"Cake."

Several pairs of eyes shifted toward the girl in the far corner of the room and the aqua haired infant slung across her hip. His tiny fingers entwined a strand of her thick, fiery hair as he again implored, "Cake."

Ginny Weasley hesitantly glanced toward the table holding the confection that had ensnared little Teddy Lupin's attention. It was a sumptuous, three-tiered number, with smooth buttercream frosting and bright, carefully piped pennants. Twenty-one candles stuck out from the top, uniformly flashing through the color spectrum as they waited to be lit.

She swiped her index finger across a stray, unnoticed dollop of frosting on the back end of the cake board, and dropped it onto the bow of Teddy's lip. He gave a squeal of delight as he stuck out his tongue to taste it.

"Go on and cut him a small piece, dear. There's no sense in making him wait."

Molly had turned from the window to watch them, her eyes pink and glassy, the corners of her mouth upturned into a mostly forced smile. Her fingers clenched at the front of her hand-sewn apron, further wrinkling the red and yellow apple printed fabric.

"Mum, it's only half-seven. He could just be running late."

From her seat at the table in front of him, Fleur Weasley raised her hand to clutch her husband's as he spoke, which rested gently upon her shoulder. Bill tilted his gaze toward her. The knowledge that she was carrying their first child was so new that it was still a secret kept between just the two of them. Still, he could already see the change in his wife. The soft, pearly glow that seemed to eminate from her already luminescent skin.

Bill held fast to the hope that his brother would show. He and Fleur had already discussed the plan to have him over for lunch the approaching weekend. They would ask him together to godparent their future son or daughter, and only after would they share the news with the rest of the family.

"I'm not so sure a celebration was the best idea, anyhow. I just... I only wanted for him to-- well, you've all been very kind to wait," Molly spoke softly, her eyes roaming the overly-crowded room. Easter had come late that year, extending the holidays into the first of April. This afforded Hermione's presence, who stood silently against the wall, her head resting against the shoulder of Molly's youngest son.

And Ginny's -- her beautiful, ever-brave daughter, who bounced the semi-placated Teddy in her arms, Harry standing close behind.

There were others who she didn't really even know. People whose faces she recognized vaguely, but couldn't quite attach a name to them. Maybe she'd met them several times before, but it had been a tumultuous year, and she just couldn't remember.

There were so many people, in fact, that they spilled into multiple rooms of the house. So many that the sudden disappearance of the tall, slender woman with long swinging braids went virtually unnoticed by anyone.

"We'll wait a bit more," Arthur Weasley said, squeezing his wife's hand as he spoke, "and then I'll go looking for him."

"I'll go with you, Mr. Weasley."

Again, Molly's eyes fell upon Harry. Harry, who had suffered more loss in his short life than most people would ever encounter. For a moment, his penetrating green eyes held hers, and her heart swelled with the reassurance offered in them.

"We have already lost one son," she said to no one in particular, but turning to her husband as she hastily blinked away her tears, "I will not lose another."

***

The local cemetery was set just outside the village of Ottery St. Catchpole -- beyond Stoatshead Hill where the land dipped into a green, fertile soiled valley traversed by a glittering ribbon of blue river.

Like the village, the cemetery was small and modest, the resting ground for Wizards and Muggles alike. Death made all equal.

The ground was bisected by one main, cobbled path, which served as a literal timeline through the plot. The more ancient, crumbling headstones visible from the iron gates that contained them. Moss covered stone and patinated metal statues of angels and winged creatures peppered this section, guarding their eldest occupants.

Farther along, the headstones became more generic in shape, carved from luminescent limestone and marble and black granite that glimmered in the rising moonlight. Some contained depictions of the person whom they were dedicated to, others colorful renderings of promised lands. In lieu of ornate statues stood small trees and flowering bushes, and stone benches that could seat living mourners.

It was precisely on one of those benches, situated in the north corner of the cemetary, that she found him.

"I thought you would be here."

George Weasley, too lost in his own thoughts to hear her approach, flinched as he turned toward her voice. Squinting at her through the misting rain, it took him moment to speak.

"Ange--" he said finally, scrambling from his position on the bench, foregoing dusting off the slivers of grass that clung to his robes as he enveloped her into a hug, "Hi."

There was something needy about the way he clung to her-- desperate, even. It made her chest tighten. Angelina squeezed him hard and buried her face into the shoulder of his robes. He smelled of the damp earth that surrounded them.

"You look good," he croaked, voice weak from disuse, as they separated.

Slowly, she took in his own appearance, uncomfortably pausing at the bags beneath his eyes and the almost gaunt-like hollowness of his cheeks. Her immediate reaction was to frown, but she refrained, returning his small smile instead.

"I haven't seen one of these on you," she said, placing a hand against his whisker-covered jaw, "since you tried putting your name into the Goblet of Fire." Briefly she stroked her fingers against the scrubbiness, then dropped her hand. "This one is a little better suited to you. Ruggedly handsome."

He smiled, though it was only a ghost of the one she had once been accustomed to seeing from him. This one didn't quite touch his eyes.

He returned to the bench, holding an arm out in gesture for her to take the empty space beside him.

"You were invited to the party, then?" he asked as she sat. Angelina lifted her eyebrows in question. She'd been under the impression that George was only aware of a family dinner-- the presence of his friends meant as a surprise to lift his spirits.

"I think Ron may be on the wrong career path," George answered, "he is incredibly transparent."

A quiet chuckle of acknowledgement escaped her lips. "If you knew about it, then why aren't you there?"

For a moment George remained quiet, silently tearing at clumps of grass he'd plucked from the lawn beneath their feet. Then he sighed, "Dunno. Not much up for a party, for starters. And I know when I get there everyone'll treat me the same. They'll hug me, try and make me laugh. But the whole time they'll be staring at me. The same exact way, all of them-- like they're afraid any moment I'm going to do something crazy," George hesitated, peering up at Angelina through his lashes before adding, "Like you are now."

Angelina blinked, and looked away. She would readily admit that it unnerved her, seeing her friend so destitute. Her eyes fell onto the limestone marker of Fred's grave. She'd only ever seen it once before, when she'd stood admist a throng of mourners.

The sun had been so bright that day she'd had to squint through the duration of the funeral. She remembered the surrealness of it all vividly. A war hero, Fred had been called. And Angelina had realized, with a heart-jolting shock, that it was true.

Molly had declined the offer to have him buried alongside others who had lost their lives in the Battle, in a to-be-erected memorial just outside the all-Wizard village of Hogsmeade. He needed to be closer to his family, she had said. What she had meant was that she had needed him to be closer to her, close enough for her to make a daily pilgrimage to where he lie.

It bothered Angelina now, the morbid realization that just below their feet Fred's body rested. She shivered.

"I'm not afraid you'll do something crazy, George," she said finally, turning her eyes back to him, "I'm worried about you."

"Everyone is."

"Sometimes I make it through a day where you're all I think about. I have to go through Harry if I want to know how you're doing because you've ignored my letters for nearly an entire year. Merlin only knows how many I've written you--"

"Forty-three."

This gave her pause. Angelina tilted her head and asked, bemused, "What?"

"You've written me forty-three letters since May of last year," George answered, "I've read them all. Still have every one."

Even as a child, Angelina Johnson had a stoic nature. She came by it honest from her father, a broad-chested, quiet man who rarely ever uttered the 'L' word. So when her deep chestnut eyes began to well with tears, sheer will kept them from falling.

"Why didn't you answer any of them?" She held her eyes resolutely open, all the while George held her gaze.

"This past Christmas," he began after a pregnant pause, "Mum accidentally called me Fred while I was helping her clear up after supper. She didn't mean to, it was a natural mistake. Happened all the time before he died. This one was different. For days after, she could hardly look at me."

"She was afraid she'd upset you?"

He shook his head, "A bit, maybe. But I think it was something else, too. I think when you lose someone, time affords you the luxury of forgetting the small details about them. Eventually, you get to the point where you only remember vaguely what their voice sounded like, or you forget the exact details of their face. And you think that's terrible-- that you should feel guilty over it. In reality your mind is doing you a favor. Coping-- allowing you to move on. But it isn't like that with us. It's difficult for everyone to move on when I'm around. That's why I never answered your letters. I wanted to, Angelina, really I did. But I thought it would hurt you too much to be around me, because you would see Fred, too. And I didn't want to be responsible for that."

He made to look away, but Angelina caught him by the chin. She ran her fingers along the side of his jaw, up past the spot where his ear had once been, combing them through his tangled, chin-length locks.

Her relationship with both of them had never been anything more than platonic. It was rumoured to be more after the year of the Triwizard Tournament, when she'd attended the Yule Ball with Fred. But like her, he'd only been looking for a night with someone who wasn't afraid to have fun. A no-pressure good time was all they'd had; when he'd placed a chaste kiss on her cheek at the end of the night, Angelina had playfully slapped him on the shoulder, telling him he should make the effort to be so virtuous more often. They'd never shared anything more than that.

George searched her eyes as she touched him. His own were fearful-- afraid perhaps that she would find truth in his words. That she would look at him and only see his dead brother. Still, he leaned into her touch like it was something he desperately needed.

"Oh George," she sighed, "I see you." She touched her forehead against his own, and then her nose to his nose before finally, feather soft, her lips against his. They were warm, despite the chill of the mist. He held her face in his hands, his fingers rough and calloused from years of wielding a Beater's bat and experimenting with unknown, unregulated magic.

They lingered there for what could have been seconds or minutes. Hours or days. The tears that had threatened to spill from her eyes earlier fell freely, and upon their separation George wiped them away carefully, ignoring the ones in his own. This made Angelina weep harder, and George pulled her body against his own and held her there, allowing her to cry.

"You were always Fred and George, yes," she said finally, between diminishing sobs, "But it was because you were always together, not because you were the same people. You are very similar in a lot of ways, I would be lying if I said you aren't, but you are two separate people."

"We're identical."

She pulled away from him and shook her head, "You were always George to me, he was always Fred. And Fred could be crude-- I'm not saying it was a bad thing, nor am I speaking ill of him, because Merlin knows I loved him the way I love all of my friends, but he could be. You never were. But you were easier to rile," hesitantly she smiled, "Remember the time you slugged the Malfoy boy on the Quidditch pitch? Although Katie, Alicia and I did have to restrain Fred. He never let us forget that, you know-- holding him back from a fight."

George let out a soft chuckle as his mind returned to his final, unfinished year at Hogwarts, "I only got to him because Harry was the one holding me back. Until he decided he wanted to hit him just as badly as I did."

"I suppose I should have seen it coming," she admitted, "It took me a while to forgive the three of you from getting booted off the team. In reality, I wanted to slug the snotty little git along with you."

She grasped his hand and squeezed it, again leaning her head against his own. George draped his free arm across her shoulders and pulled her tightly into him.

"Everyone loves you both," she said, "but they love you as individuals-- myself included. A lot of things about you remind me of Fred. But there is something about every one of your family members that remind me of him. And it's okay, because it's good to be reminded of someone you love."

"I wasn't ready to spend a birthday without him," he said.

"You weren't going to find him here. He's at the Burrow. Just look at Ginny and her stubbornness, or Ron's loyalty. Percy's devotion to family. I don't know Charlie very well, but--"

"He has a really inappropriate sense of humour," George finished for her. Angelina smiled, "Bill?" she asked.

"Bill can win an arguement with nearly anyone. Really persuasive."

"And your dad-- Fred certainly inherited his curiosity from him..."

"Mum always needs to make everyone happy."

"See?" she said, "Every one of them has something of Fred's. He's not this--" she waved an arm in front of her, toward the limestone marker, "this cold, monumental thing. This little dash separating two dates. He's part of you all. If you want to spend your birthday with him, then you need to be with them. People who love you both more than you could ever imagine. We all miss him, too, George. We don't want to miss you as well."

"I'm sorry," he told her, "that it has been so long."

Angelina sighed, "Better late than never."

He paused for a moment, and a flicker of grin touched his lips, "Boy, that's something you definitely wouldn't have said a few years ago."

He didn't have to elaborate, she knew exactly what he meant. 'Tyranny' Fred and George had called her stint as Quidditch captain, often teasing that she had surpassed Wood in irrationality.

Angelina nearly laughed. For a moment, the familiar teasing lilt to his voice had returned, and it made her heart feel weightless, "I'm much different than I was a few years ago."

George looked thoughtful, "So'm I."

He pressed his lips against her temple. "Thank you," he whispered. Releasing his grip on her, he stood from the bench and brushed away the damp grass that clung to his robes. Angelina watched him, and he held out a hand to help her up.

"Do you think they're all still waiting?" he asked as she stood.

Angelina grinned, "Something tells me your mum would wait forever."

George nodded and gave a tentative smile as he let out a breath. "All right, then I need to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"How is my surprised face?" He dropped his mouth into an exaggerated O, raising his eyebrows so high that they disappeared into his hair.

His attempt at humor made her laugh. "Terrible," Angelina said, "But I suppose some things never change."

George dropped his eyebrows, his mouth falling into a curious frown, "I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that."

Angelina rolled her eyes. She drew a breath and, in an exaggerated baritone that was clearly meant to mimic him, said, "Oh-- pardon us ladies. We were unaware the changing rooms were occupied."

George laced his fingers with hers and answered, unflinchingly, "In our defense, you were all more or less clothed."

"And we got you back, too, remember? Stealing your clothes while you were in the showers. I don't think I've ever seen anyone run as fast as Lee did that night. If Quidditch were a ground sport, I would have appointed him on the spot."

George barked a laugh, and for a moment the light touched his eyes. Muttering something along the lines of hormones and healthy curiosity, he drew her closely into him. Hand in hand they turned, apparating on the spot.