If someone, even George, had told him his 7th year that some day he'd marry Parvati Patil, Fred would've laughed, slapped him on the back, and told him to think up a better prank next time.

He wishes now that George were around to not believe.

He wishes now that George were around.

Parvati. Parvati he remembers from Hogwarts, but mostly as a giggling little thing with too much make-up and penchant for squealing at decibals even Sirius Black wouldn't hear. He remembers Padma better, because Ravenclaws always made excellent test subjects, always got annoyed at being disturbed in their studies, but Padma just smiled and waved him on. George told him once that "the Patil in birdhouse said fun makes the books go quicker."

"You know what makes the books go quickest of all?" he'd said, and George who could read his mind without legilimens had answered "not reading in the first place" and never missed a beat.

Padma was a quiet little thing, with the potential for great beauty if you could pull her out of the library. Parvati was loud and glittery and probably had the potential for great beauty, but you couldn't see it under the cakes and cakes of powder and rouge and whatever else silly teenaged girls used on their faces when they weren't named Hermione.

Parvati stopped wearing make-up after Padma died.

She stopped talking, too, just sat by the campfire and stared at it, as if the flames could tell her some deep secret. Fred doesn't remember Trelawny saying anything about fire portents, but then, he doesn't really remember Trelawny. She's oversized in his memory, flapping around like a female Snape with no sense, and mostly she reminds him of how George used to whisper snide remarks in his ear, and the two of them would get detention for lacing the tea with firewhiskey, or replacing crystal balls with Bludgers. George got a broken nose that time, but he just stood there grinning at Fred, blood dripping down his cheek, and Fred didn't stop laughing till he took a Bludger to the gut.

They used to talk about marriage, late at night. They pushed their beds together in the dorm, and lay side by side talking about everything, their joke shop and how to get it and what to do with it and whether the nosebleed nougats needed more pixie wings and whether they'd get a shop in Hogsmeade or Diagon and whether they'd ever get married.

The thing of it was, no one could ever know them as well as they knew each other. Mum had said once that Dad was her other half (and Dad had said Mum was his better half, and Mum had agreed, because she was in a bad mood over the order-forms, and there had been a fight...) but the thing was, he already had a second half. He was split down the middle, and it didn't seem fair, somehow, to marry some girl when he could only give her part of himself.

Parvati knows what it's like to be broken, to be unfixable, to be forever half of who you were. Parvati fixes Padma's favorite meals, and reads books, and hides behind her sister's personality since her sister isn't there. Fred goes to work, and holds conversations in his head, pretends that he's talking to George and his inspiration comes from his twin, not himself, and maybe, maybe George just didn't come in that day, that's all, because he's feeling sick (he could always tell if George was sick, sometimes before even George knew) and at night he goes home and lies beside his wife and doesn't talk.

He dreams, of course, he dreams of George dying, of the rusty-red stains on his hands and George in his arms and that last gasp and the bubble of blood and George still, and George, and he didn't do *anything*, didn't save him, didn't die for him, didn't go to the Underworld and bargain with Hades to give his brother half his life (all his life) didn't even know how to live without him, and he wakes in the night and next to him, Parvati awakens too.

They're broken in the same way. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't make him better, but it's there, anyway. It's true. He can go home and be silent and unfunny and not try to exasperate his mother or make Ginny smile again or pick on Percy or do anything at all, really, and Parvati understands.

Maybe that's more than he deserves.

Maybe that's enough.