Dear Fred, Love Ginny

Dear Fred,

I'm doing okay... Actually that's a lie. After a year I'm still in denial. I still think you're going to leap out from behind me, like you did when i was younger. Or come hurtling out of your room with George, doubling over from laughter. But George doesn't laugh anymore. The sides of his mouth twitch up when mum scolds Ron, but his eyes stay empty, without any light in it. He doesn't sleep in your room anymore. When I come downstairs he's always there. Lying on the couch with tears rolling down his cheeks. I've never seen George cry before, until the day you...died... He's not my George anymore. He is just a body without any spirit or will to do anything anymore.

The house is a mess. Gnomes keep filling up the garden, mum keeps burning food. We played Quidditch the other day to distract ourselves, and I cut myself on that nail in the broom shed. Remember when I tried to use your broom, when I was 10? And cut myself on the same nail, it hurt so much I thought I'd die, and I couldn't tell mum because I wasn't allowed in there. You and George found me, and you tore off your robes, even though the were your best pair, then wrapped it around the cut. Then you did the best thing of all, you made me laugh! and let me wipe my snotty nose on your sleeve. See, this is why I need you so much! To let me wipe my snotty nose on your sleeve and to make me laugh again. To make Ron shut up about Harry and I, to stop mum's sobbing leak through the walls every night, to get dad talk about muggle stuff again. I need you to stop making Percy tear his hair out in anguish, to get Charlie back to Romania and his dragons instead of pacing around the garden. And please stop letting Bill get haircuts from mum. And yes, let Fleur go back to her infuriating self. Congratulations big brother, you let the lustrous veela flower wilt.
But most of all, I want you to tell me that you're okay. Send me a flamming toilet seat or something like that. Or just come back. Make our family whole again, Freddy. I need my big brother. And not just Bill, or Charlie, Percy, George, or Ron. It's you I need right now.
Most nights I go to your room and lay in your bed, like I used to when I was younger, and your smell makes me feel you are here again.
Oh great, now I'm crying. I'm going to stop writing now because my paper is splashed with tears.

More love than you could ever imagine,
Ginny