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Challenges at the bottom.

Word Count - 703

Lighter

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."

George felt, rather than heard, Harry sit down beside him. He paid him no mind, his eyes still on the sea stretched out in front of him. He'd been staying with Bill and Fleur at Shell Cottage for a little over a week.

His mother's suggestion.

George hadn't had the energy to argue with her.

"You're bleeding."

George blinked, looking down at his hand. Sure enough, blood was blooming up over a graze. He must have rubbed his hand too hard against the rock he was sitting on.

"What are you doing here, Harry?"

Harry shrugged. "I thought you might like some company. It's a beautiful night."

"I'm good on my own."

"Did I say any different?"

George rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. One of my siblings, probably Ron, told you that nobody can talk to me, and so he asked you to take a turn."

Harry snorted. "Spot on."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

"I'm alive aren't I?"

Shrugging, Harry turned to look at him, his green eyes appearing brighter in the moonlight.

"You're not dead. But I'm not sure you're alive either. Not really."

George winced. That his closer to home that he needed. "Back off, Harry," he whispered.

"It's okay to not be okay," Harry replied quietly.

"Tell the others that," George muttered, kicking at the floor. "It's only been a year. They're all waiting for me to go back to normal, to start making jokes and being the life and soul. Why does nobody understand that we were twins? He is half of my life and soul."

"So get a new normal," Harry offered. "I'm not the same. Nobody is. You just have to get used to the new way of life, rather than trying to go back to the old one."

George's eyes filled with angry tears. "I want to go back to the old one. I want it to be the way it used to be, when my twin was sitting beside me instead of you. I want my old normal." He shook his head. "It burns, Harry. All the time, it burns because I need him and he isn't there and I don't know how to be without him."

Harry squeezed George's shoulder.

"I'll never be able to understand how you feel, nobody will, but you have to know that Fred wouldn't want this for you."

George laughed humorlessly. "He said, once, when we were kids, that he wanted to die the day before me so that he didn't have to live without me. He never wanted to know this feeling. He never wanted to know how this hell feels."

George shook his head.

"I'm so lonely, Harry. All the time."

"I can empathise with that. I remember, in the weeks after, I felt like I was falling. Just one long fall that was never ending. And I just wanted to land. I hadn't expected to live. That's not what I expected to happen, and I didn't have the first clue what to do when I was still alive at the end of it."

"How… how did you get your feet back on the ground?"

Harry sighed. "Some days, I still feel like I'm falling. But the good days, they're coming more and more as time passes. Let yourself grieve, George. Let yourself miss him and let yourself be angry. Rage and cry and scream, but that burn that you're feeling? That's the emotion that you won't let go and if you're ever going to have some semblance of life, you need to let it out. Otherwise… otherwise it'll consume you."

George let his tears fall as he collapsed into Harry, feeling warm arms surround him. He was cold, freezing even, and he hadn't noticed.

Harry rocked him slowly, murmuring quiet sentiments occasionally into the quiet night.

George didn't know how long they sat there, but when Harry eventually helped him to his feet, George couldn't help but notice that he felt lighter.

Not better. Not by a long shot.

But lighter.

And maybe that was a good start.

Written for;

Character Appreciation - 39. Twins

Disney - Q4. If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.

Book Club - Laura Moon

Showtime - 18. Angst

Days of the Month - Sibling Day - Write about Siblings

Buttons - D5. "Back off." / C1. Harry Potter / W5. Burn

Ami's Audio Admirations - 5. Fall

Easter Bingo - 24. "That's not what I expected to happen."

Easter Basket - Scissors - Getting hurt, emotionally or physically.

Easter Guess the Name - Chick 17; Amigo - George

Auction - Lonely

Scavenger Hunt - 4. One of the Weasley Twins