He moved back into the shop, where Lee was clearing away boxes from under the desk, and his gaze glanced up at the ceiling. Fred would, undoubtedly, still be up there, mulling over the murder case or re-reading Angelina's letters for the hundredth time. He felt something jolt in his stomach. It was wonderful having Fred back; the day of the Battle for Hogwarts he had felt an immeasurable sense of loss - more so, he believed, than anyone else who had lost friends or family during the war. It sounded clichéd even to think it, but George was sure that a whole half of him had gone with Fred, and he had been convinced that he would never feel the same again. Being able to see his brother again was fantastic - to hear him joke and laugh and finish George's sentences…
But there was a part of George - a part he tried very hard to suppress - that felt that maybe Fred wasn't as happy being here as George was to see him again. Fred had never said anything, he had always seemed delighted to be around his twin and loved to reminisce about their glory days of rule-breaking. But that was all that they seemed to do - reminisce. Even though Fred was here, he was never really here - he belonged somewhere else, and George had spent the last year of his life trying to convince himself that Fred was happier there, and that he, George, had a life to keep living alone. Every time he saw the shadow that crossed Fred's face whenever he mentioned the rest of the Weasleys, or Angelina, he felt a pang of guilt - as though it was he, George, who was keeping Fred from moving on, who was forcing him to take a back seat and watch a life play out before him that he could never have.
And there was another curious thing: why was it that no one else could see Fred, only him? If he was truly a ghost, then why wasn't he see-through and why couldn't he float through walls? He had never once, in his life, heard of a ghost that only one person could see. During a few mad moments, George had considered writing to Hermione to ask if she had ever come across such a phenomenon. But then he thought that she might query as to why he was asking her such a question, and to explain that he was having visions of his dead twin could not possibly lead to anything good.
"Hey!" Lee's voice broke into his thoughts. "I just found this under here - d'you want it?" George looked round to see that his friend had emerged from under the desk, and was holding out a battered photograph to him. He took it and stared down at the crumpled image - it was a picture of him and Fred.
Their strange clothes and the sandy background, not to mention how young they looked, told him that this had been taken five years ago during their holiday in Egypt. He and Fred were waving enthusiastically from the front of the picture, each sporting a mischievous grin, whilst Percy was in the background, lingering behind a pillar with a nervous expression on his sunburnt face. The George holding the picture smiled.
"Right," Lee announced, heading for the door. "I'm off, now. Need anything?"
George shook his head, and his friend departed. "See you tomorrow," Lee called back.
"Yeah," George said vaguely. "See you." After a few moments, he tore his eyes away from the picture and Apparated upstairs. He moved over to a jumbled notice-board behind his bed and pinned the crumpled photograph between a couple of tattered newspaper articles. He took a step back to admire the effect, and smiled again.
"Very nice," came a voice from behind him. "Egypt, wasn't it?" Fred had moved to stand beside his twin, and was peering at the photograph with narrowed eyes. "Didn't we lock Percy in a pyramid?"
George smirked. "We tried to, but Mum wouldn't let us," he said with a grin. "Don't you remember?"
Fred said nothing, still staring at the photo. "I don't really remember that holiday at all, to be honest," he muttered. "Seems like a century ago."
"It was only about five years," his twin corrected, frowning at Fred. "It was after Dad won the prize draw at the Ministry. D'you remember - Ron bought a Sneakoscope for Harry and it kept going off at dinner because we put beetles in Bill's soup?"
Fred now had a very strange look on his face, as though he was struggling to picture what George was saying. "I don't remember any of that," he said slowly. Then he moved to sit down on the edge of his bed, a far-away expression in his eyes. "Actually," he began in a subdued voice, "this has been happening quite a lot to me recently. I keep… I keep forgetting things."
He looked up at George, who was looking rather anxious. "Forgetting things?"
"Yeah." Fred stared at the floor. "Like that holiday. I can only remember odd bits of it. And the other day when you were talking about Dumbledore, I was trying to remember what he looked like and I couldn't. Or any of the other teachers. Or our first day there."
"Even the Sorting Hat couldn't tell us apart," George said, but there was no air of nostalgia in his words this time. There was a concern in his face that made him look as though he was on the verge of tears. "But - when you first came back you could remember everything."
"I know," said Fred, somewhat miserably. "It all seemed like it'd only happened a few days ago, but now everything seems a million years away. It's why I've been reading all these letters, looking through all the stuff I left behind. Trying to bring it all back." He shrugged. "I don't know why I can't remember," he added, and his words held a tinge of bitterness. "And that's just top of the list of things I don't know at the moment - like why I'm here, for a start…"
George didn't know what to say. He hovered by the notice-board, occasionally throwing a glance at the photograph of him and Fred in Egypt. The glances seemed to say that he was regretting putting it up there.
Yet another minute of very awkward silence blanketed the room. Then Fred looked up. "Look," he began, with the air of someone making a firm and deliberate change of subject, "I've been thinking about the case - Mr. Bandersnatch's death, you know."
George nodded. "And?"
"And," Fred pulled his scrapbook from his bedside table, upsetting a pile of Wizarding detective novels entitled The Carter Sparks Mysteries, "it just doesn't make sense that it would be the goblins who killed him."
"Why not?"
Fred flipped open the book and his eyes flicked over a scribbled list. "Because if he knew that the goblins were the ones watching him - blackmailing him, even - then why did he need the spying equipment to figure out who was leaving the notes? If it was the goblins, they'd have made it pretty clear: if they wanted their money, they wouldn't have been all secretive about it, they'd've just demanded it from him face to face. No - if someone was sending him anonymous notes it had to be for another reason. Why bother recording a break-in if he knew who did it?"
He stared up at his twin, a rather earnest look on his face. But George shook his head.
"Maybe… maybe he was just recording it for evidence?" he suggested slowly. "Maybe he was afraid the goblins were going to do something to him, and he wanted proof? Maybe it was a cover-up - to make people think he didn't know who was blackmailing him so they wouldn't link it to the goblins?"
It was Fred's turn to shake his head. "Nah, old Banders wasn't that kind of bloke. If that was the case, then why keep the log books, the diaries? I reckon he was the kind of man who'd want the world to know he was in trouble, to prove his paranoia wasn't just madness. He'd have told someone - he did tell someone, but then the evidence was destroyed. Which, again, isn't the sort of thing a goblin would do. I mean, I know they're clever, but would they think to go upstairs? To find his diaries and rip them up, to trash the Sneakoscopes? I reckon they'd've just taken what they wanted and left. It's all too organised, it doesn't make sense…"
He sighed, lying back on the bed and gnawing at his lower lip in a thoughtful manner. "What do you think?" he said eventually.
"I think," said George, "that you have plenty of time on your hands and a lot of thinking to do. Lee saw Angelina yesterday and she said she's coming round tomorrow." He pointed a finger at Fred, and said in a mock serious voice, "And, Carter Sparks, I want a conclusion by then."
It was Friday morning, and the first time George had properly looked in the mirror for about a week. Since the dreams about Fred had started up again, he had avoided doing so, because the face in the glass looked, obviously, so identical to his twin's that he had imagined it actually was Fred staring back at him. He frowned, and watched thin lines creep across his freckled forehead. His eyes lingered on the place at the side of his head where his ear should have been.
He decided that, in the rules of what was generally socially acceptable, five days was too long to go without having a shower. Especially as he had promised his mother he would go home for the weekend. He wondered vaguely if Fred would want to come back to the Burrow with him as he pulled off his robes, and suddenly became aware of something cold hanging around his neck. He stared up into the mirror.
It was the necklace. The one that so much resembled the Good Vibrations charms sold in the shop, the one with the black beads instead of yellow. His forehead creased even deeper. Had he really been wearing it since Monday? Why hadn't he noticed it was still there?
In an almost irritable manner, he tugged it from around his neck and dropped it onto the bathroom shelf.
Ten minutes later, he stumbled down the stairs, tousle-haired and his eyes still blinking away steam, to see Lee deep in conversation with one of the customers. It was Angelina.
"Hey," she called when she saw him. The shock of her boss' death had evidently gone, and the idiosyncratic briskness had returned to her voice. "I was just telling Lee - I can't believe it - the Ministry aren't going to investigate his death."
"What?" All the morning sleepiness vanished from George's mind in a moment. "They aren't - but - why?"
Angelina shrugged. "I have no idea," she said. "I really don't. This is looking more and more like murder every day. Apparently," she lowered her voice slightly to a conspiratorial level, "Mr. Bandersnatch's solicitor had a word with the goblins at Gringotts and they're refusing to say anything about what Mr. Bandersnatch had been holding for them. They refuse to even acknowledge that they were involved - but it's stirred up quite a lot. The Prophet wrote about it in his obituary, and they sounded like they were pretty keen to know more as well."
"What - about what the goblins had to do with it?" Lee had his head on one side, a dark hand scratching at his jaw thoughtfully.
"Mmh," Angelina nodded. "Them and the rest of Gringotts. No one's saying a word. Rumours are that the Prophet even tried to get at Dumbledore's portrait at Hogwarts, but the staff wouldn't let them in."
"They're still dragging Dumbledore into this?" George asked, looking alarmed. He risked a quick glance around the shop, trying to gauge whether Fred had followed him downstairs. His twin was nowhere to be seen.
"Yep," the girl told him, "they just won't let go of this goblin story. The Ministry are trying their hardest to make it seem like an accident, and the Prophet want to turn it into some sort of huge conspiracy. I don't know who to believe."
George looked back at her. "Well," he said quietly, "we've - I mean, I've - been thinking about it and I don't reckon it's got anything to do with goblins at all."
"How come?" Both Lee and Angelina were now frowning at him. He wished Fred was here to remind him of what he was supposed to say.
"Well," he began tentatively. "It's all to do with the way the murder took place. If goblins had been involved, he would have been torn apart, don't you think? And the goblins wouldn't have bothered to trash the Sneakoscopes and stuff - they would have just taken what they wanted and left. It's all too - organised."
Lee nodded. "Yeah… yeah, you're right. Bloody Ministry - I thought things might've changed since - you know. With Kingsley in charge."
"It's the new head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement," Angelina said gravely. "Wants to hush it all up to stop the public panicking." She scowled, then stared meaningfully from George to Lee. "Look - I'm going back to have a look at the crime scene," she said suddenly. "And I want you two to come with me."
Lee's eyebrows shot right up under his drooping dreadlocks. "You're not serious?" he said in a rather awed voice. "Trespassing on property? Investigating a murder?" He leaned forward, peering at her with a suspicious expression. "Who are you?"
Angelina rolled her eyes. "Shut up," she said playfully. "Besides, it's not their property if they're not investigating his death. It's our shop, for the time being, seeing as Bandersnatch didn't have any family. Until they find his will, it belongs to the other workers. I can come and go as I please." Her voice took on a more serious note as she said, "Now - the Ministry are clearing away their own stuff from the scene this afternoon. So I reckon we go there tonight after everywhere else is closed and have a proper look." She glanced from George to Lee. "What do you think?"
George stared around the shop again, trying to look casual, but really scanning the room for his twin. 'I'll have to tell him when I get back upstairs,' he thought dully. Then said, out loud, "Absolutely. Trespassing, investigation - I'm in."
"Me too," Lee grinned. "So - what's the plan?"
"Right," Angelina began, sounding heartened. "We meet here about ten o'clock, it should be dark enough then to cover us, but still light enough that we won't have to use our wands to see. We'll go over to the shop and take a look around - I know a spell that should -" She stopped short. Three more customers had just come bouncing into the shop.
She turned to go. "Ten o'clock," she mouthed, flashing the two of them a wide smile before she shut the shop door behind her.
George felt slightly dizzied, and for a moment he found his legs were somewhat rooted to the spot. He shook his head, as though trying to clear it of dust. 'I've got to tell Fred,' he thought.
"Give me a minute!" he shouted, seeing Lee's puzzled expression as he raced towards the staircase. He burst into the bedroom, a delighted grin on his face. "Fred! Fred - Angelina wants us to look round the shop tonight - it'll be like old times, you know, sneaking about and -" He stopped. "Fred? Where are you?"
The bedroom before him was empty, and Fred was nowhere to be seen.