Dusk Till Dawn: A Fred And George Story

May 2, 1999

Okay. I looked over everything: drop cloths covered the floor, paint tins and buckets sat on the top, the kitchen cabinets had been removed and were suspended in the dining room...where were the paint rollers? I searched the whole flat, scouring each room, looking for where I'd set them down to no avail.

"Ugh," I groaned. "Accio paint rollers!"

It took a second, but three of them flew into my outstretched hand. I looked at them, puzzled. Was there a spell that would tell me where I'd left them?

Oh well. All that really mattered was that I got down to business. I returned to the kitchen, turned on some of my favorite tunes, and dipped a roller into the tin filled with paint, a grey that matched with melancholy mood. And with that, I began the work of covering the sickly yellow that had been there for years and years before, humming along to the music and musing over the life of the one I'd lost.

For exactly one year ago today, Fred died.

I watched the rain fall lightly outside through the large window that acted as the kitchen's fourth wall as I painted. We would close the store tomorrow to observe those who lost their lives at the Battle of Hogwarts. I was grateful for the time it gave me to  get a project like this done, since I preferred doing tasks such as this with no magic. But with large amounts of time come large amounts of thoughts, and that's not always a good thing.

I didn't know whether I should be happy or sad. I wanted to be happy that I'd made it one year without him, but at the same time I felt like that was an insult to his memory, to celebrate something like that that he could never gain. And if I'm honest with myself, I'm not a positive person, so that would never be the first emotion when it came to this.

And I fell, yet again, into the pit of my memory. I remembered the time in fifth year Fred had poured toad spittle into Snape's cauldron when his back was turned, causing his potion to turn pink and foam, and foam, and not stop foaming until half the floor of the classroom was covered in it.

I remembered the time in the summer before third year when I'd bumped into the twins at Quality Quidditch Supplies, just down the street from where I was standing in the kitchen, and Fred had grabbed my arm, dragging me to see the new Nimbus Two Thousand and spouted off all the facts about it

And I remembered the time at Muriel's when we'd found a rare moment of reprieve when Muriel wasn't sitting in her chair napping, and Fred had pulled me onto the sofa and just held me in his arms. I could almost feel his breath on my face and smell his sweet-smelling hair.

How I wish I could have known that he would be taken from me a month later.

With these thoughts plaguing my mind, I finished the first wall. I stood there, staring at it, and I couldn't help but feel like I was drowning in its monotony. A single tear slid down my cheek and I was reminded that it was my grief, not the paint color, causing my feelings.

I heard a sound from behind. George? I hadn't expected to see him out of his room all day. But I turned around, and there he was, in the doorway.

I moved to wipe my face with my sleeves, but I saw a his puffy pink eyes and sobbed, something I'd found myself doing too often in the past year. We both knew we were suffering, and we both knew why. What was the point in hiding it?

George staggered into the room towards me. I could see he had started to cry again, just like I had. I set down the roller on the paint tin and went to meet him.

We looked at each other, crying, and in pain.

"I miss him," I said eventually.

"I miss him too," George whispered back.

I reached under his arms and hugged him, my hands at his shoulder blades. He hugged me back, and we stood there a few seconds, listening to the music in the background and trying to find comfort in the fact that we shared each other's pain.

We broke apart, and George sniffled and said, "I want to be productive today. Let me help paint."

"Oh. Okay." I handed him a roller and we got back to work, finishing the first coat of all three walls within the hour. I was genuinely surprised that he didn't stop and use magic at all. Maybe he'd found, like me, that physical labor is sometimes the best way to get things done.

We spent the rest of the day waiting for the paint to dry, doing a second coat, rearranging furniture, and putting the kitchen back together.

After our takeout dinner, we Apparated (separately) to Hogsmeade and paid the Fallen Fifty Memorial a well-deserved visit.

It was my first time back at the Hogwarts grounds since the Battle.

I'd hesitated going there even then, scared of what I might see in my mind. But I, surprisingly, didn't feel the apprehension I thought I would feel. It was a different sort of feeling that I didn't recognize.

As George and I wandered through the graveyard lit with fifty lanterns containing eternal flames, we looked at the small obelisks sitting atop each person's resting place that gave their names and dates. I realized yet again that people other than Fred had died, yet I hadn't remembered them, just like with my father.

We joined the rest of the Weasley family gathered around Fred's grave. George conjured up some flowers and added them to the ones already set at the base of the obelisk. Our group stood, silently crying together.

Mrs. Weasley came over to me and gave me a hug, a smile on her face with few tears on her cheeks. It made me feel a little better. My cheeks were also relatively dry; we must have both run out of salt from crying earlier in the day. The unrecognizable feeling intensified as I looked at her and my surroundings. The sky was darkening quickly, though the memorial stayed lit. I could see the lights pop out against the glossy surface of the Black Lake. It was beautiful.

I reflected on this the rest of the night and had a revelation. The lanterns did indeed represent each of the lives lost that terrible yet wondrous day, but they also represented the light that each one of those people brought into the world and their sacrifice for light remaining in the world. When we put up the lanterns, we were showing not only that we saw each light, but also that we remembered their light and wouldn't let anyone or anything diminish it or put it out.

I really needed to get back to work.