Even In The Darkness

The characters belong to Rowling, the song is \"Walking in Four Directions\" by C.B. Davis
No copyright infringement is intended, and no money is being made off of this.

I just had some things that needed working out, and this is how I did it. It\'s highly unusual for me to sit down and write a story from start to finish in one sitting, but I did. And this is it. I would appreciate constructive comments, as I will ignore flames and/or idiots.

Warnings: Character death and general angst

Even In The Darkness
by JediGurrl

The battle’s finally made it out this far.
We’re the last defense, none of us older than twenty. We’re children, some more than others.
Fred and I and a scattering of others are hiding in the remains of the greenhouses supposedly in an ambush, but it’s so quiet we could already be dead.
Fred’s scared, I can’t see it in his eyes because he won’t look at me. That’s how I know.”

When you look away I wonder
If there is some other life
For us to be together in
How will I find you?
Will you still have the same eyes?

I can’t help but think we’re already dead, we just haven’t bothered to lie down yet.
I can’t look at George because I know he’ll see it, and he’ll give up hope. We can’t afford that. We need one of us to believe.
Some part of me still balks at the fact that I’ve given up. But we’re the last ditch effort, the final stand. And we’re children. What good are we going to be against Death Eaters? Sure, we might take a few of them with us. But what difference will that really make at the end of it all?

If this is the only story
And the spirit is a name
For when we touch
The way the water holds reflections—
I will live in your eyes.

Merlin, they’re coming, I can hear them now, calling us, as if we’re infants that will give ourselves up for empty promises. We know better, seen too many friends die not to know.
We aren’t all going to survive this, statistic impossibility if nothing else. But someone has to, someone has to tell the others what happened here, who fell and where, so that they can retrieve the bodies if they can.
Why won’t Fred look at me? I need him to look at me. I need to know we’re in this together, just like we’re in everything together.

Don’t even look away—
The world may burn
And there may be no other life.

They’re here, all around us, though they haven’t found any of us yet. While they had the advantage in the winter, with their white robes, we’ve got it now, hiding in shadows, between rocks and old worktables.
There aren’t very many of us, and we’re supposed to form an ambush?
Someone has to get out, someone has to tell the Order that we failed here, what’s left of Hogwarts is lost.
“Don’t give up George”
Barely a whisper, but he heard me, I know he did because he looked at me again and sighed.

Just let me breathe the air
You whisper with
While it’s still warm
And I’m still here.

‘Don’t give up George’? That’s all he has to say to me? I want to just scream ‘look at me damn it!’ but I don’t, because that would give us away, probably all of us.
So I let him stay silent, eyes closed, maybe we’re finally on our own, and maybe we have to be. Have to be Fred and George this time, not FredandGeorge like we’ve always been.
Alone for the first time in our lives.
Alone the one time we need each other the most.

If there is more than time
I’ll wait for you
Where no one ever comes or goes
With no voice I will call you
You will come from everywhere—

A shriek, and a flash, we’ve been found. I see myself standing, giving the order to fire at will, to charge, I can see it, feel myself yelling the words, but I\'m not /doing/ it, I\'m just watching myself do it from afar.
That’s how I know I\'m going to die.
Or is it /because/ I know I\'m going to die?
My mind is in two places at once, down there on the ground amidst the flashes of curses, but also up above, watching it all play out.

One step outward,
Walkin’ in four directions.
Losing your name-
Leavin’ behind your shadow.

The flashes are all around, curses and hexes buzzing past like enraged hornets, it’s all I can do to dodge one without being hit with another.
The thing about the killing curse is that it’s so fast it doesn’t hurt, it’s only a moment later that you realize you’ve been hit, that what you’re seeing is the last thing you’re going to see.
I only wish I’d known sooner, then I could’ve made sure that I was back to back with Fred, instead of facing him.
I can see the emotions across his face, his eyes, disbelief, and finally realization, despair. He knows.
Oh Merlin, Fred, don’t look at me now Fred, not /now/.

If I find you
Will you still have the same eyes?
Signal, somehow
If we remember life at all.

Strange how the mind works, even in the middle of a battle I keep seeing flashes of memory, our first steps, hand in hand. Our first words, each other’s names. First birthday, first Christmas, first Easter, first year of Hogwarts.
So many firsts, always together, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, FredandGeorge, GeorgeandFred, we were always together, no matter what we did.
We’re together now too, aren’t we?
No. We aren’t. George is falling in a flash of green light, too fast to do anything about it, I turned too late to see him hit, but just soon enough to see him fall.
No. Not George, /I/ was the one who gave up hope, I should be the one lying there.
I see myself stagger forward before I feel it, the corona of green around me.
We /do/ do everything together don’t we?

And the years go by like strangers,
In a crowd of days and faces
I will fall into your eyes again
Like moonlight
Even in the darkness.

Everything is dark now, and cold, but I can see his eyes, the same as mine, and I know that I’m not alone.
Never alone.