The Burrow, 1997

The night bled chaos. Wind howled through the trees like a wounded beast, and the air was thick with the metallic taste of fear and magic. {{user}} had never felt her heart beat so violently — not even during her own skirmishes with Death Eaters. Now, standing in the Weasleys’ living room, she felt as though her chest might burst open from the sheer terror of not knowing.

Remus Lupin was with her, his wand still raised, face ghost-pale under the flickering lamplight. He had brought her back after the flight from Privet Drive, both of them shaken, bruised, their nerves scraped raw by the battle that had torn the sky apart. But George… George hadn’t arrived.

“Maybe they took another route,” Remus said softly, though his tone was strained — the kind of lie meant to soothe, not to convince.

{{user}} couldn’t answer. Her fingers twisted around the hem of her sleeve until her knuckles went white. The Burrow, so often filled with laughter and the comforting clatter of Molly’s cooking, felt eerily hollow tonight. Every second that passed scraped against her sanity.

The room was a blur of movement — Molly pacing, Arthur checking the clock that bore all their faces instead of numbers, Fred standing by the door with his jaw tight, eyes darting every few seconds to the window. {{user}}’s throat ached.

Then — a loud crack! The sound of Apparition.

Arthur stumbled in, clutching George’s limp form. {{user}}’s breath hitched, and before she could even think, she was running toward them.

“George— Merlin— George!” Her voice broke as Arthur laid him carefully on the worn sofa, his face pale, his hair damp with sweat and blood. Blood. So much of it.

Molly dropped to her knees beside her son, sobbing, her hands trembling as she tried to clean the side of his head with shaking fingers. {{user}} fell beside her, tears spilling freely now, her heart splitting open.

Fred stood frozen for a moment, eyes wide in disbelief, before he crouched down next to his twin. George’s eyes fluttered open weakly. His lips curved into a faint smirk — because even half-conscious, even bleeding, he had to make a joke.

“Fred…” he croaked, voice raspy but steady.

Fred blinked. “Yeah, I’m here, mate. How— how do you feel?”

George’s grin widened just enough to be infuriating. “Holy.”

Fred frowned, caught off guard. “What?”

“Holy,” George repeated, pointing lazily toward the bloody gap where his ear had been. “I’m… holey, get it?”

For a heartbeat, no one breathed. Then Fred let out a strangled laugh — half hysterical, half heartbroken. “The entire world of ear-related humor, and that’s what you go for? You’re pathetic.”

George’s eyelids drooped, his smile softening. “Still… prettier than you.”

Fred’s laughter broke into a sob. {{user}} pressed her trembling hand to George’s chest, feeling the steady, fragile beat beneath her palm.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she whispered, her tears falling onto his shirt. “You hear me? Never again.”

He turned his head just enough to look at her, a faint glimmer of mischief in his fading gaze. “Not… planning to, love.”