, at the very least. He's said something that Sirius wasn't anticipating, and it took the deepest, darkest part of him to do it, took the secret that he's never told anyone else, and used it to finally get something to play out across that face.

And he's reveling miserably in the twisted irony of this – that he never dared admit or reveal any hint of this when he was alive because he knew it would drive people away, and now that he's dead, he's using it to do just that. He supposes it just goes to prove what he overheard someone say about him once – he really will use anything to his advantage if the advantage it gains him is high enough.

And he thought it was a conscious choice, thought he was using it deliberately, but now that he's said it, there's something else creeping up on him, panic and terror like he's never felt, and it's almost like some part of him wanted this admitted, wanted someone who might be able to help to hear it (an idea that is, of course, ridiculous, because Fred Weasley is perfectly self-sufficient, thank you very much), but that doesn't matter now, because Sirius is gone, Fred knows he is, of course he is —

"How are you not a good person, Fred?"

Fred's eyes fly open, because how on earth can Sirius still be standing there, watching him, waiting, listening?

"I'm not," he says, and that can't possibly be his voice, can it? He's never sounded that broken and desperate in his life, and he'd never be admitting this, never – "I'm not, Sirius, I'm just not. There's, there's something dark in me, something cruel, there always has been. I've hurt people before, just not even caring, because there was something I wanted and they were in the way. It's jokes and pranks that are humiliating or cruel, not funny except to me, it's ruthless and twisted and – I'm not a good person, and the only reason I'm not a bad person is George. He tempers it and holds me back and makes me think in a way I just can't on my own, and I can't do it without him, Sirius, you don't understand, I can't, when I'm on my own, I am not the kind of person they let be where you want me to go. I need him. I need him because he makes me a good person, or the semblance of a good person. I need him, or the dark part of me takes over and wins. I can't, I just, I can't."

It leaves him shaking and weak, sitting on the ground with his knees up against his chest, and that doesn't make sense because isn't death supposed to be peaceful? Isn't it supposed to be a release? Aren't things supposed to make sense after?

"It was Remus for me," Sirius says, and the words don't make sense. He can't contextualize them, but Sirius isn't giving him the chance to figure it out. He just keeps talking, his voice even and quiet and calm. "James, too, of course, but it was Remus who was really the balancer, who made us think before we acted, really think about something other than our own amusement. The difference, though, between me and James was that James was just young. Just young and arrogant and thoughtless. He didn't have the blackness that I did, no pun intended. He wasn't tainted by name and blood and birth like I was. He didn't have the cruel streak. But I did. Where you don't realize you're hurting someone until you realize it's been going on for a few moments because someone calls your attention to it because you'd never notice on your own? And the knowing afterward that you'd have just kept going? Especially if they deserved it? It's sending your worst enemy to find a werewolf because it would serve him right if he got mauled or turned or killed, and it has to be pointed out to you that that werewolf is supposed to be your best friend, but you were so focused on the pain and the vengeance that you never even realized what it would do to him?"

As Sirius speaks, Fred raises his head slowly, almost dizzy with the reality that Sirius is still here, and is talking to him, and isn't leaving, and moreover is saying things that make perfect sense to him. God, it all sounds so familiar, and just the act of recognizing that the darkness exists in another person, in a good person . . .

"Fred, you think I don't know exactly what you're talking about? I grew up surrounded by it; it was in me, too. I fought against it my whole life. And I crossed over. I had blackness in me, too, and in the end, it didn't matter. You're right; the blackness can't exist where we're going. But that doesn't mean you aren't allowed. It means that when you cross over, that blackness disappears. It's erased from you. You become the best possible version of yourself. But it can't happen here."

"I don't want to leave him."

"You think I wanted to leave Harry? You think Remus wanted to leave his son? There are always people we're leaving behind. That's the way of it. And all we can do is keep watch. But not from here."

"Why not?"

He hears Sirius give a heavy sigh, as if searching for the words to say, and he sits alongside Fred, to settle in for a long explanation or to join Fred on his level, Fred isn't sure which.

"Because," Sirius finally says, slowly, "because that's not how this place works. Because if you stay here . . . it breaks you. It breaks you, to watch the people you love do the one thing that you can't. They have to move on without you; they don't have a choice like you do. And so, yes, you can stay here. You can stay here and hold vigil, but – Fred, I've never known a soul to survive it. It eats away at you. You think it won't, but it always will. The bitterness and darkness that you so fear? It just grows and grows here. There's no peace. There's no escape. You stagnate. It destroys you. At best, you'll be just a shadow of your former self by the time he joins you. At worst . . ."

"What?" Fred demands, worried, when Sirius trails off. His brow furrows like they're approaching territory that is really off-putting to him, and that just amps up Fred's anxiety even further, given how unruffleable Sirius has been this whole time. "At worst, what, Sirius?"

There's another heavy sigh, then, "At worst, that bitterness and pain leeches through to him, and . . . I've seen it before. Souls who refuse to move on actually end up hurting the very people they want to stay and protect."

Fred buries his face in his hands. It's too much, this piece. The thought that he could ever do that to George, it's just too much. And he doesn't want to be swayed by this, doesn't want to have his mind change – changing your mind because someone has convinced you that they're right and you're wrong is a sign of weakness. You never admit your wrongs, it makes you look like an idiot. You just find a way to act like giving in is because you don't care anymore. That's been his philosophy his whole life, but it won't work here. Sirius will see through him, damn the man. Fred has allowed himself to be entirely too vulnerable in front of this supposed escort . . . but maybe, it occurs to him, that's the whole point.

Doesn't mean he has to like it.

"Is this why they sent you?" he asks because damn it, he's not going to just come out and admit that Sirius is right. "Because you've been here before? Because you were . . . like me?" Sirius gives him half a smile.

"That was a lot of it. But I have also had a decent impact on your life."

Fred snorts. "Yeah? I mean, no offense, Sirius, you're a cool guy and all, but I knew you for like, a summer. I didn't even really know who you were until I was sixteen. How much impact could you really have had on my life?" Sirius gives him a very odd look, and for reasons he can't fathom, Fred is filled with a sense of foreboding. "What?" he asks, wary.

"You really don't pay attention to what's going on around you if it doesn't directly impact you, do you?"

"Hey," he says with mock indignation. "I'll have you know I paid very close attention to the things that I wasn't supposed to know about. What's your point?"

"Well," Sirius says pointedly, "if you had paid a little more attention to what was going on around you, you might have noticed that Remus had a tendency to call me by my nickname from school."

"Why the hell should I care that Professor Lupin called you some silly schoolboy nickname?" Fred asks in a tired voice. Sirius responds with more of that infinite patience, as well as an air that just exudes the notion that he is greatly enjoying a joke Fred hasn't figured out yet. Fred decides he really doesn't like that feeling.

"Oh, I think you'll find that you care a whole lot when I tell you that my friends in school called me Padfoot."

Fred blinks, then frowns, then tilts his head and peers for a moment at Sirius as several things click together in his brain at once. Once they have, he freezes. "No," he says with a shake of his head. Sirius just raises an eyebrow. "No," Fred says again, more emphatically. Then, with true indignation, "No! No, there's no way –"

"In case you were wondering, Remus had a school nickname, too." Fred keeps shaking his head. "We weren't terribly creative, I'm afraid. To this day, one of my biggest regrets is that the best name we could come up with for our werewolf friend was 'Moony.' It's a bit disgraceful."

"Nope," Fred says, continuing to shake his head in denial. "I'm not hearing this. This isn't happening to me."

"But to this day, I ask myself what else we could have used. 'Wolfy' was a bit too obvious, even more than 'Moony,' and besides, Remus objected. He also vetoed 'Fangtooth,' which I really consider to be his loss."

"You're the Marauders? You? Professor Lupin?"

"And Peter Pettigrew, and Harry's dad," Sirius says calmly.

"Harry's dad?" Fred demands.

"Prongs," Sirius says with a nod, and Fred has to lean back against the spectral railing and hope it doesn't suddenly disappear, because he can't support his own weight on top of the weight of all these shocking revelations. Then something else occurs to him, and he sits straight up again.

"Does Harry know?" he demands.

"Since he was thirteen," Sirius confirms.

"That little shit," Fred exclaims with fury and disbelief and pride. "He never told me!"

"Well, it's possible he assumed your ears were regularly attached to your brain."

Fred shakes his head once more for good measure and, for the first time since coming to this place, feels almost like he could laugh. "I can't wait to see the look on George's f—" He stops, breaks off, because it still hurts, and he still doesn't want to go, but he's come to terms with the fact that, for once, he might just have to answer to a power higher than himself (really, he reasons, he ought to be applauded for his growth).

He sighs, and looks at Sirius, who is watching him with sympathy again. "I have to go with you, don't I?"

"It's your choice," is all Sirius will say. Fred takes one more moment, and one more deep breath, then nods and stands. Sirius smiles and ushers him forward, but before he steps through the wall, he can't help but take one long look back at the Great Hall, finding his family and his twin with very little effort.

"Will he be okay?" he asks.

"I may be slightly more omniscient than I was in life, but I still can't see the future," is all Sirius will say. "He's your twin. You tell me."

Fred's eyes don't leave George as he answers with a nod, unable for a moment to speak around the lump in his throat. "He'll be more okay than I'd have been if he'd been the one who died," he is finally able to say, and he doesn't bother to hide or deny his stinging eyes or the fact that turning away and returning to the hall with the secret passage is the hardest thing he's ever done, harder even than dying.

And then they're standing before that blank wall, and Fred is nervous, so nervous. "So how do I open this thing?" he asks, eyes on the wall.

"You tell me," Sirius says again, and normally Fred would quip about how much he doesn't seem to know for someone who's omniscient, but it's either a sign of growth or distraction that he is able to refrain. "This is, after all, your party."

"Well," Fred says, and even as he speaks, he can feel something loosening in him and falling away, taking the weight and pain and grief with it, "I mean, it's a secret passage, so it can't be too easy to figure out. It'll take a truly sharp mind and plenty of wit and cunning to solve this puzzle. Someone truly extraordinary."

Sirius claps him on the shoulder. "Well, I hope you're up to the challenge," he says. "Because we could use another Marauder." Fred smiles. "Ready?" Sirius asks, and at Fred's nod, they both step forward.

The passage dissolves around them, filling Fred's vision with bright light for a long moment. When the light fades and the other side becomes visible, Fred lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Oh, George," he breathes, for no one's ears but his own. "Just wait til you see this."

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