(g e o r g e pov)

It's been twenty years since Freddie died. Twenty years since half of you, half your soul, half your mind, half your heart, left this earth with a laugh frozen on his lips.

And people still forget your name.

They still call you his name instead of your own.

When you were younger, it was a game. FredandGeorge were inseparable, identical, the same in every way. If you accidentally scraped up one of your knees Fred would do the same so no one would be able to tell the difference between you based off some random scar. You'd finish each other's thoughts and say things at the same time, always on the same wave-length.

It was fun, the ability to be Fred one day and George the next without anyone the wiser. Even your family couldn't tell the difference between the two of you.

When Ron was a baby, just learning to talk, he could never determine what name he was supposed to shout at the sight of one of you, so he started to shriek Forge and Gred instead.

The names stuck, the two of you laughingly telling the people you met at school about them your first year at Hogwarts. Lee, the only other boy Gryffindor your age, was probably your first friend.

And, like everything else, you and Fred shared him equally.

But even he could not tell the difference between the mischievous Weasley twins.

Fred and George, Gred and Forge, they were interchangeable.

That was how you liked it.

(Sometimes, you slip up. You forget to complete a sentence, pausing halfway through it and waiting for someone else to say the second half. No one ever does though.)

Things changed the first year your brother Ron started school.

"Why, Fred, our ickle Ronnikins is starting Hogwarts today! What do you say we-" you begin, wrapping an arm around Ron on the way to King's Cross.

"-give him a present in honor of this occasion? A spider, you say? What an excellent idea, George!" Fred laughs in return, his arm easily falling over yours as he ruffles Ron's hair.

"Didn't Lee purchase a-"

"-tarantula over the summer? Why yes, he did!" The two of you continue, bright grins stretched over your faces.

He shakes the two of you off and mutters something about gits under his breath, taking longer strides in order to catch up to your mother.

Fred and you simply take another step forward together, your arms wrapping around each other easily, seamlessly, as your steps match up and you move together as if you were one person.

Sometimes, it was as if you were one person, one entity.

Not Fred and George.

But FredandGeorge.

Things go on the same way they always do, your mother can't tell you apart and Ginny complains about having to stay home another year and Percy strides into the station as if he owns it.

But then there's this tiny little first year, a boy with too much inky black hair in a riot of waves on his head and too wide emerald eyes shining out behind horrible broken glasses. His looks are so different than the freckles and red-hair that you're used to from a summer at The Burrow that you actually pause for a second.

But then you take another step forward, calling out for Fred, and the two of you help him pick up his trunk and stow it away, in unison with one another as always.

You're about to introduce yourself when he reaches a pale hand up and pushes raven hair away from his face, a vivid scar shaped like a lightning bolt prominent on his forehead.

You forget yourself and Fred asks him if he's Harry Potter before the two of you even introduce yourself, but as you jump off the train to meet your mother one last time, you think about the look that he had in his eyes when he glanced between you two.

It was something different, something that you didn't put a name to until much later.

Recognition.

(You and Fred discussed it later, this momentous occasion in which someone actually saw you as two separate people instead of one interchangeable person. You still aren't sure why Harry was able to see a difference where no one else was, but it was something important. It was what first made you think of Harry Potter as someone special, in a way that stories about him defeating the Dark Lord never really did.)

That was what changed things.

That single, seemingly unimportant moment that took no longer than a second to occur.

It's what made you and Fred realize that you weren't actually one person, no matter how fun it may be to change places with one another whenever you got bored.

The next two years were honestly a bit of an identity crisis for the two of you.

What pieces were Fred and what pieces were George?

You had gotten so mixed up in one another, so used to being twins, the same, identical, that you had never really taken the time to wonder what parts of you were different from Fred.

It takes a while, but you do find differences between the two of you.

You're softer than Fred most of the time, your eyes never get the hard glint that his does when pranks are being planned and you always worry more for the potential consequences. In direct contrast, Fred is more thoughtful than you. You're likely to jump into things without much thought as long as you're reasonably certain that they won't cause any harm to anyone.

But it isn't enough, there aren't enough differences between you. You still feel like you could lose yourself in Fred and no one would notice the difference.

One night in the summer after fourth year, Ginny's screaming from nightmares and Ron is awake writing yet another letter to Harry that won't be answered. Fred is in Percy's room setting up a prank and you have only moments, but this sudden crazy desire has overtaken you.

You saw Ginny once Harry pulled her from the Chamber, pulled her away from possession and certain death with nothing but a scar on his left arm to show for it. She looked so lost. She told you and Fred why later, when you were sitting with her in the Hospital Wing.

"I'm not sure what pieces of me are me anymore. What if Tom changed me? What if took pieces of me away and added pieces of himself and I didn't know it?" her voice is a mere whisper and she falls asleep as soon as she says it, looking so small and fragile on the bed that you can't breathe for a moment.

This idea has been festering in your mind since then.

You know that it isn't the same, that Fred isn't trying to possess you. The two of you even took all that time last year to separate your personalities, to know what differences, no matter how slight, the two of you have.

But still.

You need something tangible.

Something that's just you, just George.

So you take a jagged rock that you picked up from the yard during Gnoming a few days ago and drag it along the outside of your right hip. You don't cut very deep or press very hard, just enough so that it will scar.

You bandage it and wait for Fred to come back in the room.

He grins and winks at you, a signal that the prank went off without a problem, and then climbs into bed.

You're about to get into yours when you hesitate and slide into Fred's instead, aligning your body with his matching one and tucking your hand within his.

It's been years since the two of you have slept together, but you feel off balance. As much as you wanted something different, something yours, the fact of the matter is that you have a scar on your right hip.

And Fred doesn't.

His hand tightens around yours in an unspoken question.

"I love you, Freddie," is all you say, tucking your face into his shoulder and closing your eyes in preparation for sleep.

"I love you too, Georgie," is all he responds, his free arm curling over you and bringing you closer, providing a type of shelter with his body.

That's another difference.

Fred's the overprotective one.

(Even though you hadn't slept with Fred regularly since you were eight, other than a few random times over the years, for two decades your bed has felt empty. You're almost forty and half your life has been spent without him at your side, and you still leave one side of your bed open for him. Sometimes, you could swear that he's there, a sliver of moonlight on his grinning face from the open window. But then you blink, and he's gone again.)

That year is the year that you go to Egypt to visit Bill and return to mass panic that Sirius Black has returned, that he's going to come after Harry, after the green-eyed boy that also happens to be the only one who can tell you apart.

So, you and Fred do what you do best in stressful situations.

You charm Perce's badge to say something ridiculously and moderately insulting and then go develop more joke products.

"After all," Fred whispers one night as the two of you try to make the perfect mixture for sweets to get you out of class, "doesn't everyone need a laugh now more than ever?"

You grin your agreement and continue mixing.

Later on that year, the two of you see Harry staring out the window after his friends with the saddest expression in his eyes.

He looks so alone.

It's something that you've never experienced, that Fred and you can't understand.

You don't know what loneliness feels like.

Fred has been at your side, and you at his, since you were born.

It's really not a hard decision to make, giving him the map and allowing him to chase after Ron and Hermione to Hogsmeade Village.

After all, doesn't everyone need friends now more than ever?

(Fred and you had been wondering what to do with the map for a couple years actually, wondering if you should give it to Ginny or Ron. But Harry was the perfect solution; the only one who you knew would always use it responsibly. And maybe, you murmur, Fred following along with your thought and finishing it perfectly, he'll be able to protect himself better with it.)

Wanting to open a shop for jokes and pranks and laughs shouldn't have been surprising to anyone.

You and Fred had been doing this since you were old enough to, even your first cases of accidental magic involved changing people into different colors and, on one memorable night, changing Charlie into a miniature dragon.

You weren't entirely certain why your mother was so against it, because Merlin knows you had always thought making people laugh for a living was a more worthwhile life ambition than the ones that Percy had, but Fred and you had to fight her every step of the way.

Causing that fat lump that Harry said was his cousin to choke on his own tongue was meant to make Harry laugh, which it did.

Making others happy, creating joy, that was more important than anything.

So when Bagman steals your money, Fred and you lose yourselves in trying to get it back, in trying to find other ways to open a shop.

"Georgie, it will be fine-" Fred says, one arm clasped warmly over your shoulders and your steps in sync, as always.

"-everything will work out just fine," you finish, sighing slightly as you and your brother walk towards the Final Task.

A few hours later, Cedric Diggory is dead and Harry's wide emerald eyes look haunted, his small frame wracked with the after effects of Crucio and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is alive again and Bagman is the least of your concerns.

It's only later when you're getting off the train and all of a sudden Harry is passing over a ridiculous amount of gold to you and Fred that you remember Freddie's words.

Doesn't everyone need a laugh? Now, more than ever.

You take the money and Fred starts plans for a shop the moment you arrive at The Burrow.

(Sometimes when you're walking somewhere with someone, their steps will unintentionally match up with yours. It's just a side effect of walking next to each other, you know, but you'll hesitate for half a step and change your stride so that it doesn't match theirs anymore. It feels wrong somehow, to match with anyone but Fred.)

Then a war begins.

And everything changes.

(You knew, you knew, that there was no way that everyone was going to come out of this alive. Ron and Harry and Hermione were in the thick of things, your entire family fighting for Dumbledore, for freedom against You-Know-Who. You weren't silly enough to think that everyone was going to come out of it alive. But you couldn't have thought that Fred would die. Never. Not without you.)

There's a year before the war really begins.

It's kind of uncomfortable, like everyone is simply holding their breath and waiting for the Dark Lord to make a move.

You make plans to open a joke shop and defy Umbridge at every turn, Fred by your side like he always is. Ron joins the Quidditch team, the two of you get kicked off the team, and Harry slices his hand open every night because he's more stubborn than any Weasley has ever been.

This isn't how your final year of Hogwarts was meant to be.

So you see no reason to stay.

Fred grins at you, that wonderfully reckless curve of the lips that you're both so famous for, and the two of you fly out of Hogwarts with no regrets.

You have a shop in Diagon Alley open within months.

The profit that you make within the first month of opening is so large, your mother stops trying to make you work at the Ministry.

(This is when things begin to change. When people begin to lose hope. Fred is unusually serious when he tells you that this is war, Georgie, of course people are going to lose hope. But we can give them laughter, and that has to help some, right?)

You knew all along that Ron was going to be in the middle of the war, but it's something different when Dumbledore dies and you see him standing by Harry and Hermione, the three of them with set faces and determined eyes.

There's really no way to know what they're planning, what Harry has to do, but you hope that he'll come to you and Fred if he needs any help.

(It wasn't that Ron was any less important to you. It was just that you worried about Harry more. He was so courageous, so determined, reckless with his life the same way you and Fred were with rules. And you didn't want to lose the one person who could tell you and Fred apart. He's still the only one that has never slipped up and called you Fred. Not once.)

You lose an ear.

It's the second difference that you and Fred have.

It hurts the same way the scar on your hip did, in a way that makes you feel like the world's falling down around you, because if you aren't interchangeable with Fred then what are you?

That night, Fred slips into your bed and curls his body around yours, identical limbs wrapping around you until you're in a cocoon of warmth and protection.

He presses a kiss to your missing ear.

"No offence, Georgie, but I don't think this should be one of our matching scars like we did when we were younger, okay?"

You laugh until you fall asleep, Fred's secure warmth all around you.

(It wasn't until three months after that that you saw Fred changing out of his robes and caught a glimpse of his right hip. There was a scar there, not too think but not too thin, and the exact length of yours. Tears fill your eyes for some inexplicable reason and you have to turn away so he doesn't see them. You guess that you had fewer differences than you thought.)

The next few months are a blur.

Harry and Hermione are out still trying to save the world when you and Fred stop by to visit Bill and find Ron at Shell Cottage.

You'd never known that Fred could yell like that, almost as loudly as mum. He berates Ron for leaving Harry alone to face everything on his own, because honestly, too many things have fallen to that boy. Then he yanks him into a hug that you join without hesitation.

"We're so happy that you're okay, Ronnie," he mutters, speaking for you.

The two of you leave after dinner and breathe a sigh of relief the next day when Bill floos to tell you that Ron left that morning.

(No one says 'we' when they're talking about you anymore. There's just you. No 'us' or 'we'. Only you. Only George.)

Then it's the final battle.

Then Harry and Ron and Hermione are back, all about ten pounds lighter and looking twice their age.

Then Percy's back and fighting with you, fighting beside you.

Then Fred is laughing.

Then Fred is dying.

Then Fred is gone.

(Nobody will say it, but everybody has thought it. You died along with Fred that day. You're not George anymore, not really, because no matter the time you took to sort FredandGeorge into Fred and George, there was still too much of you wrapped up in him. You'll hear people whisper that your twin died in the battle, that your other half died in the war. But it's more than that. He was so much more than that.)

Life is bleak after that.

Colorless.

You survive, you live even though Fred doesn't, and you can't comprehend the thought of it. You keep thinking that it will be easier, that one day you won't expect him to be there to fill in all the holes in you that he left when he died. But it never does get easier. It never changes.

You're incomplete.

(People seem to think if they don't mention it, you won't be as sad. You won't remember him as intensely. You think they're idiots.)

But people still slip up.

You're almost forty years old, and you haven't been FredandGeorge since you were twenty.

But still, people call out to you on the street, say it in the shop, sometimes your family will even do it at home.

"Fred- oh, bugger, I'm so sorry, George, I didn't mean to," they'll say, stammering out apologies. It's always some variation of the same thing. Harry hasn't ever slipped up, but he's the only one. Everyone from Hogwarts, from your family and the Order and from the joke shop, all of them still don't see you as just George.

They all still see Fred too.

(You want to hate them for it, but you can't. It's been twenty years, and you still see yourself as FredandGeorge too. You always will. You'll never just be George.)

Because the thing was, Fred had pieces of you, and you had pieces of him.

So even though parts of you died, parts of him lived.

And that's enough.

Enough to survive on, at least.

("All right there, Freddie?
"All right, George.")

A/N: So. This is my first writing for Harry Potter or about the twins. I hope that it was all right and it sounded in character, George just always seemed like the more solemn and serious twin to me and that's how he was reflected in my writing.

I'm sure this type of oneshot has been done before, but I'm still not over what J.K. Rowling did to two of my favorite characters and I just needed to write this. Speaking of. I do not own Harry Potter, and I know that the last two lines are from the movie not the book, but it was one of my favorite scenes, so I used it.

I'd love it if you'd review, but thanks for reading either way!