Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Above the Wreckage ❯ Forging Hope ( Chapter 2 )

Okay, here is my third attempt at a Harry Potter story, and my second attempt at a Harry Potter story with an actual almost-plot behind it.

 

This story takes place after the hustle and bustle and panic has died down from Harry and his bodyguards' narrow escape from the Death Eaters. The story is written from Fred's point of view, because I thought that would be the best way for the emotional aspects of this scene to be expressed. It also shows a different side of the twins that I don't think any of us ever really consider. (I know I certainly don't…)

 

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Forging Hope

 

It's getting harder and harder to keep up with our game.

 

Well, “game” isn't really the right word for it, I guess. Because it's really not a game. It's…more like a lifestyle, I guess, though that isn't really the word for it, either. One thing, though, is certain; long ago, we stopped noticing this game we play. It's more than instinct, more than a piece of our personality.

 

Our game is who we are.

 

Whether our family will admit it or not, they're relieved to know that no matter what happens, they'll always have us to fix everything.

 

Because, yes, whether any of us acknowledges it, or even realizes it at all, our friends and family do depend on us. Without us, our little corner of the world would be a very dark one. Mum would probably be crying constantly and everyone else would be ridiculously tense.

 

I'm not bragging; I'm simply stating a fact, one that I'm sure anyone who has ever met us or been to our shop would agree with.

 

And another fact is that as much as everyone depends on us to keep their lives on the brightest possible side, that's how much my brother and I depend on them to let us do it. It's obvious that we aren't happy unless we're making other people happy.

 

But one of us is nothing without the other. It takes two to play this particular game.

 

So when I thought I was going to lose one half of the equation…well, you can imagine how much I hated the idea.

 

Again, we arrive at the problem of finding the right word. “Hate” isn't strong enough for the hot, sick stab of despair and terror and indescribable anger at Fate that swept over me when I caught my first sight of George, blood pouring from a hole in the side of his head, looking more than half-dead and probably soon to be in a great deal of pain…once he finally woke up.

 

The minutes between the time I arrived back at the house and the time when George finally opened his eyes were the longest I could ever remember experiencing. I don't even remember them, really; nowadays they're just a long, drawn-out blur of confusion and emptiness and total, mind-numbing fear.

 

Then he finally opened his eyes, and I swayed with relief as the first word out of his half-smiling mouth was one of the jokes that kept our world in its proper alignment.

 

In the long, noisy, tense hours that followed, our fragmented group slowly came back together. I just sat with George and watched it all go down, occasionally interjecting with a question or comment, but mostly just sitting on the couch next to my brother and soaking up the comfort that only he knows how to provide.

 

A long while and several angry and grief-driven outbursts later, everyone took themselves off to bed. George had already made himself comfortable on the couch and didn't seem to feel any desire to move, and I flat-out refused to leave him, so we ended up staying right there all night long, sharing a few off-hand jokes and the playful barbs we sometimes enjoy throwing at each other, but mostly just sitting in silence and reveling in the relief of still being alive and together.

 

That night was an absolute horror, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Every time I closed my eyes and started to drift off, I saw an image of the person I loved most in the world covered in blood and lying deathly still on a crimson-stained couch; only, in this nightmare, he never opened his eyes. Never cracked another joke. Never gave me another of those grins which are absolutely identical to my own.

 

Heh. Identical to the last freckle. Or at least, we used to be.

 

But then the sun came up and the nightmare ceased to matter when George threw a sarcasm-clad joke at me almost before he opened his eyes. By the time everyone came down to breakfast, we were laughing together, for all the world as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

 

Soon, everyone else was laughing with us, and there were no problems left in our little world. There was no war, no suffering, no anger or worry or apprehension or anything other than smiles and amusement and slightly off-color humor.

 

Yes, as always, it was Weasleys for the win.

 

But then, who ever really expected anything else?