The Other Twin

The Burrow felt hollow now. Rain streaked the windows of George's room, each drop catching the gray light like something permanently sad. Outside, summer had turned weepy and grey, matching the boy who hadn't left his bed in eleven days.

Molly stood at the bottom of the stairs, a tray of food in her hands going cold. Sausages greasy. Toast hard. She'd tried everything—treacle tart, homemade soup, even the corned beef sandwiches that usually brought her sons running. Nothing worked. Nothing could get past that door, sealed with more than just locks.

"He won't eat," she whispered to Arthur, eyes red-rimmed. "He just lies there, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I hear him crying through the floorboards."

Arthur put a hand on her shoulder. "Give him time, love. He's been through something we don't understand."

"Then help me understand." Her voice cracked. "I'm his mother. I should know what's hurting my boy."

But Arthur had no answers. No one did.

Fred sat at the kitchen table, his spark gone. No jokes. No pranks. He'd tried everything—knocking patterns from childhood, silly voices, even crawling through the secret passage behind the wardrobe that connected their rooms. George screamed at him last time. Actually screamed, raw and tearing, like his throat was already shredded from quieter cries.

That was three days ago. Fred hadn't tried since.

"I'll take it up," Fred said now, taking the tray from his mum. His voice was flat. No mischief. "Maybe I'll just sit outside the door. Let him know someone's there."

Ron watched his brother climb the stairs, face twisted with confusion and worry. "Why won't he talk to us?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "We're his family. We're supposed to fix things."

"Some things can't be fixed overnight, Ron," Ginny said softly. She'd been quieter too, her fire banked by the sadness that had settled over the house like a fog.

Upstairs, Fred knocked on George's door. "Georgie," he said, using the nickname they'd shared since they could talk. "Mum made bangers. They're getting cold, and you know how she gets. She'll hex us both."

Silence. Then a muffled sound—maybe a sob.

Fred pressed his forehead against the wood. "Please, George. Just let me sit with you. You don't have to talk. You don't have to eat. I just need to know you're still here, yeah?"

The door cracked open. An inch. Fred caught a glimpse of his brother's face—pale, gaunt, eyes swollen, cheekbones sharp where there used to be roundness. The George he knew had hollowed out. A ghost wearing his face.

"Freddie," George whispered. The voice was wrong. Not just broken. Different. Softer, like it was escaping a cage it'd been trapped in too long.

Fred slipped through, set the tray on the cluttered desk. Books knocked over. Clothes in piles. Curtains drawn so tight no light got in. Perpetual twilight.

"I'm here," Fred said simply, opening his arms.

George collapsed into them. The sobs that followed weren't the quiet ones Fred had heard through the wall. These were full-bodied, wrenching, tearing out of somewhere deep. George's hands clutched Fred's shirt, fingernails digging in like he was afraid of falling.

"It's okay," Fred murmured, though he knew it wasn't. "I've got you. I've always got you."

They stayed like that a long time, rain drumming against the window. The cries slowly faded to wet, shuddering breaths. Fred didn't ask questions. Didn't demand explanations. He just held his twin, his other half, and let him break.

Molly found them hours later, curled together on George's bed, both asleep. The tray sat untouched. She covered them with a blanket and closed the door, heart heavy with something she couldn't name.

---

The weeks after were a slow slide into darkness.

George came out of his room sometimes, but when he did, he was a wraith. Oversized jumpers hanging loose on a frame that'd never been thin before. Sunken eyes. Mechanical movements, like he was operating a body that wasn't his.

The family noticed. Of course they did. Bill came home from Egypt on emergency leave he wouldn't explain. Charlie arrived on a dragon's back, face creased with worry. Percy set aside Ministry work to sit awkwardly in the living room, offering stilted conversation nobody wanted.

Ron became George's shadow. He followed him around, watching with a protectiveness that surprised everyone. When George stumbled in the garden, Ron was there. When George stared blankly at the kitchen table, Ron sat beside him, eating his own breakfast in sympathetic silence.

"Leave him alone," Ron snapped at Ginny when she tried to get George to play Exploding Snap. "Can't you see he doesn't want to?"

Ginny's eyes flashed, but she backed off. The tension in the house was like a living thing, breathing between them all.

It was Molly who found the scars.

She'd been collecting laundry—a mundane task. Ritual. Something to do with her hands while her mind worried. She picked up George's jumper from the bathroom floor and froze.

The sleeves were stained. Not with food or dirt, but something rust-colored and old. She turned it over, fingers trembling, and saw the pattern of cuts on the inside of the forearm. Thin lines, parallel and deliberate, like a terrible map.

Molly Weasley had given birth to seven children. She'd nursed them through dragon pox, broken bones, hex-induced fevers. She'd watched her sons fight in a war. But nothing had prepared her for the sight of her child's blood dried into a favorite sweater.

She didn't scream. Didn't cry. She folded the jumper carefully and walked to Arthur's shed, where she sat down and let the tears come in silence.

Arthur found her an hour later, the jumper clutched to her chest like a sacred thing.

"We need to help him," she said, voice breaking. "Arthur, we need to help our boy."

Arthur held her, his own eyes wet. "I know. I'll talk to him. Tonight."

---

The talk never happened.

Two days later, Fred found George in the bathroom. The door was unlocked, and Fred knocked and pushed it open when he heard a strange humming sound. It was the same humming that'd haunted his dreams for weeks—like their mum's wand charging for cleaning charms, but darker. Sharper. Wrong.

George stood before the mirror, wand raised. His reflection stared back with hollow eyes. His lips moved, words Fred couldn't hear over the rushing in his ears.

Then he saw the wand positioning. The angle. The intent.

"Avada Kedavra," George whispered, and green light gathered at the tip of his wand.

Fred lunged. He crashed into George, sending them both sprawling across the tile floor. The curse discharged into the ceiling, scorching plaster, raining dust. George struggled beneath him—not fighting, but trembling so hard Fred thought his bones might shake apart.

"Let me go," George begged, voice thin and reedy. "Please, Freddie. Please. I can't—I can't keep—"

"No." Fred's voice was steel wrapped in terror. "No, George. You don't get to do this. You don't get to leave me."

Arthur burst through the door, wand drawn. He saw his son on the floor, his other son holding him down, the scorched ceiling, the smell of dark magic in the air. He understood.

"Oh, my boy," he breathed, dropping to his knees. "Oh, my sweet boy."

The dam broke.

George sobbed like a hurricane. His body convulsed as Arthur gathered him into his arms. Fred held on, refusing to let go, tears streaming down his own face.

"I want to die," George choked out. "I want to die, Dad. I can't be what everyone wants me to be. I can't be George. I've never been George. Every time someone says that name, it cuts me. Every time I see myself in the mirror, I see a stranger wearing a face that should be mine but isn't. I'm not—I'm not—"

He stopped, gasping. The words caught in his throat like barbed wire.

Arthur's hands were gentle on his son's face, wiping tears, smoothing back damp hair. "Tell me," he said softly. "Tell me who you are. I'm listening."

George looked at him. Really looked. And in that gaze was years of pain, years of hiding, years of wanting to scream the truth and having no voice.

"I'm Georgina," he whispered. "I'm a girl, Dad. I've always been a girl. And I'm so tired of pretending I'm not."

The bathroom fell silent. The rain had stopped. The world held its breath.

Arthur looked at his child—his daughter—and saw the truth in her eyes. He saw the misery that had been eating her alive. He saw the courage it had taken to speak those words. And he saw, for the first time, the person she'd been trying to become.

"Georgina," he said, testing the name. It felt right. Like coming home. "My daughter. My beautiful daughter."

Georgina collapsed against him, spent, hollowed out, but finally free. And Arthur held her as the rest of the family gathered in the doorway, watching, learning, beginning to understand.

---

The acceptance wasn't immediate. It was a process—slow and painful, like healing a wound that'd festered for years. Molly cried, but they weren't tears of rejection. They were relief, understanding, grief for the years her daughter had suffered in silence. She started using Georgina's name right away, correcting herself when she slipped, making an effort that meant more than grand gestures.

Ron's protectiveness shifted into something new. He stood taller around his sister, wand hand always ready. When their Uncle Ignatius made a snide comment at dinner, Ron's hex sent him fleeing from the Burrow with his trousers on fire. Arthur pretended not to notice. Molly's lips twitched.

Bill and Charlie wrote letters—clumsy but sincere. Percy sent a book on Transfiguration theory with a note: "I don't pretend to understand everything, but I understand you're my sibling and I love you." It was the most emotionally articulate thing Percy had ever written.

But it was Fred who transformed.

He became Georgina's shadow, but not like Ron had been. Fred's protectiveness was fierce, almost feral. He watched the world through narrowed eyes, cataloging every potential threat. He hexed neighbors for staring too long. He jinxed the mail owl for delivering a letter with "Mr. Weasley" on the envelope. He stood between Georgina and anyone who looked at her wrong.

"You don't have to do this," Georgina told him one evening, sitting on the roof of the Burrow, watching stars emerge from behind clouds. "I can fight my own battles."

Fred shook his head. "These aren't battles, Georgie. They're wars. And wars are fought together. You and me. Like it's always been."

She leaned into him, head on his shoulder, and for the first time in months felt something like peace. "Like it's always been."

"I should have known," Fred said quietly. "I should have seen it. We're twins, Georgie. I know everything about you. I knew you were hurting. I just didn't know why, and I—"

"Stop." She interrupted. "You couldn't have known. I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how to tell anyone."

"I would have loved you anyway," he said fiercely. "I do love you. You're my twin. You're my sister. And anyone who has a problem with that can answer to me."

She smiled. A real smile. The first in forever. "I know. That's why I told you first."

"No, you didn't." Fred bumped her shoulder. "You told Dad first."

"You were there."

"That doesn't count."

They laughed. The sound was strange and wonderful, echoing across the fields. Inside, Molly heard them and started crying again—but this time, happy tears.

---

Returning to Hogwarts was terrifying.

Georgina had chosen her name, her true name, and told Professor McGonagall before term. The Headmistress was unexpectedly kind, promising support, safety, arrangements. But kindness from authority couldn't shield her from hundreds of curious stares.

The train ride was the worst. Georgina sat in a compartment with Fred, Ginny, Hermione, Harry, feeling the eyes of passing students like physical weight. Some stared openly. Others whispered behind their hands. A few made cruel comments that carried through the corridor like poison.

Fred was on his feet before she could stop him.

He cornered a Slytherin boy who'd called her something vile, wand pressed against his throat, voice low and deadly. "Say that again. Go on. I dare you. I double dare you."

The boy stammered an apology. Fred held the position a long moment, then shoved him away. "Keep walking. And keep your mouth shut."

When he came back, his hands were shaking. Georgina reached out and took one.

"You can't hex everyone who looks at me wrong," she said gently.

"Watch me."

"Freddie—"

"I mean it." No humor in his voice. None. "You're my sister. And I will destroy anyone who tries to hurt you. I don't care if it's a first-year or a professor or the bloody Minister of Magic. You are *mine*, and I protect what's mine."

Ginny stared at her siblings with something like awe. She'd always known Fred was fierce, but this was something else. A devotion that bordered on obsession. A love so deep and protective it seemed to reshape the air around them.

"Alright," Georgina whispered, squeezing his hand. "Alright. But maybe try some lighter hexes first. The dungbomb approach, yeah?"

Fred's grin was sharp and dangerous. "Yeah. I can do that."

---

Hogwarts proved to be a battlefield, but Georgina found more allies than she expected.

Harry and Hermione were steadfast—treated her no differently, just used her new name and pronouns without hesitation. Neville Longbottom, now profoundly tall and confident, offered her a spot in the Herbology club. Luna Lovegood gave her a necklace of corks that was supposed to ward off negative energy and attract friendly nargles.

Professor McGonagall made an announcement at the start-of-term feast. "Miss Georgina Weasley will be known by her chosen name and treated with the respect she deserves," she said, voice brooking no argument. "Anyone found harassing her will face serious consequences."

The Slytherin table muttered. The Gryffindor table cheered. And Georgina, sitting between Fred and Ginny, felt something warm and unfamiliar bloom in her chest. It took her a moment to recognize it.

Hope.

But Fred's protectiveness only grew. He hexed a Ravenclaw boy who stared too long at breakfast. He jinxed a Hufflepuff girl's books to sing rude songs whenever she opened them after a snide remark. He cursed a Slytherin prefect's hair pink and sprouting tentacles after the boy deliberately misgendered Georgina.

"Fred," McGonagall sighed after the third incident. "You cannot hex half the school."

"Watch me," Fred replied, and the Headmistress hid a smile behind her hand.

It was Ginny who noticed something strange. She watched Fred with Georgina, saw how he positioned himself between her and anyone who came too close, saw how he anticipated her needs before she voiced them, saw how he looked at her—not with the exasperated affection he showed his other siblings, but something deeper. Almost reverent.

"You're treating her differently," Ginny said one night, cornering him in the common room. "Different than you treat me. Different than you treat Ron."

Fred looked at her, and for a moment his guard dropped. "She's not like you. You're strong, Gin. You've always known who you are. Fire in your blood, steel in your spine. But Georgie... she's been fighting a war nobody could see. Drowning in silence. And I didn't know. I didn't see it. I failed her."

"You didn't fail her," Ginny said softly.

"I did. But I'm not going to fail her again. She's not just my sister, Gin. She's my twin. Half my soul. If she hurts, I hurt. If she's lost, I'm lost. And I will die before I let anyone take her light away again."

Ginny studied him, seeing him clearly for the first time in months. "You love her," she said. "Not like a brother. Like... like she's part of you."

"We're twins," Fred said simply. "We always have been. But now I finally know who my twin really is. And her name is Georgina."

---

The year passed.

Georgina grew stronger. She started wearing her hair longer, experimenting with clothes that felt right, speaking with a voice that grew more confident each day. She found friends in unexpected places—a quiet Ravenclaw girl who shared her love of astronomy, a Hufflepuff boy who never asked questions, a group of students who just accepted her.

And through it all, Fred was there.

He sat with her in the library, head on her shoulder while she studied. He walked her to classes, hand on her back, a warning in his eyes for anyone who stared. He stood outside the girls' bathroom when she was inside, waiting, always waiting. A guardian angel with a trickster's grin.

"You don't have to do this," she told him again, and again.

"I want to," he replied, and that was the end of it.

One night near the end of the school year, they sat on the Astronomy Tower, watching stars wheel overhead. Georgina had her knees drawn up to her chest, chin on them.

"I used to think I was broken," she said quietly. "That there was something wrong with me. That if I just tried harder, I could be the person everyone wanted me to be."

Fred didn't interrupt. Just listened.

"But I'm not broken. I'm just different. And that's okay. Because I have you. I have Mum and Dad and Ron and Ginny. People who love me for who I am, not for who they want me to be."

"Damn right you do," Fred said. "And anyone who says otherwise answers to me."

She laughed, clear and bright in the night air. "I know. You've made that abundantly clear."

"Just making sure."

They sat in comfortable silence. Then Georgina turned to him, eyes shining. "Thank you, Freddie. For believing in me. For seeing me. For not giving up."

Fred reached out and took her hand. "I'll always see you, Georgie. You're my twin. My sister. My other half. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

She leaned into him, and he wrapped his arm around her, holding her close. The stars above seemed brighter than before, scattered across the velvet sky like diamonds on black silk. And for the first time in her life, Georgina Weasley felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Home. Safe. Herself.

And she knew, with absolute certainty, that she'd never have to face the darkness alone again.