“…And that’s how I saved Christmas!” Meg concluded, grinning, making George laugh riotously at her story. He was rather pleased with how things had been going so far on their date; it hadn’t been as awkward as he had feared, but neither had it been particularly romantic. In fact, he was hardly sure this even qualified as a date. As of this moment, they were almost friends, which suited George just fine.

Angelina came walking up to the pair of them, seating herself down next to Meg in the sand. “Hello, you two,” she said brightly. “You haven’t seen where Fred went, have you?”

“Er… no,” Meg said, looking around the beach. “Maybe he…”

But she was cut off by a faint yelling coming from the ocean. “Help! Help!!” They all peered off into the distance, and George felt his blood run cold as he spotted a vivid red head far out to sea, disappearing between the waves –

“FRED!!” George yelled, pulling off his shoes so he could swim out. “Hold on, I’m coming!” Behind him, Angelina was crying, “What? What’s going on?” and Meg had already dove in the water, swimming hard toward the place where Fred had vanished.

George paddled frantically, trying to get out to his brother. Why had he ever suggested this outing? He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he had said it; he had been at a loss for something to do with Meg… and now look what his stupidity had gotten Fred into. A million things could have gone wrong with this trip; instead of thinking about what Meg might like to do, he should have been thinking about ways to spend time with Fred that weren’t likely to end in this sort of… life-threatening accident (he refused to think of it as fatal, not when he had no proof Fred wasn’t still alive). He kept swimming as hard as he could, praying that he hadn’t just gotten his brother killed.

Meg was a faster swimmer than George was, and she had dived down to get Fred even as George was still struggling to get that far out. He arrived just as she surfaced, gasping for breath and dragging Fred behind her by his hair. “Is he all right?” George yelled over the sound of the waves.

“I don’t know!” she said, almost as terrified as he was. “I don’t think he’s breathing!” Fear gripped George’s stomach tightly, but he couldn’t let it take over; they had to get his brother back to shore to try and save his life… even if the chances were incredibly slim. He helped her take Fred back to shore, both of them gripping one of his arms tightly and swimming as quickly as they could; they didn’t have a moment to waste.

As they got nearer, Angelina, her eyes wide with terror, ran out to help them carry Fred to the beach, where they laid him flat on his back to try and revive him. “Oh my God!” she sobbed, while Meg tried to search for a pulse. “Oh my God, what happened to him?”

“He got dragged underwater by the current,” she said, out of breath, as she tilted Fred’s head back and blew two breaths into his mouth. “I can’t find a pulse!” she continued, starting to compress his chest.

George watched, helpless, as this girl he hadn’t known until today tried to save the person he cared about most in the world. Angelina, her hands covering her mouth, said, “What do we do? How are we…?”

“Angelina, you’ve got to go get help,” Meg said, still trying to find a pulse. “Can you…”

“I’ll go find a Healer,” Angelina said, nodding feverishly as she Disapparated to the nearest Wizarding hospital.

“Did it work?” George asked Meg anxiously, as she tilted his head back once more to check for breathing. She shook her head, her brow furrowed with concentration as she began another round of CPR. George watched anxiously; but as he knelt by Fred’s head, all he could think about were Fred’s words to him earlier that morning.

Maybe you’re supposed to do me in today, then!

“No…” George moaned, unable to tear his eyes away from Fred’s face. “No… please… please don’t let that be true!” He grabbed Fred by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Fred, listen to me! Listen! You can’t leave me here… please don’t let this be my fault… are you listening? You – cannot – leave!” He waited, horrorstruck, for his twin to show some sign of life… a sign that, as the minutes passed, seemed more and more unlikely to manifest itself.

---

“The patient seems to be suffering from delusions, Healer Shepherd,” said the trainee Healer, looking down at Percy’s unconscious form. “He seems to think that he’s meant to help save someone’s life… someone who’s in danger…”

“Whether or not that person is really in danger is irrelevant,” said Healer Shepherd indifferently, waving his wand over Percy’s skull in a complicated fashion, performing Legilimency as a sort of diagnostic test. “All that matters is figuring out how to stop him from…”

He froze in disbelief as Legilimency showed him Percy’s visions, and he came to comprehend their implications. It was impossible… and yet…

“What is it?” asked Healer Grey anxiously. Healer Shepherd turned towards her.

“He’s telling the truth,” he said numbly. “He’s been seeing the future… and all this time, he’s been trying to stop his brother from being killed.”

“He’s not crazy?” Healer Grey gasped. “But then, I guess we should discharge him, if he hasn’t really lost his mind…”

“We can’t,” said Healer Shepherd heavily. “These visions… they’re destroying his mind, and if they continue, he’ll be beyond any of our help. He is losing his mind, but it’s because of what he’s seeing. If they’ve only been continuing for five days and he’s already this bad…” He trailed off significantly. “We have to end these… these premonitions in order to preserve his sanity.”

“But… then his brother will die,” said Healer Grey uncertainly. Healer Shepherd looked at her intently.

“His brother is the one who committed him,” he said seriously. “He knew what this could mean if we got rid of young Percy’s visions… that he could die.” He paused to let the implications of his words sink in. “The brother knew what he was getting himself into.”

---

Fred opened his eyes to a great white room, filled with fog that obscured everything around him. “Hello?” he called into the silence. “Is anyone there? Where am I? And more importantly, how can I get out of here?”

Someone was walking toward him through the smoke; as he got nearer, familiar features began to manifest themselves: tattered robes, a familiar face that was prematurely lined, graying hair. Fred knew who was coming toward him… but no… this was the last thing he wanted to see… because if this person was here with him, it meant that…

“Professor Lupin?” he gasped, staring at the newcomer. Lupin smiled.

“Hello, Fred,” he said mildly. Fred shook his head in disbelief.

“No,” he said frantically. “No… you can’t be here, you’re dead! And if you’re dead, that means that…” He trailed off, trying to remember what Harry had told his family about his walk into the forest. Could he really be in – as Harry had put it – King’s Cross Station? Because that was the last place he wanted to be right now… he still had a family out there that cared about him, and he had finally realized that he wasn’t ready to leave them yet…

“Calm down, Fred,” said Lupin, looking almost amused at Fred’s reaction to his arrival.

Fred ignored him; he was running his hands through his hair in a panic. “How the bloody hell do you expect me to calm down when I just found out I’m dead?” he shouted at Lupin.

Surprisingly, Lupin laughed at him. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he explained, smiling. “You’re not dead, Fred.”

Fred blinked in surprise. “I’m… I’m not?” he asked blankly, after a stunned pause. “But… but I drowned! My head went under the waves and I swallowed all this water…”

“Perhaps, but you never really died. Once again, help came at the last possible moment,” Lupin explained. “The moment the water hit your lungs, Meg pulled you out of the water and saved your life.”

“Meg?” Fred repeated uncomprehendingly.

“The girl you wasted all morning looking for ended up saving you,” Lupin explained, still smiling vaguely. “Funny how things turned out, isn’t it?”

“Hilarious,” Fred replied sarcastically, frowning as he tried to digest this new information. “So… I’m still alive, then?” Lupin nodded. “So how… how did you get here?”

“I suppose this encounter could be best described as a dream,” Lupin replied slowly. “So because you’re not dead, you won’t be given the option to go back or move on the way Harry was… you’ve got to go back either way.”

“What’s the point?” laughed Fred humorlessly. “I’m going to die, and no one can stop it… so why on earth do I have to go back there and await some other way to die?”

“Because you have no idea why you must die,” Lupin said patiently. “You’ve been aimlessly self-destructive as of late; how are you supposed to sacrifice yourself without having a good reason?”

“Does it really matter why?” Fred collapsed on the ground, lacking the energy to remain standing. “All that really matters is that I’m not going to live to see twenty-one. I don’t really care about the reasons…”

Lupin knelt to his level to look him straight in the eyes. “If you don’t care about the reasons why you have to die, then why did you bring me here to explain things to you?”

Fred looked at him. “You know?” he whispered. “You know the… the reason for all this?” Lupin nodded somberly. “But… how would you…”

“When you die, you can see everything clearly,” Lupin explained. “You’re given the ability to examine the past… see the future… you can analyze how simple changes made in the past can completely alter upcoming events.”

Fred looked at him, trying to understand what he meant. “So… so when I survived the battle, are you saying that screwed up the future somehow?”

“It’s already screwed up the future,” Lupin sighed, now sitting cross-legged across from Fred. “When Percy saved you from that falling wall during the battle, it set off a chain of events that will ultimately change the Wizarding world forever.” Fred just stared at him in shock, so Lupin sighed again and began to explain.

“This is what would have happened if you’d died in the battle.” With a wave of his hand, Lupin made the billowing fog condense into one solid, shimmering shape; and as the two of them stared, images began to appear in the cloud of smoke. Fred watched with bated breath as he saw himself and Percy, battling the two Death Eaters, saw as Harry, Ron, and Hermione appeared as they rounded the corner; saw himself laughing as Percy made some sort of stupid joke; and then he practically felt the tremors as one of the castle walls fell in on him, felt some sort of strangely familiar pang in his heart as it stopped beating. He felt tears spring to his own eyes, watching Ron and Percy sob over him; and then Percy looked up abruptly with murder in his eyes and roared the single word: “ROOKWOOD!” and sprinted off down the corridor…

The scene faded and Fred looked up at Lupin, the image of his own corpse still haunting him. If Percy had been seeing nothing but that for the past five days, it was no wonder he had lost his mind.

“I don’t understand,” he finally said. Lupin raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.

“Don’t you see?” he asked. “After you died, Percy blamed Rookwood for your death, and so he ran after him… and by the end of the battle, he had killed him.”

“Okay…” said Fred slowly, still confused. “But how would his death save the Wizarding world?”

Lupin sighed and said, “Keep watching.” And Fred turned back to the scene now presenting itself on the smokescreen: Rookwood turning up at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place while Harry was out at the Ministry, withdrawing his wand with an evil snarl on his face… and casting a deadly curse at his little sister and the small, black-haired baby she held in her arms. Fred cried out in alarm, but Lupin silenced him with a look and silently indicated that he keep watching, so Fred turned back to the horror flashing on the screen, unable to feel anything but numb disbelief. He saw the grief and rage on the rest of his family’s faces at her funeral… then the scene cut to Arthur and all six Weasley brothers pursuing Rookwood and finally killing him… but not before Rookwood took Ron and George down with him.

“NO!” Fred fell to his knees, tears running down his cheeks in earnest now. “Not Ginny… and Ron… George…”

“There’s more!” Lupin growled, a sort of intensity on his face that Fred had never seen before; and against his will, Fred looked up in fear to see what fresh horrors this new future had in store. Harry Potter was standing alone at the graves of his best friend and his wife and son… and yet his face was strangely devoid of the grief that Fred would have expected, but rather full of an ugly sort of determination that made chills run down Fred’s spine. Fred saw a rapid succession of images of Harry poring over books of Dark Magic, inventing spells that attempted to reawaken the dead, his features eventually contorting and blurring into an unrecognizable being as he gave more and more of his soul trying to bring back all the people he had lost, even killing other innocent people in the process… Hermione appeared, trying to talk him out of his madness, but Harry coldly drew out his wand and killed her too, without a second thought…

“I don’t think you need to see any more,” Lupin said quietly, vanishing the images with a wave of his hand.

Fred turned back to Lupin, trying to make sense of all he had seen. “What happens to Harry?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

Lupin hesitated, then said, not looking at Fred, “He becomes the most powerful Dark Wizard the world has ever known… worse even than Lord Voldemort. He begins a Third Wizarding War, far worse than the first two… and no one in your family – not your parents, or Bill, or Charlie, or Percy… or even you – survives.”

“But… but that won’t happen for a while, right?” Fred asked desperately. “So I’d have more time…”

“You would sacrifice your entire family – your twin – hundreds of innocent witches and wizards… just to buy yourself a few extra years?” Lupin roared, in a sudden blazing fury that made Fred recoil. “Only a coward would do something like that, and… you may be many things, but you are not a coward, Fred Weasley! You have to die, and Rookwood has to be blamed and punished for it… it’s the only way this can be prevented!”

“That can’t be the only way,” said Fred skeptically. “What if… what if I kill Rookwood?”

Lupin shook his head. “He’d kill you first,” he said sadly.

“Well… is it so important that someone in my family kills him? I mean, what if the Aurors catch up to him before he can ever get to Ginny?”

“They won’t,” Lupin said simply. He was looking at Fred very seriously, even as Fred was trying to find out some other way to avoid this horrible future.

“You said I’m supposed to die?” he asked in a whisper. “Well, maybe… maybe you were wrong! Maybe that – “ he pointed a shaking finger at the screen where Lupin had shown him Ginny’s death – “is what’s supposed to happen, not me dying…”

Lupin laughed derisively. “You were so eager to die just a few hours ago… what’s made you change your mind?”

“I’m not ready!” Fred cried. “I’m… I’m too young, I’m leaving too much behind… there are so many things I haven’t gotten to do yet! I’ve got too much living to do to even think about dying!”

“That’s what I thought too,” Lupin said grimly, “until I was hit by Dolohov’s curse.”

“You’ve got to be wrong about me,” said Fred, shaking his head furiously. “What did I ever do to deserve death?”

“This is not about what you do or don’t deserve!” cried Lupin. “It’s about making sacrifices to make the world a better place! If you had died in the battle like you were supposed to, then none of that” – he pointed at the screen – “would have happened, and the people you love as well as the people you will never meet can live ordinary lives, free from fear.”

“But since I lived,” Fred said slowly, “because Percy… saved me, and I didn’t die like I was supposed to… does that mean that – that what you showed me up there… is inevitable? Is it already too late to stop that from happening?”

Lupin looked down, apparently trying to determine how best to explain himself. “Fortunately, events have already been set in motion that can correct Percy’s… mistake. He’s certainly complicated the situation… and made it much harder for you to do what you have to, I imagine,” he added, looking sadly at Fred. “But if everything goes according to plan, then no one will suffer, no one will die… no one, that is, except the people who are already supposed to be dead.”

“Like me and Rookwood,” Fred murmured to himself. He looked intently at Lupin. “So are you saying that… that all these accidents that have been happening to me have been part of this ‘plan’? And…” He paused, trying to understand. His death was somehow supposed to make Percy want to kill Rookwood… but what did that have to do with the fire, or the lightning, or the earthquake? None of them had had anything to do with Rookwood… if he had nearly drowned today, for instance, why would that have made Percy want to kill Augustus Rookwood?

Lupin seemed to sense what Fred was thinking, so he said, “All those accidents – the fire, the earthquake, the shower…”

“Shower?” Fred interrupted suddenly, confused.

“Yesterday you were supposed to fall in the shower and break your neck,” Lupin explained quickly, almost dismissively. “But anyway… none of those were meant to kill you.”

“Are you kidding me?” Fred yelled, jumping up to his feet. “The whole time Percy was having those visions of me dead, and I was feeling like… like I should be dead… none of that was real?”

“Well…” Lupin hesitated. “The events themselves were real, and Percy’s visions of their… outcome were real, but the threat to your life wasn’t there.”

Fred gaped at him; what was he talking about? Percy’s premonitions of his death had to go hand in hand with a threat to his life, didn’t they? “Huh?” he asked intelligently.

“All those times, Percy was supposed to help you, so he did,” Lupin explained patiently. “As for the way you were feeling… well, that’s the sort of cognitive dissonance anyone who meddles with fate has; it was left over from the fact that you survived the battle when you instinctively knew you weren’t supposed to. The purpose of all those accidents was to unbalance Percy’s mind, though he thought they were to end your life; they landed him in the mental hospital where Rookwood will kill you when you go to visit your brother. You nearly drowned today so you could have this meeting with me, so you don’t march off blindly to your own destruction without understanding why – do you understand now?”

“But what if I had died during any of those freak accidents?” Fred asked, still struggling to make sense of it all. “Then the whole plan would be ruined, and Rookwood would go free…”

“You wouldn’t have,” Lupin told him. “Percy was always there looking out for you… and once he was put away, you made sure you would survive drowning by bringing Meg along with you… though, to be sure, neither you nor George had no idea why you were bringing her,” he added as an afterthought. “Everything over the past few days has happened very deliberately, with the end – your end – in mind.”

Fred paused. “You say that… I’m going to get killed at the mental hospital visiting Percy?” Lupin nodded grimly.

“Only this time, Rookwood really will be responsible,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “You walk out of the ward and…” He trailed off. “Well, I shouldn’t tell you too many details… if you know too much, you might not have the courage to face what you’ve known for a long time is coming.”

“Back up a second,” said Fred suddenly. “What do you mean, ‘this time, Rookwood really will be responsible’? Didn’t he also kill me in the battle?”

Lupin hesitated for a fraction of a second too long. “Does it really matter if Rookwood was responsible or not?” he asked quietly. “All that matters is that Percy thought he was responsible, so he went after him…”

“Then who was responsible?”

Lupin avoided his eyes.

“Remus!” Fred seized Lupin by the front of his robes. “Who killed me?” Slowly, Lupin met his eyes.

“I told you, it doesn’t matter who really was responsible,” he said slowly. “It’s in the past, anyway… it’s got nothing to do with…”

“You said you learn things when you die; about the past, how events affect the future… you have to know who did it!” Lupin closed his eyes as though trying to fight back tears. “Tell me!” Fred roared; true, it was no longer important, but he at least had to know who his family should have blamed for his death in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Slowly, shakily, Lupin’s eyes met Fred’s.

“It was an accident,” he whispered. “I was… I was dueling Dolohov, and then I saw that Macnair was sending acromantula climbing up the castle walls.” He paused to take a deep breath. “And I tried to curse one of them, to protect the students in the school from them, but… I missed. The curse hit the wall instead of the spider… made the wall explode…”

Fred’s head was spinning. “You?” he repeated in disbelief. Lupin nodded heavily, tears coursing down his cheeks.

“I had no idea what I had done until… until I died,” he explained. “I turned my back on Dolohov to try and get the acromantula… and the moment after I had cast my curse, he cast his… on me.” He looked at Fred with true remorse in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “It was an accident, I swear…”

“It’s not your fault,” Fred said quietly, giving Lupin a brief, forgiving half-smile before looking pensive once more. “Like you said, it was meant to happen… even if you were the vehicle for causing my death, you can’t say it was your fault… it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” He paused; he had only one more unanswered question, before he felt he would have enough reason to truly face his death. For this time, he would face Rookwood himself, and there could be no escape from his destiny this time; he knew what he had to do, and why.

“Just one last thing,” he said to Lupin. He swallowed nervously. “Why me?”

---

“Come on, Fred, don’t quit on me now!” Meg muttered, still trying CPR on the unresponsive body. George had turned away long ago, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his face buried in his arms.

“Just give it up already!” he shouted at her, wiping away his tears. “He’s gone, he’s dead, and nothing you do is going to – “

But just as he had begun to believe that Fred really had gone, the body Meg had been trying to revive for the past ten minutes gave a great jolt, spewing out a great spout of water and coughing furiously. George’s eyes widened.

“Let me through!” he shouted, pushing Meg aside to get to Fred. “Fred? Fred, can you hear me?”

Fred’s only response was to groan, still coughing roughly.

“And that’s why we need Extendable Arms,” he said weakly to George, opening his eyes the tiniest crack, so that George could barely see the sliver of brown between the eyelids.

“What… what do you mean?” George asked, grinning even through his confusion.

“Well…” Fred slowly sat up, holding his head. “If we had them, you could have just reached out in the middle of the ocean and…” He mimicked plucking something. “…pulled me out, like that!”

George was laughing and crying with relief, overjoyed that Fred was still with him. “Oh Fred!” he choked around his tears, holding his twin close to him. “I’m so glad you’re still here!”

Slowly, Fred reached his arms around George, returning the hug with the same sort of ferocity. “That makes two of us,” he said, his voice muffled in George’s shoulder. And the Weasley twins held each other tightly, savoring this moment, the moment George felt might be the last thing they would ever share – even as he didn’t want to believe it. Fred had been saved from drowning, but did that mean his brushes with death were at an end? Somehow, George didn’t think so. In a way, he wanted this mess to be over as much as Fred did… and at the same time, he didn’t want to lose Fred forever. He was being selfish, he knew… yet he didn’t care.

“Meg… I can’t thank you enough for saving my life,” Fred said over George’s shoulder. “I know this whole ordeal must have been horrible for you…”

“Well… it was fine until you almost died,” she replied, smiling gently. “But I’m glad I came… I’m glad I was able to help out.” She checked her watch and quickly paled. “I’m sorry… I have to go… it’s later than I thought it was.” She looked apologetically at George.

“I understand,” he told her quickly; he knew how awkward it was to be the third party during a personal moment like the one he and Fred were having.

“Don’t be a stranger, you hear?” Fred said, grinning. She nodded, smiling, and waved goodbye to George as she Disapparated.

Angelina reappeared just then, looking terrified and frazzled. “Someone’s on their way…” she began before catching sight of her boyfriend, alive and well for the moment. “Fred!” she gasped, grabbing Fred tightly and forcing George to let go of him. “Thank God you’re all right!”

Fred gave her a small, sad smile before pushing her away. “Ange… we need to talk,” he said quietly. George got the feeling that he shouldn’t be overhearing this, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave Fred’s side… not after he had almost lost him, and when he knew he was about to lose him for real… Nevertheless, he retreated a small distance away that gave him the advantage of being able to hear their conversation without appearing like he was really eavesdropping. He picked up a seashell and pretended to be fascinated by it, but in reality he was hanging onto their every word.

“Talk about what?” said Angelina, looking puzzled, yet not as concerned as she perhaps should be, George thought privately.

Fred paused for a long time, during which George vaguely wondered if he was going to explain what had been happening to him over the past few days. “Ange… I can’t do this,” he whispered.

“You can’t do what?” she asked, still not concerned.

“This… us… I can’t do it anymore,” he said in a very small voice. Her eyes widened in shock.

“What?” she asked numbly. “Why the hell not?” She was already beginning to get angry. Fred didn’t answer, couldn’t even meet her eyes to explain why he had to break up with her. George was still pretending not to listen, but he couldn’t help but share Angelina’s feelings. What was going on? Fred had just lived through a terrible ordeal, and now he was making life hard for himself by ditching Angelina?

“It’s… complicated,” he attempted, still refusing to look her in the eye. “But trust me when I say it’s for the best…”

She was shaking her head, beside herself with anger. “Why?” she asked through clenched teeth. “At least have the courtesy to tell me why you think you can just walk out after four years!”

“Because we’re…” Fred gave a shuddering sigh, finally getting up the nerve to look at her through tear-filled eyes. “We’re not supposed to be together, Ange,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry… I wish there was something else I could do, but this was the only way I could think of to give you any sort of closure…”

Angelina slapped him across the face furiously, tears running down her face almost against her will. “You expect us to be over just like that?” she hissed. Fred didn’t answer; he didn’t even turn his head to look back at her. She shook her head in contempt.

“I never want to see you again, Fred Weasley,” she said in a low voice just before she Disapparated. George was staring at the spot where she had vanished, horror-struck. Fred and Angelina had been one of the constant things in their life; how could they suddenly be over?

Slowly, Fred reached a hand to the side of his face and lightly touched where she had slapped him. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else, a few tears leaking out of his own eyes. “You won’t.” George got up, walked over to his twin, and hugged him tightly once more, trying to absorb some of the pain he was in, to somehow lighten his burden, even if doing so was impossible.