Gred and Forge - The Price of Freedom

It's a fact of life. Freedom doesn't come free. Or cheap. If George even once thought his ear was a high price for freedom, he didn't anymore.

It felt surreal, in the worst possible way... it felt like it wasn't another person that was lying there, but half of himself. "Wake up," he wanted to say, but the words caught in his throat as tears trailed down his face, wild and unstoppable.

"Freddie... Freddie..." he murmured, his voice choked and unrecognizeable.

He leaned over his twin, hands fisted in Fred's shirt as if he were silently willing his brother to sit up and say: "Fooled ya!"

No such thing happened...

George felt more than saw his family gathering around. They were all in mourning and they were all trying to comfort each other. If someone laid their hand on George's shoulder, he didn't feel it. All he could feel were his own sobs and his brother's name being repeated over and over. He couldn't tell if he were the one saying it or if it was his family or their friends.

"Freddie..." he said again, voice so quiet that he himself could hardly hear it.

Freedom just isn't free. Anyone who says otherwise has never experienced the price of freedom, has never lost someone in the cause for freedom. George knew, rather well, that Freedom's price was one of the highest prices one would encounter in life, if not the highest.

"George..." Arthur Weasley said quietly, a hand on either of the living twin's shoulders, "We're going to... move him to the Great Hall, now..." he was saying, sounding weary and sad.

George clenched his fists tighter, keeping a firm grip on Fred's shirt. "H-he'll be up any moment now..." he muttered, "We still have to... have to..." he closed his eyes, letting more tears stream down his face. Hadn't he cried them all already? He wondered where the water for all his tears were coming from.

"George... Fred isn't going to wake up..." Molly said carefully, quietly.

George let go of Fred's shirt and stood up shakily, "H-he will," he said, as if trying to assure his mother. "He... has to, you see... w-we have a big party to plan, you see... w-we won, you see..."

Percy and Arthur set to lifting Fred, who still bore that ghost of a laugh on his paling face. George turned away, covering his face with both hands and leaning heavily against the corridor wall. "We were supposed to do everything together..." he said in a whisper.

George couldn't remember the rest of the day. All he knew was that he spent all that morning, all that afternoon, all that evening, and all that night... just trying to wake up, having convinced himself that this was a nightmare. The battle hadn't even begun yet, he kept telling himself.

This was the price of freedom. Frankly... George wanted a refund.